Navy gets two German submarines

Navy gets two German submarines

JAKARTA (JP): Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Arief Kushariadi has
received the first two of five submarines Indonesia has ordered
from Germany, Antara reported yesterday.

The two submarines were handed over to Admiral Arief by Dirk
Horten, the German armada chief, in a ceremony at the
Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft yard, Kiel, Germany, the news agency
said quoting a Navy statement.

The SS206/450 submarines, formerly named U-13 and U-14, both
commissioned in 1973, have been christened KRI Nagarangsang,
carrying number 403, and KRI Nagabanda, number 404.

State Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie, who
signed the purchase agreement, said early this month that the
five submarines were formerly used by Germany for its North
Atlantic Treaty Organization operations in the Baltic Sea.

They were being sold as part of Germany's defense budget cuts,
he said at a hearing with the House of Representatives.

Given that Germany stopped producing submarines of this size,
Indonesia would dismantle one of the five submarines for spare
parts for the other four, he said.

Habibie, who is also president of state-owned PT PAL
shipbuilding company, said Indonesia planned to build its own
submarines of different sizes.

The SS206/450 submarine is 48.6 meters long, 4.6m wide and
4.5m high. It weighs 450 tons above water and 498 tons
underwater. It can reach a speed of 10 knots on the surface and
17 knots underwater. Each ship can carry up to 22 personnel.

Arief said the two submarines would strengthen the Navy's
capability in defending Indonesia's vast territorial waters and
protecting its resources at sea.

The Indonesian Navy is equipped with mostly German warships.
In 1994, Indonesia bought 39 ships from the arsenal of the former
East Germany. (emb)