At least they are buying something that they can barely afford unlike the other country acting like a rich nation and like to buy things with special customized configuration that inflated the price and yet complaint about things getting old and insufficient.

What I try to imply is other poor regional country are trying to modernise their AF on the cheap due to tight budget allocation. They trying to purchase second hand weapons, get the quantity vs quality as you always mentioned. We on the other hand like to buy weapons with special customized configuration and also want build locally with ToT. That inflated their price by a large margin and limit the quantity we can purchase. Examples are PT-91M, NGPV, EC725, AV8, LCS etc. We know our defence budget is small and our weapon systems are old and need replacement in a hurry and yet we are wasting time and resources in paying high price for the development of the most customize weaponry and local defence industry infrastructures with only ATM as customer. It does not make sense at all.

Being tight on budget we need to acquire value for money weaponry. All the 3 branches of our ATM have immediate need to develop new capabilities and replace EOL equipments, and they need them now and not 20-30 years later.

Case study - our tank program. The army has requested tank for more than like 20 years? Due to limited budget the army has to make do with an up-gun Scorpion recon vehicles. Only recently we manage to acquire a limited quantity of MBT. We spent quite a sum to develop custom PT-91M, an old design chassis with modern electronic systems. The cost inclusive of integration development could almost allow us to purchase Abram M-1 for same qty. It make sense to pay for the development cost if we're to purchase hundreds of PT-91M but true to the tradition of Mindef, there has been talk (i'm not sure if it has been already a decision) to stop at 48 tanks and we will choose another model for future requirement. WTF! Why we spent so much to get the most sophisticated electronic into the old design chassis and stop at 48. We could have purchased hundreds of off-the-shelf tanks for the same sum. We see the same trend in the Navy as well. In response, SAF purchased secondhand Leopard tank at value for money and the TNI did tried do the same but unsuccesful due to objection from producer country. Looks like our Armored Brigade will take a couple more RMK to finally come to full strength, hopefully not after the navy got their LCS by year 2020.

I can go on ranting about the same thing hitting our Navy but let me stop here for now.

That is besides my point. Why do you want to spent money on the development of a new variant of PT-91 when you just want to buy a limited qty to develop a doctrine? You do that only when you want to buy in large qty. You're wasting money that could have been used on other pressing requirement. For future purchase, you're going to buy a new model and the whole money wasting process would start all over again. "You" here is refering to MA/Mindef.

Why did they previously refers the Scorpion regiment 11 KAD as tank regiment and not cavalry regiment? In the old days they are trying to develop tank doctrine using Scorpion and Stormer.

I'm not questioning the capability of Pendekar but the MA/Mindef in spending the extra money to develop a sophisticated equipment but purchase a limited qty. If the performance is so good, we should buy more and not thinking about buying another model that would repeat the same process again. We should expect lower unit price from repeat order but not after a laps of 10 years or more.

It's quite normal to have slight upgrades for newer batch but opening up the door for other contenders is not my idea of follow-up order..

What a strange number. We need 2 regiments for armored brigade and finally possibly another reg for 4 BDE Mech. With a regiment comprised of 48 tanks, the extra 32 could be for spare or strategic reserve, or maybe the army has change its tank regiment composition.

I do not know where is your source for 2ndhand Leo 2A4 cost more than PT-91M. Maybe you can share the source so we all can learn here. From past reports which should be available from internet, each PT-91M costing US$4.5m and the rest of US$154m maybe went to cost fo support vehicles, logistic support, BMS and integration development cost. That was in 2004. Unit cost of M-1 Abrams was US$4.3m and by 1999 it went upward of US5m each. By 2004, maybe it would be higher but I'm not advocating us to buy Abrams as it may not be suitable for our terrain. My point is per unit cost of PT-91M was so high that you could almost purchase Abrams for same quantity given our budget of US$370m.

As for SAF Leo 2GS, the Leo 2A4 cost was never disclosed but believe to be around $1m each. Upgrading were mostly done by STK which benefit S'pore defence industry and I would think the upgrade cost would not be higher than our US$4.5m unless you have the source indicating otherwise. In comparison, the 2ndhand Leo 2A6 that would have been sold to TNI were quoted at US$2.8m each.

SAF Leo 2A4 around $1m - source


Holland offer to Indon at $2.8m for Leo 2A6 - source

Pls don't misquote me. I said I think the upgrade cost should not be higher than $4.5m we paid for Pendekar in response to ayanami_tard's claim that the 2ndhand cost of Leo 2A4 is already higher than a brand new Pendekar. With the cost of $1m each for Leo 2A4 and expected cheaper cost of locally upgrades, as I'm saying from the beginning that we're paying quite a high cost for Pendekar as compared to SAF Leo 2SG.

Let me see what else the Army is asking for

- a hundred more MBT for additional 2 tank regiments
- a few hundreds more AV-8 on top of 257 ordered to completely replace our Condor and Sibmas
- a squadron of attack chopper and a bunch of transport helicopters to form the air calvary corps. taking over the old nuri for this purpose is not a kind idea
- two variant of SPH, track and wheel

anything else? If we're to spend top $$ for every single purchase, fulfilling the above requests would take eternity. there has to be a balance between our pursuit of quality, quantity, timeline and developing local defense industry.

Not only that, the wheeled SPH has to be light enough to put on transport plane to accompany 10 BDE.

I do not think ec725 CSAR can completely take over from Nuri. A very good chopper but I would prefer AW101 tho. Problem is too few of them to go around and using CSAR for utility transport is a waste of resource. Upgrading the Nuri is just stretching it too much. Mindef should bought limited qty of CSAR variant to satisfy RMAF demand and the rest should be utility variant which is cheaper and can get a bit more qty.

Yes, Primus is a pretty good one at abt 28 tonnes but we will never buy anything from SG.

Do you know if they have settled on who should be in charge of tactical troop transport, RMAF or Army? Wondering whether there is still plan to transfer Nuri to the PUTD.

ADJ is not what it used to be 30 years ago. Then is was 3x thicker and full of good articles.

What time is the one in Georgetown?

LGE should just leave it to Tony Pua to ask this sort of question. Even if he want to ask, should leave out the comparison with Pinoy acquisition. The comparison is just to create bigger impact to the question but would make it look stupid for those knowing the differences. I thought MP has research assistant to help them.

How come the turret is located further to the back? Wouldn't that restrict its front firing angle and taking up space in the back cabin and restrict troop getting in and out? Any insights are welcome. Thanks.

Is it true as potrayed in HBO Generation Kill mini series that USMC usually lack of supplies while in operation and have to improverise?