SHAH ALAM: More kaboom stuff, part II. It appears that the Army is getting more ammo and rounds for its troops. The last time round it was mortar bombs, goose rounds, explosive charges and others. Now it wants suppliers to supply it with 105mm rounds, 40mm grenades – low and high velocity – hand grenades – smoke and fragmentation as well as flares and pyrotechnics.
As with the mortar rounds and explosive charges, the 105mm round and grenades were previously procured from SMEO Sdn Bhd, the partly state-owned ordnance company. SMEO manufacture them locally from components sourced from overseas or in the case of small orders import them directly from foreign manufacturers.
It is likely that SMEO can compete with others for the above tenders as it has the necessary license and track record to do so but it it will be competing with other companies then. It has lost similar tenders for other ammunition from 30mm rounds to 57mm and 76mm rounds used by the RMN ships. Based on the recent tenders I believe the Defence Ministry will soon be calling for open competition for small arms ammo – 5.56mm, 7.62mm and even the 12.7mm – the bread and butter of SMEO. If this happens, its effectively calling for the end of the company or at least its manufacturing capability. The company can survive as a trading company by winning tenders for all types of ammunition and other type of explosives for the military.
LV grenades – 20000 units.
There is a requirement for Malaysian Army to be equipped with 40 mm HEHC – LV round that have fragmentation and blast upon impact that can be used with Multiple Grenade Launcher (MGL),
M203 or another similar weapon.
HV grenades – 4000 units
There is a requirement to equip the Automatic Grenade Launcher (AGL) or any other similar weapon with Cartridge 40 MM High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) High Velocity.
Hand grenades – 10000 units
There is a requirement for the use of the Hand Grenade High Explosive (HE) for the Malaysian Army that capable to incapacitating personnel with or without Combat Body Armour and head protection.
Multi coloured (white, blue, red and yellow) grenade and signal mini flare cartridge – 70000 units
105mm HE ammunition – 3000 units
— Malaysian Defence
If you like this post, buy me an espresso. Paypal Payment
View Comments (53)
More good news..thank you sir.
Nammo seems to have good products ranges.
Do we ever had any contracts for any weaponry or munitions with them? Apart from the m72 law.
Reply
AFAIK no
Normal getting new stock to replace spent ammo
"calling for open competition"
"the end of the company"
And so it should be, if it weren't competitive under its own merit by today. As I said, the time for tongkat is over. Cronyism begone! Open competition is the way forward even if we have to suffer a little, but long run we will get our money's worth.
If SMEO is out of picture, can other local players enter the market? The only caveat: no dumb ex general 😁
"Open" competition but pick some crony anyway is not a true "open" competition
@ joe
it costs a lot to have a national defence capability.
why you see most countries have just one. indonesia for example will always give its ammo orders to PINDAD. Turkey MKEK, Pakistan POF, etc.
What MINDEF needs to do IMO is to return all the strategic military industries under government control. SMEO especially, needs to be under LTAT or something.
Nihd.
The 25mm ammo for the Bushmasters.
@Chua
It depends if by definition "open competition" is an RFP or tender. By some, an RFP is considered to be sufficiently "open". By others, including me, it should follow the proper tender process with full transparency. So "open" can be open (pardon the pun) for interpretation by different people, but it should follow the true purpose of "open competition".
@...
"SMEO especially, needs to be under LTAT"
Haven't we learn anything from PSC-NGPV, NGVTech-Samuderas, Boustead-LCS debacle already? Enough with Government-linked already! Why can't we learn it just doesn't work for us.If they can't survive by themselves, giving them tongkat will turn them into Proton pre-Geely era. Nobody then want to touch Proton cars with a 10ft pole. The same will happen with SMEO ammo, mark my words.
Taib- “If SMEO is out of picture, can other local players enter the market”
Even if other players enter the market; can they actually be a better alternative to SME? Can they actually sustain themselves by making a profit whilst also offering ammo at the right prices?
SME’s main problem when it comes to ammo production is that it doesn’t have the needed domestic and export orders. On top of that all the main components needed have to be imported and paid for in foreign currencies.
The whole idea behind SME was so we could be self reliant and wouldn’t have to depend on others - like many other ideas this sounded great on paper but didn’t turn out so well in practice.
The various problems or conundrums we have, including SME; all boils down to the policy we have in place. A policy long in need of a total revamp to undo years of badly flawed and highly damaging policies (from how we manage procurement, to the amounts we allocate for defence, to the emphasis placed on the local industry) which are deeply ingrained in the system.