hey can you tell me what you know about colombian river gunboats?
There are three types of gunboats in Colombia:
The purposely-built vessels, known as Patrulleras de Apoyo Fluvial (PAF), which translates to River Support Patrol Craft, a heavily armored design that has had five versions made so far, which are:
PAF I: The proof of concept, twice modernized ever since it entered service in the 70's
PAF II: Built from the lessons learned from the PAF I, especially after one took an RPG round to the bridge killing its captain. Modernized once so far.
PAF III: The concept finally matured, a heavy redesign that integrated a landing pad for a helicopter, which makes it capable of refueling it.
PAF IV: Minor improvements throughout the design, with the weapons station over the bridge deleted in favor of ELNIT equipment.
PAF L: A lighter, smaller variant of the III that deletes the landing pad, made to navigate in rivers the other vessels can't.
2. The armored tugs, heavily modified civilian vessels that now feature armor, weapons and the ability to supply smaller vessels, while still retaining their tug abilities.
And finally, the actual gunboats, a trio of vessels built in the 50's that, unlike the others on this list, can only operate in large rivers, and therefore aren't as flexible, with one turned into a hospital ship because of that.
There are also the only ones actually armed with cannons, a 40mm at the stern, and a 76mm at the bow, all the other ships are armed only with .50 cal machine guns, 40mm grenade launchers, 7.62 and 5.56 machine guns, and the guns of the crew, plus some allegedly can also fire mortars, as they're only meant to provide riverside support while colombian naval infantry lands and directly engages the enemy.
Talking about landings, these are the main vessel for such operations:
The LPR-40 armored fast attack craft, capable of landing up to 10 men.
And the lighter Piraña series of patrol boats, meant to quickly saturate any river beach with as much firepower as possible.
Colombian Naval Infantry, the second largest in terms of manpower in the Americas, only behind the US Marines, had to become heavily specialized in riverside warfare due to the sheer number of navigable rivers Colombia has, which had become infested with guerrillas and drug smuggles, killing and kidnaping innocent people that were just trying to make a living off their waters, thanks to this fleet and the men that man in, now 95% of all navigable rivers are under the control of the navy, and the remaining 5% remain dangerous to those assholes that once made life in them hell.
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