An Arleigh Burke might see more use in a year than these ships saw in 50. The Myanmar Navy (MN) has commissioned its first-ever landing platform dock (LPD) amphibious assault ship. The Burmese took care to include everything else and initially at least, the Burmese fleet rolls listed UBS Yan Gyi Aung as a minesweeper. The radar in this photo is an I-band navigation set added later in Burma after the WWII Type 271 became inoperable.). the Red Flag campaign: During the early 1960s Burma’s Rakhine coast (the northwest seaboard up to the border with Bangladesh, at that time East Pakistan) had two simultaneous problems: a muslim separatist issue and the Burma Red Flag communists, also called Thakin Soe after their leader. And then there’s the Zumwalts. It was one single active transducer in a streamlined pod that could be raised or lowered into the keel. The Myanmar Navy is the naval warfare branch of the armed forces of Myanmar. F14 Sin Phyushin guided missile frigate is the flagship of the Myanmar Navy. Another possibility is several companies in Kaohsiung, Taiwan which discretely re-exported parts taken from WWII-era American warships scrapped in Taiwan during the 1970s and 1980s. The astern depth charge racks were also not reinstalled. In 1980 UBS Mayu was shoved up into a muddy nook on the east bank of the Bago river, about 3 NM downriver from downtown Yangon. Advertisement In September, the Myanmar Navy quietly garnered a new milestone when it received a landing platform dock (LPD) ship, MN Moattama. The same could be said for the decomissioned Spurances and Ticonderogas. Late in WWII, this was not uncommon. It had a low (1,300fps) muzzle velocity and very limited anti-aircraft ability. If we still had a naval reserve, the Sprunces would have made the best reserve destroyers since WWII. Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba leaves on a 4-day visit to Myanmar 14 Jul, 2018, 02.02 PM IST Officers from the Myanmar Navy are also embarked on the Indian naval ships for the first time as part of the international training exchange programme. Before 1988, the Myanmar Navy was small and its role in the many counterinsurgency operations was much less conspicuous than those of the army and air force. (The permanently-landed UBS Mayu as seen from the Bago river in 2014.). I dont believe they would have done an extensive rebuild before they even had helicopters in the country, let alone in the navy. Seventy-two years ago today, the vessel Mayu, which would become the first flagship of the Myanmar Navy, was presented to General Aung San by British Lieutenant Commander Mitchell. Before 1988, the Myanmar Navy was small and its role in the many counterinsurgency operations was much less conspicuous than those of the army and air force. What is today Myanmar was annexed by Great Britain in 1886 as part of Raj India. The Myanmar navy uses this quay as a sort of “overflow lot” for the main naval pier on the other side of the new Thilawa Container Port inbetween them. (artwork via navypedia website). I have a 1962/63 Jane’s Fighting Ships and there is a photo of UBS Mayu in there taken in 1960. Burma didnt have any helicopters at all until 1959 when their air force got a dozen Bell 47s. The weapons fit was rounded out by ten 20mm AA guns (when HMS Fal transferred to Burma after WWII, this had already been reduced to eight). Xavier Vavasseur 03 Nov 2019 The website VL.ru Novosti Vladivostok (News Vladivostok) shares many pictures of the vessel. The sonars were inoperable by the late 1960s. In addition to the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy, twenty different navies (including Burma) operated these warships. Most machinery and big diesels can be rebuilt as long as parts are available. Both are only visible dead-astern, being otherwise concealed by the dummy funnel. Weapon systems, radar can be upgraded and so on. It shows UMS Yan Gyi Aung having moved since January but still at the “power station pier”. Well I am sure this hello pad was done at least by the year 1960. The first, USS Admirable (MSF-136) commissioned on 20 April 1943. (A view of UBS Mayu showing the main gun and replacement radar. I remember in the yards, 2 sister ships come in, one in great condition and the other a rust bucket with major casualties the crew could have handled. As news of the unusual ghost ship made the rounds in the area of Yangon, the country’s largest city, the Myanmar Navy was drafted for assistance. It’s hard maintain a ship forever without longer maintenance periods between deployments. Local fishermen joined nine navy ships, five military aircraft and three helicopters in the search, the military spokesman said. The emphasis was on not having one particular subcontractor delay a ship due to a production bottleneck down the supply stream. As WWII played out, all three assumptions were wrong. Pathein campaign: Pathein is city of the Irrawaddy delta on Myanmar’s southern coastal seaboard, about 80 miles overland due west of Yangon and about 200 NM sailing distance. In 1948, anti-government rebels were occupying fortifications left over from WWII and proved impossible to dislodge from land. USN gets rid of ships at about 20-30 years. The navy has since been expanded to take on a more active role in defense of Myanmar's territorial waters. By early 2011, both were again active. The Myanmar Navy is based around surface combatants, ... Myanmar has started to consider its maritime security environment more seriously, but it will take more than new ships … If they’re going to keep the cruisers we have now, the youngest is 28 years. (UMS Yan Gyi Aung - USS Creddock (MSF-356) during WWII - fires a gun salute… The shipyard construction was started in 1964 and completed in 1969. The planned naval helicopters were never acquired (although one Burmese veteran recounted that a helicopter of some sort did make at least one successful test landing on UBS Mayu) and the whole effort was essentially a waste. A third photo, which shows a weapon being fired from a ship, was also published on the Myanmar navy's Facebook page here on October 18, 2019. Myanmar Navy Ensign Ultimate Table Flag Myanmar 6' X 10' Nylon Flag Myanmar (Burma) Fly Breeze Myanmar Flag 3x5 Foot Tags: Navy Ships India , Myanmar Missile Power , Myanmar Navy Ship UMS 568 , Myanmar Navy Uniform , Myanmar Missile , Myanmar Police Force , Myanmar Army Weapons , Warship , Myanmar Naval Dockyard , Myanmar Submarine , Myanmar Migrants , With proper paint steel last indefinitely. With no need for minesweeping gear the PCEs were armed with a forward open single 3″ or 5″ gun of whatever type was readily available (usually the Mk21 3″, same as the Admirables), four Mk2 twin 40mm AA guns, four single or twin 20mm guns, a Mk11 Hedgehog, two Mk3 astern depth charge racks each holding eight depth charges for ready-use, and two or four Mk6 K-gun depth charge projectors. Other than the aforementioned UBS Mayu, the only other major WWII-surplus ships acquired were the two American ships described below. Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Myanmar Navy‎ (2 P) Pages in category "Ships of the Myanmar Navy" This category contains only the following page. As an economy measure four of the eight AA guns were removed to reduce the manning level of the ship. After repairs in South Africa, HMS Fal was ordered to southeast Asia for transfer to the Burmese as outlined earlier above. ships of Myanmar Navy Class or name Builder Type Quantity Year Entered Service Serial Armament; Aung Zeya: Naval Dockyard (Myanmar) Frigate: 1: May 2008: F11: 1 × Oto Melara 76 mm Super Rapid Canon 4 × 30 mm AK 230 4× C-802 Surface-to-Surface Missile RBU: Yan Gyi Aung (Admirable class) To that end they had a pair of 25-Pounder howitzers set in naval style turrets. One last aspect is the Myanmar navy itself. Maybe we’ll see the end of cruisers in the USN. ), (The above view is from a 2018 airing of the Russian tv show Zvezda which toured UBS Mayu and shows the basin.). But the USN doesn’t spend the time or money on their ships. The US Navy predicted that class 1) would be critically important in the u-boat war 2) would take heavy losses in combat, and 3) would experience production delays. PHUKET - Ships of the Myanmar navy berthed at a Thai port for the first time in 18 years on Wednesday. Survey Ship from Singapore.It was captured by Myanmar Navy in 1974 and using as … Thanks for the response. The USN has lots of ships that make it past 30 years of service; they just aren’t in the battle fleet. As designed during WWII the crew was 104. (UMS Yan Gyi Aung in 2013.) On the other hand, a worn barrel does not make the gun useless, just of declining