Malaysia Officially Takes Delivery Of First Scorpene Submarine
Malaysia took delivery of the KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, its first submarine, at the Toulun naval base, France, on Saturday. It was launched in October 2007 and had been undergoing trials at sea.
Malaysia's second submarine, KD Tun Razak, is expected to be delivered in October this year.
Refer to 'Scorpene subs laid down and launched'
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Shipborne Weapons - Missiles
3. Missiles
Missiles are considered one of the newer weapons to be used on ships today. Their uses include anti-surface, anti-air and even anti-submarine warfare. With their advent, naval warfare progressed from just pure on-surface to subsurface and finally above-surface warfare.
The first missiles used operationally was in WW2 with the German V-1 cruise missile and the V-2 ballistic missile.
Cruise missiles are generally powered by jets and follow a flat trajectory to its target. It didn't take long for the US and the USSR to mount such cruise missiles on their ships and the Regulus cruise missile became one of the first such operational naval missiles. The Soviets came up with the SS-N-1 Scrubber. These designs evolved into modern cruise missiles like the Harpoon, Tomahawk, and the SS-N-19 Shipwreck.
Another type of missile, the ballistic missile, follows a ballistic trajectory(that is, a parabola) from its launch point to its target. The Soviets developed the first ballistic-missile submarines, the Zulu-class, which carried modified Scud missiles. NATO responded with the Polaris. Today's naval ballistic missiles are exclusively carried on SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines), which carry modern D-5 Trident and SS-N-20 Seahawk ballistic nuclear missiles. With their immense firepower, these subs are considered one of the most powerful weapons in the world.
Antiship missiles are mostly cruise missiles with examples like the RGM-84 Harpoon, MBDA Exocet and others.
Lastly, warships also carry surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). These missiles are usually lighter than their land counterparts, examples being the SM-2 Standard, MBDA Sea Wolf and the SA-20 Gargoyle.
Missiles have become a major factor in naval warfare, with their high speed and long range forcing response times to become ever shorter. Clearly missiles will lead naval warfare into the future.
Missiles are considered one of the newer weapons to be used on ships today. Their uses include anti-surface, anti-air and even anti-submarine warfare. With their advent, naval warfare progressed from just pure on-surface to subsurface and finally above-surface warfare.
The first missiles used operationally was in WW2 with the German V-1 cruise missile and the V-2 ballistic missile.
Cruise missiles are generally powered by jets and follow a flat trajectory to its target. It didn't take long for the US and the USSR to mount such cruise missiles on their ships and the Regulus cruise missile became one of the first such operational naval missiles. The Soviets came up with the SS-N-1 Scrubber. These designs evolved into modern cruise missiles like the Harpoon, Tomahawk, and the SS-N-19 Shipwreck.
Another type of missile, the ballistic missile, follows a ballistic trajectory(that is, a parabola) from its launch point to its target. The Soviets developed the first ballistic-missile submarines, the Zulu-class, which carried modified Scud missiles. NATO responded with the Polaris. Today's naval ballistic missiles are exclusively carried on SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines), which carry modern D-5 Trident and SS-N-20 Seahawk ballistic nuclear missiles. With their immense firepower, these subs are considered one of the most powerful weapons in the world.
Antiship missiles are mostly cruise missiles with examples like the RGM-84 Harpoon, MBDA Exocet and others.
Lastly, warships also carry surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). These missiles are usually lighter than their land counterparts, examples being the SM-2 Standard, MBDA Sea Wolf and the SA-20 Gargoyle.
Missiles have become a major factor in naval warfare, with their high speed and long range forcing response times to become ever shorter. Clearly missiles will lead naval warfare into the future.
Shipborne Weapons - Torpedoes
2. Torpedoes
The modern definition for torpedoes came about during the 1870s as a self-propelled warhead that ran on or below the surface of the water. Previously the word torpedo also encompassed booby traps, land and naval mines and other 'hidden contact explosives'.
The first modern design for a torpedo came about in 1864 in Austria, where a naval officer proposed a manual rope-driven projectile floating on the water surface as a type of coastal defence. He brought the idea to Robert Whitehead, who thought of using first clockwork motors, then compressed air to power torpedoes. This culminated in the first true self-propelled torpedo, the Minenschiff (mine ship).
