Is South Africa’s navy in its sunset years?

South Africa’s security challenges are increasingly maritime, yet its defence priorities remain stubbornly terrestrial. The result is that the South African Navy is burdened with extensive responsibilities but denied the funding to discharge them.

This mismatch has eroded the country’s ability to police its own waters, protect its economic interests, exercise regional influence and meet international obligations.

South Africa is, by geography and commerce, a maritime state. Its 2,800km coastline is the second-longest in Africa after Somalia’s. More than 90% of its trade volumes move by sea. Its fisheries are important to food security. Undersea cables and shipping lanes are strategic assets.

According to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a coastal state has “rights, jurisdiction and duties” in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), including “conserving and managing the natural resources”.

South Africa’s EEZ consists of roughly 1.5-million square kilometres across three oceans and includes remote island territories. It is the only African country with responsibilities in both the Indian and Atlantic oceans; it is also responsible for search-and-rescue in the Antarctic Ocean.

Yet the fleet charged with safeguarding these interests is small, ageing, overstretched and dangerously underfunded. Ships deploy only when they are available, not when they are needed. Maintenance is deferred, training compressed and readiness traded for presence. Compared with regional partners and other medium powers, the navy is too small. Lacking a broad fleet, it tries to do routine tasks with expensive warships.

When ships do patrol, they are largely “blind”. Without persistent maritime surveillance, they traverse vast areas on predetermined routes, reacting to chance encounters rather than shaping behaviour. Fuel is burned, hulls wear out and crews get tired, while smugglers and illegal fishing ships exploit the predictable gaps. In such circumstances, sovereignty is asserted only intermittently, if at all.

This is not a new problem. For decades the South African Navy has been shaped by a defence funding model that assumes land power must be favoured — a hangover from the days of the war in Namibia and Angola in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, there has been no credible land invasion threat (though the country’s land borders are porous and underpoliced).

Illegal fishing is among the most damaging maritime threats the country faces. It undermines stock sustainability, food security and employment. The economic damage accumulates year after year. Enforcement does not require sophisticated combat systems. It requires numbers, endurance, boarding teams and helicopters.

Maritime smuggling presents a similar problem. South Africa’s long coastline and proximity to regional trafficking routes make the sea an attractive route for narcotics, weapons and contraband. Mother ships operating beyond routine patrol areas, and small craft delivering cargo ashore, demand layered surveillance and rapid interception. Once illicit goods get to land, costs and complexity of policing and interception rise sharply. Maritime interdiction is cheaper than inland enforcement, but scarcity forces the navy into reactive patterns.

Unmonitored vessels in our seas pose a risk to the republic

—  Monde Lobese

“Unmonitored vessels in our seas pose a risk to the republic,” says Vice-Admiral Monde Lobese, chief of the navy. “At any given time, we have just over 600 vessels in our territorial waters, of which some are involved in human trafficking, some with illegal fishing. The absence of the navy at sea is dangerous for our country, or any country for that matter.”

Search-and-rescue is another frequent demand. South Africa’s responsibility extends deep into the Southern Ocean, one of the most hostile maritime environments on earth. Distances are vast, the weather is unforgiving. Naval vessels are often the only ones capable of responding to emergencies.

The Mozambique Channel is one of South Africa’s vital maritime spaces. It carries global shipping, supports offshore gas infrastructure and lies adjacent to regions marked by instability and weak maritime governance. Piracy, trafficking and insurgent spillover have turned the channel from a peripheral concern into a core national interest.

The southward spread of piracy risks in the early 2010s exposed the limited capacity of regional states to secure their waters. Insurance premiums rose, shipping patterns shifted and vulnerabilities around offshore infrastructure became apparent. The discovery of vast gas reserves in northern Mozambique raised the stakes further, creating fixed, high-value targets in an insecure environment.

In 2011 South Africa launched Operation Copper as a trilateral initiative with Mozambique and Tanzania. It committed the countries’ naval and air assets to sustained counterpiracy patrols. Over time, Copper evolved into a broader maritime security operation, encompassing surveillance, deterrence and confidence-building.

