SHAH ALAM: Milestone reached. It appears that the THHE-Destini JV has reached another milestone in its production of the MMEA OPV. The first of class OPV has been joined together. As most of you are aware, modern ships are build in modular blocks and once these are ready, they are joined together to make a complete ship. This allow for faster shipbuilding compared to the keel up style of older generation ships.
Anyhow work to join the modules of the first of class MMEA OPV was completed at the THHE facility at Pulau Indah today, based on a Facebook post by the company hired to photograph the process. As the company is not supposed to share the pictures publicly, I will not do so here. Following the publication of this post, Malaysian Defence was provided pictures of the ship prior and during the joining process.
THHE-Destini is building three MMEA OPV based on the Damen 1800 design. Malaysian Defence previously reported that the three ships will be named after state royal towns.
The first of class MMEA 1800 OPV will be named KM Kota Bharu, the second KM Kuala Kangsar and the third KM Seri Menanti.KM Kota Bharu is of course named after the royal town of Kelantan while Kuala Kangsar is Perak and Seri Menanti, Negri Sembilan, respectively. There are nine state royal towns in Malaysian with two ships already in seservice with MMEA,namely, KM Pekan and KM Arau
Anyhow I was told that the first MMEA OPV will be launced in February or March, next year. The original plan, as previously reported by Malaysian Defence, was to launch the ship late this year, basically, next month, actually. With the ship already joined several days ahead of December, this could be done of course.
The shipyard, I was told, however, has decided to move forward the launching date in the first quarter of 2020. This I was told was to facilitate the fitting of more equipment on the ship. I was told it would be much easier to fit the equipment when the ship is still on the dry dock instead of on the water.
— Malaysian Defence
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Congrats APMM on the milestone!
glad we have good news on this..hope our govt give fund for new batch of this ship soon…
Thank you for the good news. Happy to see some things went the right way.
Good Job Tabung Haji. A very pleasant news indeed.
I saw this advertisement today. Does this mean TUDM is getting a number of S70 helicopters soon?
“PERKHIDMATAN PENGURUSAN LATIHAN SIMULATOR PENERBANGAN HELIKOPTER BLACKHAWK S-70 UNTUK TENTERA UDARA DIRAJA MALAYSIA (TUDM)”.
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No those are for the VIP Blackhawks, two of them with RMAF
Perhaps the TLDM can consider buying this for the LMS instead of more Chinese ships.
Perhaps Kementerian Pertahanan can consider having all the TLDM peacetime offshore patrol tasks passed on to Kementerian Dalam Negeris APMM. APMM to be the main PIC, TLDM in supporting role. TLDM dont need to buy any OPVs as we know, OPV with high naval standards are very2 expensive, unlike OPVs specified for APMM.
“Perhaps the TLDM can consider buying this for the LMS instead of more Chinese ships.”
i think base on design and basic equipment,Gagah Samudera Class is tge best platform for LMS.
….. – “Perhaps Kementerian Pertahanan can consider having all the TLDM peacetime offshore patrol tasks passed on to Kementerian Dalam Negeris APMM”
MINDEF has long considered this and has long hoped it could become reality but until the MMEA can be sufficiently funded in order to adequately conduct all it’s supposed to do; there is no alternative but for the RMN to continue to be burdened with various roles which in by right it should not be doing ….
Ideally a lot of things should happen: just like how ideally the organisation mainly responsible for safe guarding Sabah against non state land incursions should be the police’s PGA battalions, with the army playing a supporting role.
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Is Bandar Melaka considered a royal town? I would like to see “Don’t mess with Melaka” written in big letters along the side of KM Bandar Melaka if possible.
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Malacca is not a royal town. The last Sultan died without leaving a heir, read your history books lah or Wikipedia…
@joe
The comment above is not by me. that is a 4 dot. Been having difficulty to post comments yesterday.
anyway moving on to more serious topic.
Dr. M recently visited the PFLNG Dua build in south korea.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/11/28/going-deeper-into-gas-reserves
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/DV_DF8DVoAAtpLe.jpg
Why we can do the things we do? Because the gas fields is in our 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The chinese 9 dash lines in South China Sea will decimate our EEZ and we will lose many of our oil and gas fields off Sabah and Sarawak. This is the very reason why we must take our sovereignty very seriously and do all we can to defend it, with APMM, TLDM, TUDM and the army. If we lose our oil and gas fields, we will lose a major source of income to the country. This is what everyone in the country must understand. We lose our seas, we lose our future.
@Marhalim
Of course I know Melaka history and its background. I am asking if its still considered a royal town tho it no longer has a royal ruler. Some folks think it is because their decendents are rulers in other states.
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When the world has moved towards EV-fication, we will lose our oil & gas income eventually. Its the reason why Saudi, Dubai, Qatar, are diversifying from relying on oil based economy and we don’t take heed and move from this reliance, it doesn’t matter if China takes over the seas or not. Ironically, China is a world leading innovator and implementer of EV & Renewable Energy technologies.
China is currently still the biggest buyer of oil and gas in the world. Many electric powerplants still use gas and diesel for power. Do you think china did all the 9 dash line and sisemic surveys just for fun? They are hungry for power, and oil and gas reserves in south china sea is their eventual targets.
Why the rice tag per unit of this opv quite same with lms which also seem uncapable..