Gradual refinements improved performance but the basic compressed-air design remained essentially the same until 1904, when Whitehead's company developed the heated torpedo, which used injection and ignition of a liquid fuel into the compressed air to increase performance. The introduction of seawater as a coolant further increased performance by allowing more fuel to be burnt and later the steam generated from the seawater cooling the engine was also used as propulsion. As a result, by WW1 torpedoes could run 4 km at a high speed of 45 knots.
Between the war years, the Japanese tried substituting pure oxygen instead of plain compressed air (which contains only 21% oxygen) into their torpedoes. The result: the Type 93 'Long Lance' torpedo, reputedly the most advanced torpedo in the world at the time and even during WW2. It had a maximum range of 40km at 38 knots with a half-tonne warhead. By contrast, the standard U.S. destroyer-launched torpedo of WW2, the Mark XV, had a maximum range of 13.5km at 26.5 knots with a 375 kg warhead.
After WW2, types of propulsion for torpedoes diversified, including electric batteries, gas turbines and even rockets.
Most of today's torpedoes use either batteries or monopropellants, that is stable fuels that only react and produce energy under certain conditions. Most German and French torpedoes (including the Black Shark torpedo used on Malaysia's Scorpenes), are of the electric type. Most US and British torpedoes, however, use the Otto monopropellant gas turbine system. Examples include the Mark 48, 50 and 54 and the Tigerfish and Spearfish. Russian torpedoes use a mix of electric and fuel combustion systems.
A notable type of torpedo is the supercavitating torpedo, a torpedo that essentially forms a frictionless air bubble around itself. The Russian Shkval (Squall) is the apparent only example to date. Rocket-powered, this torpedo can run 13 km at an amazing 200+ knots!
Torpedoes have become an essential tool of naval warfare. Patrol boats, destroyers, cruisers, submarines and others carry them. Their hard-hitting capability ensures that they will be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come.
The modern definition for torpedoes came about during the 1870s as a self-propelled warhead that ran on or below the surface of the water. Previously the word torpedo also encompassed booby traps, land and naval mines and other 'hidden contact explosives'.
The first modern design for a torpedo came about in 1864 in Austria, where a naval officer proposed a manual rope-driven projectile floating on the water surface as a type of coastal defence. He brought the idea to Robert Whitehead, who thought of using first clockwork motors, then compressed air to power torpedoes. This culminated in the first true self-propelled torpedo, the Minenschiff (mine ship).
Gradual refinements improved performance but the basic compressed-air design remained essentially the same until 1904, when Whitehead's company developed the heated torpedo, which used injection and ignition of a liquid fuel into the compressed air to increase performance. The introduction of seawater as a coolant further increased performance by allowing more fuel to be burnt and later the steam generated from the seawater cooling the engine was also used as propulsion. As a result, by WW1 torpedoes could run 4 km at a high speed of 45 knots.
Between the war years, the Japanese tried substituting pure oxygen instead of plain compressed air (which contains only 21% oxygen) into their torpedoes. The result: the Type 93 'Long Lance' torpedo, reputedly the most advanced torpedo in the world at the time and even during WW2. It had a maximum range of 40km at 38 knots with a half-tonne warhead. By contrast, the standard U.S. destroyer-launched torpedo of WW2, the Mark XV, had a maximum range of 13.5km at 26.5 knots with a 375 kg warhead.
After WW2, types of propulsion for torpedoes diversified, including electric batteries, gas turbines and even rockets.
Most of today's torpedoes use either batteries or monopropellants, that is stable fuels that only react and produce energy under certain conditions. Most German and French torpedoes (including the Black Shark torpedo used on Malaysia's Scorpenes), are of the electric type. Most US and British torpedoes, however, use the Otto monopropellant gas turbine system. Examples include the Mark 48, 50 and 54 and the Tigerfish and Spearfish. Russian torpedoes use a mix of electric and fuel combustion systems.
A notable type of torpedo is the supercavitating torpedo, a torpedo that essentially forms a frictionless air bubble around itself. The Russian Shkval (Squall) is the apparent only example to date. Rocket-powered, this torpedo can run 13 km at an amazing 200+ knots!
