On April 23, the Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) conducted a large-scale combat exercise in the Java Sea, featuring a sinking exercise (SINKEX) as part of a broader live-fire drill involving naval and air assets. This marks the first SINKEX since May 2024.
The target vessel was the decommissioned Frosch-class landing ship tank (LST) KRI Teluk Hading (538), which previously served with the East German Navy before being acquired by Indonesia in the 1990s. The vessel was sunk by a French-made Exocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missile launched from a SIGMA 10514-class frigate KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai (332).
To note, KRI Teluk Hading was decommissioned in 2024 after being severely damaged in a fire in South Sulawesi waters the previous year.
Meanwhile, the lead ship of the Sampari-class fast attack craft (FAC), KRI Sampari (628), launched a Chinese-made C-705 missile against a land target located on Pulau Gundul (Bald Island).
The same island was also targeted in December 2024 when the Indonesian Navy fired an Exocet missile towards land for the first time, making this latest exercise only the second publicly known instance of TNI AL employing anti-ship missiles in a land-attack role.
The exercise also included air defence engagements. Mistral and what appears to be Strela surface-to-air missiles were fired against aerial targets from twin launchers mounted on the helicopter deck of another SIGMA 10514-class frigate, KRI R.E. Martadinata (331).
The Simbad launcher used to launch the Mistral is likely to have been sourced from one of the Leander/Van Speijk-class frigates, perhaps the former KRI Slamet Riyadi (352), which was sunk in July 2023 in a SINKEX.
Air power also played a role in this latest SINKEX. Three F-16s participated by dropping free-fall bombs against maritime targets, highlighting growing efforts to improve joint operations and interoperability between the Indonesian navy and air force.
In total, around 20 warships took part in the exercise, including the navy’s two Multipurpose Combat Ships / Pattugliatore Polivalente d’Altura (PPA), KRI Brawijaya (320) and KRI Prabu Siliwangi (321), the latter of which had just arrived in the country last month after a lengthy transit from Italy.
