The SAAF Forum

It is sadly now 'common' knowledge according to many people I hear from that there are no submarines operational, one of the subs had its electronics 'destroyed' by plugging the shore power in wrong, 12 Gripens are mothballed and will not fly again and all the A109s are grounded.

It's quite frustrating to see that level of ignorance continue to have such influence in South Africa.

With regards to the whole batteries saga. What is the real story behind it all, there have been so many different stories floating around for so long I think I may have missed the definitive version of events.

Yep - and I have on 2 different occasions posted pics of two of SAN A209 subs at sea simultaneously....and I have the privilege of watching them coming and going out to sea regularly each week. There is always 1 on the 'hard' for preventive maintenance - rotational basis, as was the case with the former 3 Daphne subs.

All of it, every single bit of detail of these "facts", are the direct fault of the gross incompetence of the SANDF, DOD&MV and MOD&MV.

I don't have the definitive story at hand, but IIRC there were two separate issues that were wrongly conflated in the media. The first was that there was a manufacturer's fault with the batteries on the first boat which caused them to emit too much hydrogen. These were replaced under warranty, but it took some time.

The second was the incorrect connection of shore power, but all the information I have suggests that merely caused a fuse to trip (as designed) and didn't cause any damage.


Yep, but sometimes even after I've shown people some of your photos by linking to this forum they find some reason to believe things are otherwise.


I wholeheartedly agree. It's time they got rid of the office of Dlamini, established proper dedicated PR offices for each service and ended the current and the senior staff ended this ridiculous culture of unnecessary secrecy hostility towards the media. It has reached a point where even senior staff officers don't want to say anything to the media in case Dlamini or others come down on them for not going through the 'right' channels.