Indonesia wants to buy Israeli UAVs

johngage

<<Doing R&D for UAV is not as costly as doing R&D for a fighter plane... well at least Malaysia should embark on learning about military technologies rather than buying everything from others... If you teach a man to fish, he can eat fish forever.. BUT, if you only give him a fish, he can only eat fish for a day only.. >>

Completely agree. But R&D for military projects requires a political and financial commitment for the LONG-TERM. It cannot be done in a country like Malaysia, where politicians compete with each other on how much they can cut from the military budget. Countries which develop their own weapons know that it may require billions of dollars and decades of research before they succeed. They also have politicians who have the patience to wait and allocate substantial funds for these projects. Malaysia's politicians are clearly NOT going to allocate any funds for serious military R&D. Malaysia's Nuri's were purchased in 1967. It is now 2006. If Malaysia's politicians do not want to find the money to replace helicopters which are now 39 years old, despite several crashes and lives lost, what makes anyone think they are going to fund research projects which are going to be 10 times more expensive than any Nuri replacement?

Laxamana.

Well it seems now that Malaysia is embarking on many R&D projects.. and this will surely include re-engineering or reverse engineering as well. Learning proces cannot stop. To say that Govt doesn't have money to buy new helos is quite unfair.. the real fact is that our Govt is doing 'the balancing act' of spending money at areas that must be done first... Nuris' replacements for sure will be here sooner or later.. at the moment Nuri can still perform.

mmc

i just want to comment a bit on the so-called "nuri' replacement...i am not sure if this is really true but my opinion is that in a way this jack of all trades flying hours have actually been replaced by the navy's and TDM's heli's ...so in this sense may be one reason the service life of these nuri's can be extended and replacement is not a priority...

johngage

<<Well it seems now that Malaysia is embarking on many R&D projects.. and this will surely include re-engineering or reverse engineering as well. Learning proces cannot stop. To say that Govt doesn't have money to buy new helos is quite unfair.. the real fact is that our Govt is doing 'the balancing act' of spending money at areas that must be done first... Nuris' replacements for sure will be here sooner or later.. at the moment Nuri can still perform. >>

That is precisely the point that I am trying to make. If the government can spend 286 million ringgit on the Sepang Formula 1 track, 5.8 billion ringgit on the Petronas Tower, and 10 billion ringgit on Perwaja Steel, it clearly has money to spend. But defence is VERY, VERY low on its list of priorities. The Nuri replacements could have be funded on a mere fraction of what the megaprojects above cost our country. As long as Malaysia's politicians place defence as a low priority, it is unlikely that enough funds will be diverted to building up our arms industry to the point where it can compete on the world market. Military R&D is a serious business, and countries like Israel and Singapore who have very good R&D, also have politicians who treat the military as a high priority when it comes to funding. The majority of our politicians are simply not interested in the MAF.

StealthTuah

Simple explanation.since the days of the insurgency,and with SEA relatively stable,not only the leaders but almost every malaysians doesn't feel any serious external threat.and probably conventional aggression is far less than the cold era.singapore and israel are different for obvious reason

johngage

<<Simple explanation.since the days of the insurgency,and with SEA relatively stable,not only the leaders but almost every malaysians doesn't feel any serious external threat.and probably conventional aggression is far less than the cold era.singapore and israel are different for obvious reason>>

That is why I said in Malaysia's case, it would be better if you just bought off the shelf weapons instead of trying to develop your own. Countries that develop their own weapons are prepared to spend billions. If Malaysia's politicians and citizens are not prepared for this than forget about making your own weapons and do what Indonesia have done. Buy it from a country which IS prepared to spend that kind of money. Frankly, I think that Indonesia have done a smart thing. Knowing that they don't have the money to develop their own UAV, they have bought it from a country which has superb R&D and decades of experience in manufacturing and developing UAV's. What would be stupid is to try to develop your own weapons and then face delays and a sub-standard product because you are not prepared to spend the money necessary.

Laxamana.

Originally posted by johngage at 1-11-2006 10:14 PM
That is why I said in Malaysia's case, it would be better if you just bought off the shelf weapons instead of trying to develop your own. Countries that develop their own weapons are prepared to spend billions. If Malaysia's politicians and citizens are not prepared for this than forget about making your own weapons and do what Indonesia have done. Buy it from a country which IS prepared to spend that kind of money. Frankly, I think that Indonesia have done a smart thing. Knowing that they don't have the money to develop their own UAV, they have bought it from a country which has superb R&D and decades of experience in manufacturing and developing UAV's. What would be stupid is to try to develop your own weapons and then face delays and a sub-standard product because you are not prepared to spend the money necessary. ..

