SHAH ALAM: Coming Home, walk like a Pinoy? The future BRP Jose Rizal, the Philippines Navy first guided missile frigate arrived in Subic Bay, Manila, late on May 23, 2020, some one month after its scheduled delivery. The delay is attributed to travel restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus. The Jose Rizal and its sister ship, Antonia Luna, were planned around the same time as our own LCS but as the Philippines had no state-owned shipyard, the construction of both were entrusted to South Korean Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) which won the tender for the programme.
Future BRP Jose Rizal
The cost for both ships are some USD$315 million (RM1.374 million) – according to Philippines News Agency – with another USD$40 million (RM174 million) for weapon systems and munitions.The ship is fitted with a 76mm gun, one 30mm guns, two SHORAD missile launchers, four SSM and twin triple torpedo launchers. The ship is also fitted with an eight-cell SAM launcher, meant for VL-MICA but not equipped with them for the moment. It is equipped with a Hensoldt TRS-3D radar, EO and hull mounted sonar with a towed sonar planned for future fitting. For more detailed equipment list go here
From the Inquirer.
The Philippine Navy’s first brand new warship, to be christened BRP Jose Rizal (FF-150), dropped anchor in Subic Bay, Zambales on Saturday (May 23) after a five-day voyage from Ulsan, South Korea.
South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) delivered the first of two 2,600-ton missile-capable frigate of the Philippine Navy. It carried 31 Korean crew men and 61 Philippine Navy sailors.
The future BRP Jose Rizal was escorted by the BRP Andres Bonifacio (PS-17), together with one Agusta Westland (AW) 109 helicopter and C-90 fixed wing aircraft toward the anchorage area on Friday afternoon (May 22), the Navy said in a statement.
Early Saturday, the future BRP Jose Rizal received passing honors from BRP Andres Bonifacio and three multi-purpose assault craft with Navy anti-submarine and AW-109 helicopters hovering above.
Before the ship’s tentative commissioning set on June 19, the birthday of Jose Rizal whom the ship was named after, the crew will first go on quarantine prior to final acceptance evaluation by the Technical Inspection and Acceptance Committee (TIAC), the Navy said.
Despite the seemingly smooth delivery of the ship, it had not escaped controversy in Manila as reported by the Inquirer.
A Philippine Navy TC-90 aircraft flies near future BRP Jose Rizal as it enters the country’s territorial waters. Philippines Navy
The selection of combat management systems (CMS) for the frigates had put the deal in national spotlight in 2018. The Navy was then pushing for Tacticos of Thales Nederland, a CMS already compatible with Link 16, compared to the CMS picked by the HHI, which was Naval Shield ICMS of Hanwha Systems.
The contract stated that the shipbuilder would have the “sole right” to choose the subsystems, which was then opposed by the Navy but not by the Department of National Defense.
It is interesting to note that HHI had claimed that the Naval Shield ICMS had been proven as it had been fitted on South Korean Navy ships as well as the RMN’s DSME designed but locally built training ships. It must be noted that Jose Rizal was launched one year ago some two years after the contract was signed. This means that HHI built the ship within 24 months.
Anyhow, Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin to all Malaysian Defence readers.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (61)
Jose Rizal-class CMS same as our gagah Samudera-class CMS
and...
Jose Rizal-class main radar same as our Kedah-class main radar
If they don't want that ships just sell it to us. Hehehehe, just kidding. BTW congrats Pinoy :)
Hope Mr Marhalim or anyone here can update about our LCS status.
And Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all.
Selamat Aidil Fitri to all. Maaf zahir dan batin
Time and again it shows RMN is always getting shortchanged. For the price of slightly more than what we paid for 1 Meko 100, the Philipines is getting 2 2600 tonnes frigate! It comes with SSM, torpedo and Simbad also, unlike our kosong ships!
Yes the Philippines got a lot of ship for their money, however much grumbles some of them had about the link-16 unavailability (yeah that is you max). Malaysia barely got a single OPV in the shape of the meko 100 for that money, so filipinos count your blessings. So in all, congratulations to the Philippines for their new frigate. It will complement your Wildcat helicopters well.
So as the meko 100 is mentioned, we need to talk about it right?. We can probably never be able to build ourselves the meko 100 for the price of that korean frigate, which is why i always say to forget those mekos, even though i have written here long time ago how we can possibly build one and arm one for the price of the korean frigates. The high cost of building the mekos is partly because of the high design standards of germany. The materials, frame spacings, battle damage tolerance, ship control systems etc etc makes the ship inherently expensive to build. In layman terms it is like manufacturing a mercedes car compared to a kia car.
But should we do something radical, abandon the gowinds, and buy something like this direct from korea instead? IMO it is very foolish to abandon our manufacturing capability, especially now when we really need to pour money into our own economy to prevent it from collapsing into recession. However flawed it seems right now, we have exported ships before, we have build plenty of ships that is technically good, including the kedah and samudera class ships. For the gowinds, IMO we need to persevere, complete the 6 ships and try to recoup the losses by building a batch 2 of them for less cost than batch 1. In any case, those gowinds will be far more capable than what the Philippines frigate can ever be.
Selamat Hari Raya, any news or status on our 6 frigates?
