![]() ![]() ![]() Normally a Ming class boat supports a crew of 57. In 2003, an accident aboard an aged Ming class submarine, China’s Navy Submarine No. It is no surprise that the two worst submarine accidents in the Pacific involved old submarines carrying more people than planned. Put another way, to secure the busy Indonesian archipelago, the two Cakras have likely been asked to do far more over their service lives than Ecuador and Venezuela’s tiny submarine fleets ever have. Aged subs do not respond well to the pressures of enhanced maritime competition, and they are best suited to standard, routine deployments and a relatively quiet operational career. Old submarines suffer when the operator is unable to maintain strict operational and maintenance protocols. Rather than procure a robust and simple set of “torpedoes in a can,” aspiring small navies end up struggling to operate persnickety, high-tech marvels that have a price tag to match. That’s all well and good, but prospective sub buyers, intoxicated by the prestige of it all, often get far more sub than they can handle. For many submarine proliferators, their general mission is to try and offset their own expenses by enticing buyers to obtain the highest-tech submarine possible. The only problem is that few submarine exporters are interested in producing simple undersea craft. But the threat posed by the two diminutive submarines forced the International Force East Timor ( INTERFET) to supplement their defensive posture by deploying maritime patrol aircraft, expanding their amphibious fleet to 13 surface combatants and positioning other high-value anti-submarine assets.įor the majority of sub users, simple submarines remain enormously useful. Twenty years ago, during the 1999 East Timor crisis, Indonesia’s Cakra class submarines were, by submarine standards, already ancient. Few navies learned this lesson as well as Indonesia. ![]()
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