Singapore navy gets homemade warships
Singapore navy gets homemade warships
SINGAPORE (Reuter): Singapore's navy yesterday launched the first of 12 warships that have been designed and are being built locally.
The new class of 55-metre (180-foot) patrol vessels will replace 12 smaller and less well-equipped coastal patrol craft the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) has operated since the early 1980s, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.
Speaking at the launch of the RSS Fearless, the first of the 500-ton warships to hit the water, Lee said that unlike other countries in the region, the small island state did not need a large navy.
"But we still need to defend Singapore from the seaward threats. This is the key mission of the RSN," he said.
Lee said Singapore was critically dependent on free and unimpeded access to sea lanes through which most its trade and vital supplies like food and fuel flow.
"The RSN has to safeguard these sea lines of communications, and be ready to keep them open during any crisis," he said.
The new ships, designed by the Singapore Defense Ministry's Defense Technology Group, are being built locally by Singapore Shipbuilding and Engineering, a member of the Singapore Technologies group of companies.
The contract, the terms of which have not been disclosed, was awarded two years ago.
"We buy new assets only when upgrading is no longer economically or operationally feasible, or to develop critical new operational capabilities," Lee said, adding that replaced ships would be redeployed to the Police Coast Guard.
Lee said all the new ships, to be delivered by 1997, would be equipped with advanced communications and electronic warfare equipment. Each will be armed with a 76mm main gun and surface-to-air missiles.
Six of the new ships, to be delivered between this month and late-1996, will also be fitted with hull-mounted anti-submarine sensors and torpedoes.
These ships will be fitted with waterjet propulsion, the first of its kind in the region for ships of similar size.
The RSN was started in 1967 with two wooden training ships. Lee said the navy had over the years steadily developed into "a compact but balanced and significant fighting force".
He said the navy's current fleet included missile corvettes, upgraded missile gunboats and minehunters. He gave no figures.
Singapore, with a population of three million, has total armed forces of 300,000 regulars, full-time national servicemen and reservists.