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Thursday 29 January 2009

Malaysia Takes Delivery Of Its First Submarine


Malaysia has taken formal delivery of its first submarine KD Tunku Abdul Rahman at the French naval base in Toulon, on Saturday. This major milestone for the RMN follows the completion, in late December 2008, of KD Tunku Abdul Rahman's final sea trials demonstrating remarkable operational and combat system capabilities. These trials included successful firings of Black Shark heavyweight torpedoes and missiles.KD Tunku Abdul Rahman is scheduled to arrive at the Sepanggar naval base in July this year. The second of the series, KD Tun Razak, is scheduled for delivery in late 2009.

Manned by Malaysian crews of just 31, the boats offer an endurance of 45 days for a displacement of 1,550 tonnes and a length overall of 67.5 metres. The submarine can dive to a depth of between 100m and 200m and is armed with six torpedo tubes which can fire simultaneously, anti-ship surface missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes, with a capacity of 10 torpedoes and 30 mines.
The submarine service marks the gradual progress of the Royal Malaysian Navy towards a world-class navy, also in line with the wish to transition into the 4-dimensional warfare (surface, underwater, space and electronic) capability. Thus KD Tunku Abdul Rahman has now gone into history as the first submarine to be commissioned into the Royal Malaysian Navy and will sail home manned fully by our own submariners. Congratulations to the crew of the submarine on their having surpassed all obstacles and challenges in qualifying to become the crew of the nation's first submarine.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

errr... itu ouessant pe citer ek? senyap jer?

mumuchi said...

setau aku itu navfco yang punya

Anonymous said...

me thinks you're right...
memula mmg semua kenyataan dan bukti sehingga penghujung tahun 2007 menunjukkan kita beli itu Ouessant. tapi hint yang pertama muncul dlm satu kenyataan akhbar yg dibuat oleh mantan Panglima TLDM, Datuk Ilyas Din, yg disiarkan oleh Bernama pada 01/06/06.

"On another matter, Ilyas said the navy would decide whether or not it would bring back the Agosta-class submarine it acquired for sea training of Malaysian submariners in Brest by year-end.

He said the navy was conducting a study on the feasibility of bringing back the "OUESSANT", the overhauled ex-French navy submarine which was decommissioned in 2003.

"We may bring it back but perhaps not for operational use as the Agosta only has a lifespan of five years (after an overhaul) and that is just enough to train our men.

"Even if we decide to operate it upon bringing it home, it will be too costly,"
he said.

It would also be expensive to bring it back as a historical piece as it would be too complicated to de-assemble for transportation, re-assemble in Malaysia and maintain it, he added.

Unknown said...

mumuchi - AFAIK, Ouessant is actually ours. I came to this conclusion based on reports in respected defence publications (jane's for example) and based on private conversations with those still in service - whether it is true or not, it is still debatable of course.

tin - i don't find any so-called hint coming out from CN's statement. The Ouessant is really old, it entered service in 1978 and was decomm back in 2001 (not 2003!! I do not know where they got this fact, silly since we signed the scorpenes in 2002 and agosta was already not in active service at that time). so the ouessant will be 31yrs this year. She was decomm on 1 July 01 - correct me if its wrong.

it was refurbished for training our submariners with trainers coming from both NAVFCO and ISDEFE. what the ex-CN said, the way I 'translated' it, is that the cost to bring it back would be exorbitant, as he already explained it in the last paragraph. And it will cost more if RMN intends to put it into active duty.

The key phrases would be "conducting a study on the feasibility"; "we may bring it back" and "if we decide to operate it" - it does sounds like we already own it right?

mumuchi said...

Muhammad, methinks me next article already says my take on this mattter :>)