Update: Malaysia fires live torpedo from Scorpène submarine for the first time

An unidentified Royal Malaysian Navy Scorpène-class submarine. One of the two submarines in the class, KD Tun Razak , carried out the class' first live firing of a torpedo in July 2025. (Royal Malaysian Navy)

Malaysia has fired a live torpedo from one of its Perdana Menteri (Scorpène)-class diesel-electric submarines (SSKs) for the first time, 16 years after the vessel was commissioned.

In response to a request for clarifications from Janes, a representative from the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) confirmed on 5 August that the inaugural firing of the weapon type took place at its recently concluded Exercise ‘Taming Sari 23/25'.

In a statement issued on 29 July to mark the successful completion of the exercise, the RMN said that the SSK, KD Tun Razak, had for the first time fired a Black Shark torpedo that is “configured for war”.

The RMN representative confirmed that this refers to a live version of the Black Shark torpedo and a single round of the weapon was fired from Tun Razak during the exercise to validate the submarine's combat capabilities.

Prior to the firing on 29 July, the RMN had fired the Black Shark torpedo in other configurations, including an exercise in 2014 in which the weapon was deployed from the tubes, but without a live warhead.

Besides the inaugural live torpedo firing, Tun Razak's sister ship, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, also carried out a co-ordinated missile firing activity with the Kasturi-class corvette, KD Lekir, and the first Lekiu-class frigate, KD Lekiu.

Both Lekir and Lekiu each launched an Exocet MM40 anti-ship missile while Tunku Abdul Rahman fired a torpedo tube-launched Exocet SM39 missile during the exercise that took place in the South China Sea.