The Indonesian Army

[Volod]

A T-90S runs about 2.5-3 mln USD. So not really much more expensive. A T-90MS would be significantly more expensive. To be honest 2.5 mln a piece is a pretty ridiculous price for an upgraded T-64. I wonder if it would be cheaper to buy decommissioned T-64s from Russia (at scrap-metal prices) and then send them to Ukraine for the modernization.

No, not cheaper. Modernization for Ukrainian army cost more then 1,2M$. Only hull and turret used in new vehicle. Another parts, engine, FCS and other equipment are new.
And 2,5M$ include not only tank - ammunition too. ATGM cost too expansive.

I suspect the reason they didn't offer the T-84 was because it's not really ready for production.

Is Indonesia ready to pay 5M$ for tank?.. and weight more tnan 50 tons
and without ToT?..

 

[koxinga]

Is Indonesia ready to pay 5M$ for tank?.. and weight more tnan 50 tons
and without ToT?..

Then pay 2.5 mil for a used Leopard 2 without ToT.

The speculation is pointless and getting more out of hand by the day. Other than the Russia news, there are news of used M270s, used German Marders etc. Let's just give it a rest and for the news to come out eventually.

 

[Volod]

Then pay 2.5 mil for a used Leopard 2 without ToT.

The speculation is pointless and getting more out of hand by the day. Other than the Russia news, there are news of used M270s, used German Marders etc. Let's just give it a rest and for the news to come out eventually.

if Russia is willing to change tanks for palm oil, as in aircraft case - competitors lose contract..

 

[Feanor]

Yeah, I Agree. The Deal for 6 more Flankers are already circulated in here for some time, and Ria Novosti already put progress on the deal. For Land based asset, seems before Indonesian Min-Def more inclined with Russian stuff, but with potential ex-Nato assets now possible plus Ukraine also doing some heavy marketing with ToT offer with Pindad, we'll have to be seen.

The rumors in here, the one to get Russian stuff is the Marines in the form of additional BMP-3F and BM-21 Grad. Frankly speaking BM-30 Smerch is for me rather new development.

In the end, juat like you say, politics can play.

The BMP-3F and BM-21s sound a lot more likely to me too, but I've heard nothing about either one. Given that MoD orders for the BMP-3 have been cancelled, they should be pretty desperate to pick up export contracts anywhere they can.

EDIT: An interesting price detail, for the Indians, a T-90S assembled in Russia costs 2.1 mln USD, cheaper even then second hand Leos would be for Indonesia. A T-90S built from Russian kits in Avadi, runs 2.5 mln USD, a license-produced tank runs 3.5 mln USD. Given this, 2.5 mln for upgraded T-64s doesn't look good.

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

Yeah, I Agree. The Deal for 6 more Flankers are already circulated in here for some time, and Ria Novosti already put progress on the deal. For Land based asset, seems before Indonesian Min-Def more inclined with Russian stuff, but with potential ex-Nato assets now possible plus Ukraine also doing some heavy marketing with ToT offer with Pindad, we'll have to be seen.

The rumors in here, the one to get Russian stuff is the Marines in the form of additional BMP-3F and BM-21 Grad. Frankly speaking BM-30 Smerch is for me rather new development.

In the end, juat like you say, politics can play.

Yes, lets wait and see.

Buying heavy multiple rocket launcher systems and more MBT besides the second hand Leopards is not really of the highest priority. For example, we still do not have a descend (decent/descent?) Air Defence System, only a bunch of various SHORADS, like Chinese copies of ZU-23-2, Rbs 70 and the Polish KOBRA ADS ( One MMSR lightweight mobile multi-beam search radar, four Poprad mobile anti-aircraft systems and two WD-95 battery command vehicles and 14 ZUR-23-2KG-I gun/missile systems including 74 GROM missiles isn't ?).
I dont even know the status of the acquisition of the TD-2000B.
(DEFENSE STUDIES: Indonesia Buys New SHORADS)

 

[Gadjah Mada]

There is an article in tempo interaktif : Pramono-Edhie-Jadi-Presiden-Nggak-Enak. Sorry since I am a beginner, I can not post link.

