SHAH ALAM: Lumut Naval Shipyard (Lunas) has issued an infographic on PCU Maharaja Lela on the company’s social media accounts, about two weeks after she was launched. The infographic showed in detail the top side of Maharaja Lela, which was not available since the launch. The infographic was posted on the same day that DS Khaled Nordin told Parliament on the progress of the project, though it was based on information collated in May. Khaled said LCS 1 progress as off May was 75 per cent.
What the Defence Minister said in Parliament:
Sehingga Mei 2024, kemajuan pembinaan LCS 2 adalah sebanyak 64.66% dan saya turut mengambil kesempatan untuk memaklumkan status kemajuan LCS yang lain iaitu LCS1 sebanyak 75%, LCS2 sebanyak 64.66%, LCS 3 sebanyak 56.58%, LCS 4 sebanyak 51.10% dan LCS 5 adalah sebanyak 42.33%.
Menjelang 2027, selain daripada memiliki 2 buah LCS yang telah siap dibina, kita juga akan memiliki 3 buah Littoral Mission Ship (LMS) Batch 2 yang sedang dibina di Republik Turkiye, bagi mengukuhkan lagi kesiagaan TLDM kita.
Anyhow from the picture of the PCU Maharaja Lela in the infographic, one could see none of the items on the main deck has been installed from the VLS to the main gun. The foredeck for the NSM launchers is also not completed. On top of the bridge and the helicopter hangar, none of the equipment has been installed.
On the deck where the VLS is to be installed, it looked like they have put three or four air condition compressors for cooling units fitted inside the ship. This may also mean that the engines and generators of the ship have yet to be powered on. This is evident from the funnel which looked clean. I stand to be corrected of course.
One also has to wonder whether the LCS 2 will be downslip once it passed the 75 percent of its construction.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (31)
Beautiful ship. She looks bigger than I thought. May the 6th LCS will be completed also.
I only hope LCS 6, Mat Kilau is eventually funded and finished. 6 LCSs is a ‘nicer’ number than 5. If you are superstitious, 5 LCS and 8 LMS batch 2 will give you the unlucky number 13!
Whatever you think, the LCS is a nice looking ship. Is that the final colour Marhalim? it looks too pale IMHO.
It will look darker once at sea...
So the engines… 4 MTU diesel right. Will it also get subsidies later
good looking ship to me XD
Tom Tom - “If you are superstitious, 5 LCS and 8 LMS batch 2 will give you the unlucky number 13”
That’s a Anglo thing; 13. If one wants to go down the oriental route; adding 1 and 3 gets you 4 and we know what’s the word for 4 in Cantonese.
More on numbers; unless I’m mistaken the LMS Batch 2s are the 1st time we’ve bought ships in 3s.
Yes she’s good looking but then most naval ships - to me - are.
Looking at the pics from this angle gives us an idea as to how little to no free deck space there is for future growth. Then again it’s important to note that how our ships are fitted out is driven not just by finances but threat perceptions. A 16 cell VLS can get empty pretty fast; if we go on the basis that the rule of thumb is 1-2 missiles at minimum for every incoming threat to increase the PK but if a navy does not see itself being a a high end threat environment then having only 16 cells Is something it can live with.
The exceptions are the Italian PPA and Cavour...
Still long way to go..looks as empty as gobi desert to me..they better not mess it up this time..lets see if they can deliver lcs1 by this nov to navy for harbor trial n what not.i dont know about you guys but my gut feeling said sam will become ffbnw
Nice and elegance in shape.
Once I always followed the LCS project twitter pages
abruptly it stopped arround 2018 after PRU14
Thankfully it is back now, though under LUNAS..
FFBNW = Suwey. Our gomen must do away with this concept. 11 Billion LCSs without air defence is a joke
Abuyane - ''Our gomen must do away with this concept''
Why do you think the RMN was insistent that the Batch2 will be fully fitted out?
Abuyane - '' 11 Billion LCSs without air defence is a joke''
Has there been confirmation that the LCSs will have no ''air defence''?
"good looking ship to me XD"
With all that rust on the surface, are you sure?
"If one wants to go down the oriental route"
Actually 13 is considered lucky too. Normally the 2 digits do not added.
Some concerns I observed,
1)The VLS launchers havent yet installed. Since the plumbing are baked in, Id assume at least the VLS box would be installed along the build, only the yet-to-procure Mica in their self containers would be needed to install during fitting. Or is it wrong?
2)It doesnt look like main gun will be deck penetrating. Where is the barbette? So how will it get ammo?
The 57mm gun has two version - the deck penetrating version or not. The deck penetratin version has additional ammo magazine under the deck - deck penetrating - which can feed the turret magazine automatically. Though the ammo magazine under the deck need to be fed manually and under armour. This is the solution used by the US LCS.
I am not 100 sure but I believed our LCS will have the non penetrating version with the ammo magazine inside the turret itself with 100 round of ammo. The ammo magazine need to be top up manually out in the open. It is a cheaper solution I believed, though not practical to reload the ammo magazine in bad weather or in combat.
This is the same with 76mm gun there are two versions, deck penetrating and non deck penetrating one. Our Kedah and Laksamana class are both the non-penetrating one.