Actually it is not different in sense then tradition of Naval Ship Sponsor on several leading navies like USN and RN. Many other navies just emulate that on their own form.
Anyway as the actual list of this year revise PSP (MoF financial portion of approved credit line) and Green Book has not been shown to the public (especially portion of revise approval on MinDef financing line), we the public relied on snipest from those defense 'insiders' (or sales guys) like the Twitter guy.
Unlike Twitter guy, I don't find MoF approval for SRV financing line is surprising. On contrary with political pressure to have one after Nenggala incident, it is surprising if it is not being approved.
It will be indeed a disgrace if after the KRI Nanggala 402 disaster, our government is still not willing to order a submarine rescue ship. But i am a little bit surprised that he is talking about two British candidates. As far as i know the RN didn't receive any submarine rescue vessels recently.
Does the RN even has such ships? On internet i couldn't find it, or do the Echo-class multi-purpose survey vessels also have a role as submarine rescue ships?
I wonder if there other candidates, some navies have recently ordered submarine rescue vessels, joining one of these programs can be practical and can also decrease the costs and development period.
Italia is now building the Unità Supporto Subacqueo Polivalente (Multipurpose submarine rescue vessel), but its quite large and with a price tag of €434 million out of our reach.
Istanbul Shipyard delivered the
Alemdar (A-582) in 2017, that one should be lower in costs.
And Navantia is now building the BAM-IS (Intervención Subacuática/Underwater Intervention). The Meteoro-class patrolboats have a price lower than €190 million, so the BAM-IS should be also much cheaper .