Unfortunately only in Indonesian. An interview with TNI-AD chief of staff, which is also the brother in law of the current president. So I think this information is quite reliable.

A statement from TNI AD chief of staff about procurement plan. He stated that indeed the MBT will be placed in Java. And he also mentioned about TNI AD or Indonesian military policy in general of buying weaponry based on equality to our ASEAN neighbors instead of superiority. A policy maintained since the Suharto era.

 

[Ananda]

This is an Interview with Army Chief of Staff General Pramono Edhie Wibowo (which incidentally also Brother in Law of current President SBY). This is interview with a leading Indonesian Media Tempo thus considered quite reliable. The interview is quite long so I don't put a translation from Google as usual. Thus just put the link to the on-line source : Tempo.co - Pramono Edhie: Jadi Presiden Nggak Enak *

The Interviewer wants to talk with him more on the chance that he run for Presidency in 2014 when his Brother In Law 2 terms limit already done. However the General wants to talk more with the plan Procurement for the Army with the Budget of IDR 14 Trillion (or USD 1.6 bio). The Army got smallest portion of Procurement budget compared to Navy and Air Force. In short in the Interview he stated that the Procurement will be focus on:

1. Getting MBT. He's still actively bargain with the Dutch to get their Leo 2. However also talked with the German for Leo 2. He did not mentioned any other candidate except Leo 2. The number he indicated 100 MBT.
2. 155 mm Self Propeled gun. He indicated the one he preferred and seems near completion is with the French (local rumors in here indicated Ceasar), The number he indicated is 2 battalion.
3. For MLRS the Army already closing in with two candidates from Brazil and US. He prefers the Russian MLRS, but seems complained with the procurement practices in Russia which involved many brokers.
4. Short range anti air defense system, with preferential of French Mistral.

He's also indicated that the UK, German and French Parliament seems will not have problem with the sell. The Dutch Gov't willing to sell but still in process (i,e lobby) their Parliament. While US Congress need to be approached if the plan to get Apache still go on. But seems he does not really confident with US Congress (thus seems in line with rumors that US congress still reluctant to sell US weapons to Indonesian Army and only willing to sell supporting asset to Army and weapons to Navy and Air Force).

The MBT will be put solely in JAVA, This should put end on several speculation of where the MBT (if being delivered) will be put. For one thing he did not want to put MBT in other area let alone in the border for Political considerations and ( off course personally I suspect infrastructure/logistics support).

He's indicated that he preferred talking with Western nations due to less brokers involved and the willingness of the Western nations to make it G to G (Government to Government) deal. Since he's priority is to cut much of broker involvement and increased bargaining power to directly buy with the Producers and related Government.

This is quite rare for Army Chief to talked more openly about procurement. The Navy and Air Force chief usually more open on this matter. Seems he wants to show the media that the Army Procurement practice will be more open and accountable. Well, I personally hope so.

 

[Gadjah Mada]

1. Getting MBT. He's still actively bargain with the Dutch to get their Leo 2. However also talked with the German for Leo 2. He did not mentioned any other candidate except Leo 2. The number he indicated 100 MBT.


Thank you Ananda for the info,

However in the same interview the army chief of staff was accompanied by his deputy who personally experienced riding both Leo 2A5 and M1 Abrams. And he said while Leo is the best, M1 Abrams is acceptable, however it is impossible for Indonesian army to get Abrams with a discount or even for free-unlike F-16- considering Indonesia is not a US "ally". Even though may be what you said about congress problem more reasonable compared to his statement

The chief of staff also dismiss the possibility of Leclerc, while he did not mention anything about Russian or Ukrainian tank.

