Publication: SA Navy and Coast Guard Issued: Date: 2005-10-04 Reporter: Reporter: Reporter:

Navy (sic - New ?) Ship for Navy in the Offing?

 

Publication 

South African Navy and Coast Guard website
Date 2005-10-04

Web Link

www.navy.org.za

 

Recent statements by South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota signal that long-term plans for the South African Navy (SAN) to acquire an amphibious transport ship seem to have been quite dramatically brought forward. Engineering News first reported on the Navy's plans to acquire one or two such ships three years ago (May 3, 2002, edition), when the then Chief of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Johan Retief, revealed that the SAN was going to develop an operations requirement (OR) for such a class of vessel. However, Retief believed that the OR would not be completed until 2012 and that the first such ship would not be built until late into the second decade.

The original idea was that these ships would replace the Navy's then two combat-support ships, the SAS Drakensberg and Outeniqua.

Although the Drakensberg will indeed remain in service until late in the next decade, the Outeniqua was taken out of service last year and subsequently sold.

Meanwhile, the involvement of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops in peacekeeping and peace-support missions in Africa has increased significantly.

The first such deployment was to Burundi, which started in October 2001 and, today, nearly 3 000 SANDF personnel are deployed in Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on the Eritrean/Ethiopian border and in Sudan.

The Navy thus now has only one such ship to support its own operations and those of the rest of the SANDF; what if it should be un-available (either undergoing maintenance or refit, or already deployed far away) if an urgent need arises? Recently, Lekota told a media breakfast that a "mission-ready national defence force is key if the Department of Defence is to succeed in its support to government's diplomatic initiatives to help eradicate conflicts in the region and continent". Only a couple of months earlier, the current the chief of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu, told Engineering News (June 10, 2005) that the "Navy must support the government's initiatives in Africa".

"So we need to ask the questions - how can the Navy contribute to this objective? What does the Navy need to do this? What must we acquire? I will be in discussions with my colleagues in the Defence Force, but I think that we have to consider the possibility of bringing the . . . amphibious ship programme forward," he affirmed.

His comments were amplified by Rear-Admiral (junior grade) Bernhard Teuteberg.

"We're very involved in re-evaluating our capital-expenditure programme for the next 20 years, this re-evaluation . . . concentrating on the African battlespace and peacekeeping, peace support, which is now very important," he explained.

"Therefore, we need some sort of platform which is capable of supporting operations ashore . . . a ship that can transport personnel, vehicles and supplies and land them across a beach if no port is available; a ship that can also provide medical assistance and humanitarian relief; and a ship that can resupply the fleet with fuel, food and spares," he elucidated.

Which brings us to Lekota's reported statements. The Sunday Independent newspaper (September 18, 2005) quoted him as saying that 'elementary' talks are taking place concerning the need for a 'multipurpose ship for peacekeeping operations in Africa, as well as fighting high-seas crime.

The talks involve the governments of South Africa, other African countries and the European Union (EU); the apparent idea is that such a ship would be operated out of South Africa by the SAN for the benefit of the region and/or continent. Lekota's comments were made in decidedly-general terms, but perhaps his most significant comment was that there is "some willingness to increase the capacity here in South Africa to beef up peacekeeping".

He also suggested that the funding for such a ship would come from abroad - presumably from the EU.

Read more at: Engineering News
(Thanks to Wilhelm van Zyl)

With acknowledgement to the South African Navy and Coast Guard website.