Indonesia Considering Four Frigate Options

March 18, 2021

The Indonesian defence ministry is currently considering four candidates for its next frigate surface warship. The four options being considered are Italy’s FREMM from Fincantieri, United Kingdom’s Arrowhead 140 from Babcock, Japan’s Mitsui 30FFM, and Netherland’s Improved Sigma from Damen. The proposed acquisition of the warship in 2024, under the country’s weapon procurement program (MEF), is to meet the Indonesian Navy ‘s requirements.

This procurement program is meant to replace the aging Ahmad Yani class frigates which have been serving in Indonesian Navy (TNI-AL) since the late 1980’s. The Ahmad Yani class frigates themselves were built in the Netherlands as Van Speijk class frigates which the first ship of its class was built in 1964.

The TNI-AL has already commissioned two Damen’s Sigma 10514 class – also known in Indonesia as Martadinata class – frigates: KRI Raden Eddy Martadinata (331) dan KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai (332), both of which have been in active duty since 2017 and 2018 respectively. However, it still remains to be seen if the next frigates will come from the same source especially when considering that those new offers are mostly in the 130 m – 140 m length class while the Damen’s Sigma offer is around 115 meters.

The Martadinata class frigates have 105.1 meters length, 14 meters width and 3.7 meters draft. Aside from a single 76 mm naval cannon from Leonardo (Oto Melara) on each ship, the 30 knots maximum speed, 4,000 nautical miles range frigates are also armed with 8 MM-40 Exocet anti ship missiles, 35 mm Millenium Gun close-in weapon system as well as VL MICA anti aircraft missiles.

Source: