₦airaland Forum

GAGDI ON FOREIGN OVERSIGHT DUTY, INSPECTS LST 100 WARSHIP OF THE NIGERIAN NAVY IN AJMAN STATE OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATE.

In pursuance of his legislative function to oversee activities of the Nigerian Navy, and his innate desire for a robust Navy and improved security of Nigerian waterways, the Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Navy, Rt Hon. Yusuf Adamu Gagdi was in Ajman State of United Arab Emirate to inspect a Warship of the Nigerian Navy under construction by Albwarsdy Damen, a reputable warship Construction Company in the UAE.

The lawmaker, who inspected the multimillion dollar project, was taken round the facilities of the company in order to further appreciate the technical competence of the company to deliver the project.

Tagged LST 100 Warship, the project is expected to be completed on the 18th May, 2021 and be delivered to the Nigerian Navy on 9th March, 2022. The project was at 75 percent completion when the parliamentarian inspected the Warship. Meanwhile, the company has assured of a timely delivery of the Warship in accordance with the terms of the contract without let or hindrance of any kind.

The essence of the foreign oversight inspection of the facility was to ensure finances appropriated for the Nigerian Navy are expended as provided in the budgetary allocation of the armed force.

Expressing delight with the quality of the project, the lawmaker maintains that Nigerian Navy has been one of the most vibrant armed forces in Nigeria, with a near excellent performance record; hence the need to encourage them with the required facilities for optimal discharge of their responsibilities.

The lawmaker had earlier in 2020, led his committee members to oversight visit of all Naval formations across Nigeria in order to be fully abreast with the successes, challenges and future projections of the Nigerian Navy, thereby capping the oversight duty with visits to various ongoing projects of the armed force outside the shores of Nigeria.

Foreign oversight visits to other projects of the Nigerian Navy in the US, Germany, South Africa and UK are in the offing.

Gagdi is expected to be back in the country on Friday, 8th January 2021.

Signed:
Gagdi Media Team

naptu2:
Amphibious vessels and carriers

1) Landing Ship Tank (LST) : A landing ship tank is a kind of naval vessel that can carry tanks, trucks, SUVs, etc and land them directly on shore without requiring port facilities. LSTs usually have a roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ramp with which vehicles can roll ashore or onto the ship without needing a crane to carry them.

A Dravo built LST landing a tank on a beach during World War II.
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Landing ship tanks were very important in the Pacific theatre of World War 2, when Commonwealth and US forces battled the Japanese from island to island. They ferried men, vehicles and other materials from captured island to the next island battlefield.

LSTs were also very important to Ecomog operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. They carried nigerian troops and equipment to Liberia and Sierra Leone and they also carried refugees in the opposite direction.

NNS Ambe. NNS Ambe has a regular ramp at the rear of the ship (just like the World War 2 LST pictured above) and it also has an articulated ramp in front (which is why the front is higher than other parts of the ship). The ramp in front can be lowered and extended when the ship wants to offload its cargo in very shallow water. NNS Ambe played a very important role in Nigeria's Ecomog operations in Liberia.
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2) Amphibious landing ship (Landing Ship Dock, Landing Ship Platform, etc) : Landing ship tanks have one disadvantage. They need to get to shore in order to land their cargo. This could be quite difficult if there are opposing forces on land (the LST could easily be hit by shore gun and missile batteries). For example, NNS Ambe could not land its cargo immediately it got to the Free Port of Monrovia because there was a battle between Charles Taylor's NPFL and the Armed Forces Of Liberia of Samuel Doe. Taylor's forces actually fired mortar rounds at NNS Ambe and its escorts.

USS Harper's Ferry (amphibious landing ship)
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This problem was resolved by the creation of amphibious landing ships (eg, landing ship dock). Amphibious landing ships have well docks within them from which a zodiac rubber raft, landing boat or an amphibious fighting vehicle can be launched at sea. An amphibious landing ship does not need to go near the shore. It can stay off shore, well out of range of shore defences and launch invading marines and vehicles.

An Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) prepares to enter the well deck of the USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49). (Sea of Japan, March 22nd, 2006).
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US marines in an Assault Amphibious Vehicle during their assessment test at Camp Pendelton.
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Assault Amphibious Vehicle

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AAVs preparing to debark USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44)
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Quarter view of a Soviet Ivan Rogov class ship (amphibious landing ship).
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The amphibious landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46) deploys Amphibious Assault Vehicles from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (31st MEU) for a landing at Gray Beach, Philippines during Balikatan 2009 joint exercise (April 14, 2009).
www.nairaland.com/attachments/10731227_8_jpeg4f84f02beb6427bc9a6d8d09d2376746
Tracked amphibious fighting vehicles like the Assault Amphibious Vehicle propel themselves with their tracks when they are in water, while amphibious fighting vehicles that have tyres propel themselves with water jets.

3) Helicopter carrier: this refers to naval vessels whose primary purpose is to carry military helicopters (helicopter gunships, naval helicopters, transport helicopters, etc). Helicopter carriers were used during World War 2, but went out of style after the war, largely because aircraft carriers could carry both planes and helicopters.

4) Amphibious assault ships: Amphibious assault ships are basically a combination of amphibious landing ships and helicopter carriers. They have a well dock from which they can launch landing crafts and they also have a small flight deck from which they can launch helicopters. The basic idea is that the amphibious assault ships carry attack helicopters which can provide air support to the marines as they go ashore. Some amphibious assault ships also carry vertical take off/landing (VTO/L) aircraft like the Harrier Jump Jet and tiltrotor aircraft like the Boeing V22 Osprey. An amphibious assault ship can therefore stay offshore and launch a full scale invasion.

A landing craft utility (LCU) prepares to dock in the flooded well deck of the USS Essex (Wasp class amphibious assault ship).
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The USS Essex receives a landing craft utility (LCU) carrying elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit while off the coast of Thailand after completing Cobra Gold 2008 joint exercise (CG08). June 9, 2008.
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Amphibious assault ships are also used during refugee crises because they have enough space to accomodate the refugees, helicopters that can be used for extraction and marines to provide security.

Assault Amphibious Vehicles in the well deck of the USS San Antonio (9th March, 2008)
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A Landing Craft Utility (LCU) returns to the well deck of USS Belleau Wood (LHA 3 amphibious assault ship) during a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) offload. The landing craft is transporting Marines, vehicles and their gear to the shores of Kuwait (7 July 2004).

www.nairaland.com/attachments/10731233_12_jpegd077e4317cde1e70737c7d5616929159

5) Air craft carriers: Air craft carriers are large naval vessels that carry both vertical take off/landing (VTO/L) and short take off/landing (STOL) aircraft (both rotary and fixed wing). An aircraft carrier is like a floating airport and it is the biggest type of naval ship currently in use.

USS Nimitz
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Aircraft carriers enable militaries conduct air operations far away from their homeland. They are one of the main means by which the great military powers of the world project force.


Naval vessels from five nations sail in parade formation for a rare photographic opportunity at sea. In four descending columns, from left to right: ITS Maestrale (F 570 Frigate), De Grasse (D 612 Frigate); USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74 Aircraft Carrier), Charles de Gaulle (R91 Aircraft Carrier), Surcouf (F 711 frigate); USS Port Royal (CG-73 guided missile cruiser), HMS Ocean (L12 amphibious assault ship), USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67 air craft carrier), ITS Luigi Durand de la Penne (D560 destroyer); and HNLMS Van Amstel (F 831 Frigate).
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Abreviations:

NNS = Nigerian Navy Ship.
USS = United States Ship.
HMS = Her Majesty's Ship (Britain).
HNLMS = Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship.
ITS = Italian Ship.

naptu2:
This is going to be very interesting. Although this is a landing ship tank, it's going to have two major differences from our old LSTs.

1) It's going to have a helicopter deck.

2) It's going to have a landing craft, vehicle, personnel (LCVP).

I'd really like to see how the LCVP will be deployed.

naptu2:
I can still remember NTA's very first report from Liberia (in 1990) as if it was yesterday. The cameraman was with the troops on either NNS Ambe or NNS Ofiom (I can't remember exactly which of the LSTs) and he was filming the Port of Monrovia from the ship when a battle broke out between Samuel Doe's men and Charles Taylor's men. We could hear the explosions from the port and see the black smoke in the sky.

It took some time, but Doe's men were able to retain control of the port and the Nigerian soldiers landed safely.

I can't remember the name of the NTA correspondent.

naptu2:
1) Landing Ship Tank (LST) : A landing ship tank is a kind of naval vessel that can carry tanks, trucks, SUVs, etc and land them directly on shore without requiring port facilities. LSTs usually have a roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ramp with which vehicles can roll ashore or onto the ship without needing a crane to carry them.