Torpedoes have become an essential tool of naval warfare. Patrol boats, destroyers, cruisers, submarines and others carry them. Their hard-hitting capability ensures that they will be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come.
Shipborne Weapons - Naval Guns
Shipborne weapons have progressed from the mere sword and bow and arrow in ancient times to iron cannon in medieval times to a variety of surface, subsurface, and above surface weapons today.
Here is a list of the most common weapons used on naval platforms today:
1. Naval Gun/Cannon
Although the advent of gunpowder weapons came about in the 10th - 12th century AD, the first practical use of ship-mounted weapons only came about in the 15th century with sailing ships capable of mounting heavy guns on their decks. These cannon, though lethal, had a very slow rate of fire, and were too heavy to be maneuvered around in battle. Thus ships in the Age Of Sail had to mount large amounts of cannon on both sides of the ship to serve as a effective combat platform, and the action of firing a whole battery of guns on one side earned the term 'broadside'.
As technology progressed, sailing warships progressed from frigates to 'man-o-wars' to 'ships of the line', the line referring to the line of battle. Such ships of the line, the last major type of warship before the steam-powered ironclad, had up to three decks carrying over 120 cannon.
The USS Constellation, a typical frigate of the 18th century
With the advent of ironclads came a new innovation in gun design - the naval gun turret, first fielded on the USS Monitor. This invention enabled shipboard guns to be trained through a wide field, eliminating the need for large numbers of guns. Improvements in gun design also increased he range of naval engagements, and steam power became the main locomotive force for warships.
The USS Monitor
Most 19th century and early 20th century warships relied on increasingly larger calibre turret-mounted guns as their main armament while others, like destroyers, torpedo-boats and submarines, relied more on torpedoes to do damage. Such guns still did not have good gun accuracy, however, and in naval battles like Tsushima, the most number of hits scored on ships were still by smaller, faster-firing small-calibre guns which depended on luck and sheer rate of fire to strike the target, however damage was little.
The HMS Agammemmon, an example of a 'pre-dreadnought' like those at Tsushima
The improvement of gun aiming, directing and rangefinding helped solve the problem and in the 1900s, Britain came up with the first battleship that represented a revolution in naval warfare. HMS Dreadnought, was the first warship to feature all big-gun armament, and was heavily armoured, big pluses in battle.It represented such a major technological leap that all other warships that came after it and featured such designs were classified 'dreadnoughts'.
Aircraft and subsurface torpedoes, meanwhile, had matured into naval weapons and their superiority over the gun-armed battleship increased and culminated in the crippling and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck and the Japanese Yamato in WW2, both representing the pinnacle of battleship design, the latter's guns having a muzzle bore of 46 cm and able to hurl thousand-pound shells as far as 40+ km.
Even though this represented the end of the all-gun battleship as the premiere warship, the gun is still part and parcel of naval war platforms today. Every class of ship, from the humble patrol craft to the largest aircraft carrier, still carries guns for a whole range of purposes, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare, ship-to-ship engagements and ship-to-land bombardment. The muzzle bore for these weapons ranges from the 7.62mm machine gun to the 40mm autocannon to the 155mm advanced gun system on the new Zumwalt-class destroyer. In the near future, electromagnatic rail guns capable of firing projectiles at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 and above) are expected to be fielded on ships. Clearly the gun is still going to be with us for a long time to come.
Ironclad photo taken from
Here is a list of the most common weapons used on naval platforms today:
1. Naval Gun/Cannon
Although the advent of gunpowder weapons came about in the 10th - 12th century AD, the first practical use of ship-mounted weapons only came about in the 15th century with sailing ships capable of mounting heavy guns on their decks. These cannon, though lethal, had a very slow rate of fire, and were too heavy to be maneuvered around in battle. Thus ships in the Age Of Sail had to mount large amounts of cannon on both sides of the ship to serve as a effective combat platform, and the action of firing a whole battery of guns on one side earned the term 'broadside'.
As technology progressed, sailing warships progressed from frigates to 'man-o-wars' to 'ships of the line', the line referring to the line of battle. Such ships of the line, the last major type of warship before the steam-powered ironclad, had up to three decks carrying over 120 cannon.
