WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-03-04 Time: 13:00:09 Posted By: Jan
Chief of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Refiloe Mudimu, has scotched any notion of the fleet under his command acquiring a fifth arms-deal frigate.
“We were going to exercise that option, but we elected not to exercise [it],” he told a media briefing in Cape Town on Monday, ahead of the Sea Power for Africa Symposium to be held in the city next week.
Mudimu said the SAN was set to establish what he called a balanced force.
“We elected to make a different request… to say that we need a balanced force. We are engaging government to discuss this notion of a balanced force… The fifth corvette [sic] is no longer a story with us.”
The SAN currently operates four Valour-class frigates, bought as part of the multi-billion-rand 1999 arms deal. In terms of this deal, an option existed to purchase a fifth frigate.
Mudimu said among the issues to be addressed at next week’s symposium, set to attract delegates from 31 African states, would be the lack of naval resources and vessels among many of the continent’s countries.
He said a solution to this problem would be an agreement to design an “indigenous, non-sophisticated offshore patrol vessel” that could be built in countries such as Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa and others.
“This proposal needs to be impressed upon the political masters of the continent so that the coastal and inland navies of Africa can effectively face the challenges in their waters and eradicate them at sea,” he said.
Expanding on this, Flag Officer Fleet, Rear-Admiral Robert Higgs, said such vessels were required by the SA Navy too.
“The SA Navy has a second-tier requirement where we should have a vessel of lesser sophistication than the frigates, but a vessel where the quality would be in quantity… Very robust vessels, built… very possibly in a South African shipyard.”
Higgs later told Sapa the SAN was looking at six such vessels, a combination of both in-shore and off-shore patrol vessels, to be built possibly in either Durban or Cape Town.
On the cost, he said an in-shore patrol boat would in the region of R100-million, but declined to put a figure on an off-shore vessel, saying this depended on how it was equipped.
The proposal to acquire such vessels, starting in 2012/13, had currently progressed as far as a department of defence planning document, he said.
The symposium, which runs from March 9 to 12, is expected to focus strongly on the piracy taking place off the Horn of Africa.
It will also examine issues such as smuggling, poaching and policing of economic exclusion zones. – Sapa
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20090304125523131C693252