SHAH ALAM: Keris delivered. The RMN took physical delivery of the first of class Littoral Mission Ship (LMS), Keris, today. This must be the fastest ship delivered to the navy with commissioning expecting early next year. Keris was launched in April, this year, some two years after the contract was signed in 2017.
The handover ceremony took place at the Wuchuan shipyard facility at Qidong port, near Shanghai, China. The ship was received by the Defence Ministry Procurement Division secretary Datuk Ahmad Husaini Abdul Rahman.
RMN in its release said the commissioning ceremony for Keris will be conducted at the same facility at the Qidong port on Jan. 6. The ship is expected to sail back following the ceremony and a homecoming ceremony is scheduled at the Kota Kinabalu naval base in Sabah on Jan. 17.
The second class LMS, Sundang will be delivered to the RMN on April, next year with the two other LMS also built in China will be delivered by mid-2021, RMN says.
— Malaysian Defence
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Thank you. At least a good news before new year.
Congrats TLDM. Any new ship is better than no new ships at all.
Off topic
Why arent we sending our men and water bombers to help out fighting the wildfires in Australia?
Ps. I cannot pass captcha for a week now…
A good news in deed.But i always regard Keris as a ordinary patrol ship but not as LMS.My opinion is a hull like Gagah Samudera is a proper platform for LMS.
Heard some wild rumour that no more lms will be ordered by mindef..hope this rumour is not true
Hi, I’ve been doing some reading on the Chinese PLAN naval launches, and it seems that the Chinese has been churning out DDGs like hot cakes this year. Altogether, the PLAN has launched 9 DDGs this year:
23 Feb, 052D#17 Jiangnan shipyard
16 Apr, 052D#18 Jiangnan shipyard
10 May, 052D#19 & 052D#20 Dalian shipyard
28 Aug, 052D#21 Jiangnan shipyard
12 Sept, 055#5 Jiangnan shipyard
26 Sept, 052D#22 Jiangnan shiyard
26 Dec, 052D#23 & 055#6 Dalian shipyard
That’s 7 052D’s & 2 055’s launched this year alone. No wonder they could delivered the Keris in so short a time.
JunTau,
Indeed and it will be used intensively as a patrol asset given the shortage of hulls and the fact that the FACs not only can’t put to sea in certain sea states but have become very maintenance intensive due to age.
As an LMS the design is secondary as a LMS will only need so much range, endurance and deck space; more important is the fit out.
….
I believe the MMEA’s Bombardier’s aren’t operational and unless there’s a specific call for help from Australia I really doubt the bureaucrats would want to pay the costs associated with such a deployment. Sure helping Australia would be nice given that they’ve helped us in various ways but Indonesia it’s different, we offered fire fighters because the haze directly caused us issues.
Happy New Year everyone.
Thank you to the admin for all these news and providing a forum for us citizens to openly discuss defense matters.
Thank you to the readers for always discussing and producing opinions. Its been very educational.
We may have different opinions and thoughts but we always think of our nation which is a good thing.
Lets pray for our nation and its people to be safe and prosper.
Btw if we want to use the keris as lms, maybe uprated its equipment akin to usn cyclone patrol ship is a nice idea.
Just my sekupang.
The NST wrong defence facts strikes again!
http://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2019/12/552355/first-4-lms-delivered-rmn
Still with old facts that the next 2 LMS will be build in malaysia.
Off topic. Philippine Navy SSV (LPD) Project.
“For the Landing Docks Acquisition Project which conducted the Bid Submission and Opening last 26 November 2019, the lowest bidder was local shipbuilder Megaship Builders Inc., which is joint-ventured to a Malaysian shipbuilder, Sing Kiong Hong Dockyards Sdn Bhd.”
https://www.phdefenseresource.com/2019/11/landing-docks-acquisition-project-of.html?m=1
Reply
If you read until the end it was stated there that the lowest bidder was disqualified. PT Pal which offered the second lowest bid was in turn qualified for the bid. I suspect that the lowest bid was disqualified as the ship offered is only a paper ship with no examples in service. Most of the Philippines tender documents will state that the weapon systems, ships planes etc must be already in service with at least one country. Anyhow, Sing Kiong is a Sibu based shipyard. Probably one of the shipyards which the Sibu MP during the DWP debate said was capable of building the LMS. Mat Sabu in his reply said of course if the shipyards were capable they could be considered for the project though he said the funding for future LMS had not been approved.
Thank you for the new year gift chinese comrade, lmfao..
@ azlan
Just saying as australia has helped us alot from MH370 to ops gateway.
@ nihd
Actually the cyclone class ships are not much better armed than than the LMS, unless you consider it was tested with hellfires.
@ marhalim
Rumours abound that the PTU will be the new PAT?
Reply
Yes the PTU is taking over as PAT tomorrow
Re: Australian bushfires, worst affected states are NSW and Victoria, so if they were to ask for help, it’s usually manpower from other states, then NZ and the US. There is actually no shortage of air assets, so MMEA water bomber is not necessary.
Excellent news. With all the delays and such, sometimes I wonder if it’s actually better to buy ships off the shelf rather than building one.
Reply
Of course it is better to buy them directly from experienced manufacturers
If we are going for MALE UAV, can consider Indonesia’s latest one
https://en.antaranews.com/news/138864/ptdi-introduces-puna-male-drone-to-combat-territorial-threats
Might be cheaper than most, even Turkish ones.
…. – “Just saying as australia has helped us alot from MH370 to ops gateway””
As I said, they have helped us a lot in
various ways over the decades and we should help them but we don’t have any “water bombers” to send and I’m unsure if they’ve actually asked or need international assistance.
