SHAH ALAM: Science & Technology Research Institue for Defence (STRIDE) will among the 1,170 exhibitors taking in the upcoming DSA 2022 exhibition, scheduled for March 28-31 at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.
Stride in a posting on its social media said
Pameran DSA 2022 akan berlangsung pada 28 -31 Mac 2022 di Malaysia International Trade Exhibition Centre (MITEC), Kuala Lumpur.
Kunjungi dan sertai kami @Stridemindef di Booth 4040, Hall 4, Level 1, MITEC untuk mengetahui perkhidmatan teknikal yang kami tawarkan dan penghasilan produk inovasi terkini.
It also posted a number pictures of the items likely to be exhibited at its booth. Some of these items will be exhibited as pictures or models only as they are too big and impractical to be set up at the exhibition centre. As a division of the Defence Ministry, STRIDE has been taking part in the DSA and LIMA series of exhibition since in the late 90s. It is likely that this time around with additional budget for R&D, the institute may well want to show off some of its work.
It is unclear however whether its work with local companies from 6X6 to UAVs will be shown at the show. I guess we will have to wait and see what other things STRIDE can display when the exhibition starts.
–Malaysian Defence
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I want to see their previous huuhaa’ed locally developed sniper rifle & 120mm mortar in the flesh and fully ready for production rather than moving onto new things of interest.
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/locally-developed-weapons/
If I’m not mistaken STRIDE and MILDEF (Tarantula HMAV 4×4 manufacturer)work together to develop 6×6 from scratch. Hope we can see the progress soon.
Rock – ” Hope we can see the progress soon.”
Right and then what? We buy a few to ”support the local industry”? In a few years if yet another ”local” design is available; we buy some of that too? At the same time what happens if there are foreign designs which are price comparable or cheaper and offer more? Do we buy ”local” stuff merely to support the local industry or do the needs of the end user come first?
If we want to have a functional (I wouldn’t say viable or sustainable) local defence industry, we must follow what SG has/is doing; finding capabled technical partners that has a solid record, working closely with end users (TDM, TUDM, TLDM, MMEA, etc) to tailor such equipment to meet all or nearly all of their requirements, the end users must commit to a certain procurement volume and plan to purchase once they are ready for production, the Government must allocate sufficient budget for the said purchases, the rest must shaddup and not question why we buy such and such.
Now comes the thorny part; we must realise, like SG did, that indigenously developed systems would defo be more expensive than if we were to buy from outside mainly because we won’t get economy of scale as we would be the only users. It would be an added benefit if such could attract outside buyers but we mustn’t fool ourselves that that is the main goal, which is to equip our guys exactly what they need.
Case in point; SAR21 rifle, Primus SPH, Bionix, Terrex & Hunter APCs, Pegasus gun, defo are more expensive in total cost per system plus they are few(SAR21) or no other buyers to justify the economics, but SG has the wealth and high income to swallow such inefficiency all for the sake of selfsufficiency (whether that itself is genuine or not, no idea).
But can our flimsy economy and 3X weaker currency swallow such inefficiency as they did? We can’t even allocate the same Percentage % of GDP budget for defence as they did! 2021 we have USD$4bil budget while SG got USD $12Bil, it is that big a economy gap to spend on defence alone!
Local defence industry is a unicorn, if we cannot afford it we better don’t do it.