Yeah maybe no more new mekos..what im proposing here is to arm them accordingly.At the very least we've got ourself 6 more capable corvettes compared to just 6 gun opvs..Our other corvettes is almost non existant anymore..or do u prefer we rearm our other old corvettes in the form of laksamanas and kasturis..Bare minimum armament is good enough..i dont know about you guys but i strongly believe we still need smaller corvettes in our arsenal 6 or 8 will do to complement the bigger lcs and future lcs batch 2/type26/type31..
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As I had posted earlier, there are some issues on the Kedah class which needs to be addressed first before they could be fully arm. The fixes will add up to the cost so its not a simple thing of just buying the weapon systems.
@...
I think whenever we talk about the Meko 100 there're few points always got mixed up.
I've a previous post which went into the SCS so I've to recall what I typed.
1. Meko, being built to a purportedly higher standard is more expensive. Ok, everyone accept that. The question is, is it really 'that' expensive.
I think our Meko 100 is the world's most expensive meko per tonne. Not talking about the Anzac class, the South African Meko A-200 costs about US 350 including armaments in 2007. This is less than the price we paid for our kosong ships! So looks like Meko is not 'that' expensive afterall. Or you can say a fully equipped Meko A 200 at today's price (USD 500m) is about 2.5 times of the Pinoy ships, but how about the Meko 100 which we already paid for the whatever ToT? If, hypothetically our Meko 100 come equipped with MM40, RAM, A244 on top of the Oto, and costs USD 350M I think we will all be happy, or at least won't have as much to complaint. That's still 2 times the prices of the Korean frigate...
2. Whether to build locally, to boost up local ship building industry, to benefit the people etc...
PM 6 laughed at Mat Sabu about cancelling the 2 locally built LMS 68 to save RM 100+ million. But what's so great of having this 'locally built' LMS when you're paying more than a Damen 1800 for such 'Made in China' ships? I think the notion of prop up local ship building capability only make sense if it REALLY bring benefit to the country as a whole. That means we save on the money spent, build up support and maintenance capability and providing jobs to the people. If providing jobs to a certain shipyard for 2 years needs RM100+million, and end up with overprice 'design' and subsequent purchases, it's better of to just halt the LMS 68 project.
3. Local ship building capability. I think Shin Yang proved that with or without Gowind, Meko 100, LMS 68, they can build landing ships deemed good enough for the UAE navy. Granted we need the design, and we certainly need to enter into some form of JV with foreign companies. Key point here is to find a trustworthy and reliable local company! If we can't we just buy it as CBU to save the billions.
However as we all know everything here is heavily 'influenced' by all the party of interest. If everything can be done just 'slightly' better our armed forces won't be at it current sorry state. Billions of ringgit can be saved instead of move to some pockets...
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It must be noted that the Kedah class was expensive as it was a national interest project apart from the ships it also involved funds to upgrade the yard to built ships and also the IP rights for the ship design. Also extra money had to be pumped in to revive the project as the then owner of the shipyard had squandered most of the money for his own and political masters benefit. Basically we paid for 12 ships though we only got six.
It is, for those with only recent memory, the 1MDB of that time. And everyone involved got off scot free and not even their reputation were sullied.
That's the reason the ships cost so much as the total sum allocated for the project had increased exponentially.
RM174 million for weapon systems and munitions for this two (2) frigates. So, if we want to upgrade our six (6) Kedah-class using this figure and armament its just around RM530 million. The price can go lower because our Kedah-class already owned guns and also better sensor, radar, fire control radar, ESM ect. CMIIW.
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The radar is the same actually as it was previously owned by Airbus and sold to Hensoldt. That said it could have newer and better electronics and software as ours were ordered some 25 years ago
@Hornet Lover
"That means we save on the money spent"
That is fallacy thinking for any ToT projects whether it be done in Malaysia, or Japan, or UK or India or Singapore. Even if you could save money on labour cost, the CKD development cost will be nearly on par or more of the savings you get with cheap labour and you will definitely incur delays (which relates to cost).
The main purpose for ToT should be to provide jobs to locals, which is why it make sense for volume production that takes multi-years. The point is to make the build realistic and manage the cost, something which LCS project team didn't (or likely couldn't?).
IMHO, if we could cut 10-20% of cost for each subsequent LMS batches, it make sense to build them locally as this is gonna be the bulk of TLDM fleet. Perhaps something the short-term thinking PH Government didn't see. More importantly this could provide jobs to many for 5-10 years so you can imagine the economic multiplication factors. Yes, its a National Service project. Yes, its gonna be more expensive building locally. No denying that. Its how we could come to a compromised win-win for all. Doing ToT for all makes no sense and building everything overseas makes no sense.
@Fadiman
Marhalim reported no progress yet.
I also think if we paid for the 'ToT' for the Kedah class, we should be trying to maximize the investment. I wonder how much Shin Yang could build the Kedah class ships for if given the rights to do so?
Does anybody know if we also bought the rights to the COSYS M1 CMS?
For what the current kosong ships do ie patrol, even the COSYS is probably enough.
Don't need to change anything, maybe standardise on the Bofors 57mm upfront and the MSI 30mm at the back, if we dont get overcharged for those 2 guns, too.
On a side note, when can we hear about the Indian CMS on the Jebat?
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The COSYS was customised for RMN so it is likely that we paid for its IP too though I am guessing one has to comb through the documents to see whether the PSC NDSB, the forerunner of BNS, actually paid for the IP. If they didnt I am guessing that we don't have the rights for it. No idea on the CMS probably at the next Lima