German takeover? The HMNLS Karel Doorman will be under joint Dutch-German command, German Sea Battalion units being put under Dutch military



Germany and the Royal Netherlands Navy have signed a letter of intent (LOI) marking the start of the development of a Joint Support Ship initiative and amphibious operation capability. Under the Joint Support Ship initiative, the Dutch-German military cooperation will see the transport of soldiers and their equipment between land and sea.

The agreement is aimed at fostering military ties between both nations. According to the LOI, Germany will use the Dutch 205m-long ship, HNLMS Karel Doorman (A833), which is designed to be capable to carry Leopard 2 battle tanks.

The Dutch ship Karel Doorman is equipped with the required crew to deploy itself to a range of services including ferrying personnel and equipments to other ships as well as offer amphibious landing operations with heavy equipment and Bundes Marine-helicopters.

The German and the Dutch armed forces are also deepening their naval forces collaboration by planning to integrate the so-called sea battalion of the German Navy gradually into the Royal Dutch Navy until 2018.

The German sea battalion, which has about 800 servicemen, consists of a naval protection force, mine-clearance divers and boarding soldiers and is stationed in Northern Germany.

A technical agreement to integrate the Dutch 43rd mechanized brigade into the 1st Panzer Division of the German Army was also signed, after being announced last year. Von der Leyen had previously unveiled plans for a multinational Armored Division for training and exercise with up to 20,000 soldiers in the coming year. She described the Dutch-German military cooperation as an example for setting up a European defense union.

With Thursday's agreement, the Netherlands have officially put two of their three Army brigades under German command. Already in 2014 the Dutch 11th Air Mobile Brigade was integrated into the German Division of fast forces (DSK).

EU leaders push for EU joint military force



The leaders of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic met ahead of the EU summit.

Lately many Central and Eastern European nations have been pushing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to begin discussions over the formation of a joint EU military.

Bohuslav Sobotka, the Czech prime minister, said that only “E.U.-wide armed forces will allow us to defend our interests on our own.” He added that such a force would become a “more actionable and reliable partner”.

Hungary’s right wing prime minister Viktor Orban was quoted at the talks as saying: “We must prioritize security, and let’s start by building a common European army.”

The leftist Czech Premier Bohuslav Sobotka perpetuated Orban’s remarks by adding: “…we should also begin a discussion about creating a common European army.”

Merkel was quoted saying that, “Security is a fundamental issue,” and that Europe, “…can do more together in the areas of security and defense.” The plans could potentially come to be as early as December as EU President Jean-Claude Juncker called for the construction of a new EU headquarters which could later be used as mission control for an EU army.

A German defense white paper recently released argues strongly for a German-led EU army and was ordered by Angela Merkel to be kept under wraps until after the British referendum vote on June 23. It reveals a radical change in German plans to not only boost its present army’s mandate in troubled hotspots around the world, but also clearly states that it should be running any multinational military organizations, such as the proposed EU army.

Germany to double defense funding to €60 Billion Euros in accordance with new defense policy



German taxpayers will be asked to shell out more money - lots more money - to fund the country's army, the Bundeswehr. That was one message that Chancellor Angela Merkel had at a conference of young conservatives this weekend in the city of Paderborn.

Merkel told representatives from her Christian Democratic Union's youth organizations that Germany would be increasing its military spending to 2 percent of GDP, in line with an agreement that NATO states reached in 2014. The country currently spends around 1.2 percent of GDP on the Bundeswehr.

"In the 21st century, we won't be getting as much help as we got in the 20th," Merkel said. "We need to greatly increase the Bundeswehr budget to get from 1.2 to 2 percent."

To meet that target, Germany's defense spending would have to rise to some 60 billion euros ($65.8 billion). The current planned military budget for the year 2020 is 39.2 billion euros.

Look like no chance of that, since now since the RMN 15 to 5 plan involves the expansion of the NGPV (ie the Kedah class) fleet from 6 to 18 ships we may see the entire 13 states and 3 federal territories' names (plus a few others) on those ships.

