Defense Minister Wants The Indonesian Defense Industry To Be Able To Production Of Destroyer Warships

Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto heard an explanation from PT PAL regarding the progress of the construction of the Red and White frigate at the PT PAL shipyard, Surabaya, East Java, Tuesday (23/1/2024). ANTARA/HO-Team Media Prabowo Subianto.

JAKARTA - Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto expressed his hope for the domestic defense industry to be able to build warships of the type of destroyer or destroyer, even warships with anti-detection technology (sealth).

Prabowo explained that the plan to build destroyer ships must begin to be explored after the 41-unit modernization project of warships is completed.

"Possibly after this modernization, we have to build a destroyer. We have to build more modern light attack ships, high speed with powerful weapons, but low-radar so that they can move undetected, if possible," said the Minister of Defense at the PT PAL shipyard, reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, January 24.

Prabowo is optimistic that the domestic defense industry will be able to build these warships considering that currently PT PAL is in the stage of building a frigate-type warship, whose project is called the Red and White Frigate, an order from the Indonesian government.

"I am very proud that the construction of the frigate, the largest warship we have ever built, but this time we built is really 100 percent in Indonesia without technical assistance from foreign countries," he said.

The Ministry of Defense ordered two units of frigates to PT PAL. On August 25, 2023, PT PAL managed to pass the ship's paid-off (keel laying) stage for a ship ordered by the Ministry of Defense.

The frigate is projected to be operational and can strengthen the Indonesian Navy by 2028. Red and White frigates, which are still in the development stage, have a length of 140 meters and a weight (placement) of 5,996 tons.

The Minister of Defense believes that Indonesia has a strong Indonesian Navy considering that Indonesia's two-thirds are oceans. Indonesia's territorial area reaches at least 6.4 million square kilometers.

"We built the strength of our war force, the power of our arsenal (naval weapons artillery) because we are a very large country, our sea is very large. We control sea lanes, very strategic straits are the target of many countries," said Prabowo.

Therefore, the modernization of the Indonesian Navy's fleet is important so that Defense Minister Prabowo hopes that the project will be completed quickly.

PT PAL, which led the project to modernize the 41 warships, reported to Defense Minister Prabowo that the construction progress reached 40 percent. A total of 25 warships have been repaired.

Several types of ships included in the modernization project include fast patrol boat (FBB) class, Parchimclass, PKRclass, Sigmaclass, Bung Tomoclass, and Corvette Fatahillahclass.

Prabowo, at the same location, also asked the Indonesian Navy to study other ships that also need modernization. "Please review all platforms that we can modernize, we will modernize," he said.