New coastal sub concepts get ready to break the surface:JDW

lionnoisy SG

can anyone post the full article here.

many want to know how this red dot country can make full

use of sub...

http://www.janes.com/news/defence/naval/idr/idr080514_1_n.shtml

By Richard Scott,(JDW)

14 May 2008

''The modern non-nuclear submarine is acknowledged to be a highly potent sea denial and intelligence gathering asset and, in the right hands, a very challenging adversary for even the best-equipped anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces.

Even 26 years on, the UK Royal Navy's (RN's) experience in the 1982 Falklands (Malvinas) conflict serves as a salutary reminder of how difficult a prey the conventional submarine can be. Although it deployed a large taskforce equipped with a full range of ASW capabilities, it failed to detect the San Luis, the single Argentine Type 209 conventional submarine deployed in theatre. It is believed that only a faulty fire-control system prevented the submarine from executing a successful attack on an RN frigate operating close inshore.

The US Office of Naval Intelligence points out: "Operating near busy shipping channels or maritime chokepoints, submarines can covertly lay minefields or attack and disrupt commercial shipping. In this way, even a nation having a few relatively unsophisticated submarines can conduct sea denial and exert regional influence.

"Fitted with improved quieting sensors, weapons and propulsion systems readily available in today's market, submarines can operate undetected near a regional adversary's coast, covertly conduct surveillance, engage enemy naval forces and expand their nation's regional impact still further."

Covertness brings another attribute. Operating unseen and unannounced, the submarine can be forward deployed without undue provocation, thereby avoiding crisis escalation or political embarrassment. It can also be employed to support the insertion and extraction of special forces in clandestine missions.

And so for many smaller nations, the conventional submarine remains a prized asset because of the disproportionate impact it can have on military operations in the maritime domain, both above and below the waterline. Its major selling point is as a uniquely cost-effective means of sea denial against far more powerful potential adversaries.

Over the last two decades, the conventional submarine market has been dominated by sales of boats in the 1,400-1,800-ton bracket, typified by German shipbuilder HDW's best-selling Type 209, the successor Type 214 and the rival Scorpene jointly produced by French naval shipbuilding, systems and support group DCNS and Spanish shipbuilder Navantia. Highly capable, and now increasingly adopting air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology to extend submerged endurance and reduce the indiscretion ratio, they afford a powerful and cost-effective deterrent capability.

However, 'cost effective' does not mean cheap and it would be quite wrong to suggest that the acquisition of even a small number of diesel-electric submarines does not in itself constitute a significant capital investment. Furthermore, operating any submarine force in a safe and efficient manner demands the highest levels of design assurance, maintenance, operator and maintainer training and operational control.

As a result, some smaller navies with more limited financial and technical resources - while attracted to the attributes of the submarine - have, to date, shied away from their acquisition. Others, particularly in Latin America, are troubled by the projected costings for the replacement of existing diesel-electric submarines now approaching life expiry.

Acknowledging this fact, four of Europe's leading submarine design houses have now all sought to craft compact, highly automated 'entry-level' submarine concepts specifically engineered to reduce capital cost and support overhead and manning requirements. As well as appealing to navies looking to acquire a submarine capability for the first time, the rival contractors are also eyeing nations that may be looking to recapitalise their existing submarine arms.''

Image: DCNS unveiled its double-hull SMX-23 design in 2006. (DCNS)

Bionic Animals SG

Any news from our Swedish contractor, Kockums, on their latest new sub designs featuring AIP? I think something is in the pipeline given the way the RSN is taking over used Swedish subs manufactured and refurbished by Kockums. Research and testing by DSTA may throw-up a locally designed submarine just like the Formidable frigates. Lets hope we hear from them in the near future.

lionnoisy SG

And in a few years, the stealth frigate will be made to look like a sampan when the navy acquires an even more ridiculously advanced ship that can sail at warp speed or something.---THE NEW PAPER ON SUNDAY

Wow !!!Insider info???

There was article in The New Paper sunday 18 May with photo.

the author hinted there will be a new ship make Formidable firgate

look like toy.....

Sailing off into the sunset... without puking By SM Ong May 19, 2008

I GET sentimental over the weirdest things. Like, say, missile gunboats - known as MGBs for short. Just call me Mr Softie.

When I read that the Republic of Singapore Navy had decommissioned the MGB squadron in a sunset ceremony at Changi Naval Base last Tuesday after over three decades of service, a part of me died a little.

Though this was nothing compared to the death pangs I felt when they shut down Brani Naval Base in 2000.

I had spent most of my full-time national service at Brani Medical Centre as a medical orderly who refused to wear a tunic because it didn't flatter my body type.

What is now called HarbourFront is from where I used to make a daily commute by sea to Pulau Brani early in the morning before the Sentosa-bound holidaymakers arrived.

One of the more bizarre and joked-about aspects of the supposedly high-security naval base was that you could see the Sentosa golf course across the water just 150m away from the wharf where the warships are alongside.

So if you really wanted to, you could actually ding an MGB with a golf ball with a decently hit drive from Sentosa. I think that counts as a water hazard with a penalty of one stroke.

Dinged or not, the MGBs were at the time the pride of the fleet, the most advanced vessels we had.

But going on an exercise in one

was like being in a teacup during a tsunami. You've never been seasick until you've been seasick onboard

an MGB.

As a medic, I would be attached to different ships for exercises. The plum attachments were, of course, the giant Landing Ship Tanks or LSTs which had survived World War II.

Size does matter.

Those old LSTs have since been replaced by sleeker models with a computerised bridge that resembles the Starship Enterprise (from Star Trek: The Next Generation, not the dinky original series).

During my service, the MGBs themselves were already being edged out by the newer, sexier-sounding missile corvettes (you know, like the sports car) as the navy's most advanced vessels.

But even the corvettes have now been outstripped by the recently commissioned stealth frigates in terms of technological doodads.

And in a few years, the stealth frigate will be made to look like a sampan when the navy acquires an even more ridiculously advanced ship that can sail at warp speed or something.

It's the circle of life - but with weaponised boats.

All of us will be replaced eventually by someone younger and technologically better equipped.

But when we're forcibly retired, it will be with the comforting knowledge that our replacements will also be replaced eventually by someone younger and with anti-submarine capability.

So goodbye, RSS Sea Wolf, once a perennial Best Ship winner and Singapore's first missile gunboat.

I hardly knew ya. I was too busy trying to keep from puking my guts out.

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/columnists/story/0,4136,165123,00.html

Shotgun SG

He was referring to the cycle of capabilities upgrade lar....

Of course, soon enough, we will have the new vastergotland class SSKs.

Bionic Animals SG

Anyway, by the time the ridiculously advanced ship able to travel at warp speed materialise, we will already turned into dust or ashes and gone to kingdom come. I look towards our foreseeable future. Let other discuss the warp speed ship when the time comes.