The Sundang, RMN's second Keris-class littoral mission ship. Photo c/o RMN through Naval Today.





The second Keris-class littoral mission ship (LMS) for the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) was launched in China on 12 July 2019.





The ship, named Sundang (112), was built and launched by China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) in their shipyard in Wuhan, China under a MYR1.17 billion (US$265 million) contract signed on March 2017.





Originally, 2 ships will be built in China while the other 2 ships will be built in Malaysia by Boustead Naval Shipyard. But this was revised by the new government leadership and instead will have all 4 ships built in China to save on costs.





The first ship, named Keris, is expected to be be delivered to the RMN by December 2019. All four ships are scheduled to be delivered to the RMN by 2021.





The Chinese-made LMS are 68.8 meters long, with a beam of 9 meters and draft of 2.8 meters. It displaces at 700 tons full load, and with a maximum speed of 22 knots and range of 2,000 nautical miles at 15 knots.





It is armed with a 20mm or 30mm remote-controlled naval gun and two manually-operated 12.7mm heavy machine gun mounts. Further up-arming can be done but is currently not among the RMN’s urgent requirement.