The interview also showed the strong motivation of the army to get MBT. If in any worst scenario, they failed to get western MBT, the Ukrainian product has a chance as long as they give better G to G channel than the Russian counter parts-which the chief of staff said in Bahasa Indonesia "full of mafia".

I think payment methods with CPO etc., is not considered here, different to that of Sukhoi in 2003, since Indonesian economy has improved much for the last 8 years

If Vietnam can buy a lot of weaponry, Indonesia who has almost five times larger GDP (PPP) than Vietnam-and more than three times larger than Ukraine- should be able to do a lot better. Just my rough opinion.

 

[Ananda]

If Vietnam can buy a lot of weaponry, Indonesia who has almost five times larger GDP (PPP) than Vietnam-and more than three times larger than Ukraine- should be able to do a lot better. Just my rough opinion.

Size of Economy not entirely dictate what you can buy in terms of Defense. One thing you have to remembered that even though in Nominal (I don't quite like to talk about PPP, it can be misleading since PPP it self being based on judgmental pricing), Indonesia have largest GDP in SEA (USD 700 bio), however the Government budget only 1/6 of that. It's due to the fact that 'taxable based' in the population is still relatively small compare to more developed nation.

That's why although (for example) the size of Singapore economy is roughly around 1/3 of Indonesia, but since Singapore 'taxable based' is relatively/proportionally larger, the Singaporean Government budget can be as big as Indonesian one or even bigger. Therefore they can afford more budget in the area like Defense.

In short, talk more on the size of Government budget rather than size of economy, since for developing country like Indonesia, the proportion of the economy that can be taken as budget is not as large as more developed nation.

Back to MBT, well Leo 2 being considered since there's bargain price for Surplus Leo 2 in the market. Indonesia can't afford new Leo 2 and that's for sure. Before those surplus become available, in fact the candidate is T-90, since that's the new build MBT that Indonesia can afford. Some talking about K1A1,but it's also expensive. The K1A1 being discussed since South Korean seems incline to put K1A1 in packages with other defense projects.

Forget about Apache. It's expensive to maintain, and Mi-35 is more suitable for Indonesian need. Also and don't even dream for US Congress to approved it. It's different for approving F-16 to the Apache. In US Congress eyes Indonesian Navy and Air Force are acceptable branches of Armed Forces while they still do not like Indonesian Army. I could be wrong though .

 

[Feanor]

Russian sources seemed to imply that the T-90 deal is at the stage of negotiating a contract. Now there is no official tender running, as I understand it, so these are multiple bi-lateral negotiations going on simultaneously? With Netherlands, Ukraine, Russia, and South Korea?

 

[CheeZe]

If both the Leo 2 and T-90 deals are in negotiations, then perhaps the Indonesians are looking to see who's more willing to cut and haggle? That way, they play the two sellers off each other?

 

[Ananda]

If both the Leo 2 and T-90 deals are in negotiations, then perhaps the Indonesians are looking to see who's more willing to cut and haggle? That way, they play the two sellers off each other?

Anything is still possible. With the Min-Def try to cut as much as possible broker involvement in current procurement practices, the brokers now try to get as much as possible the leverages with the Parliament.

Corruption still a big problem in here, even though there's some progress in corruption eradication in Indonesia but one of the biggest problem are the most corrupt institutions in Indonesia is the Democratically Elected Parliament

Democracy in Indonesia already show the ugly side effect which is the high cost for election and campaign that a Political Party must prepared. Thus since the Democracy restored in Indonesia, most of Politician and political party spend half of their elected time to find money to pay the previous election and campaign cost, and spend the other half to find money to prepared for the next campaign and election cost.

When Soeharto (our Last Dictator) fell, the new system increased the power of Parliament so the power of Executive (Presidency) will not as big as the time of our two beloved dictator (Soekarno and Soeharto) have. But this being used by the political party in the Parliament to get as much as kick-back for projects approval.

