Page 18 - ADT MARCH 2023 Latest Magazine | GBP

© Gordon Arthur

INCREMENTAL APPROACH

Southeast Asian Navies are evolving incrementally

- By Gordon Arthur

ith the exception of landlocked Laos, Southeast Asia’s on brown-water craft. Indeed, domestic ship-
eleven nations are either coastal or archipelagic nations. builders in places like Indonesia, Myanmar,
W With an abundance of natural resources such as fisheries Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam can build
and hydrocarbons, as well as sea lanes and maritime territory, to their own inshore and patrol craft, some of which
protect, the region’s navies have their work cut out. Southeast Asian are even missile-armed. For example, Manila
navies are typically brown-water fleets well suited to low-intensity ordered nine Shaldag MK V patrol boats in 2021,
threats and maritime law enforcement. However, regional navies some armed with Spike NLOS missiles. Four have
are attempting to boost their capabilities. been delivered to date, and Israel Shipyards will
assist the Cavite Navy Yard to build the final
Professor Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the Maritime Security three boats in the Philippines.
Programme of Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies (RSIS), told Asian Defence Technology: “Southeast Asian Koh commented that large landing vessels
navies have a general focus on larger offshore-capable assets – are another popular asset in Southeast Asia.
those more optimised for green-water operations – considering “Chiefly influenced by experiences with natu-
that several regional countries have not only long coastlines but ral disasters and the exigency for humanitarian
also vast exclusive economic zones.” assistance and disaster relief, the preference
has shifted towards recapitalising vintage fleets
Procurement Favourite of landing ship tanks with larger vessels in the
For this reason, “Offshore patrol vessels (OPV), corvettes and frig- landing platform dock (LPD) category.”
ates remain at the forefront of procurement preferences where it
comes to recapitalising surface fleets, because they are essentially LPDs excel in that they have a larger payload
multifunction platforms. Yet these vessels, because they’re expen- capacity, a well-dock for amphibious opera-
sive, don’t serve in exceptionally large numbers.” The Philippine tions, and an aviation capacity. While sought
Navy epitomises this. It procured two frigates from Hyundai Heavy after, they remain relatively few in number
Industries (HHI), and then returned to HHI to order two 3,100-tonne because of their cost. PT PAL has constructed
corvettes in 2021 and six 2,400-tonne OPVs last year. LPDs for both Indonesia and the Philippines,
whereas Thailand received a Type 071E from
To maintain greater numbers of hulls, naval fleets continue to rely China in April.
18 | APRIL-MAY 2023 WWW.GBP.COM.SG/ADT