It sounded good in theory, but Copper also illustrates the limits of ambition when resources are thin. If deployments are to be effective, they will be long and logistically demanding. Ships operate far from home ports, compressing maintenance cycles and straining crews. Training and long-term readiness are routinely sacrificed to meet immediate tasking.

That is if ships are deployed at all. The department of defence reported for the 2023/2024 financial year that “the South African Air Force and the South African Navy were detrimentally impacted by the lack of maintenance contracts for prime mission equipment not being in place, resulting in the unavailability of spares. No Operation Copper long-range maritime patrols were conducted during the strategic period.”

The same applied in 2022/2023, “due to South African Navy prime mission equipment not being operationally available as required”.

For some years South Africa has had no maritime air surveillance capacity at all. As things stand, the navy is not a force that can mobilise to provide economic protection, law enforcement and regional stability. Exercises are deferred, skills erode and readiness becomes brittle. Capability is preserved on paper but hollowed out in practice.

South Africa’s current naval inventory is best understood as a legacy of the controversial strategic arms package of the late 1990s, rather than as offering a force designed for today’s operational realities.

At its core sit four Valour-class frigates and three Heroine-class submarines. These were acquired to restore high-end combat capability after decades of military isolation and the decline into obsolescence of apartheid-era vessels.

In practice, however, they have been required to shoulder a far broader burden, including routine patrolling, fisheries protection and maritime security tasks for which they were never designed.

Frigates are an essential part of any balanced navy, but only in limited numbers and with clearly defined roles. Their value lies in escort operations, higher-threat environments, regional presence and multinational deployments where command facilities, embarked helicopters and layered self-defence are required. They are not patrol vessels and should not be used as such.

The South African Navy’s frigates were originally referred to as “corvettes” for political and financial reasons. In the context of the 1990s, the new South African government tried not to portray itself as aggressive, or as a threat to neighbours. The result was vessels that sit squarely in the frigate class, at 121m in length and 3,600t of displacement, but are underarmed due to political sensitivities.

While other MEKO A-200 ships, such as those operated by Algeria and Egypt, are equipped with 127mm main guns and 32 vertical launch cells for surface-to-air missiles, the Valour-class frigates have 76mm main guns, and only 16 of their 32 cells are equipped with self-defence missiles.

The navy’s main offensive missile, the Exocet MM40 Block II, is also of shorter range, 80km vs the 200km of later versions. The missiles, received in 2007, are nearing the end of their 20-year shelf life, and the stockpile has dwindled to nine missiles.

In the interest of cost-saving, the department of defence opted out of a long-term maintenance agreement, hoping to maintain the frigates itself. After years of overuse, the vessels’ conditions have declined, and desperate yet extensive work is needed to get them all sailing again.

The condition of the navy’s frigates illustrates the consequences of sustained delay. Just one of the four, SAS Amatola, can put to sea. Midlife refits — the ships were commissioned 20 years ago — have been estimated at R687m per ship.

The ongoing refit in Durban of SAS Isandlwana, reportedly approaching R600m, is better understood as survival maintenance than as modernisation. It keeps a hull operational but does not address ageing sensors, combat systems or weapons. Each year of deferral compounds obsolescence, increases downtime and narrows the range of tasks these ships can safely undertake.

Delay is often presented as fiscal prudence. It is a false economy. Ageing systems become harder and more expensive to maintain. Spares disappear. Skilled technicians move on. The fleet risks retaining expensive hulls that are technically afloat but operationally constrained. This satisfies neither budget discipline nor strategic need.

Replacing a frigate would cost several times more than a midlife refit and would introduce a long capability gap during design, procurement and construction. Refits, by contrast, preserve existing investment, stabilise availability and maintain interoperability with partners. They are not indulgences or prestige projects. They are the cheapest and most rational way to retain a core combat capability while the navy addresses its more urgent patrol and surveillance deficits.

At the strategic level, naval deterrence remains indispensable, even for a state whose primary maritime challenges are constabulary. A small maritime power such as South Africa cannot hope to dominate surface warfare through numbers, air cover or sustained task groups. The most affordable and effective way to impose uncertainty on a stronger adversary, including seaborne criminals, is through submarines.

