My pictures: South African Navy Vessels!

Great pictures 😉 Anna 🙂

Ja Worsley,

No worries mate, I do it all the time! At least it brought me some humour to an otherwise, really ****ty day ! 😉

Here we go SAS Outeniqua

Sorry mate, I should put my glasses on (yes I really do wear them) and read better, sorry again.

Ja Worsley that question has already been asked and answered on this thread :confused: :confused:

No it is not the A243 SAS Tafelberg which you are thinking of, for the answer, scroll above :diablo:

On closer inspection of one of the pics of Drak, I can see A-302 What ship is that? It looks similar in size and shape to Drak and I know that the SAN did have a second ship of that class but it was retired years ago due to lack of parts. Is this it???

I took the liberty to cut and resize the piece of the pic so that you could all see it as well.

Excellent pictures…I think we can start a spy ring! Just kidding 🙂

Love these pics, great call mate, I love Drak, wonder when they will replace her now, she is starting to get on a bit!

Those A-200 look fabulous, I also hear that they are now looking for new patrol boats and Tenix is on their list 😉

GDL, its better to have a good radar even if your stick (SAM) is short. atleast you can maintain information dominance over a wide swathe of sea/air. other assets can be cued in if need be.

a big western 3D air search radar on a redesigned rear mast.
for a 3500t ship its armament is very light.

It is purley a patrol corvette, despite the size. And the main radar fitted I believe is South African made (it looks a bit like SMART-S). So perhaps there is a reason why they don’t have anything larger on the main mast. A larger more powerful radar is not only going to cost more, but it will require a better combat system to support it. And as for cuing other assets, again you will need additional control chanels, either built in to a multi-function 3D air/surface search set, or in seperate fire control radars. More expense. I am not sure what room has been left in the SAN MEKOs for growth, but clearly, as least for now, they didn’t intend to field anything more capable. And I suspect cost was the main reason.

Hello SSN,

Hello, do you happen to know what ship is on the right in this picture: (img)
The one with the straight-up superstructure and white satcoms antenna on top of its bridge…
Can’t read the number.Do you have pictures of that one too?
thanks.
Regs
SSN.

As Mpacha nicely explained, it’s the auxiliary ship “A 302 / SAS Outeniqua”. It’s a decommisionded vessel, or just to be. The A 302 can be read in the hull, although it’s easier in my 1,3MB pic in my hard drive. 🙂

SAS Outeniqua bows out
31/07/2004 11:11 – (SA)

Cape Town – The navy’s long-serving workhorse, the SAS Outeniqua, is being formally retired from the service – though she still has a lot of life left in her.

The decommissioning of the 12-year old vessel marks a shift in the navy’s capability and spending priorities resulting in part from its acquisition of new corvettes.

“She’s been a very good ship: she took part in some major operations,” navy director of special tasks Rear Admiral Arne Söderlund said on Friday.

But he added: “By losing her the navy’s not going to lose any real capability whatsoever.”

He said Armscor, the marketing and acquisitions arm of the defence force, would be given a brief to market the 21 000 ton vessel, which has an icebreaking capability.

He himself would suggest she be offered to the department of environmental affairs and tourism, which made extensive use of the Outeniqua when it was building a new base in Antarctica in the late 1990s.

But she could equally go to another government, or to the private sector, he said.

‘Sealift’

The Outeniqua’s main purpose in the navy was to provide “sealift” – transport of vehicles and heavy equipment in support of operations ashore.

She could also back up the SAS Drakensberg in offering combat support for other vessels, replenishing supplies of fuel, water, missiles and ammunition.

However, Söderlund said she was able to carry only a fraction of the 590 tons needed to fully refuel only one of the new corvettes, and was slow.

In addition the navy was having to manage on an increasingly tight operating budget.

“So we must make the best use of what we’ve got, and the priority must go to the new hulls,” he said. “Her time has come.”

Still in ‘very good nick’

The Outeniqua was still in “very good nick” and had another 12 to 15 years of life left in her.

“She’s just come back from Saldanha and a trip to Durban. She’s running well, so we’re optimistic we’ll find a decent buyer for her.”

He said the navy had no need to mothball her, and this would also be too expensive.

The Outeniqua was launched at the Kherson shipyards in the Ukraine in September 1991 as the Alexander Sledzuk.

She was bought on behalf of the SA Navy in 1993, as a replacement vessel for the ageing fleet replenishment vessel SAS Tafelberg.

The Outeniqua was used as a platform for peace talks initiated by then president Nelson Mandela off the coast of the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1997.

She delivered the world’s largest mobile hospital and emergency supplies to Trieste, Italy, for victims of the war in Boznia-Herzegovina in 1993.

Edited by Elmarie Jack

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1565889,00.html

GDL, its better to have a good radar even if your stick (SAM) is short. atleast you can maintain information dominance over a wide swathe of sea/air. other assets can be cued in if need be.

a big western 3D air search radar on a redesigned rear mast.
for a 3500t ship its armament is very light.

That is the decommissioned SAS Outeniqua, ex-Aleksander Sledzyuk.

Hello, do you happen to know what ship is on the right in this picture:

The one with the straight-up superstructure and white satcoms antenna on top of its bridge…
Can’t read the number.Do you have pictures of that one too?
thanks.

Regs
SSN.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/meko/

good ships. but they need a big radar to be more effective.

Why? They are only fitted with point defence missiles for air defence.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/meko/

good ships. but they need a big radar to be more effective.

Will the Meko’s be fitted with a gun in the “A” position? It looks really bare there right now. How many vertical launch cells do these ships carry? I know they are armed with the South African designed Umkhonto-IR missile.

J33Nelson

With such pics Im starting to doubt that Brazil has the most powerful navy at the south hemisphere ( along with Australia ) …

CE,

Don’t worry. Love the photos!! Not a lot of the modern SAN out there. The new MEKO corvettes look great! Thanks heaps for posting them.

🙂

Glenn 🙂

Thanks mate! They are really very beautiful vessels, it was a lot of luck to see them “in the flesh” ! 😎

The A 630 “Marne” is to deliver two South African Namacurras patrol boats to Mozambique, which France has upgraded.

SAS Amatola / F 145. Sorry, not only the weather was miserable, but this angle was also impaired by those masts..

CE,

Don’t worry. Love the photos!! Not a lot of the modern SAN out there. The new MEKO corvettes look great! Thanks heaps for posting them.

🙂