KUALA LUMPUR: IF you go here www.mod.gov.my and scroll down to the tender section, you will find that the latest the procurement tender 35/2007; dated May 29.

There are 11 items on the tender and interestingly five of them are related to firearms.

First item is For The Supply And Delivery Of Assault Rifle C/W Accessories (Assault Rifle) To Malaysian Government.

HK416 assault rifle

The second one is for the supply of the 9mm sub-machine gun complete with accessories; third is for the supply of 9mm with holster; fourth is for LMG with accessories; and the sixth one is for supply and delivery of sniper rifle 7.62mm.

HKG36 Assault rifle

It is interesting to note that the tender announcement document failed to mention the caliber for the assault rifle and LMG. Are we looking for another caliber? I don’t think since we are not so gun-centric due to our culture and laws. I believe the omission was simply the fact that the 5.56mm cartridge remained the only option.

Since Malaysian Defence has on several occasions touched on the issue of the purchase of assault rifles for the Malaysian Armed Forces, it is hoped that this time around they really conduct exhaustive tests before deciding on the type of weapon to be purchased.

There is no need for Malaysian Defence to repeat its argument here, just click here.

Local manufacturing should never be used during the evaluation and testing period. It should only be done if its cost effective in the long term,.

The specifications for the 9mm pistol and sub-machine guns seemed straight forward, polymer pistols are expected to be chosen (due to lower costs). Heckler and Koch, Glock and FN should be in the fray for the pistol tender while HK should be a shoe-in for the sub-guns category.

FN P90 submachinegun.

The Army needs new pistols badly. They are currently using a mixture of HK P9S and Vektor pistols; RMAF is even worse, they are still using Browning High-Powers while the Navy is using a mixture of various versions of the Glock.

Lets hope this time, the same pistol are using across the services for better commonality and reduction of spare parts costs.

A Glock pistol in a perfect shooting grip.

For the LMG would be a straight fight between HK and FN.
The sixth item, sniper rifle 7.62mm, is for Malaysian Defence is a typical example of our lack of gun savvy. Combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq clearly showed that cartridge, while still effective for sniping, has some drawbacks.

Some armies have moved to the bigger 338 Lapua, which bridge the gap between the 7.62mm and the 50BMG, with little weight penalty. Two bolt-action 338 Lapua is already available with a semi-auto offering from Cobb Manufacturing from the US could also be chosen

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