A submarine force is the most effective deterrent that any small maritime country can afford

—  Helmoed-Römer Heitman

As veteran defence analyst Helmoed-Römer Heitman has observed, “a submarine force is the most effective deterrent that any small maritime country can afford”. The logic is straightforward. Submarines operate unseen, forcing opponents to assume their presence. They do not need to engage in battle to be effective.

Of course, deterrence works only if it is credible, which depends not so much on capability as availability. A force that is too small becomes predictable. Maintenance, training and operational cycles quickly create gaps in coverage. Skills erode as crews rotate irregularly.

Besides Algeria and Egypt, which operate in the Mediterranean, South Africa’s is the only African navy that operates submarines.

However, its submarine flotilla has seen years of operational decline. Only SAS Manthatisi is seaworthy. The remaining two submarines, SAS Charlotte Maxeke and SAS Queen Modjadji, have been out of commission for maintenance refits, which, as with the frigates, remain unfunded.

Experience across small and medium navies suggests a clear threshold for submarines. Anything fewer than six will mean a struggle to sustain operations, training and maintenance.

The South African fleet composition reflects ambition without balance: sophisticated combatants operating in a force structure short of patrol and surveillance capacity.

Retired Rear-Admiral Rusty Higgs notes that “the frigates and submarines made us a global player and gave South Africa true deterrence. That they are largely not operable is of deep concern. We have allowed our credibility to collapse.”

If submarines and frigates can provide deterrence, patrol vessels provide control. The distinction is fundamental.

Deterrence works, often invisibly, by shaping the calculations of adversaries and potential aggressors. Control is exercised openly through routine presence, inspection and enforcement.

For a maritime state with an EEZ as large as South Africa’s, sovereignty is not asserted by diverting high-end combatants into constabulary roles, but by a steady, visible patrol pattern — the equivalent of “the bobby on the beat”.

The South African Navy should be able to field at least 12 large offshore patrol vessels (OPVs). These OPVs should be of sufficient size and seaworthiness to operate safely — the seas off the South African coast are notoriously rough — and over long distances, where endurance matters more than speed.

However, the navy has no operational OPVs and only three inshore patrol vessels (IPVs). At 62m in length, the Warrior-class IPVs are too small to patrol in deep waters. Due to maintenance and training cycles, a fleet of three vessels means only one, maybe two, can be active at any given time.

Ships without surveillance are doomed to inefficiency. In a maritime domain as large as South Africa’s, sending surface vessels to patrol without persistent awareness from the air is an expensive way to achieve very little.

Maritime patrol aircraft provide wide-area surveillance that surface ships cannot replicate, detecting, classifying and tracking contacts. They allow commanders to cue ships precisely, reducing wasted time at sea, lowering fuel consumption and increasing the likelihood that patrols will result in meaningful enforcement rather than empty miles. They are also central to co-ordinating search-and-rescue, where speed of detection is often the difference between life and death.

High-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial systems can add a further layer of observation. Able to loiter for many hours over key maritime corridors such as the Mozambique Channel, HALE drones could provide continuous coverage without crew fatigue and at lower operating cost than manned aircraft.

Their value lies in knitting the maritime picture together, maintaining contact with vessels of interest and identifying patterns of behaviour that short-duration patrols inevitably miss. For a navy constrained by limited hull numbers, such persistence is a force multiplier.

The South African Navy has no drones of its own. Neither does it have its own helicopters or maritime patrol aircraft. In theory it relies on the South African Air Force to provide these, but only four ship-based helicopters are in inventory, with only one operable. The 80-year-old Dakota C-47 aircraft that were used for surveillance have all recently been retired.

Helicopter facilities are essential on ships, extending surveillance range, enabling rapid boarding operations and supporting search-and-rescue. A patrol vessel or frigate without an embarked helicopter is significantly less effective, particularly in rough seas and over wide patrol areas.

Every major surface vessel should be designed, crewed and funded to operate helicopters routinely, not as an occasional enhancement. And maritime aviation must fall under the navy, not the air force, because operational priorities and training cycles are different.

