Ah, bureaucracy at its best!

well that really explains the very peculiar title of the ceremony.

I cannot say about other countries in SEA and their military dreams, but for Malaysia, we don't plan or we don't need military expeditionary capabilities.

Why should we? Our military is first and foremost is our tool to defend our country. That is defending our sea and soil from others, fighting on our own land and sea. Fighting the abu sayaf on sabah soil, fighting the communists, even fighting to our last man for the defence of singapore against the japanese in WW2. There is no need to gear up our military to fight on other people's land and sea expeditionarily like US forces. For example US navy "LCS" means fighting in other people's littoral thousands of miles from home.

Too much Holywood, too much Afghanistan, too much i want to be US Military.

And you lost track of reality and lose track of what is the main reason for your countries military.

>




Now i am confused



which statement is true?





>

No need.

Just compare the cost of the LMS against the bigger MMEA DAMEN OPV (hint. the bigger locally made ship is much more cheaper)

Sustained power projection over vast distances is NOT something most south east asian nations need from their Military.

You don't need power projection over your own territory.

For example the defence of Sabah will be mostly the task of the locally situated 5th division. All supports will be on our own territory. Even if there are support from other units like 10 PARA, the logistics of it will be fully on our own territory.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Aug 30 2021, 04:06 PM

the ability to influence is the the same meaning as expeditionary capability??

fighting over resources means needing expeditionary capability??

defending your own resources on your own territory and EEZ does not need any expeditionary capability.

unless you are planning to be the AGGRESSOR and is attacking another territory to gain its resources.

Malaysian military isn't geared to do aggression on other people's territory. So it does not need expeditionary capability. It is to defend malaysian territory and EEZ. Not to be a wannabe US military and trample over other people's territory.

>





Could we defend our EEZ ourselves? If we have far-sighted and patriotic leaders, spend our resources wisely, and and maximise our revenues gained from our EEZ, in peacetime scenario, yes it is possible.

Pushing back Chinese coast guard, or at least keeping them in check can be done if MMEA is given sufficient resources to put an OPV 365 days on location where chinese coast guard lurks. Our MMEA is operating within 1 day sailing time from home, while chinese coast guard sails thousands of kilometers from home. Rather than wasting money buying expensive LMS and OPV for the navy, MMEA could buy plenty of OPVs for themselves. The LMS is more expensive than the MMEA DAMEN OPV that is as big as the Kedah class ship.


MMEA OPV


For example this Korean Coast guard OPV is larger than our Gowind frigates, but cost less than our LMS !!! This is the OPVs we should get to police our EEZ. We have the budget to get these kind of ships. For 1 Gowind, we could get 10 of these large coast guard OPV instead.

Defending EEZ without maximising our revenues from it is wasteful. Why Vietnamese, chinese and other fishing boats always fish on our EEZ? Because we don't. We need a programme to give grants for deep sea fishing. Modern fishing vessels need to be introduced with comfortable cabins so that locals are willing to work on them. Need to establish state-owned fishing companies with deep sea fishing boats (sarawak, sabah, kelantan comess to mind) to expand the industry. More fish processing factories need to be established to make fish products with longer shelf life (fishballs, fishcakes, fish fillets and burgers comes to mind). Training institutes for fishing vessel crew needs to be established to train locals to work on fishing vessels.



So we must have 2 tiered defence plan

1. peacetime policing headed by MMEA. Large OPVs that will be on station (on rotation) every single day of the year. supported by surveillance by TUDM MPA and UAVs. For example, for the Beting Pattinggi Ali, MMEA need at least 3 large OPVs allocated to that area alone, to have at least 1 large OPV always on station 365 days a year.

2. Potent deterrence and second strike capability. This will be with more submarines, SU-30MKM with anti ship and land attack missiles. At least need to be able to strike back when attacked to buy time to go back to diplomatic table or reinforcements and help by allies.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 2 2021, 11:37 AM

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Security is not just when there is a full all out war.

The reality is, we need to prepare to uphold our security 99% of the time there is no conflicts.

To do that in our EEZ is with a credible MMEA force that is out there 24/7, to block chinese coast guard from having free reign in malaysian EEZ and enabling malaysian economic activity, oil and gas, fishing, tourism to be freely undertaken anywhere within our EEZ, while blocking any chinese attempt to do the same in our EEZ. If we succeed to prevent china from drilling for oil off sarawak coast, or able to chase away all chinese fishing vessels in our EEZ, then it means that we have upholded our security and sovereignty of our EEZ.

SG does not have an EEZ, so their circumstances and defence needs are very different than ours. Their prioritiy now has shifted from preempting a possible land attack to enabling a secure sea lines of communication and making sure singapore is not blockaded from the sea.

Deterrence and second strike does not mean the ability to fight head-on with the aggressor. We need to tackle it asymmetrically.

We need more subs that can lurk in the depths, that can attack the aggressors ships stealthily when the shooting starts. SU-30MKM will be our main strike "shoot and scoot", with the need for longer ranged missiles for stand-off attack capability. Things such as the Brahmos NG, NSM, SOM J and Taurus KEPD350 needs to be added to the MKM arsenal.

>


As i have written previously,

Security is not just when there is a full all out war.

We are not going to have a full all out war with china. China has billions of investment tied in Malaysia (like Proton) to burn bridges with us, unlike say the Philippines.

on our EEZ, everything we do is according to UNCLOS, which is the binding law regarding what is allowable internationally. Any harassment china tries to do to us within our EEZ, will be seen as the aggressor. Anything defensive we do in our EEZ will be seen as protecting our rights that is enshrined in the UNCLOS law.

