Indonesian Navy is very lacking in surface combatant warship line up, the only thing worthy to mention is three Bung Tomo class, four Diponegoro class, two Martadinata class , meanwhile the other is not that much even as back up units the likes of five or six Ahmad Yani class frigates, Three Fatahillah class and around 14 Patimura class corvettes. And now Indonesian Navy had three Fleet units (Koarmada I, II, and III), as it is right now Indonesian Navy third fleet is literally a skeleton unit with only some patrol ships and boats along with some provisioned or loaned ships from other fleets made up the Third fleets surface combatant ships. Meanwhile for a while Indonesia had already sign the preamble contract for Danish OMS to supply the first pair of derivative of Itver Huitveld class to Indonesian Navy after preliminary design process and other thing to be finished. The process will take quite some time for the pair to joint the fleet. And at the same time the Ministry of Defense is still in process of negotiation for more warships to be built and added to fleets, including Japanese Frigate design FFM 30.
To address the matter, Ministry of Defense had formulate a plan is which is defense interim program. For the Navy, they are currently in search for readily available warships to fulfill Indonesian Navy needs. This very important as the Navy is had to use most of their available fleets to address many challenge, including patrolling in the hot contested area of North Natuna Sea, patrolling the pirate invested of Southern Mindanao of Sulu sea in which had naval border with North Kalimantan and North Sulawesi, along with patrolling in Ambalat sea in which contested by belligerent of Royal Malaysian Navy. That aside, Indonesian Navy must commited herself to tri nation joint Patrol for Malacca strait and safe guarding the three ALKI zones. And not stopped until that, Indonesian Navy itself is had to at stand by ready for training routine and international exercise like Komodo exercise and CARAT. With so many duties at hand, and related them with what Indonesian Navy had, there is large gap in Indonesian Navy major surface combatant units in which must be addressed as soon as possible. If not when coupled with Maintenance routine schedule and other thing like breakdown or capsize accidents because of high usage and wear tear of the hull vessels things will get more worse for the fleets, the Navy is surely underhanded and under equipped.
As it is currently stands right now, most of candidate is mainly came from European design. One of the serious contender is Germany Bremen class with hull number of F213 and F214 is currently under negotiation. The other ship under consideration is Maestrale class of Italian Navy, with hull number F 576 and F 577 is being under consideration. There is another talk with Japanese JMSDF for their older type of multi purpose of Destroyer Warship, but what kind of ship is under discussion and offer on the table there is not much can be talk here as it is still being classified for both sides. And there is another offer from friendly country, United Kingdom, but the offer is not reach into serious discussion stage and need to be follow up as soon as possible.
However, the process is should follow the carefully consideration and thoughtful process. In which must consider logistic issue, technological gap, hull age, maintenance issue and other thing to follow. For a time, there is a need to speed up the negotiation and transfer process, as currently stand right now Indonesian Navy can't stand anymore with this kind of high operational tempo without sacrificing much of what they had.
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