The Admiral Petre Bărbuneanu class was based on the Soviet Navy's but designed in Romania to a smaller size, though retaining their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) role. They incorporated Soviet weapons and sensors into their design. Vessels of the class have a full load displacement of 1440t and measure 92.4m (303.1feet) long with a beam of and a draught of . The ships are powered by four diesel engines driving four shafts creating 20000bhp. This gives the corvettes a maximum speed of 24kn.
The vessels are armed with four Soviet-designed AK-276 76mm/59 calibre guns in two twin turrets with one turret situated forward and aft. The 76 mm guns have a range of and fire up to 90 rounds per minute. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, the corvettes have four AK-230 /65 calibre AA guns in two twin mounts positioned aft, forward of the aft 76 mm turret. The 30 mm guns have a range of and can fire up to 500 rounds per minute. They also mount two single-mounted machine guns along the amidships. For ASW purposes, the Admiral Petre Bărbuneanu class mounts RBU 2500 16-tubed ASW rocket launchers that are trainable with a range of . The ships have four torpedo tubes in two twin mounts situated aft to either side of the aft 76 mm gun turret. They can fire Type 53-65 torpedoes which have a range of .
Admiral Petre Bărbuneanu-class corvettes are equipped with Soviet MR-302 (NATO reporting name: Strut Curve) air search/surface search radar, MR-104 Rys (NATO reporting name: Drum Tilt) and MR-105 Turel (NATO reporting name: Hawk Screech) fire control radar. They have Hercules MG-22 hull-mounted sonar for underwater search and two PK 16 chaff launchers and RW-23 (NATO reporting name: Watch Dog) electronic support measures. The corvettes have a complement of 98.
| Admiral Petre Bărbuneanu class | |||||
| Hull number | Name | Builder | Launched | Commissioned | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F 260 | Mangalia Shipyard, Romania | 23 May 1981 | 4 February 1983 | In service | |
| F 261 | 5 June 1982 | 3 January 1984 | Decommissioned 2004 | ||
| F 262 | 9 September 1983 | 3 January 1985 | Decommissioned 2004 | ||
| F 263 | 11 July 1985 | 23 April 1987 | In service | ||
The vessels were constructed at the Mangalia Shipyard for the Romanian Naval Forces. The first ship to commission was Amiral Petre Bărbuneanu in 1983. Three more corvettes would follow before the project was terminated in 1987 in favour of a new design that incorporated a helicopter flight deck. In 2004, two of the corvettes, Vice-Amiral Vasile Urseanu and Vice-Amiral Vasile Scodrea were decommissioned. The remaining ships are based at Constanța.