Duncan Looi
MALAYSIA’S defence ministry has selected the ATMACA anti-ship missile (AShM) from Turkiye’s ROKETSAN as the preferred substitute for Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile (NSM) to arm the Royal Malaysian Navy’s (RMN) soon to be ready Maharaja-Lela-class frigates. The selection was confirmed by the defence minister Khaled Nordin after proposals from Turkiye, France and Italy were evaluated for the replacement programme.
According to the minister, negotiations with ROKETSAN would begin before the acquisition is finalised. “We have reached the stage of determining which country would be the best source of an alternative to replace our missiles. That country is Turkiye. In terms of price, delivery timeline and the initial costs we would have to incur, we have decided that the missile from Turkiye is the best option for us to consider as a replacement for the NSM missiles from Norway.”
Malaysia was due to take delivery of the NSMs from Kongsberg but the deal was axed by Norway’s last-minute decision to revoke certain licences related to the export of specific defence technology to Malaysia The country had signed a deal with Kongsberg in 2018 for the purchase of NSMs to be equipped onboard the LCS vessels being built and had previously planned to procure more NSMs for use on other RMN warships.
He added that the ministry had been assured of compatibility with the ships’ existing combat management system (CMS) and that the missiles could be delivered as early as 2029 because Malaysia had already ordered the ATMACA for its Tunku-class Littoral Mission Ship Batch 2 (LMSB2) also from Turkiye’s STM. “A fresh procurement, without the existing LMS order, would take about 30 months, potentially pushing delivery to 2029. However, because we have already ordered them for our LMS vessels, we will receive them earlier, as some of the missiles can be supplied ahead of schedule. Perhaps by 2029. So, it will not be 2035,” Khaled said.
In April, ROKETSAN received a US$93m contract for 24 surface-to-surface missiles (SSM) which were likely the ATMACA for the three ships in the LMSB2 programme. The first LMSB2 vessel–Laksamana Abdul Jalil was launched just about a month later in May and slated for handover to the RMN by the end of 2027 in September while the second vessel–Raja Laut was launched in June and also expected to be delivered a month after the first. With the ATMACA selected for the NSM replacement, it would reportedly see ATMACA missiles originally meant for the LMSB2 to be allocated to the LCS programme instead. Additional expenditure would possibly be incurred for ATMACA launchers and integration with the LCS’ SETIS CMS from Naval Group.
On the NSM issue, the minister said that Malaysia has moved on from the fact that the missiles would not be delivered despite having paid for them, moving to pursue contractual dispute resolution. The first stage of negotiations towards an amicable settlement bore no fruits and will now subsequently proceed by establishing a dispute resolution committee involving both parties. If no resolution is reached at that point, the third option would be arbitration that could be conducted in Malaysia although the process would take time and not a guarantee that the company would comply with an eventual arbitration decision.–-shp/adj/dl (Pix:TURKIYE MND)