Anyway, with the brokers know that their involvement being cut as much as possible by Mindef who preferred Govt to Govt (G to G) deal and not B to B (Broker to Broker) deal that used to be existed with previous defense procurement deal/projects, they know their last chance for big projects deal lies in the Parliament. In such parliaments can break any attempt for G to G deal, for more profitable B to B deal.

Off Course they will try to hide it with several 'pathetic' reasons, such as (one that now popularly circulated by some Parliaments members), for not to buy 'second hand' or surplus weapons but has to buy brand new one. It's pathetic and groundless, since those surplus ex-Nato weapons still in good shape conditions and not much different with a brand new ones.

That's why many Min-def and Armed Forces brass went out to media, try to gather public support for their effort to get surplus ex-Nato weapons, and try to deflect the Parliament (Brokerage influences) argument that those Surplus ex-Nato weapons is in 'crappy' conditions since it's second hand weapons.

In Short the executives (including Mindef and the Armed Forces) now conduct media campaign and public support gathering to fight Brokers that already have strong backing in Parliament.

What a price of democracy that we have to pay

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

Wlocome to Defencetalk Gajah Mada!

1. Getting MBT. He's still actively bargain with the Dutch to get their Leo 2. However also talked with the German for Leo 2. He did not mentioned any other candidate except Leo 2. The number he indicated 100 MBT.
2. 155 mm Self Propeled gun. He indicated the one he preferred and seems near completion is with the French (local rumors in here indicated Ceasar), The number he indicated is 2 battalion.
3. For MLRS the Army already closing in with two candidates from Brazil and US. He prefers the Russian MLRS, but seems complained with the procurement practices in Russia which involved many brokers.
4. Short range anti air defense system, with preferential of French Mistral.

Why our government is so obsessed with equipping our armed forces with all different kinds of (cheap) air defence systems against low and slow flying airplanes? Like they are expecting every potential enemy will invade us with helicopters, piston engine airplanes and low end UAVs....

However, in December 2006, it was announced by MBDA that it would join with Indonesia's PT Pindad to form an industrial partnership to market an Indonesian variant of the ATLAS (Mistral 2) short-range air defence system based on Pindad's Light Military Vehicle. After that no news any more about these plans.

 

[Ananda]

Wlocome to Defencetalk Gajah Mada!

Why our government is so obsessed with equipping our armed forces with all different kinds of (cheap) air defence systems against low and slow flying airplanes?

Because It's relatively cheap

Anyway Mistral seems going to be kind of standard shorads with the Armed Forces. The Navy used it, The Army now seems going to used it also. Perhaps what the Army Chief talks about Mistrals procurements is part of previous deals being talked with EADS.

But You're right, after SA-2 in the 60's procurement, TNI SAM mainly only Shorads from Rapier, RBS, Chinese QW-3, Polish Gronm (well basically both Chinese and Polish Missiles based on same thing), and Mistral. In short SA-2 capability as medium-long range SAM never been replaced up until now.

There's a lot of talking about SA-300, and SA-400 in local forum. but mostly wishful thinking.

 

[koxinga]

Because It's relatively cheap

Anyway Mistral seems going to be kind of standard shorads with the Armed Forces. The Navy used it, The Army now seems going to used it also. Perhaps what the Army Chief talks about Mistrals procurements is part of previous deals being talked with EADS.

It is not really cheap when compared to the QW-3 and Grom.

Perhaps the question can be asked what is the organization of air defence in TNI? Given the way the QW-3 is given out, it seems to be organic to Kodam while the Groms are used for airbase defence by TNI-AU and in a limited manner since there was only 1 mobile radar which is linked to a few sets of Korba/Poprad systems.

Is there a national integrated air defense system in place and if so, is it a AU or AD or a joint concern? Any talk about buying long-range systems will have to fit into an existing command and control system as well as air defence doctrine.

 

[DavidDCM]

The national air defence is business of the TNI-AU, and it's done with fighter jets, not AA missiles. There is no cohesive, strategic missile umbrella or something like that. All TNI's air defence systems are tactical point defence weapons, to say so.

