NS ''Elephant'' (A11) is a Chinese-built multipurpose

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster ...

of the

Namibian Navy The Namibian Navy is the maritime warfare branch of the Namibian Defence Force. History Development of Namibia's navy has been slow, and the force was only formally established on 11 September 1998 as a maritime wing and in 2004 as a fully ...

. Construction of NS ''Elephant'' began in mid-2011 and the ship was officially handed over to the Namibian Navy on 3 July 2012 after sea acceptance trials were completed. The vessel is used to monitor Namibia's exclusive economic zone.

Description

The ship resembles

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Haixun 01 The ''Haixun 01'' is a Chinese patrol ship, with a length of 128.6 meters and a weight of 5418 tons. She was commissioned by the China Maritime Safety Administration in April 2013, for traffic patrolling, safety monitoring, oil spill detection an ...

patrol vessels. NS ''Elephant'' has a large

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopte ...

but no

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

. It has bunks to take on an additional 150 passengers. On its deck it may carry containers, totalling 24 tonnes or six armoured personnel carriers of 12 tonnes each. The superstructure has a

fire control radar A fire-control radar (FCR) is a radar that is designed specifically to provide information (mainly target azimuth, elevation, range and range rate) to a fire-control system in order to direct weapons such that they hit a target. They are someti ...

mounted for targeting the main 37 mm gun. The two twin 14.5 mm guns are manually operated. The ship carries two large

lifeboats Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen A ...

amidships. There is also a crane on the port side and a smaller launch boat on the starboard side. ''Elephant'' is powered by two Caterpillar V16

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

s and has three generators and a fourth emergency power generator plus a

bow thruster Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...

Operational history

Construction of NS ''Elephant'' began in mid-2011 at the Wuhan Shipyard. Named for the largest African land animal, the

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

, the ship was accepted by the Namibian Navy on 3 July 2012 after sea acceptance trials were completed. The ship is operational, utilised for general exclusive economic zone management. The ship is also used to train and qualify junior sailors and officers. It also participates in training operations with the marines with marine amphibious operations being launched from the ship.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elephant (S11) Ships built in Wuhan 2012 ships Ships of the Namibian Navy