Malaysian Army/Land forces discussions

[STURM]

If Piracy (or a similar event) occurs, when is Ungerin called in to handle it, and when is Star called in to do it? Is this a simple question of "the one who is nearer" or is it a legal decision that has to be decided on grounds of Malaysian law?

Thst's a question I've been wondering about myself . If I had to guess, scenarios taking place out at sea will be the reponsibity of STAR. For closer, inshore, littoral work involving hostage taking or smugglers getting violent, the Marine Police and Ungerin will probably do it. Some of the stuff MMEA is meant to do, is still duplicated by the Marine Police and Customs Department, who its own fleet of small boats. The Marine Police also has a few patrol boats armed with turret mounted Bofors, I suspect these have been transfered to the MMEA.

The latest Perajurit mentions the formation of the Rocket Brigade to oversee control of 51, 52 and 61 RAD, which operates the 2 ARTHUR's. IMO, its makes sense for ARTHUR to be used with ASTROS as saturation fire can be employed for the counter battery role. If the
G-5s are also to be used for counter battery work, additional ARTHURs will be needed. It seems 52 RAD was formerly 22 RAD, and transfered its G-5s to 21 RAD [former FH-70 operator]. Previous rumours that the FH-70's have been withdrawn is true, the good news is there's only a single 155mm calibre operated now.

 

[STURM]

Below are excerpts [from the late 90's] from the Q & A section on Mark Bowden's [Blackhawk Down author] site, on the role played by the Malaysian army at Bakara Market.

Philadelphia Online | Blackhawk Down

[1]
''Mark,your story covers the ordeal of the brave Rangers as it richly deserves.If the multi-national rescue operation (without which the tragedy would have been many times worse) has a place in your account, you need to do some homework on the role of Malaysian and Pakistani soldiers.There is a lot they did,at the risk of their lives,to rescue men that were not their compatriots,that is not mentioned in your account.Some Rangers/10th Mountain veterans may like to comment? Most Malaysian or Pakistani soldiers dont own computers,nor have access to the internet,nor speak English. ''Marka,

'Thanks, Marka. There will be more about the Malaysian soldiers in the book, the drivers and gunners on the APCs in the final rescue column, and a mention or two of the Pakistani tanks that went out with that column. I know many of the American soldiers remain deeply grateful for the selfless heroism of the Malaysians who risked their lives when "they didn't have a dog in the fight," as one officer put it. There have been stories about Malaysians being threatened with pistols to drive on (Tom Wolfe's fictional "Ambush and Ft. Bragg" includes such an account) but my research shows nearly all the Malaysians performed professionally, and what problems developed had to do with language barriers and conflicts between orders the drivers had received from their own commanders and what American commanders wanted them to do on the ground, not reluctance or cowardice. ''Mark Bowden'

[2]
''Mark,your story covers the ordeal of the brave Rangers as it richly deserves.If the multi-national rescue operation (without which the tragedy would have been many times worse) has a place in your account, you need to do some homework on the role of Malaysian and Pakistani soldiers.There is a lot they did,at the risk of their lives,to rescue men that were not their compatriots,that is not mentioned in your account.Some Rangers/10th Mountain veterans may like to comment?Most Malaysian or Pakistani soldiers dont own computers,nor have access to the internet,nor speak English. ''Marka

[3]
In your writing, I found very little about the contribution of Malaysian Army during the rescue effort. I understand that one of our hero was fallen in that fight and nine others were injured. From the record most American Comanders had give a good remaks on how our army handling the situation. They are a good soldiers and well trained army. I hope you should commnded their barve contribution to save American soldiers. ''
Sulaiman''

'The American soldiers I have interviewed have highly praised the selfless heroism of the Malaysian soldiers who risked and gave their lives to help them ''Mark Bowden'

