SHAH ALAM: How do you tell whether its an Adnan or MIFV? That was the question posed to me on Twitterville following the accident which claimed the lives of two soldiers in Sandakan earlier this week.

I was stumped. I had corrected the guy who earlier tweeted that the soldiers were riding an Adnan as I had received a brief of the accident report via a friend. The report was subsequently confirmed by an email by the Defence Ministry which stated that vehicles involved were the Malaysian Infantry Fighting Vehicle (MIFV 12.7).

Honestly, as I had been covering the defence and national security scene for the last 20 years or so, I thought I could tell the difference between an Adnan and MIFV within 10 seconds. But certainly identifying correctly the vehicle, especially from pictures of an accident scene is hazardous at best.

For the uninitiated,the Adnan is an export version of Turkey’s ACV-300 (15) built by FNSS while the MIFV is the local designation for the Korean built KIFV.

Yes its easy if the vehicle is fitted with the 12.7mm (above) or 25mm Bushmaster (below) turrets as only the Adnans are fitted with such turrets and not the MIFVs.

The mortar variant is easily identifiable as an Adnan of course especially with its six road wheels.

It gets harder when its comes to the command and engineering vehicles however as both the Adnan and MIFV looks very similar from the outside as both are variants of the AIFV from the American firm, FMC.

And the Army’s practice of putting both the Adnans and MIFVs into the same battalion further adds to the confusion especially for the untrained eye and veteran spotters like me who is sometimes as not fastidious as in the past.

As there only 30 plus Adnan Command Vehicle and some 100 plus MIFVs in service it is likely one may get confused as in the Sandakan case. So how to spot the difference between an Adnan CV and the MIFV then?

From the picture below, one could discern that the MIFV from the Adnan based on the cupola of the 12.7mm gun. The cupola on the MIFV gave full 360 degree protection while there is a large opening on the forward hemisphere on the Adnan’s cupola.

Another way to tell the difference between the MIFV and the Adnan are the metal clamps on the side of former (MIFV) just above the tracks as seen from the combo of pictures below. The clamp feature of the MIFV is so prominent that it is included in the die-cast models sold by Academy.

I am not sure the purpose of the metal clamps or they are clamps at all. I am assuming that these clamps are for the floatation devices of the MIFVs and KIFVs (pix below).

These clamps are not fitted on all of the variants of the Adnans, AFAIK. I believed the floatation devices on the Adnan are built into the side of the vehicles like those on the AV8 hence there is no need for metal clamps on them.

I hope this post had answered the question above. If you are still confused, please ask in the comment section below.

BTW, I am aware of reports concerning the actual number of F-15SGs, Singapore has acquired. However, I will not posts anything on it but I am sure some of you will.

— Malaysian Defence

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