accuracy as the rifling is shot away. In 1946 HMS Fal was visiting Dakar, French West Africa (today Senegal) when one of the frigate’s propellers became snarled in a steel cable. Some caused by poor maintenance. The other factor is that even now in a permanently ashore state, UBS Mayu continues to provide some residual use to Myanmar’s navy. This list may not reflect recent changes . The four “ears” to the left are uptakes for the propulsion and below-decks ventilation.). This was considered acceptable as an escort was limited by the slowest merchant ship in the convoy anyways. Eugene Roe; Project maintenance. Each projectile weighed 65 lbs of which about half was Torpex high explosive. It’s usually cheaper to rebuild/upgrade than build a whole new ship. Just prior to WWII, a “Burma Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve” had been formed as part of the Royal Navy’s commonwealth scheme. Here, flowing freshwater naturally still oxidizes steel somewhat, but corrodes it at a much slower pace than constant saltwater exposure. The ship is now wired into ashore electricity and fitted with a dehumidification system. Board of Sinmalike Dockyard Administration for Union of Burma was established in 1970 , to operate it as a ship repair yard for government owned vessels. These two ships were upgraded extensively by Myanmar Navy. Other things aboard (pumps, electrical buses, etc) were the same way. For certain the original WWII engines and gearboxes are still onboard, as re-engining an Admirable or PCE-842 would require cutting off the whole bridge superstructure to access the forward engine room. Mid-October the submarine joined its first exercise conducted by the Myanmar navy and Myanmar’s senior general was present on the occasion. It was also used for ceremonies like officer commissionings, re-enlistments, etc. The US Navy’s Mk2 40mm gun, in either twin or quad mountings, was the best naval AA gun of WWII. HMS Fal commissioned on 2 July 1943. Hi Brian, thanks for the info. The Myanmar Navy (Burmese: တပ်မတော် (ရေ); Burmese pronunciation: [taʔmədɔ̀ jè]) is the naval branch of the armed forces of Myanmar with 19,000 men and women. Busch-Sulzer in St. Louis exited the naval engine business several months after V-J Day and the Nordberg Company in Milwaukee ended legacy support in 1970. During a 1979 conference of army, air force, and navy officers it was decided to decommission UBS Mayu as the frigate was by now woefully obsolete and presented a wasteful use of maintenance funds. The River-class frigate was built as HMS Fal for the British Royal Navy … The range was 4,500yds in direct fire or 7 NM in plunging fire. During the late 1940s, UBS Mayu also trained the first Burmese civilian mariners until a proper merchant marine academy was up and running. The ship regularly supported the army fighting ashore throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s. This also shows the current (2020) Myanmar navy ensign which has changed multiple times.). The ships are in slow decay from the date they’re launched. Burmese sailors call these guns “dha byet see” (“the broom”) and they are popular weapons, despite being obsolete. Since the 2015 election, there has been a bit more openness in the Myanmar military and it is possible that access to this WWII veteran warship will be increased in the future. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. […] WWII warships still in Myanmar’s navy — wwiiafterwwii […]. I know the US works its ships hard. Change ), Tokagypt: the Cold War Hungarian WWII Soviet-copy Egyptian pistol, WWII warships still in Myanmar’s navy — wwiiafterwwii – battleoftheatlantic19391945. The most obvious was that the frigate did not need to cross over the targeted u-boat’s position to attack it. Often incorrectly described as a “rocket launcher”, the Hedgehog was technically a 24-round spigot mortar. By early 1979 UBS Mayu was thoroughly worn out. (New and old: the guided missile frigate UMS Kyansitta passes the two WWII warships in 2019.). The minesweeping gear, if it had been aboard at transfer, was removed during the 1980s as was all ASW weaponry. (A British officer presents the logs to General Aung San as the ship officially becomes Burmese property. 