KUALA LUMPUR: Defence journalist, Dzirhan Mahadzir has written a long thread on the 2019 cancellation of the M109SPH on his Twitter account. Posted here are the thread with kind permission of course.

Alright, as I promised, a thread on the Excess Defense Articles M109 and the story on it following.. /1

First off, the SPH requirement for the Army really had been going around even back as far as 1991 but pretty much bounced around on issues of funding and whether Malaysia could support maintain such /2

Following the acquisition of the PT-91M tanks in 2007 and operationalisation in 2010, the Army again went pushing for the capability as obviously the tanks needed artillery support that could keep up and have the same mobility as them and the mechanized elements /3

This also tied in with the Army’s plans to convert 1 Inf Bde into an armoured bde though the army wasn’t sure it would get a second regt of tanks so the composition would be an armor regt, a cavalry regt with AV-8s AFVs and a mech bn plus support /4

Anyhow the usual budget limitations put everything in limbo until 2013 when post Lahad Datu incursion, plans were to beef up capabilities in E.Msia which included mobile artillery, of course truck mounted artillery were also coming into emergence then so../5

The debate was on whether it should be tracked which cost more to maintain or truck which less but mobility not same as tracked and same time Army not sure how long the requirement in E.Msia will be so if get truck SPH, might be all it get and not able to keep up with Tk regt /6

The issue for Malaysian armed forces is always to the government, treasury, politicians etc, any piece of equipment type the same e.g Fighter = LCA=Hawk = Hornet = Su-30MKM so if you bought a wheeled SPH, they say why you need tracked as same thing.. /7

So obviously the Army had to really make a call what they want to push for as you likely only get one type and not the other (even though their plans incorporate both types).. /8

By and large it seem tracked won out but again issue was money, and this is where the U.S military office at embassy comes in, particularly Office of Defense Cooperation, one thing people don’t realise it sometimes how hard a number Embassy people work to help country they in../9

Though sometimes these efforts backfire as embassy try to do good stuff, but locals try to milk them or use for own ends, I could name names but legalities so back to the topic.. /10

So by late 2014 or early 2015 (am a little fuzzy as working from memory), the U.S offered Malaysia EDA M109s, which even though you had to refurbish them, would be cheaper than anything on the market though there was an effort promoting PZH-2000s from Germany.. /11

The U.S mil office here pretty much put a lot of work with it and this included arranging visits for an Army team to see the M109s and examine the ones Malaysia is getting etc, so this crystalized into a Letter of Intent at DSA 2016 and a firm agreement at DSA 2018 /12

The story I wrote back in 2018 on what the arrangement was still here online so you can read it /13 https://monch.com/loring-industries-detailloring-industries-details-m109a5-refurbishments-m109a5-refurbishment/

So all well and good, Deftech was selected by Mindef to be the local MRO given they really the only ones with the capabilities and facilities to do tracked MRO though of course some not like that since Deftech plant is in Pekan where you know who is/was MP for that area /14

Of course the problem was that this was done under the BN government which then lost the election a few months later and the new PH government came in and started scrutinizing things but it was really expected M109 deal would just carry on as ../15

The thing with the US government EDA deal is that nobody makes that much money out of it given the U.S controls the things and you pay U.S government at a very low rate, a bargain in fact…./16

But by mid-2019, there were rumors floating about it would be cancelled along with some people saying it a BN crony deal (err US govt BN crony?), Army never wanted it (Err Army signed off, approved and recommend to govt then and went to see guns some more)…/17

And in event Mat Sabu was rubbish at Shangri-La dialogue 2019 when I put questions to him at delegate’s Q and A session and Deputy Defmin as @marhalimabas pointed out, ducked the questions during LCS keel laying ceremony so just as useless really to ask him../19

But the two of us figured that one person would talk and tell us if we ask him and that was then CDF Gen Zulkifli Zainal Abidin who been exiled in 2013 to National Defence University and bought in by Pakatan to be CDF as he only person in military they could trust /20

Given he exiled by previous government and he pretty much know @marhalimabas and me and he cuts me a lot of slack since I openly told him at DSA after he gave me a long spiel on his plans to help MAF with UPMN doing research on defence equipment and I just said to him… /21

” the problem is do you think anyone in Malaysian Armed Forces going to listen to your plans since you’ve been banished” Gen. Zul looks at me for a moment then smiles and says ” you are right but hopefully they see it benefit armed forces” so../22

So I figure given all that I could trade on him giving me an answer on M109 so as luck would have it, there was a general media invite for an event with CDF and @marhalimabas and I of course showed up with intent to get an answer on him on M109s and also MD530Gs…/23

The only difficulty we had really was making sure that none of the other media reporters were around when we asking questions on it, because usually we do the legwork and then the MSM local media just listen/copy and claim credit for doing so 😛 ../24

But that not too difficult as Gen Zul also happy to see us, and say he not seen much of us at events, and I told we mostly not invited, I could have said banished like him at UPMN really but I figure you can only pull that so often 😆 but anyhow he confirmed to us…/25

That been decided at government to cancel both but that not made official yet (this was Sept 2019) and we can write on it but not say who confirmed to us, which kinda SOP for us anyhow so we both wrote up our stories, mine in Shephard here at /26

And @marhalimabas on his blog at https://malaysiandefence.com/going-going-gone/ , we thought local media would follow up but they too busy sucking up PH then like they suck up to BN before elections so no follow up there /27

Of course the PH people putting out they save money but conveniently forget we still got to pay storage fees for the guns as we now own them though US people not happy with me when I say PH government could always sell guns to Iran given… (see pic) 🤣 /28

But in the end the U.S release Malaysia from obligations (guns could be in Ukraine now for all I know) but we still lose money out of it but the weird thing is that the defence white paper issued in 2019 said Army needed SPH…. /29

Which a contradiction really since we cancel the most cost-effective and cheapest solution and now say we need to buy SPH which of course not going to be as cheap as the EDA M109s and somemore government lose money cancelling it on top of that../30

Also for all their talk of transparency, the PH people never come clean or spoke on why M109 was cancelled and who made the call, is there something to hide there on it or just plain stupidity (always hard to tell really) and../32

Today people are making noise about the letter awarding the wheeled SPH contract, well, for those from the PH side, if your side not cancel M109, this probably wouldn’t have happen as M109s would be being delivered now and no one can asked for wheeled SPH as already got SPH ./33

So there you go, pretty much a fiasco created by PH really, we had the guns, things good to go and it not going to fail as U.S government and embassy directly overseeing it so do engage brains, BN has a lot of issues but so has PH as well…ends /34

— Malaysian Defence