A Dravo built LST landing a tank on a beach during World War II.
www.nairaland.com/attachments/10707346_1297433917221944447045222577419552641706331n_jpeg712008502bf122dd0b20e66de6374c0e

Landing ship tanks were very important in the Pacific theatre of World War 2, when Commonwealth and US forces battled the Japanese from island to island. They ferried men, vehicles and other materials from captured island to the next island battlefield.

LSTs were also very important to Ecomog operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. They carried nigerian troops and equipment to Liberia and Sierra Leone and they also carried refugees in the opposite direction.

NNS Ambe. NNS Ambe has a regular ramp at the rear of the ship (just like the World War 2 LST pictured above) and it also has an articulated ramp in front (which is why the front is higher than other parts of the ship). The ramp in front can be lowered and extended when the ship wants to offload its cargo in very shallow water. NNS Ambe played a very important role in Nigeria's Ecomog operations in Liberia.
www.nairaland.com/attachments/10707347_1301080017201325749107094723537584321502138n_jpeg720043c7b964dbc871078d573022efee

naptu2: NNS Ambe (LST1312)
www.nairaland.com/attachments/295749_NNS_Ambe_jpg9518d5695f60a0083c94f835b0588908
The landing ship tank, NNS Ambe, undergoing repairs.

I first knew what it was in 1990. On the 9 o'clock news they showed troops preparing to sail to Liberia. Its hull opened and armoured tanks, personnel carriers and fighting vehicles were rolling into it (or was it its sister ship, the Ofiom?). It's a Landing Ship Tank (LST)! The C130 of the navy.

I wish we had amphibious landing ships and amphibious assault ships.

NNS Ambe Hippo-class Type 502 class LST

The Type 502 class LSTs Ambe and Ofion were designed by HDW as a private-venture for sale to the West German navy, which was not interested. The warship displaces 1,750 tons fully loaded and has a length of 87m and a beam of 14m. The ship is powered by two diesel engines each driving twin shafts and can maintain a speed of 17 knots. She would normally carry a crew of 59. Armament is light, consisting of several anti aircraft guns and two 20mm machine guns. They are of ro-ro design, with a lowerable stern loading ramp and articulated bow ramp. The machinery is unusual in that each engine drives multiple shafts instead of the normal other way around.

Typical load configuration options

5 T-54/55 tanks + x4 trucks or artillery pieces + x35 fully-equipped marines

10 BTR-60 APCs + x66 fully-equipped marines

540 fully-equipped marines

Both ships suffered minor fires during the 1980s which were repaired, but maintenance on the bow ramp machinery was poor and by 1992 both vessels had non-operational ramps. Several sources state that both ships had ramps welded shut, rendering them transports instead of LSTs.

Ofiom was severely damaged during a failed beaching in 1992 and was abandoned pierside. In 1999, a contract was signed with foreign technicians to repair the ship however in April 2001 they departed due to non-payment, with only half the repairs completed. NNS Ofion had not been operational for over two decades while some of her parts had been used over time to replace some faulty parts of Ambe. In 2011 it was announced that the Nigerian navy again planned to finish the repairs.

NNS Ofiom emerged winners of the First Nigerian Navy Ship 2009 WEY C.O's Cup after defeating the NNS AMBE 4-2. The event which began on September 18th 2009 saw the two contending sides NNS Ofiom and NNS AMBE qualifying for the grand finale. Both sides dismissed their opponents with ease on their way to the final and Navy Town residents looked forward to a great final. The competition came to an end at the Road 3 Football field Navy Town, Lagos, after weeks of exciting football action.

NNS Ambe, one of the two amphibious vessels acquired by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1978 was said to have been the country's only operational Amphibious war ship used for lifting a battalion and their equipment as the second, NNS Ofion, was almost a carcass as major parts have been used to keep the burnt Ambe in shape. The ship had a capacity of lifting a battalion of 600 soldiers and their equipment at once. NNS Ambe, which became fully operational in the 1980s, played a significant roles during the ECOMOG operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Over 72000 refugees were sea-lifted from Liberia to Nigeria by NNS AMBE and some merchant ships. Transport ships loaded with troops and equipment of the five-nation Economic Community of West African States Military Observation Group (ECOMOG) entered the port of Monrovia. During the afternoon of 24 August 1990, Nigeria’s NNS Ambe (LST 1123) and Ghana’s MV Tano River maneuvered to the mouth of the jetty area of Freeport. They temporarily withdrew after receiving some sporadic mortar fire and reentered the port later that evening. After docking, a small mix of troops debarked.

