SHAH ALAM: Frigate KD Lekiu – pennant number 30 – has arrived in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii on June 26 to take part in RIMPAC 24. Her arrival at Pearl was captured by ship spotter Ed Schaefer who posted the picture of the arrival on social media.
Royal Malaysian Navy Lekiu-class frigate KD Lekiu (FFGH 30) coming into Pearl Harbor for #RIMPAC2024 – June 26, 2024 #kdlekiu #ffg30 pic.twitter.com/iEMemVg1Jh
— Ed Schaefer (@ES12071207) June 26, 2024
Lekiu commanded by Captain Mahamad Nazir Darus left for Hawaii on May 30. Her whole journey for the exercise will take 100 days and she will travel some 12,730 nautical miles. As part of the exercise, Lekiu is scheduled to take part in the SINKEX during the RIMPAC. It is unclear how many Exocets she will fire at the exercise. Lekiu fired two Exocets in a firing exercise in December 15, last year.
Prior to leaving for RIMPAC, Lekiu underwent an emergency refit at the Lumut Naval Shipyard. On the way to Hawaii, Lekiu took part in the multinational group sail which was led by Republic of Singapore Navy’s frigate RSS Stalwart. Lekiu crew will be using the new combat uniform which was unveiled in May.
The Singapore Navy's Formidable-class frigate RSS Stalwart successfully led a Multinational Group Sail from Guam to Hawaii for the @RimofthePacific Exercise. Held from 14 to 25 Jun in the Pacific Ocean, this MNGS included eight other warships from 🇧🇳, 🇮🇩, 🇯🇵, 🇰🇷, 🇲🇾, 🇳🇱 and 🇺🇸.
— Ministry of Defence (@mindefsg) June 25, 2024
Meanwhile, KD Lekir – pennant number 26 – will take part in Exercise Kakadu – organized by the Royal Australian Navy – scheduled this September. Her participation for the exercise was made public when the Western Fleet Command depot issued three separate quotation notices for the supply of spare parts for the ship to take part in the exercise. It must be noted that Lekir took part in RIMPAC in 2022 while Lekiu was involved in Kakadu also in the same year.
— Malaysian Defence
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Before anyone says that it’s embarrassing that we’re sending out ships which are ‘X’ years old; some of the other ships they – including USN ones – aren’t exactly young. Anyhow the main value is the expose our crews get from participating in a large scale multilateral exercise.
Not sure if there is any budget but i hope they will further upgrade Leiu and Jebat with new Anti ship missile and new point defense SAM so it can last for another 10 years
It will not be done
Still going with Israel participating in Rimpac.
Kamal,
One can hope for a lot of things but as has been discussed several times the intention is to spend on minimal as possible on them and to retire them as soon as possible. Too expensive to fully upgrade thrn and not worth it given their age. There was a feasibility done on fitting them with a NSM I was told but unlikely to happen. Ripping out the current VLS cells and replacing it with something else is expensive and entail lots of work. Also, is the Indian CMS integrated/certified for any missile? As for lasting “another 10 years” will the current radar, engines, generators and a long list of other things last that long without needing to be replaced?
I have a question,is the KD Lekiu still using the Nautis CMS?
yes
Would be dumb and self defeating if we did not participate merely because Israel was also a participant. Training opportunities gain at multilateral exercises are simply not available anywhere else: in terms of the exposure we get.