At least can see the value of the TOT we bought with the Meko 100 Corvettes. Hopefully our local yards can accomplish this.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 12 2016, 06:10 PM

NORINCO latest vehicle video presentation



ZBL-09 105mm MGS can shoot tube-launched ATGM.

Possible, but probably restricted to submarines, though.

The Scorpene subs are already classified as Perdana Menteri-class. So unlikely other ships will have PM names.

It didn't help that the NGPV (Kedah-class) was originally supposed to be just that, a modern patrol vessel to replace the old Handalan-class patrol boats. The original requirement for the NGPV was supposed to be a 60-70 meter vessel with a displacement of around 300 tons. That was the cause the NGPV was originally envisioned as a 27-boat fleet, as the patrol vessels would be cheap enough to be built at that number.

For some bizarre reason the more expensive and complex corvette-sized MEKO 100 design was selected for what was supposed to be a simple medium-sized patrol vessel. We never projected for a (far more expensive) corvette in the first place which was what we were essentially stuck with. That's why we were reduced to a mere 6 ships out of the original plan of 27 NGPVs, as we could never afford a 27-ship fleet of corvettes.

As the budget for the NGPV project was far lower than what these corvettes are worth if they were fully armed, they were de-weaponized with the 'fitted for but not with' feature by the manufacturer to bring the price down to what is acceptable to the RMN.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 14 2016, 01:14 PM

Haha this is ridiculous. When was it legal to do so anyway?

huh?

Assuming the children are also PR & live in SG la (ie 2nd gen PR).....

If the kids lived with their grandparents in JB of course la not applicable. U make it sound like children of PR automatically compulsory NS.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 15 2016, 11:14 AM

I'm familiar with the planned MMEA 44-meter NGPC made by Destini Shipbuilding (below), but what's this?


MMEA 44-meter NGPC model at DSA 2016

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 16 2016, 08:54 AM

I'm also interested with the eventual fates of the RMN ships not part of the 15 to 5 plan. What do you all think? Sold, donated, scrapped or passed to APMM?

There's quite a number of still good assets which would be surplus to requirements, like the Lekiu class frigates. Also, are the TLDM-affiliated auxiliary vessels like Bunga Mas 5, Bunga Mas 6 and the Tun Azizan affected by the 15 to 5 plan?

I think expansion of NGPVs (Kedah-class) will cost more. 18 ships of LMS are pretty cheap, the 12 NGPVs planned to be added to the current 6 ships will probably cost a lot more.

IMHO Hydrographic surveying is an auxiliary duty at best anyway, so we don't actually need dedicated naval vessels for it if we don't have the money. Contracting a civilian survey firm for this duty is totally acceptable.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 16 2016, 12:38 PM

Minimal number of crew? Wiki says current full complement is 78 (as an OPV), if full missile weapons systems the number of crew will be 98.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Nov 16 2016, 03:17 PM

Seriously, what is the problem with the Kedah-class not equipped with missiles? At least the Exocets if not the SeaRAM?

IIRC the RMN has a good number of Exocets. In the grand scope of things, is it so costly to install a few on the Kedah-class? A ship only needs 8 missiles anyway (assuming the on-board FCS can already support them).

What arms race? The RMN is as bare bones as it is.

TNI arming up like crazy and I have yet to see any kind of arms race.

I'm reaching out on a limb here, but is it possible to take out the Exocet launch units from the old missile boats that we're about to retire on arrival of the LMS and install them on the Kedah-class OPVs? IIRC Exocet systems are pretty modular anyway. If the FCS is already installed and all it takes is for to activate it is the installation of launch units why not go for it?

It still doesn't solve the Kedah-class' current lack of anti-air capabilities, but hey, at least it's better than nothing.

Sea and launched missiles are contained in their own protective crates which also acts as their launch platforms. The crates are pretty environment-proof as they are sealed and waterproofed. The solid fuel also are pretty stable and long-lasting. Only the air-launched version is 'naked' at launch but these are also crated until used.

Just need to do regular diagnostics to make sure systems are ok.