The USS Constellation, a typical frigate of the 18th century
With the advent of ironclads came a new innovation in gun design - the naval gun turret, first fielded on the USS Monitor. This invention enabled shipboard guns to be trained through a wide field, eliminating the need for large numbers of guns. Improvements in gun design also increased he range of naval engagements, and steam power became the main locomotive force for warships.
The USS Monitor
Most 19th century and early 20th century warships relied on increasingly larger calibre turret-mounted guns as their main armament while others, like destroyers, torpedo-boats and submarines, relied more on torpedoes to do damage. Such guns still did not have good gun accuracy, however, and in naval battles like Tsushima, the most number of hits scored on ships were still by smaller, faster-firing small-calibre guns which depended on luck and sheer rate of fire to strike the target, however damage was little.
The HMS Agammemmon, an example of a 'pre-dreadnought' like those at Tsushima
The improvement of gun aiming, directing and rangefinding helped solve the problem and in the 1900s, Britain came up with the first battleship that represented a revolution in naval warfare. HMS Dreadnought, was the first warship to feature all big-gun armament, and was heavily armoured, big pluses in battle.It represented such a major technological leap that all other warships that came after it and featured such designs were classified 'dreadnoughts'.
Aircraft and subsurface torpedoes, meanwhile, had matured into naval weapons and their superiority over the gun-armed battleship increased and culminated in the crippling and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck and the Japanese Yamato in WW2, both representing the pinnacle of battleship design, the latter's guns having a muzzle bore of 46 cm and able to hurl thousand-pound shells as far as 40+ km.
Even though this represented the end of the all-gun battleship as the premiere warship, the gun is still part and parcel of naval war platforms today. Every class of ship, from the humble patrol craft to the largest aircraft carrier, still carries guns for a whole range of purposes, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare, ship-to-ship engagements and ship-to-land bombardment. The muzzle bore for these weapons ranges from the 7.62mm machine gun to the 40mm autocannon to the 155mm advanced gun system on the new Zumwalt-class destroyer. In the near future, electromagnatic rail guns capable of firing projectiles at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 and above) are expected to be fielded on ships. Clearly the gun is still going to be with us for a long time to come.
Ironclad photo taken from
Friday, January 16, 2009
Malaysia's AIROD confident of growth in Economic Challenging Times
AIROD is a Malaysian MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul) company.
According to THE STAR (published: Friday January 16, 2009), Airod Sdn Bhd is confident of a 10 percent growth in revenue this year, with its aggressive expansion into markets in Africa and the Middle East.
"In fact, to cope with the growing demand of MRO projects, Airod is planning two more new hanger facilities within the next two to three years."
At present, AIROD has 6 hangars.
The link to the story can be found here.
Click here to get to AIROD.
According to THE STAR (published: Friday January 16, 2009), Airod Sdn Bhd is confident of a 10 percent growth in revenue this year, with its aggressive expansion into markets in Africa and the Middle East.
"In fact, to cope with the growing demand of MRO projects, Airod is planning two more new hanger facilities within the next two to three years."
At present, AIROD has 6 hangars.
The link to the story can be found here.
Click here to get to AIROD.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Arrival of Malaysia's Newly Acquired Submarimes
According to The Star and Bernama on Friday Jan 9, Malaysia's newly acquired submarines are anticipated to arrive at the Sepanggar naval base in July, 2009.
Sepanggar Naval Base is located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. It is TLDM's HQ Naval Region II. TLDM Tanjung Gelang, Pahang is HQ Naval Region I.
The names of the two Scorpene submarines are
1) KD Tunku Abdul Rahman - expected in July
2) KD Tun Abdul Razak - expected at the end of the year
See also:
Scorpene Launch
Sepanggar Naval Base is located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. It is TLDM's HQ Naval Region II. TLDM Tanjung Gelang, Pahang is HQ Naval Region I.
The names of the two Scorpene submarines are
1) KD Tunku Abdul Rahman - expected in July
2) KD Tun Abdul Razak - expected at the end of the year
See also:
Scorpene Launch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)