Logistic support is the least glamorous element of naval power and the one most easily neglected, yet it determines whether ships can operate as a fleet rather than as isolated hulls. Without organic replenishment, maintenance support and afloat command facilities, naval presence collapses into short, predictable deployments constrained by port access. For a navy expected to operate across vast distances, including the Mozambique Channel and the Southern Ocean, endurance is not a luxury.

The South African Navy’s ability to sustain operations rests almost entirely on SAS Drakensberg, a combat support ship built in Durban by Southern African Shipyards and commissioned in 1987.

The Drakensberg has served the navy with distinction for decades, supporting regional deployments, multinational exercises and extended operations far from home ports. It has also demonstrated the wider utility of such vessels, acting as a platform for disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and diplomatic engagement. However, reliance on a single ship for these roles represents a critical vulnerability. Drakensberg has not sailed since 2019.

Having served for close to 40 years, Drakensberg has reached the end of its service life, with its components and systems becoming obsolete. As Heitman has noted, there is a “clear and present need for two combat support ships, to supplement and replace Drakensberg”.

A new class of support ships is an essential hedge against single-point failure. Beyond replenishment at sea, these ships offer critical capabilities in disaster response — a role likely to increase in a region with fragile infrastructure and prone to cyclones and floods. Without timely investment in replacement and augmentation, the navy risks losing not only endurance at sea, but one of its most flexible and diplomatically valuable tools.

A useful organising principle is to distinguish between primary and secondary maritime focus areas. This does not abandon commitments or diminish sovereignty. It recognises that not all maritime spaces always carry equal strategic weight, and that attempting to treat them as equal produces thin coverage everywhere.

Primary focus areas are those where South Africa’s economic security and freedom of action are immediately at stake: the EEZ, the approaches to major ports, and the Mozambique Channel. These areas demand continuous surveillance, regular patrols and credible deterrence. Gaps here translate directly into economic loss and criminal exploitation.

Secondary focus areas include wider Southern African waters and occasional distant deployments in support of multinational or peace support operations. Influence in these spaces is exercised through periodic presence, co-operation and diplomacy rather than permanent control. They justify retaining frigates and submarines able to operate with partners, but they do not require the same sustained density as primary areas.

This distinction matters because it drives force design. Primary focus areas demand patrol mass, maritime surveillance and endurance, capabilities that the current fleet lacks in sufficient quantity. Secondary focus areas justify a limited number of higher-end combatants, precisely the platforms acquired under the 1990s arms deal.

The figures involved are uncomfortably large and difficult to avoid. Frigate refit estimates are approaching R5bn per vessel. Submarine refits are estimated at close to R4bn. OPVs, at roughly R2bn each, imply an investment of about R24bn to establish credible patrol mass. Maritime patrol aircraft, unmanned systems, helicopters, logistics ships and mine countermeasures add further cost.

The navy should be funded before the army

None of this is cheap, but South Africa’s naval responsibilities will not go away and cannot be transferred to anyone else. The economic value of what our ships should be protecting — fisheries, trade flows, ports and offshore resources — would vastly exceed their capital cost. Persistent underinvestment imposes ongoing losses that rarely appear in defence budgets but are borne by the wider economy.

Smuggling boosts criminal networks that, in turn, add to long-term policing, judicial and social costs. Port disruption, whether through crime, accidents or deliberate interference, ripples through supply chains, raises insurance premiums and weakens competitiveness. Diminished regional influence reduces South Africa’s ability to shape its security environment, increasing the likelihood that instability reaches its shores. These costs are diffuse and delayed, rarely attributed directly to naval weakness, but they accumulate relentlessly.

In today’s strategic environment, this leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable conclusion. The navy should be funded before the army. South Africa faces no credible conventional land invasion threat. Its most immediate and economically consequential vulnerabilities lie at sea. An effective navy is undeniably expensive. A weak one, unable to see, endure or enforce, will be far more costly in the long run.

Lobese has said: “We need to think about what is at stake for not having the navy present at sea.”