Indonesian navy testing Yakhont missile
Posted on 05/31/2011 5:43:00 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Indonesia Re-Arms Retired Frigates
May 17, 2011
Thought to be obsolete by NATO standards since 1985, the six retired Ahmad Yani class frigates have been given a new lease on life.
The traditional low-tech/high-tech mix of technology throughout time has taken its latest jump. Indonesia, one of the world's largest countries with the most coastlines to protect of almost any maritime country, has long sat on the fence between the technology of the east (Soviet/Warsaw Pact) and the technology of the west (US/NATO). Currently it has taken an old historical warship and added a new twist to its armament to make it one of the most powerful ships in the region
The Dutch Van Speijk Class frigates
Starting in 1959, with a hundred Soviet submarines lurking in the Atlantic, NATO navies went on the search for a modern frigate to replace the myriad of converted WWII-era destroyers and sloops, which were fast becoming obsolete. In the UK the Leander class (Type 12-I) frigates were designed to meet this problem.
These 26 sleek modern ships were completed for the UK, Holland (as the Van Speijk class), New Zealand, Australia, India and Chile. For more than three decades, these ships played cat and mouse games with the Soviet navy, fought the Cod War in Iceland, chased smugglers in the Dutch East Indies, enforced dozens of UN Security Council resolutions, and were the backbone of the Royal Navy in the Falklands. Holland decommissioned its six lucky and hard-used Leander/Van Speijk Class frigates in the late 1980s as the Cold War wound down. Indonesia picked up the ships at a bargain price and renamed them the Ahmad Yani class.
Specifications
As built, the Leander/Van Speijk/Ahmad Yani Class frigates were 2850-tons fully loaded on a 372-foot (113-m) long hull. They have been rebuilt with new Caterpillar diesel engines replacing the legacy steam propulsion plants, which propel their 40+ year old hulls at 24-knots. A newer more effective 76mm Oto Melera main gun has replaced the older 113mm dual mount. The unsupported Sea Cat missile launchers have been supplemented with French made Sinbad/Mistrals surface to air missiles.
Anti-ship missile upgrades
Originally equipped with an older version of the US-made Harpoon antiship missile, these ships have been upgraded with the new Yingji-82 (C-802 NATO reporting name CSS-N-8 Saccade) sea skimming missile from China. These missiles have a very low attack path and practice anti-jamming, which places them among the most modern afloat. The 20-foot long C-802 can carry a 365-pound (165-kg) warhead to a range of 60-miles.
Amazingly one of the class, the KRI Oswald Siahaan, has been equipped with four vertical launch cells for the huge Soviet OKB-52 3K-55/3 M-55 Yakhont (SS-N-26) missiles. The supersonic rocket-ramjet Yakhont weighs 3 tons at launch, is over 30-feet long, and uses a liquid propellant for the ramjet, which propels it up to an amazing Mach 2.5. With a range of up to 150-miles and a 660-pound warhead, the Yakhont is thought to only give a 45-second warning from detection to impact on even Aegis-equipped ships. When a ripple of all four of these large instant shipwrecks are fired at one target, even the best-armed vessel would be hard pressed to avoid a hit.
The Indonesian Navy has turned the corner by taking these old warships, which most other countries would have turned into fishing reefs by now, and making them heavy hitters for maritime patrol on a budget
Sources
•Adams, Thomas A. Dutch Leanders: The Van Speijk Class. Warship. VI. London: Conway Maritime Press. 1982
•Sharpe, Richard CAPT. Janes Fighthing Ships, various editions.
•Tsarev V., Melnikov V., “Yakhont -New Generation Antiship Missile”, Military Parade, Exclusives, 2000.
Indonesian navy testing Yakhont missile
Holy crap... that air search radar looks like it will capsize the entire ship.
Interesting that the IN. I wonder who makes the tech that ties their fire contol electronics together in the CINC?
air search radar sez “here I am!”
What the hell kind of sailor are you, Dude? That's the Main Topsail.
Ping
hahahahahaha
Mounted way low down there. No chance
BTW, with all these navies buying all these cool, heavily armed and deadly destroyers, how come more of the Somali Pirates ain't dead?
There are 57 moslem satanic nations who bully the rest. If I was admiral those people would die quickly
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