Nahhh I don't think so. What would be stupid is to stop the process of learning. You said that money is the barrier. Not really as a matter of fact. Malaysia spent money for R&D in military hardwares, softwares and gadgets only on selective items, gradually this will grow. I have said earlier, reverse engineering is not as costly as starting from scratch or zero in R&D. Good example are Iran, Pakistan and China. Creating your 'own' is not necessarily parallel to the problem of delays and sub-standard product. Singapore also didn't spent massively on R&D of all military toys, they also take short cuts and buy blue prints, rights, and do 'copycat' works as well. Everybody does that, don't you know?

Laxamana.

Military products like ammunition, small arms, rockets, howitzers, light transports on land, sea and air (including UAV) won't cost massively (look at China nowadays)... and these fields are very crucial to have our own capability to produce. R&D on these are almost compulsary for many developing nations nowadays especially countries that are not being considered as super friends to the US led NATO blocks.

niceghost2005

Originally posted by IceMallet at 26-10-2006 09:53 AM
Betoi tu...pasal kurang yer minat dari pihak ATM untuk operate UAV, unlike our southern neighbour..lagipun, jerung2 pun tak develop projek UAV..

pssstttt............JERUNG tak minat ler dgn UAV yg nak di develop kat Malaysia Hadhari.
Market tarak maaaaaaaaaa............setakat ATM nak beli sebijik dua, tak berbaloi R&D n $$$

Buat perabih boraih jer weh.....

Tengok haper dah jadi kat EAGLE.

Laxamana.

UAV banyak saiz... yang kecik kita dok buat.. yang besar... tak semesti nya buat R&D berbiliun biliun start dari 0... tiru je, ubah sikit-sikit hasil ciplak tu.. biasa la bang... Kalau nak kira market tarak, apa pun tak leh buat...

reinloch

LOL.

Satu jeep kecil pun kita tidak dapat buat.
Pesawat turboprop yang telah terbang sejak Perang Dunia Kedua (teknologi 60 tahun dahulu) pun kita tidak dapat kuasai.
Satu pistol tangan yang asli pun kita tidak dapat buat.
Orang nak buka kilang buat rifle di sini pun kita nak lingkupkan.
DSB.

Industri pertahanan negara bak satu lawak berterusan.

supergripen

Originally posted by Laxamana. at 1-11-2006 09:02 AM
Doing R&D for UAV is not as costly as doing R&D for a fighter plane... well at least Malaysia should embark on learning about military technologies rather than buying everything from others ...

totally agree... this is the kind of thinking we need to instill into the minds of our people.i like the 'fish' analogy..holds true for a lot of matters..

we should learn from states like China and Iran..copying/reverse engineering is not a futile excercise where u don't learn.by doing so,we LEARN.LEARNING is something we don't stop doing,regardless of age.once a human stops LEARNING,he is as good as an animal..

jerung perkasa notwithstanding,we should continue efforts in creating a defence industry.it can only be GOOD for the country.

LEARN....never stop.

johngage

<<Nahhh I don't think so. What would be stupid is to stop the process of learning. You said that money is the barrier. Not really as a matter of fact. Malaysia spent money for R&D in military hardwares, softwares and gadgets only on selective items, gradually this will grow. I have said earlier, reverse engineering is not as costly as starting from scratch or zero in R&D. Good example are Iran, Pakistan and China.>>

Iran has a military of around 545,000. Pakistan has a military of around 619,000 (the world's 7th largest). China has the biggest military manpower in the world at around 2.25 million. Malaysia's army is a fraction of the size of these countries at a mere 80,000. Reverse engineering (RE) is certainly not costly if your domestic demand for weapons is large. But in Malaysia's case we are talking of orders on the size of 28 Denel 155mm howitzers and 15 FH70 howitzers. It is NOT cost effective to RE if you are going to purchase small quantities. Buying the blueprints is one thing. You still need a test program to evaluate these weapons. Factories need to be set up to manufacture these weapons. You also need to start a spare-parts and support base. All of which is going to be very costly, if the quantities you order are small.

<<Creating your 'own' is not necessarily parallel to the problem of delays and sub-standard product>>

That is certainly true, IF our politicians are prepared to spend the sufficient funds, AND punish mismanagement. Judging by our government's handling of the New Generation Patrol Vessels (NGPV) project this is clearly not the case.

