Wednesday, November 7, 2012

A Modern Navy Will Mean More Wreck Diving in Pattaya

By Ben Reeves


There are a number of things which Thailand - and particularly Pattaya - is actually famed for having in abundance. Most of these are misconceptions; while they certainly are present, they are not on actually every street nook. One of the things which is not any myth is the wealth of opportunities for wreck diving. Pattaya doesn't have less than five shipwrecks within recreational diving limitations, with new ones beingshown to people there.

The Royal Thai Navy is currently dealing with a major process of modernisation. They recently launched their first aircraft provider and have bought or built several advanced troop landing ship. Adjoining countries should perhaps be a little anxious at this sudden increase in modern amphibious strike vessels. What this means, though, is that the navy now has a lot of surplus.

After the Second World War, Thailand was left with out a navy and The United States had one too big to sustain in the peacetime economy. The US Navy had been at the forefront of the particular island-hopping campaign, capturing all the specks of land between Hawaii and Okinawa, with hundreds of thousands of troops being thrown at each and every one by grand flotillas as they inched closer to Asia. They sold plenty of their surplus stock, with several ships of different classes being renamed as His Thai Majesty's Ships.

These second-hand warships are now getting extended in the tooth. Spare parts are no longer widely available as well as, even with the best normal maintenance and occasional updates, no 60-year-old dispatch is going to be able to hold its own on the contemporary battlefield. The majority have finally been taken out of commission and replaced.

Where do you turn with a could of hundred tons of battle-hardened metal, though? After above half a century at sea, they are all far too rusty in order to scrap or recycle. Besides, that would be passing up on a perfect opportunity to strengthen the tourism trade in Thailand. Safely scuttling a 60-metre-long dispatch is hardly the cheapest option, but it will pay for itself with the increase of divers keen to see the freshly-sunk wreck.

In the last decade, there were three new cruises added to the menu with regard to wreck diving. Pattaya's most recent addition was in October 2012 - HTMS Mataphon. A Mk.6 landing craft for tanks (LCT), she was designed to deliver hefty armoured support once a beachhead had been secured. The two previous wrecks - Khram and Kut - are both medium-sized landing ships (LSMs), though they're also known as LCT Mk.7s. Twice the length of the Mataphon, they were designed to carry two or three armoured vehicles as well as supporting infantry.




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