[4]
Mark,thanks for the response(session 16).The Malaysian actions are better covered,as some US QRF soldiers travelled in their APCs,once the rescue convoy moved out.Let me give you what I have on the Pakistani side.The Pakistanis were requested to protect,lead and guide the convoy to the final RV,protect it during the halt,and bring up the rear on the way out.Their response was quick-they reached the New Port at 1800,followed at 1845 by the Malaysians and 2100 by the US troops.The Pakistani force was a tank platoon (M-48 tanks) and a mech inf platoon (M-113 APCs).Three dozen or so men,in all.The rescue convoy was led by this force,leaving at 2335,followed by Malaysians,then US troops.The Pakistanis drew heavy auto and mortar fire 300 yds ahead of Strong point 207 on National Street,fought through it till the junction of National and Hawal Wadag Streets.From arrival here till departure at 0530 (4 Oct),this body of Pakistani troops fought a standing gun battle,in the open,against Somali militia in dark side streets and dominating buildings,armed with small arms,auto weapons,RPG-7s and mortars.To protect the rescue convoy all available ordnance was fired,as the troops waited for the Ra. Sorry my question was cut.....waited for the Rangers.The Malaysian/US convoy left,leaving many Rangers on the ground (Mark you mentioned that).Here the mech platoon commander decided that,although he was tasked to protect the convoy,not carry Rangers,he would take as many as he could.He waited under gunfire and took aboard two dozen plus Rangers,packed like sardines with his riflemen (the exact number is not known).The Rangers inside told the commander GO!GO! He said he would wait a little to take stragglers.He left his APC under fire,dragged a wounded Ranger who was slowly crawling on the ground and eased him into his APC.As the withdrawal began,the APCs wireless antenna was shot off by an auto burst.Fire intensified as the force moved and a Pakistani soldier was hit in the face by shrapnel from a mortar round.The firefight continued till contact was broken and the force finally reached the Soccer Stadium. In the heat of the moment,many Rangers would not remember whuch APCs they travelled in.The Malaysians drove unfamiliar,white painted,wheeled APCs that were empty.The Pakistanis had familiar greem M-113 APCs that were manned by riflemen.I request those Rangers who owe their lives to these men to please come on the net and tell their story.Mark,sorry for the long piece,I felt obliged to give you what you may not know,but is relevent,for your newspaper series and book.I leave the rest to you.Good luck!
Marka

Thanks for that, Marka. There will be more about the giant rescue convoy, and everyone involved, in the book. Mark Bowden

 

[DavidDCM]

Thst's a question I've been wondering about myself . If I had to guess, scenarios taking place out at sea will be the reponsibity of STAR. For closer, inshore, littoral work involving hostage taking or smugglers getting violent, the Marine Police and Ungerin will probably do it. Some of the stuff MMEA is meant to do, is still duplicated by the Marine Police and Customs Department, who its own fleet of small boats. The Marine Police also has a few patrol boats armed with turret mounted Bofors, I suspect these have been transfered to the MMEA.

Thanks for that answer. MMEA out on sea (hijacked ships), PDRM on the beach (crimes on Malaysian soil). That kinda makes sense. But I think both units train both kinds of operations. So it's till a little bit confusing.

 

[STURM]

Thanks for that answer.

David, don't take my word for it, I'm just speculating here. Like you, I'm confused as to who does exactly what. When the MMEA was formed, I expected a few goverment agencies to handover their roles to it, but it seems there are still a few goverment agencies who mantain small fleets of patrol boats. Granted, even with the MMEA, there still is a need for the Marine Police to perform certain roles. I know it's off topic, but in ports like New York, I think the Harbour Police does security, with the USCG being responsible for offshore work. On paper at least, in Malaysia's case it would make more sense for a single unit to be reponsible for all anti-hijack, anti-terrorist, HRT, etc, whether coastal or in the open seas.

 

[DavidDCM]

It's never wrong to have more than one unit able to perform a certain task (redundancy). So if the money and the personnel is available, having both Ungerin and Star is surely a good thing for Malaysia. But I thought maybe there are specific paragraphs in the Malaysian laws that define the role of each unit.

 

[Dzirhan]

The reason why MMEA and Marine police have some similar roles is really bureaucratic infighting, back in 98 when the MMEA concept was being mooted (I was working at Maritime Insitute of Malaysia then where much of the discussion was taking place) the idea was to absorb all the maritime enforcement and safety agencies including the Marine Police into MMEA and then Prime Minister Mahathir agreed for this to occur, but when Prime Minister Badawi took over, he approved the marine police to be exempted from being absorbed to MMEA. You have to ask the police why they don't want it to occur but I suspect it's partly to do with the Marine police senior officers being comparitively junior to the Navy officers transferred to the MMEA and thus their moving up the promotion structure is limited compared to being in the Marine police which allows them to move up the police hierachy (the police allows it's officers to move within it's various divisions and branches, so you could move technically from Marine police to a district police job etc). There's been calls from the Navy and MMEA for the Marine police to be folded in but the status quo l remains for the moment

 

[DavidDCM]

Thanks for that, Dzirhan! So, is Ungerin a part of Polis Gerakan Marin? Or a separate body within PDRM?

