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No, Ship Displacement Alone Does Not Reveal the Winner
A favourite online argument compares a roughly 2,600-ton PNS Hunain with a roughly 7,400-ton Kolkata-class destroyer and then declares that the smaller vessel must have suffered the greater damage. That sounds intuitive but is technically inadequate.
Collision damage depends on relative velocity, contact angle, the precise points of impact, compartmentation, structural reinforcement and whether the contact involved a bow, stern, flare, sponson or comparatively vulnerable side plating. A smaller vessel’s reinforced bow can damage the side of a larger ship, while the smaller vessel may simultaneously suffer serious deformation elsewhere. Displacement alone cannot reconstruct the event.
PNS Hunain is a second-batch Yarmook-class offshore patrol vessel based on Damen’s OPV 2600 design. Available specifications place the platform at about 98 metres in length, with aviation and modular mission capacity. The Defence Post’s account of the class confirms the OPV 2600 basis and approximately 98-metre hull. It is a substantial naval platform, but calling it equivalent to a heavily armed Kolkata-class guided-missile destroyer confuses entirely different roles and combat architectures.
At the same time, the Indian destroyer’s greater displacement does not make it immune to collision damage. Steel does not salute national flags before deforming.
The Viral “Damage Evidence” Is a Minefield
Several supposed photographs of a damaged Pakistani vessel circulated within hours. Some showed the wrong class of ship; others were labelled alternately as PNS Hunain, PNS Taimur or a Tughril-class frigate. One comparison highlighted inconsistent hull numbers and structural features. Another image displayed weathering and corrosion patterns implausibly advanced for damage allegedly sustained only hours earlier. Such anomalies do not by themselves prove artificial intelligence was used, but they are enough to disqualify the image as reliable evidence until its original file, capture time and location are authenticated.
A photograph of an actual damaged vessel is not automatically a photograph from this incident. A real image can be miscaptioned just as easily as an artificial image can be generated.
Claims that INS Kolkata was “limping,” flooded below deck, being towed to Hazira or facing two to three months of repairs remain similarly unsupported by independently verified evidence. Pakistani accounts should not repeat those claims as facts merely because Indian accounts rushed to publish equally unsupported stories about PNS Hunain sustaining a “huge dent” and fleeing to harbour.
Pakistan’s case becomes more credible when it refuses to manufacture certainty.
The Old PNS Babur–INS Godavari Video Is Not New Evidence
The most blatant contamination involved video from the June 2011 confrontation between PNS Babur and INS Godavari during the evacuation connected to the merchant vessel MV Suez, whose crew had been released by Somali pirates.
That footage is historical. It does not show PNS Hunain in September 2026.
The 2011 episode is relevant as precedent because it demonstrates that dangerous close manoeuvring between the two navies is not unprecedented. Pakistan maintained that PNS Babur was supporting a humanitarian operation and accused INS Godavari of dangerous interference; India blamed the Pakistani vessel. An Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses case study of the MV Suez operation described a near collision that endangered personnel, while Dawn’s contemporary reporting documented PNS Babur’s completion of the rescue operation.
But historical relevance does not convert an old clip into footage of a new collision. Reposting it without a date misleads audiences and weakens Pakistan’s information position.
