SHAH ALAM: Going, going, gone? Last January 19, the Defence Ministry announced it had cancelled five contracts for “supply, services, and infrastructure projects”. It did not identify the contracts though but stated that it will implement the projects via a tender process.
Checks with industry sources only revealed one of the five cancelled contracts, the one for 18 155mm SPH. No one could confirm whether the deal for 136 Type A 4X4 (armoured) vehicles and various Type B (unarmoured) vehicles worth RM2.046 billion were also cancelled. The procurement of the armoured vehicles – the so-called HMAV – was announced by the-then Defence Minister DS Hishammuddin Hussein shortly after the budget was announced by the previous government last October.
Interestingly, at a press conference after officiating the Army’s 90th anniversary parade on March 1, the top soldier, TS General Zamrose Mohd Zain seemed to indicate that the armoured 4X4 deal was not going to proceed.
Commenting on Budget 2023 announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim last Friday, Zamrose said the army was allocated RM6.5bil out of the total RM17.7bil channelled to the Defence Ministry.”It is insufficient. We understand the country’s financial situation so we will make full use of existing assets such as the armoured personnel carriers (APC) that are stationed with the 5th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (KAD).
“Then, at the 1st and 2nd KAD, we have the Gempita, while at the 3rd and 4th KAD, before this, we had the Condor. But last January, we had listed the more than 30-year-old Condor as obsolete.
“So, our alternative is to move the APC at 1st and 2nd KAD to 3rd and 4th KAD so that they are not so empty,” he said while hoping that the army would be able to acquire new assets.
The 4 KAD story. Yes, the general did not say anything about the armoured 4X4 deal but one can assumed that it is no longer funded by reading between the lines. The HMAV was supposed to go to units not equipped or partially equipped with Gempita.
As for moving the Gempita to the other Armoured Regiments without them, this will mean that the units will have around three, two or even one squadrons of them each.
Again, it would have been better for the Army to transfer one of the armoured/mechanised regiments to Sabah instead of standing up a completely new unit there. This was the plan after the Lahad Datu incident, but it was modified after the Army decided to stand up the Fifth Division, which was also the result of that incident (some 10 years ago). The new plan was subsequently affirmed by the DWP 2019 which unfortunately was silent on the funding to achieve its goals.
— Malaysian Defence
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You have written even back in 2019, that 3 KAD already had their Gempita's
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/3armor.jpg
Right now in total there are 5 armored cavalry regiments
1 KAD - Gempita
2 KAD - Gempita
3 KAD - Gempita + Condor
4 KAD - Condor
5 KAD - Lipanbara
For the AV8 Gempita for cavalry regiments, we have
78x IFV30
54x LCT30 (Ingwe)
13x Command
24x Vingtaqs
If we divide the gempita's into 4 units (5 KAD remain all lipanbara unit, even with less than 20 units available), each unit would have around
19x IFV30
13x LCT30
3x Command
6x Vingtaqs
Either we need additional Gempita's, or get cheap off the shelf armored vehicles like the J-LTV. Something with the cost like the RM 7 million ringgit Lipanbara is too much. J-LTV costs about RM 1.5 - 2 million each only.
For the price we bought the 20 units of Lipanbara, we could get 70-90 units of J-LTV.
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/another-kja-programme-or-two/
It would seem 3KAD already had some AV8s so probably just parceling out a couple more to them. 4KAD is more dire situation as they have none, so likely a few more units will have to go to them.
The Ejder Yalcin for Lebanon should be proceeding as normal, yes its nearly finished for delivery but because of that it could also be cancelled, in which luckily that deal had went thru a tender process.
5 Armor got several Gempita which was handed down to them by 19th RMR which also operates the Gempita. 19th RMR was the unit which was supposed to move to Sabah, main camp Kota Belud and Tawau (one company strong). Now 5 Armor have the same gig. Most of the Lipan Bara are based Kota Belud with a few in Tawau together with the Gempita
....
''each unit would have around''
They are not distributed in a uniform manner; same with other units including arty. On paper each regiment would have 'x' Squadrons and 'x' Troops with 'x' number of vehicle and personnel as per authorised tables but in actuality it differs.
I have not seen any pictures of 5 Armor with Gempita. Only Lipanbara's
5 Armor has a very active FB page that anyone can follow.
Armor units I have seen with Gempita (with clear unit emblem on the IFVs)
1 Armor
2 Armor
3 Armor
So again, why does the Army not want more Gempita or spend to develop the platform after spending so much for the program? Too expensive, too big, not actually good, too difficult to run, can't be developed any more, all 5 reasons?
The more the merrier really
The manpower strength is the same if you checked the budget documents. It is just they more billets now
Yes, they have. Just because the pictures are not published, it doesn't mean that it is not there.
As "hulubalang" says, the cost of the Lipanbara is excessive