…..
I’m not sure how much we actually benefit from “Gateway”. It’s not under the FPDA and intel obtained is only shared with us under the discretion of the RAAF. No doubt they do share relevant stuff but it’s up to them.
The 1997 incident with the Delhi (on it’s way for LIMA) involved a RAAF P-3 on a “Gateway” tasking. As you know the Delhi activated its FCS because the P-3 fit into cliff to look at a signature that was not in its electronic data base.
@ azlan
Remember it was the aussie P-3 that first found the Orkim Harmony tanker.
http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/exclusive-%E2%80%98we-passed-ship-first-time%E2%80%99
PS. That is from the time when NST reporting was good.
……
I’m not saying RAAF deployments have no value to us : if that were the case we wouldn’t agree to them.
You brought up “Gatekeeper”; I only pointed out that a lot of what’s conducted under “Gatekeeper” benefits Australia (and the U.S. as lots of stuff gathered is shared with them under a arrangement) but not necessarily with us. As part of the FPDA there is a intel sharing arrangement but “Gatekeeper” is not part of the FPDA. As part of the agreement reached between us; intel gathered under “Gatekeeper” that is relevant or of importance to us is shared and we can request things but it’s entirely up to the Australian government. There have been instances were what is done under “Gatekeeper” with regards to 3rd countries is of concern to us as the P-3s operate from our territory.
In an overall context there is no question that we’ve long received various forms of aid/assistance from Australians; spanning decades ….
@ azlan
Ops Gateway is the name of all RAAF MPA deployments to malaysia. Of course some their operations might be towards other countries that can affect our relations such as operations to compile ELINT of ships say from india, indonesia and china sailing in selat melaka and SCS. But in the larger scheme of things, basically ops gateway is the most capable airborne maritime patrol operation available to us.
@joe
Last I heard the Indonesian MALE UAV is a prototype. Am just wary of the hardware-software integration on that bird since the article didn’t mention any foreign partner to the Indon team. Perhaps I missed it or what…
@ Taib
https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/news/20191230152052-4-126493/drone-mata-mata-made-in-ri-60-komponen-masih-impor
The Flight Control System will be from Spain. Indonesia is also exploring cooperation with Turkey for the Weapon System.
Do we still not know what type of equipment will be fit on the Keris ships? Will it be able to do anything other than patrol?
Reply
Not much yet. That’s why I am going to KK for Keris’s homecoming. Hopefully can get more details
From my first post on the subject and the ones that came next; I made it very clear that RAAF P-3 deployments do benefit us but that “Gateway” itself (by virtue of being outside the scope of the FPDA) doesn’t necessarily always benefit us because a lot of what’s done under “Gateway” (beyond the occasional SAR and other taskings) is not shared directly with us; involving sorties close to the Andamans and further eastwards in the SCS in stuff that is directly of interest to Australia and the U.S.
Encik – ”Will it be able to do anything other than patrol?”
The long term intention is for it to do more than just patrols but the priority at present is to get as many hulls in the water as fast as possible due the to acute shortage of hulls and the fact that the FACs and Laksamanas are extremely aged and spend a lot of time undergoing maintenance. Whether or not the LMSs are ever fully fitted out remains to be seen and will depend not just on funding but also what the RMN is able to get for the 2nd batch.
…. – “ such as operations to compile ELINT of ships”
Actually no. For the simple reason that ELINT can be performed from quite a distance away and is deniable.One does not have to get too close. For that matter even when docked at Lumut RMN ships with ESM switched on have a very good “view” of the surrounding area (they can also pick up land and mobile lines on the mainland but that’s a different story).
What would be of concern to us would be a repeat of the Delhi incident when a P-3 got close enough to take pics or even the possibility of a mid collision or grazing with an aircraft belonging to a 3rd country – would place us in a dicey diplomatic situation. Naturally given that it’s universally considered a hostile act; P-3s would not fly directly over a target.
@Taib
Other than … shared, what I gathered is the drive system is by Rotax, the same drive system supplier for Predator & Reaper. So we can infer (and with KFX) the Indons are doing their local developments with reliable partners. Yes, it is only due flight certification in 2021-2024 (inc weaponisation) but that is within the timeframe for our MALE UAV buy. What I would suggest is local further development partnership to import the systems and have CTRM develop the body into carbon fibre shell & prop blades which will then be locally assembled.
@Encik
The point of LMS is the flexibility it would have with the container mission modules. The question is, what mission module systems they used and what variants available for them to carry out what missions and how many of these mission modules are we buying.
@…
I am certain we will gladly lend Aussie a hand in their fiery battle if they made the request and willing to foot the bill but at the moment they are only requesting firefighters from US, UK and NZ only.
We have heard about the desire for mission specific modules for LMS for many years now. It will take many more years to integrate. If I am not mistaken the only proven one is Stanflex by the Danes, using Harpoon, Sea Sparrow and MU90…practically nothing within our inventory. Any other available source for ‘mission modules’ out there?
Are we ready for a more tense situation in SCS?
Wether we want it or not, we will be forced to take sides when our ships, people and oil platforms are harassed by China.
Recently there are chatters that China air force Xian H-6 bombers are buzzing our oil and gas operations in these past few days. Chinese coast guard biggest cutter has also been seen in our EEZ, a behemoth 12,000 tonne ship.
Indonesia has been actively countering and expelling China coast guard ship off natuna, and even called upon chinese ambassador to explain.