Finland launches third Pohjanmaa-class corvette

Finland launched the third of its four new Pohjanmaa-class corvettes at Rauma on Oct. 29, putting three of the Finnish Navy’s largest warships in decades in the water, the Finnish Navy said.

The ship was moved out of the construction hall at the Rauma Marine Constructions shipyard on Finland’s west coast, where fitting out will continue afloat. The Navy said all four corvettes are due to be completed by 2029 and will enter service in phases, and it has said it expects to take the ships into service between 2027 and 2029. The Navy did not say when the third ship will begin sea trials.

“The launch of the third vessel shows the progress of long-term and persistent work. This is an extensive undertaking that brings together the Navy’s future capability, domestic industrial expertise and close cooperation between different parties,” said Rear Adm. Tuomas Tiilikainen, commander of the Finnish Navy.

Construction has picked up pace across the four hulls. The first corvette, whose construction began in 2023, was launched in May 2025 and is now being fitted out. The second was launched on May 21 this year, less than a year after its keel was laid. Rauma Marine Constructions laid the keel of the third ship and started production of the fourth in January, putting all four under construction at the same time, and the fourth ship’s keel followed in July.

The corvettes are being built by RMC Defence, a subsidiary of Rauma Marine Constructions, for the Finnish Defence Forces Logistics Command under a program known as Squadron 2020. At 117 m (384 feet) long with a crew of about 70, the ships are the largest surface combatants the Finnish Navy has ordered since its coastal defense ships of the 1930s. Each is designed to stay at sea for 14 days and has a range of about 3,500 nautical miles.

The Pohjanmaa class combines several jobs that the Finnish Navy now spreads across older vessels. The four corvettes will replace seven ships: the four Rauma-class missile boats, the two Hämeenmaa-class minelayers and the minelayer Pohjanmaa, retired in 2015, whose name the new class carries. Each corvette carries anti-ship missiles, Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missiles in a vertical launcher, a 57 mm gun, torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare and rails for laying sea mines, an important task in the shallow, mine-friendly waters off Finland’s coast.

The ships also have ice-strengthened hulls so they can operate year-round in the northern Baltic, where the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia can freeze in winter, and they are fitted with composite ballistic armor to protect key areas. The Navy said the corvettes will give it new capability to defend Finnish waters and operate within NATO, which Finland joined in 2023.

The Navy plans to keep the Pohjanmaa class in service into the 2060s. The first ship is due to be handed over to the Navy in 2027, with all four in service by 2029.