In regards to the numerous weapon systems: QW-3 to my faulty knowledge was purchas by the air force for its Paskhas units. The Kobra system (Grom SAM +ZUR-23 AAA) was purchased by the army to replace the Rapier SAM. The first Kobra system is in use with Kodam Jaya since ~2007. I am not sure if any more have been delivered since then.

 

[Ananda]

The Integration for National Air Defense still in embryonic level. Beginning with integration of Air Force land based Air Surface radar and Civilian Air Traffic Control radar. The plan then will be followed with integration of Navy Radar especially from the Frigates and other large surface ships.

The using of Civilian Air Traffic radar is supposedly temporary solution, since the Air Force now only have 18 radar throughout Archipelago and building another 4. They calculated the need for minimum 32 Air Control radar, thus it's predicted the 32 number can only be fulfilled on 2015-16 at the soonest.

Long term plan exists for AEW Aircraft, but no immediate plan for this. Just like plan for Long Range/Theater SAM Defense, which already absent in Indonesia since the pull out of SA-2 in the beginning of the 70's. The Air Force already asked for SA-2 replacement for nearly 3 decades, but keep pushing down in priority level by the Min-Def. The doctrine for Long Range/Theater Missile defense if any still follow when the time SA-2 operational (in which basically Soviet style doctrine).

Thus all the branch of Armed Forces now only planning for Immediate future to equipped all their point-defense capabilities with missiles, and replacing vintage AA gun. For the Army, after some experience with Grom, seems now wants to standardize to Mistral as the ultimate replacement of old Rapier.

Anyway, found this on Local Forum. Seems according to local Forum, Pindad already clear the agreement with Renault for local production of Sherpa. And will be announced officially in the 16th. The Picture show Sherpa being prepared for Official ceremony in the 16th. Will have to see if in the 16th the claim from local forum can be confirmed.

 

[koxinga]

Anyway, found this on Local Forum. Seems according to local Forum, Pindad already clear the agreement with Renault for local production of Sherpa. And will be announced officially in the 16th. The Picture show Sherpa being prepared for Official ceremony in the 16th. Will have to see if in the 16th the claim from local forum can be confirmed.

Strange. This would be mean all of the existing indigenous programs have been wasted? A lot of the smaller local companies would be seriously pissed if TNI-AD went for this option.

 

[DavidDCM]

The Sherpa deal has been quite fixed since January this year. However, note that the Sherpa is will be used as recce vehicle (panser intai), in the mechanized infantry, and in the future maybe in the cavalry.
It will not be the next standard 4x4. Thus, the Sherpa deal has no influence on the Garda/Gudel/etc. program.

 

[Ananda]

The Sherpa deal has been quite fixed since January this year. However, note that the Sherpa is will be used as recce vehicle (panser intai), in the mechanized infantry, and in the future maybe in the cavalry.
It will not be the next standard 4x4. Thus, the Sherpa deal has no influence on the Garda/Gudel/etc. program.

Agree, the Sherpa is not for the standard 4x4 program. That's the program that Pindad and various local companies bid for. Sherpa is just simply too big and too expensive being used as standard 4x4.

Anyway from Radio Netherlands (Indonesian desk), indicated that the majority of Dutch Parliament refused to sell 60 Leo 2 to Indonesia as the Dutch Government proposed. Belanda Ogah Jual Tank ke Indonesia | Radio Nederland Wereldomroep

Well if it's agree upon by the Dutch Parliament and that's the surprise. With Majority of Netherlands Politician now consists with Indonesian Haters and supporters of Free Papua Movement, it's not a surprise. After all many of those Dutch Politician still Think Indonesia is their colony .

So Unless the German agree for Surplus Leo 2, then K1A1 or T-90 or even T-84 Bulat are still possible candidates for TNI-AD first MBT.

The Picture below show compared to Sherpa, Garda (which's the strongest local candidate for standard 4x4) is smaller and more compact than Sherpa.