If one of South Africa’s new Multi Mission Inshore Patrol Vessels (MMIPVs) was to set sail at the tip of the country’s western most border and sail to the easternmost border at 20 knots an hour, it would take the ship 6 ½ days to complete the patrol.
The reality of that situation, says former Dutch naval officer and now Damen Naval senior consultant Ed Veen, is that the three ships envisaged by Project Biro – and made by Damen Shipyards Cape Town (DSCT) – will hardly make a dent in protecting South Africa’s maritime integrity.
To properly secure South Africa’s maritime security needs, the relevant defence planners have to consider not what the country’s needs are now, but what they will be like in ten years’ time – as well as what the technology could look like then.
Speaking at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2024 Conference on maritime security, organised by defenceWeb, Veen said while defence spending was a marathon not a sprint, defence equipment has a very finite lifespan at an average of 30 years from initial deployment before age catches up and seriously affects the equipment’s ability to be multi-tasked or maintained before becoming obsolete.
The problem is that from deciding on what a country needs to secure its sovereignty to actually acquiring the materiel and then deploying it, could take 10 years from devising the policy plan, setting aside the budget, drafting a white paper, issuing a Request for Information and then a Request for Quotations, drafting the contact, doing the build, and then delivering the equipment, by which stage the government would in all probability be on its third administration.
It was vital, Veen said, to understand what a country’s needs are now and then look into the future to see what they will be when the equipment is actually delivered.
In this case, South Arica’s greatest need is the fact that the SAS Drakensberg is past its normal service life at 37 years old, while the River Class Minesweeper SAS Umkomaas was commissioned six years earlier in 1981. The ships’ increasing age makes them difficult to maintain and to re-task because their systems will become obsolete and impossible to upgrade through age.
South Africa, he said, has no maritime disputes to contend with but has major security issues with smuggling, poaching and illegal migration. With at least 90% of all trade to and from South Africa going by sea, which has to be protected within South Africa’s territorial waters, the country’s other concern is the pillaging of its marine resources, when 75% of the major global fisheries have been either over-exploited or already depleted.
“The boundary of the planning process is set by the budget and the challenge is to set the capabilities versus the expected threats.”
Ukraine, Gaza and the Red Sea, however, have created a paradigm shift in how wars are waged, with drones becoming the technology of the future.
“Drones won’t replace service ships, but they will change the way they work,” he said, which is why Damen is proposing that the South African Navy consider building a multi-purpose support ship that would double as a drone mother ship for the fleet to replace the Drakensberg, just as the Portuguese Navy is doing.
“This new type of ship, the Damen MPSS 9000 can support multiple tasks, provide more flexibility in time and design and can have more capabilities added.”
The suggested vessel, at 130 metres in length, would be able to do replenishment at sea, fulfil hydrographic functions and humanitarian missions while conducting law enforcement support both in surveillance and interceptions because of the drones and helicopters it would carry as well as small boats (RHIBs).
The support ship, Veen said, could replace the three ships that the SA Navy needs to replace and could even be built in Cape Town, although the existing shipyards would have to be expanded to do so as the existing infrastructure is a bit small for a vessel of this size.
