Missile Boat of the erstwhile Yugoslavian Navy

This card brings back nostalgic memories of my days in the Missile Boat Squadron (with OSA class boats) in the Indian Navy. SFR Yugoslav Navy guided missile gunboat of the Končar class, which was a class of fast attack craft that was built for the SFR Yugoslav Navy in the late 1970s. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia one craft went to the Croatian Navy whilst the remaining five went to the Montenegro Navy. As of 2009 three vessels remain in service.

As planned by the Yugoslav navy, the entire class of six ships was due to undergo extensive overhauls and modernization during the early 1990s. The ships' anti-ship armament was to be replaced by the Swedish state-of-the-art RBS-15 system after the removal of the old Soviet P-15 Termit missiles. The stern Bofors 57 mm gun was also due to be removed and replaced by a CIWS AK-630M unit. However, only one ship managed to undergo these changes. It was the RTOP-402 which, as the war in Yugoslavia broke out, was being worked on in a Croatian shipyard and thus remained in Croatian service. All other RBS-15 missiles (out of roughly 100 delivered by the time) were captured by the Croatian forces. This ship entered Croatian Navy service as RTOP-21 "Šibenik" in late 1991 and saw additional light upgrading and overhauls over the years.

The class is named after the first vessel which in turn was named after Rade Končar. Armed with two SS-N-2B launchers, the Končar-class boats were modeled after the Swedish Spica class. This card was sent to me by Karoly from Serbia.