SHAH ALAM: No Goose? Back in May I posted about a request for bids for 110 84mm recoilless anti-tank weapon which sounds and looks like the Army wanted to buy the latest generation Carl Gustav M4 anti-tank weapon. To Goose or Not To Goose.
From the post:
The Army has a requirement for 110 units of 84mm recoilless anti-tank weapon for its combat units, according to an advertisement published by the Defence Ministry on May 25. The tender will be closing on 17 June. Although the specifications basically says it is the Carl Gustaf 84mm recoilless weapon system, all local importers can enter the request for bids.
Unfortunately as I checked the Eperolehan website this week to check on the RFB, I found that it had been cancelled.
As there is no date for cancellation and the reason why, I have no idea, when and why it was canceled. I like to think that the reason was
Based on the above specifications one would know that they want the Mark 4 version of the Carl Gustaf. Why the ministry is not making the deal directly with Saab or the Sweden Defence Procurement Agency to buy them is beyond me. Despite our own myopic procurement rules, government to government deal is allowed
The reason I was checking on the RFB was that Saab announced on Sept. 16 that it has received orders for the recoilless rifle Carl-Gustaf M4 with included ammunition. The combined order value is approximately 900 million SEK and deliveries will take place in 2022. A quick Google conversion revealed that the amount in US dollars was $103 million or RM431 million. Since our RFB has been cancelled and the fact that we are buying only 110 launchers, clearly this was not our order. Saab did not announced the country that bought it though. I estimated that the order was for around 1,000 launchers and undetermined number of ammo so it may well be a big military like the US or even the British Army.
As for us, I have no idea whether the Defence Ministry is ordering for the new Goose via direct the route. I am aware however that there is a requirement to replace the Goose in service with the Army so there is a chance that the deal did went through.
— Malaysian Defence
Orders = plural. Could be SAAB lumped together various orders on hand just to make the figures look big. If they are going to retender, it could be from the “wrong” crony got that contract earlier. Or maybe returning to the good ol days of opaque procurement process and G&G deals, how wonderful.
The goose might not be cooked just yet.
Unless I’m mistaken the British army has no requirement for Carl Gustav which it stopped using a long time ago so the order is for someone else.
Carl Gustav was replaced by LAW80, in turned replaced by MBT LAW.
Hopefully what joe said is true. Then again if the Army wanted Carl Gustavs from the start, why not just clearly specify Carl Gustavs in the first place? Unless the army wanted other options from the get go, this looked so dumb. It is an open tender even if only 1 company can realistically enter the tender then so be it.
@Luqman
In the spirit of open tender, the ATM cannot be biased as to which item they want to buy, but within that framework they can specify the requirements such as to remove all doubts to which item they want, unless there are clone variants being offered at cheaper price.
Kinda shame we didn’t get the new M4. Not only it’s lighter, they could also shoot guided munition, effectively making them an ATGM
dundun,
It has more to do with the fact that it can fire some and illumination rounds and a 2 man weapon with its sight is inherently more accurate than a disposable system.