 

[Dzirhan]

They are under the operational control of the Marine Police, which itself is a branch of the PDRM.

 

[andyddse]

They are under the operational control of the Marine Police, which itself is a branch of the PDRM.

also PDRM/RMP cover the river side of Malaysia.
Thus the APMM/MMA covers the sea part only....they don't patrol the river side.


During an Emergency such as war the APMM/MMA command can be passed to the RMN/TLDM in such all ship can be warship again.

While MP is sole under PDRM/RMP care...

 

[STURM]

Does anyone know if the Malaysian army's stock of Carl Gustavs have received a makeover from Saab? In Miltaryphotos theres a photo of a Saab official briefing a Malaysian officer on some work done on a Carl Gustav. I've been trying to discover what year the Carl Gustav entered Malaysian service and in what quantities, anyone have any idea?

 

[DavidDCM]

The Malaysian Army has been on a shopping spree at the Defense Services Asia (DSA) 2010 exhibition.

The two major deals were a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) to buy 12 Eurocopter EC 725 Super Cougar helicopters to replace the ageing S-61 Sea King/Nuri helos and the Letter of Intent (LoI) to purchase more than 200 wheeled 8x8 APC's.

The APC will be the Turkish PARS, and will bear the local designation "AV-8". The PARS was developed by Turkish company FNSS, who cooperated with Malaysian company Deftech (FNSS and Deftech already cooperated succesfully in 2000 when they won the contract to deliver the ACV-300 infantry fighting vehicle to the Malaysia army).

But as this was only a Letter of Intent, I guess it will take at least another two years until the final contract is signed, and probably at least 3 to 4 years until the first vehicle will be in Malaysian service.

What is unclear to me is the exact number of vehicles purchased. Some sources state 233, some sources 257. Maybe Dzirhan can lighten things up.

One source
New Straits Times, 2010/4/21

RM8b to replace army's armoured vehicles
2010/04/21

KUALA LUMPUR: DRB-Hicom Defence Technologies Sdn Bhd (Deftech) is participating in what could be a multi-billion ringgit programme to replace the aging fleet of armoured personnel carriers in the Malaysian army.

The government has given the wholly-owned subsidiary of DRB-Hicom Bhd a letter of intent, entrusting it to develop the 8x8 Armoured-Wheeled Vehicle (8x8 AWV) programme with the support of the Defence Ministry, Malaysian Army and the Malaysian Defence Industry Council.

Deftech has been working on a prototype for for the last two-and-a-half years and is expected to hand over two test vehicles for the army to evaluate by January 2012.

"We have an order for 257 8x8 AWV units but right now, we are going to come up with the prototypes meant for testing purposes by the army before we develop the whole range of armoured vehicles," Deftech chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil said at a press conference during the 12th Defence Services Asia 2010 exhibition yesterday.

Earlier, the Defence Ministry had said that the programme to build all 257 of the 8x8 AWV will cost the government RM8 billion.

"We are not sure how much it will cost per unit but the armoured vehicles will be build locally in our plant in Pekan, Pahang," Khamil said.

He said the programme will provide job opportunities for 200 local engineers.

"The armoured vehicles that the nation has right now is old, somewhere between 20 to 30 years, and they need to be replaced desperately. It will be too expensive to refurbish them, that is why its best to build new ones."

Khamil said Deftech is the largest supplier to the Malaysian army and hoped that the 8x8 AWV programme could help spur its efforts to penetrate into the world market.

"Right now we are partnering with several international companies such as Daimler AG, Germany, Denel SA, South Africa and Sapura Thales Electronics (STE) Malaysia for this 8x8 AWV programme," he said.

Deftech chief executive officer Abdul Harith Ab dullah said the company had invested RM70 million since the programme started.

"We will be investing another RM400 million to expand our plant in Pekan, purchase new equipment and machinery and to invest on local talent," he added.

 

[Dzirhan]

It's not PARS, it will incoporate certain elements from PARS but will be new design/chassis.
257 is the figure from deftech, the initial 233 number came about because the draft release said 233 but this was taken out from the final release, think final numbers to be negotiated between MOD and Deftech but should be around the two figures

 

[DavidDCM]

It's not PARS, it will incoporate certain elements from PARS but will be new design/chassis.
257 is the figure from deftech, the initial 233 number came about because the draft release said 233 but this was taken out from the final release, think final numbers to be negotiated between MOD and Deftech but should be around the two figures

Thanks for the correction and information, Dzirhan.