278,254 Pages. The Mk21 3″ guns had a barrel lifespan of between 3,000 – 4,300 firings during WWII. Otherwise, UMS Yan Gyi Aung is still today remarkably unchanged from the WWII baseline, perhaps even less so than the PCE half-sister. The Aung Zeya was followed by another class of indigenously-built frigates, the Kyan Sittha-class. Several companies, most prominently Hatch & Kirk, did (and to an extent, still do) specialize in sourcing hard-to-find legacy parts for old warships but this is not cheap and furthermore, Burma / Myanmar’s relations with the USA have not always been great since these ships were delivered. (The HF/DF set from WWII remained aboard UBS Mayu the ship’s entire career. The Burmese navy had not added any blue-water hulls since the ex-HMS Mariner in 1958 and even with that, had only that ship plus UBS Mayu for open-ocean operations. Note the Thornycroft depth charge thrower Mark II and depth charge launching rail in the background. This modernization did not take place in the 1970s. The starboard engine was just behind and below the bridge, and powered its propeller via a driveshaft that ran half of the vessel’s length.). In 1972, it was first reformed as the Burma Dockyards Corporation (BDC). However, their combat capacity continues to degrade. UBS Mayu anchored against the current and fired 4″ rounds howitzer style several miles inland. These four WWII ships (HMBS Indaw, HMBS Inlay, HMBS Inma, and HMBS Inya) served the Burmese navy into the late 1970s, the last of their kind worldwide. Cost, conditions made Myanmar choose Indian submarine The submarine which recently went into operation has been named ‘Min Ye Thein Kha Thu’, an ancient Burmese warrior. The latest 20 mm Oerlikon gun on board HMS Hermione(a Dido Class Light Cruiser), showing a naval gunner utilising the rubber shoulder rests for high-angle firing. The ship “showed the flag” of the new country with friendship visits to Singapore (multiple times during the late 1940s / early 1950s), Sri Lanka in 1955, Australia in 1959, Indonesia in 1960, and India in 1960 and 1961. (photo via Myanmar Military Discussion Group), (UMS Yan Gyi Aung in late 2015.) Funding for this was approved later in 1979. As part of this process, several WWII-veteran warships were transferred from the Royal Navy: the frigate HMS Fal, renamed HMBS Mayu, and four WWII LCG(M)s or medium gun landing craft. On 4 January 1948 Burma became fully independent, with naval ships now prefixed Union Of Burma Ship or UBS. There are differences in the superstructure rear. UBS Mayu advanced upstream about 2½ NM on Rangoon’s west side, roughly where modern Yangon’s Kyi Mine Dine neighborhood is today, and provided gunfire support for the ashore fighting. UBS Mayu never again left Asia. Sailing to San Diego, CA that month, the ship milled about for a few weeks before decommissioning into mothballs on 26 March 1946. Launched in May 1943, the ship commissioned on 10 August 1944. Similar to the US Navy’s more famous Mk6 K-Gun, the British Mk.IV projected a single Mk.VII depth charge between 50 – 67yds away. The ships arrived in Yangon on Thursday for a four-day visit, spokesman Wu Qian said in remarks posted on the ministry's website. (Both the Admirable minesweepers and their PCE half-sisters (shown above) were bigger above the waterline than below, and laid out somewhat unusually. the reappearing phantom pair and their future past 2020. Merz said the Navy could back-fit some of the systems from the Flight III into the older ships in the class. Chinese navy ships are visiting Myanmar and will conduct communications, search and rescue, and other joint exercises with the Myanmar navy, China's defense ministry said on Saturday (20/05). The Mk21 gun (officially in the WWII nomenclature: Gun, 3″, Mk21 on Mount Mk26) was a common American WWII weapon. Upgrades to frigates include the replacing of HY 2 anti ship missiles by more lethal C-802 missiles and installing new sensors. American WWII 3″ naval ammunition circulated widely in southeast Asia during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s being also used by Cambodia, South Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan in the region. Below is a screenshot comparison of the photos in the misleading post (L) and the navy's photo (R): The fourth photo, which shows several men on board … Myanmar Navy plan to build 10 ships of this class. 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