SHAH ALAM: Going, Going, Gone. The government wants to cancel the deal for the MD530G light scout attack helicopter and the MH109A5 self propelled howitzer.
It is unclear why they want to cancel both contracts though this is likely as a result of the review ordered by the current government shortly after taking over Putrajaya following the general elections last year.
Malaysian Defence has written various posts on the MD530G so please read them here and here. Destini Bhd bought over the contract from Halaman Optima here.
As for the M109SPH, here and here.
It must be noted that when I checked about both deals at LIMA 2019, every thing was fine and I was told that the first batch of the helicopters and SPH were to be delivered around this time this year. In May however things begun to look shaky for the MD530G deal when the main stream media started reporting that the helicopters has yet to be delivered though the contract was signed in 2015. This culminated with a report lodged with MACC in June.
After the report was lodged I again checked and was then told that it was likely that the government had decided not to take delivery of the helicopters. Further checks showed that the government wanted to cancel the contract altogether.
This was the same with the M109A5 SPH. However, the government has yet to issue the final order, a high ranking military official said when asked for confirmation. He did not want to be quoted.
It must be noted that I had hold on to the story as I had been made aware of another contract (not the LMS) that had been cancelled and reinstated before being duly cancelled and reinstated again. But that is for another day of course.
— Malaysian Defence
If you like this post, buy me an espresso. Paypal Payment
View Comments (61)
Oh no!
What is the penalty for cancelling the contract? Those little birds are pretty unique to malaysia. I believe most of the 6 units are already built. Not saying that I think we really need those little birds but the contract is already very advanced it is illogical to cancel now without being hit with serious penalties.
As for the SPH, cancelling it wont give any cost savings as it is basically free anyway.
Want to hear more officially on this.
Dun wan make in USA but make in Russia
This is really disconcerting news, such things should only be done as a last, last resort.
At least now about them are all clear...really clear.
Maybe there is a good news Tun bring back home from Russia.
Why canceling SPH too? It is free. No money even just to upgrade and transport?
We’d already have paid legal/administrative costs relating to the transfer; plus the costs needed to upgrade the M’-109s.
As for the Little Birds; unless we can prove that the OEM or the agent is in serous breach of contractual obligations; cancelling the deal will have financial implications for us.
On the surface this is disappointing as the Little Birds would have had a useful role in ESSCOM as a surveillance and fast faction asset and the M-109s would have complemented our MBTs and IFVs; filling in the missing element in our combined arms units.
I'll play a devil's advocate here. Prolly Tun M's russian spending spree is implicated by these equipments and since the government didn't lose money anyway it's better to simply cancel the transaction. Who knows, we might get freaking Mi-35 in place of MD530
We still need SPH tho so hopefully we can get Caesar since the M109 deal is off
May Tun wants Mi 28 when he meets Putin.
I really hope this article will force the menhan to reply officially regarding this matter. I am really hoping to hear that this news is not true as i dont see any good outcome from this cancellation.
If we do go through with russian helicopters as nuri replacement, some questions from me....(asking for opinions)
1. Is it for army aviation for utility purpose and also air force for csar role? (a bit tricky since air force is already using h225m)
2. Do we will put western avionics and defensive aids systems on the russian helicopters?
3. Best choice if going russian's will be mil mi-17v5 in my opinion. Any other choice?
4. How many heli is needed by army? Optimally or minimally.
5. Will we need 2 pipelines of helicopter training? 1 for western and another for russians?
Thank you.
@ nihd
1. I really hope that at least there wont be russian helicopters for TUDM. For TUDM, their nuri replacement should be just additional EC225s.
2. We can, western could be from europe, turkey or south korea.
3. Mi-38
4. Hmm probably 12-24.
5. No need. Just OCU/type rating for that specific helicopter just before going into operational squadrons.
For helicopters, my personal preference would be more EC225 for tudm, and used blackhawks for putd as nuri replacements. There are some interesting concepts out there as helicopter replacements in the future (multi rotors etc), something that we could get in say 15 years in the future.