PETALING JAYA: In conjunction with RMN’s 78th anniversary, its chief Tan Sri Aziz Jaafar hold a press conference to announce various events organised for the celebrations. There will be open days at all RMN bases, on April 27 and 28, 2012.
During the press conference, the CN also gave some updates on RMN’s assets and development plans.
1) KD Tunku Abdul Rahman and KD Tun Razak has been declared operational. Both are undergoing operations.
2) The contract for the Submarine Escape and Rescue service (SMERV) had been awarded to Target Resources Sdn Bhd. The LOA was awarded recently. The contract had been in abeyance for the last four years as the Finance Ministry wants the Defence Ministry to renegotiate the price of the contract – RM8.2 million monthly for 20 years or RM98.4 million annually. Apparently the LOA was given at the original contract price. The CN said the mothership is being built in Singapore and is expected to be ready soon. In the meantime, RMN had worked out deal wtth regional navies in case of emergencies.
3) The LCS design will be finalised by July at the latest. The hull remained the Gowind and SETIS is the CMS. Only the other systems have yet to be confirmed. “It will be equipped with a gun capable of anti-aircraft capability, modern surface-to-surface missiles, medium-range SAM, a modern radar and a towed array sonar. The deck will be designed to accept the Cougar for take-offs and landings only,” the CN said. He declined to be more specific as in naming brands but look at my previous stories on the LCS on the type of weapons and systems to be chosen for the ships.
TS Aziz said the requirement of ASW helos remained and had been registered with the Defence Ministry. (He had previously said the Navy has the requirements for six ASW helicopters, so I am guessing they still want six).
4) The Navy has receive offers from the US Navy to purchase retired or soon to be retired, LPDs and frigates. He said the offer has been registered with the Defence Ministry. TS Aziz did not specify numbers, but I hazard to guess, it will be more likely one LPD and two frigates, if they wanted to finalise the offer. The LPDs available from the US are the Austin-class LPDs (three stwhile the frigates are the Oliver Hazard Perry class. Asked about the other ships available from navies from Europe, he said they have yet to receive any offer from this countries.
5) The navy has put forward plans to equip the Kedah-class ships with their “fitted for but not equipped” weapon systems. No details on the weapons under considerations but the Kedah class were originally designed for the RAM and the Exocets. I am assuming the Exocets are a safe bet if the Block 3s are chosen for the LCS while the RAM could be ditched if funding becomes an issue. Cheaper alternatives include the SADRAL or Tetral launchers from MBDA. RMN is hoping to secure the funding for the second part of RMK10 or the next plan (which is more likely).
6) KD Pari and KD Mutiara will be repaired. KD Mutiara repairs will be borne by Malaysian Marine and Heavy Engineering Sdn Bhd (MMHE). The ship caught fire while undergoing maintenance work at the yard in early January this year. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the tender to repair KD Pari has been made public two months ago.
7) The two training ship contracted to NGV Tech Sdn Bhd with the cooperation of DSME are under progress. The ships, to be armed with guns only is expected to be delivered by next year.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (42)
An informative post...yet TLDM quite secretive on their equipment modernization. I agree TLDM to get those hulls from USN,it is in line with Obama's "Look Asia Pacific" Policy.
Submarine Escape and Rescue service (SMERV)...wow nearly RM 10M a month? Target Resources Sdn Bhd using foreign/expat manpower or locals?
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Nothing official, I called the company, the officer in charge did not want to answer or returned my call. Since even the Singaporean are using foreigners, I guess ours will do so especially when it comes to ROV and such...
What mean by take off and landing only ? no hangar or what . But i really want to know details about the hazard and austin offered to us . Awesome war machine if it belong to us . Any updates.
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Meaning that it will not be based on the ships. The Cougars are not fully marinised helicopters meant to be based on ships like the Sea King and Super Lynx as they have folding rotors blade and all. As for the LPDs and frigates, it will take at least six months before any thing will happened.
Those ex-USN ships are well used and will be a maintenance nightmare.
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I know but the initial procurement cost will be lower, a much lower barrier when it comes to persuading the bean counters....
Yeah, finally made a good decision to arm the first generation NGPV with the weapons it was designed to be fitted with is a great decision.Its the easiest and fastest way to increase our defence and lethality of the ships.It can now confront any aggressive stance from any powers of the region. The purchase of the ex-USN ships can also be considered as we do need a big logistic ship and a fast way to increase our guns around the spratlys would be much welcpomed. The small patrol boats would win no respect from aggressors.
A quick search on Google and I found out that most of the OHP are only left with Phalanx and Oto Melara. The SAM and ASM has been taken out. Why do we need to burden ourselves with an old platform, another type of CMS, metal fatigue and gas turbine engine when we can used the budget to retrofit the OHP for Kedah Class, a much better platform than the OHP with enhance protection system by Rheinmetall. See the link here: http://www.rheinmetall-detec.de/index.php?fid=5736&lang=3
if not mistake korea do offer loan an landing ship.. no news any more?
do TLDM still getting more meko design?
if v can get Oliver Hazard Perry class it will boost up TLDM capability...
Austin class just nice for TLDM to replace the lost 1 but not the best...
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Oh yeah I forgot about the Korean LST no news about that one
haha maybe, this is malay style lah dah nak berak baru nak cari tandas,now storm is brewing in the south china sea,china against the phillipines baru org melayu tergesa gesa,wants to arm the kedah class,buy more sdubs,and but more floating vessels,if only it was done 10 years back.......
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It was always about the money not anything else. The fitted for but not equipped concept was to me was a tactic to reduce the unit initial price but it was wasted since they decide to hand over the contract to Amin Shah
Finally RMN has proven that its FFBNW concept is working as planned. Hope they can fit the weapons in 24 hours for each ship, since the design is supposed to be a plug n play one, or isn't it?
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It won't be that easy as they had never plug in the yet to be buy systems. First of all they need to install it first and make sure its seen/registered in the CMS. Then they must integrate everything with the sensors; ie radar and fire control radar. A test firing must be done to validate everything and it must be successful otherwise trouble shooting must be conducted. I am guessing that it will take at least six months once the weapon systems are in-country. It will be faster if they used the Exocets for the ASM role as it is in stock as does the launchers. But for the RAM or any other replacement it will take at least two years for the systems to be in-country from the day procurement contract is signed and the day the money is paid (which can take as long as two years or more). One way to shorten integration is to borrow - a RAM launcher and its missiles if its the one chosen - from an existing user so we can trouble shoot problems early.
Vote for RAM and exocet onboard kedah , rmn need more teeth right now as the regional sea force continues to add their inventory with state of the art battleship . some fools may say if malaysia buy ships it may start an arm race , ignore it , we cant afford to race actualy , just want to achieve minimum defensive power which we never had even today with the number of our ship .