In Liberia during the ECOMOG operations, the NA could not integrate fully with NN. The problems encountered by the 2 Services was the delayed movement into Liberia from Sierra Leone as a result of malfunction of the loading ramp on the LST. Even when the ramp was repaired through combined efforts of the NN and NA Engineers, the problem re-occurred on landing at Freeport Monrovia. Also the armaments carried by the LST were not functional. This had impacted negatively on the confidence and high morale of the NA troops. The reason for these problems were attributed to lack of training for joint operations by the NA and NN before induction into the operation in Liberia.

On 02 December 1997 Sierra Leone's military junta accused Nigeria on Tuesday of moving an amphibious tank landing ship and two support vessels into Sierra Leone's territorial waters. A military spokesman said the NNS Ambe and two support ships had anchored 30 nautical miles off the Sierra Leonean coast before pulling back into international waters. "The three Nigerian warships which anchored about 30 nautical miles in Sierra Leone territorial waters have sailed back into international waters from their former position," the spokesman said.

She was also used in ferreting of drug from Europe to Nigeria at a time when there was said to be scarcity of drugs in Nigeria. In July 2001 naval authorities said that five warships in the Nigerian Navy inventory, including NNS Siri, NNS Ekun, NNS Nyam and the Frigate, NNS Ambe, would be seaworthy by December 2001 after undergoing retrofitting. In 2004 the Navy commenced refitting activities on NNS Ambe and NNS Ofiom. But within a few years NNS Ambe was reported out of commission in a poor condition.

Operation TAKUTE EKPE (Lion Trap) was held 10-15 May 2004. There were difficulties in establishing radio communications between NNS AMBE, the ship that was to beach land the troops and other participating forces. TAKUTE EKPE was aborted at the last minute because NNS AMBE, the main amphibious ship, failed to arrive at the designated landing site at the scheduled time ostensibly due to defects. On that occasion, NN operational efficiency suffered due to no ship availability. The NN landing ship that was to land troops in the theater of operation never got there until after the exercise had been deactivated because the state of the ship was not considered in the planning of the exercise. The NN ship was unserviceable and yet it was earmarked for the exercise. This was a typical example of an exercise marred by poor logistic planning and lack of coordination due to the absence of a joint logistics system.

Nigerian Naval Dockyard at Wilmot Point, Lagos was commissioned in 1990 to undertake refit of Nigerian Naval Ships. Although the naval dockyard has been in commission from 1990, it was only in 2003 that a comprehensive and structured program of refitting the entire fleet began in earnest. In 2007 NNS Ambe was undergoing refit. some marine engineers were carrying out some repairs that required welding when fire at about 2130 hours on 20 November 2007, in the superstructure of the ship. The fire was extinguished by the timely action of the Lagos State Fire Service, but by some accounts the vessel was reportedly destroyed by the fire. The fire was confined to an above deck section of the ship and the damage is considered to be minor. This happened at a time there was renewed tension in the Bakassi Peninsula, itself an Island, that would require the use of the NNS Ambe to lift troops.

In 2010, troop carrier landing craft NNS AMBE of the Nigerian Navy under repair at Navy dock yard, Wilmot Point, Lagos had caught fire under her starboard bridge deck. Ambe suffered a severe fire which started in her cargo deck and spread upwards under the starboard side of the bridge. The bridge and radio room were destroyed, and the crew berthing spaces severely damaged. The fire burnt out the entire bridge and part of the accommodation, leaving the main mast tilted to starboard on top of the compass deck which had also been seriously damaged.

In August 2010 a civilian company, Atlantic Marine Services, was contracted to remove the mast. AMS was called in to remove the mast as it was threatening to collapse. With the help of their tug EXPLORER they mobilized their 1000dwt barge H457 and their Leibherr HS871 crane alongside the NNS AMBE. The mast was secured, cut and lifted off on 13 August 2010 and delivered to NNS Olokun maintenance yard for further dismantling and repair. Since them Ambe was moored at the Wilmot Point naval dockyard in Lagos awaiting repairs.

Baawaa:
Billions of Naira has gone,

Excel3298:
Good one from the Nigeria government.

Kobicove:
Assembling CKD parts is not the same as making the entire components from scratch!

naptu2:

CKD parts from where??

Baawaa:
Billions of Naira has gone,

hopexter:
It didn't go for nothing. It's needed.

Tremple8v:
Hope no be audio sha .

dazzlingd:
It must be aboki