I like the aggressive look of the PARS, hope they will keep it. But that's of course only my purely unscientific and completely unimportant personal taste :

 

[STURM]

I like the aggressive look of the PARS,

I like the protection level on the PARS. Hope they get an OWS some some variants rather than just a pintle mount. As 31 Adnans already are fitted with a 25mm Bushmaster, lets hope they stick to a 25mm gun again and not go for 30mm. Same goes with the BMS, it makes sense to stick with the BMS that is already fitted to the PT-91M [reportedly from Thales].

David, off-topic but do 30mm rounds offer a lot more over 25mm rounds in terms of penetration capability by virtue of having a higher velocity? The 25mm sabot rounds used by the Adnans are made by Nammo.

Dzirhan, Was any order or LOI signed for 105mm howitzers, as indicated in a newspaper report?

 

[Dzirhan]

Not howitzers but LOI for 18 vehicles to tow existing 105s, company has proposed VAMTAC for that role.

 

[DavidDCM]

I like the protection level on the PARS. Hope they get an OWS some some variants rather than just a pintle mount. As 31 Adnans already are fitted with a 25mm Bushmaster, lets hope they stick to a 25mm gun again and not go for 30mm. Same goes with the BMS, it makes sense to stick with the BMS that is already fitted to the PT-91M [reportedly from Thales].

David, off-topic but do 30mm rounds offer a lot more over 25mm rounds in terms of penetration capability by virtue of having a higher velocity? The 25mm sabot rounds used by the Adnans are made by Nammo.

From what I read the Pars/AV-8 is going to get a full fledged two-man turret designed by Denel, which is a great progress compared to the one-man turrets of the Adnan and Condor.

In regards to the autocannon calibre, it depends on what you're shooting at. The best protected vehicle in the region other than main battle tanks is probably the Singaporean Bionix IFV. If the Bionix is designed to withstand 25 mm rounds than it is a wise move for Malaysia to go with the 30 mm. But as this is a classified matter, we can only theorize about it. But on a global perspective many armies moved up to 30 mm or higher in recent years. This could indicate that 25 mm, let alone 20 mm, is seen as insufficient for future battle field demands.

From the cost and logistics point of view I see no problems with either. Malaysia already operates two different kinds of autocannon rounds (20 mm for Condor and Stormer, 25 mm for Adnan), three different kinds if you add the 35 mm rounds for the anti-air guns. So another type wont throw everything into chaos, especially as the Condors are going to be retired soon.

 

[STURM]

From the cost and logistics point of view I see no problems with either. Malaysia already operates two different kinds of autocannon rounds (20 mm for Condor and Stormer, 25 mm for Adnan), three different kinds if you add the 35 mm rounds for the anti-air guns. So another type wont throw everything into chaos, especially as the Condors are going to be retired soon.

Doubt if the Condor is going anywhere soon. Granted the Condors doesn't have to replaced on a one to one basis but there are still a lot of Condors to be replaced. There is also the BOFI 40mm AA gun in service.

There was interest several years ago in fitting an OWS on the MIFV.

 

[Dzirhan]

To clarify, the 30mm 2 man turret is for the cavalry variant, while the 25mm 1 man turret and a 7.62mm RCWS variant are the infantry carrier variants, 9 other specialist variants planned

 

[DavidDCM]

Thanks again, Dzirhan. I assume the one-man turret will again be the Sharpshooter? Will the AV-8 be adopted only by the KAD battalions or also by other units?

STURM, yes I forgot the 40 mm, thanks for the hint.

 

[STURM]

Dzirhan, did I understand you correctly?

For whichever 8x8 is chosen, there will be 2 auto cannons - a cavalry variant armed with a 30mm in a 2 man turret and a standard variant armed with a 25mm Bushmaster?
Going down that road doesn't make sense. I'm just hoping that nobody comes with an idea to mount a 90 or 105mm gun next.

David, the regiment that operates the BOFIs also operates the Oerlikon and Igla.
Though the army hasn't said anything official, a local company has been pushing the Chinese Smart Eye as an alerting device for GAPU to pair with its FN-6s.
IMO, the British ADADs would make more sense.