If we spend wisely and correctly for the security of our EEZ, and we fully exploit the resources there, China can do nothing. Yes china will still send coast guard ships regularly, but they won't go all the way to steal our oil platforms or arrest malaysian fishermen's fishing just a few miles outside bintulu. Which is why a larger presence of MMEA ships will curtail chinese coast guard activities off our shores. They can loiter around, but they would not be able to harass our economic activities. The continuous presence of MMEA is also a proof that we are enforcing our EEZ sovereignty, so that nobody can claim that we have no presence there.

China won't burn the bridges with the west. This is nothing remotely similar to the cold war with Russia. China's wealth comes from the western consumers, unlike miniscule economic interactions of Soviet with the west.

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there was no UNCLOS when the cod war happened. read the aftermath of the cod war. The cod war shoes that historical claims to fishing areas have no standing in international law. Even a superpower such as UK has to concede to a smaller state like Iceland according to the international laws. Nobody came to help Iceland against the UK, they stood up against UK on their own and no it does not cause an all out war between Iceland and UK.

Chinese EEZ according to UNCLOS is just 200nm from chinese shores. There is no such thing in UNCLOS as chinese EEZ off bintulu.

Chinese imaginary southern most island (james shoal) is actually 22m under the sea. Something imaginary cannot create an EEZ around it. But Bintulu is real, and anything 200nm from sarawak and sabah coast is internationally recognised as malaysian EEZ under UNCLOS law.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 3 2021, 02:27 AM

If china thinks that the 9-dash line is internationally legal under the UNCLOS, they should have already registered their official claim with the UN and publish their official baselines of the claim in accordance to the UNCLOS law.

But they still has not until now. Because it can never be legal under the UNCLOS law.

Something we really need to fully leverage for our deterrence. Right now we don't really have the means to pull or prevent a blockade. Something that we need to address.

The army needs to add NSM batteries to the Royal Artillery Regiment, more so than looking at 6x6 IFVs or even self propelled howitzers.



The Navy needs to recapitalise its mine countermeasures capability. More subs could roam the andaman sea to do blockading raids. Paskal + HOM AW139 would be a great asset to capture ships and do a tactic like the iranians are doing in the persian gulf.

The MMEA needs to have its own large salvage/rescue tugs to help with large ship grounding, sinking, burning, oil spill that can block the use of the straits of melacca.

They want to be a superpower. But they are trapped in 19th century mentality.

Subjecting other countries to fear you is not going to win you friends. You want other people to willfully be on your side. With its economic power china can easily do that.

rather than using fear tactics, just upholding UNCLOS, dropping the 9dash line and giving SEA countries recognition of their respective EEZ, and using its coast guard to help SEA countries to police them would immediately pull SEA countries into Chinese friendly orbit.

if they want extra sea areas, they can always offer pacific countries to be a part of chinese SAR like Macau or Hong Kong, i can see many cash strapped pacific islands more than willing to do that.

They can change the narrative of the 9 dash line.

If they can forget about Mongolia, which is clearly under chinese control for ages, they can change the narrative about south china sea too.

for example look at this 1933 official chinese map.

You don't need to sink all chinese ships to do blockade. just those around the straits.


How do you submerge your subs in the shallow Singapore straits? How do you run when you are playing in confined waters?



Jabatan laut stuff is geared mainly for bouy maintenance and other maritime aids. MV Polaris bollard pull of just 60 tons won't be too helpful against large supertankers or container ships.

something under MMEA could be used as OPVs too.

This is china coast guard version, and has been seen around james shoal too

we voted bossku out because of 1MDB.

we felt threatened because of what china is doing. if china changes tack, like doing away with the 9 dash line, chinese allies will come willingly.

Can you explain how exactly we target moving ships using SPH? Anyway if we can do that, less reason that we don't have enough ammo to sink chinese ships in the strait.



This is not Pirates of the Carribbean



We can have enough ships if we buy fit for purpose vessels. salvae tugs are cheap, and can stay out at sea for months if we want to use them like chinese coast guard does at james shoal.

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because

1. we don't have many assets and we need to be on location where the chinese coast guard are every single day of the year.

2. MMEA was toying with the idea of "mother ships", which has less utility (and much more expensive as it is custom made) than a large salvage tug. A salvage tug can do most of the things a mother ship can, and much more.

3. it is a quick and cheap way to get robust OPVs for MMEA. Because MMEA (and malaysia in general) desperately needs large OPVs to counter the chinese coast guard presence in our EEZ.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 4 2021, 12:56 AM

MMEA don't have enough big ships! Why we need big ships ASAP. Salvage tugs can give that to us with low costs.

Only your assumption, not reality. MMEA has at most manual 40mm bofors and 30mm RCWS. Those are not intended or capable for war first.


MMEA main mission is maritime policing during peacetime. Enabling ships to safely sail malaysian waters and EEZ, and enabling uninhibited malaysian economic activities, not blocked or harassed by chinese coast guard or any other foreign forces.

whether it will be a sitting duck in wartime will be the least concern. It will be not as if the whole MMEA fleet will consist of salvage tugs. there should be around 4, while other big ships should be proper OPVs. Even the proposed "motherships" would be a big fat sitting duck during wartime. Salvage tugs could at least help TLDM ships if they are hit by missiles, towing them away to safety, put out fires, rescue survivors.

This post has been edited by alexz23: Sep 4 2021, 10:15 AM

Because jabatan laut does not have the power to do enforcement. MMEA does under Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Act 2004.

APMM AKTA 633