Although primarily concerned with coastal defense, the Navy is constructing a six-unit class of blue water corvettes in conjunction with French shipbuilder CMN.

[4] With the formation of the United Arab Emirates on 2 December 1971 and the unification of the UAE Armed Forces on 6 May 1976, the ADDF Sea Wing became the UAE Navy and continued to expand with naval facilities at Abu Dhabi port in 1975 as well as other facilities at the far west of Abu Dhabi Emirate and on the eastern coast of Fujairah at Khor Fakkan.

This change was likely in response to increased concern over the possibility of terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure in the UAE's littoral zone and on its islands in the post-9/11 world, and the effectiveness of the Coast Guard in countering this threat.

2 × Rheinmetall MLG 27 27 mm guns 21x RIM-116 RAM SAM 8 × MM40 Block 3 Exocet anti-ship missiles 1 AS-565 helo (based on the CMN Group's Combattante BR70 design).

[3] On 1 July 2022, United Arab Emirates Navy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PT PAL Indonesia for the purchase one 163 meters version of Makassar-class LPD which planned to start the construction at 2024.