Chinese Firm Details Littoral Mission Ship Configuration For Malaysian Navy

China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co (CSOC) has revealed details of the Littoral Mission Ship (LMS) configuration it is proposing for Malaysian Navy (RMN).

The company, which will be working with Malaysian shipbuilder Boustead Naval Shipyard (BNS) on the project, is also displaying a model of the LMS for the first time at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) exhibition in Malaysia that runs from 21 to 25 March 2017.

“The LMS will have an overall length of 68.8 m and displace about 680 tonnes at full load. The vessel will have a top speed of 22 kt, and a standard range of about 2,000 n miles at 15 kt.” Pengfei Ren, a deputy general manager from the company's No 2 Military Product Department, was quoted as saying by IHS Jane's 360 Tuesday.

The LMS can be armed with either a 20 mm or 30 mm naval gun in a remote-controlled weapon station (RWCS) turret as a primary weapon, and can accommodate two 12.7 mm machine gun positions on the deck area behind the vessel's bridge.

The platform can carry one 20 ft containerised mission module on deck in the aft section, and can deploy and recover two rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) from launchers located at stern. This provides the ship the flexibility to be configured for a variety of missions including search-and-rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and maritime surveillance operations.

Pengfei was however not able to give an estimate on the ship's complement, saying that this is still under discussions with the Malaysian government and BNS. He also refused to say if the platform's main weapon system will be sourced from China.