<<Singapore also didn't spent massively on R&D of all military toys, they also take short cuts and buy blue prints, rights, and do 'copycat' works as well. Everybody does that, don't you know?>>

Singapore may not spend massively on R&D in comparison to Europe or the US. But their defence budget is a CONSISTENT 4% of their GDP, even in times of recession. They also spend CONSISTENTLY on their R&D, no matter what the economic climate, year in year out for decades. All the short-cuts, blue prints, and 'copycat' works will make no difference if you have politicians who are more interested in mega-projects than funding defence projects, and who cut and cancel military programs on a whim.

<<Military products like ammunition, small arms, rockets, howitzers, light transports on land, sea and air (including UAV) won't cost massively (look at China nowadays)... and these fields are very crucial to have our own capability to produce. R&D on these are almost compulsary for many developing nations nowadays especially countries that are not being considered as super friends to the US led NATO blocks>>

The problem is economy of scale. China can afford a large defence manufacturing capability because they have such a large demand. In Malaysia's case, our demand is too small. Countries outside US led defence bloc such as Sweden and Switzerland all spend heavily on defence and even they are increasingly forced to JV with the US because of the rising cost of military R&D.

reinloch

The problem is the government. It's as simple as that.

reinloch

Viewing  indigenous defense programs from a cost-benefit point-of-view is errornous. The point is to build and enchance indigenous capability to develop and manufacture high-tech systems. In other words, we are investing on "knowledge". No price is too high.

Laxamana.

The reasoning on  economic of scale, i.e. Malaysia has too small an army to be self sufficient by producing own military toys through own R&D on certain fields is not a good reason or a grand solution for buying all from others. Remember the story of man with fish? The cost of learning surely more expensive than simply buying from others in a short run.. but will be cost saving in the long run. Malaysia can even be better than Singapore on certain fields if we put a good effort in it. Our government is supporting R&D, there is no doubt about it.

No matter how much Singapore spent from their GNP for R&D,  their army will still be  small compared to countries like China, Iran and Pakistan right? So, why don't they stop their military R&D? Surely, tehre are more reasons to it.  It will also include on how to market your own military goods as well..

Robotech

Sure, we may not be able to produce, say an MBT on our own or atleast an APC or even a turbo-prop plane, but if we can produced high mobility military trucks, we sure as hell can develop atleast Humvee clones.

If Govt. concentrated in nationalising our defence industries, with current expertise, we've already produced assault rifles, bulletproof vest, toying self-made towed artillery, flirted with UAV & light APC, & already have advanced shipyards to atleast produced state of the art naval vessels.

That are our current capabilities. We should maximised that strength. But at current scenarios, our defence industry is still in the pits.

supergripen

Originally posted by johngage at 2-11-2006 10:07 AM
<<Nahhh I don't think so. What would be stupid is to stop the process of learning. You said that money is the barrier. Not really as a matter of fact. Malaysia spent money for R&D in mili ...

dude..ur arguments based on the size of an army and also market is flawed.look at Sweden..small country,granted they are rich but given the political will,we can too.maybe not as advanced but u've gotta start somewhere.

supergripen

Originally posted by Laxamana. at 2-11-2006 11:28 AM
The reasoning on  economic of scale, i.e. Malaysia has too small an army to be self sufficient by producing own military toys through own R&D on certain fields is not a good reason or a grand s ...

well said..:setuju:

niceghost2005

Originally posted by supergripen at 2-11-2006 10:02 AM



totally agree... this is the kind of thinking we need to instill into the minds of our people.i like the 'fish' analogy..holds true for a lot of matters..

we should learn from states like  ...

We NEVER LEARNED ........supergripen
Thats the real problem in Malaysia, sad to say that.
But its the truth.

Brp banyak company kat Malaysia ini yg bley sustain kalau dok buat R&D bertahun tahun......tup tup ATM beli yg import punya!!
R&D deme juta juta weh.........
MODAL deme bukan turun dari langit...........bro.

Its the attitude of certain quarters kat dalam ATM n the Politican yg buat 1/2 1/2 syarikat shy utk ventures dalam hal2 cam gini.

Dan teringat teman akan KOMEN dari satu syarikat Perancis yg mengeluarkan SUB tentang syarikat Malaysia nie.
Yakni deme lebey suker ambik komison dari nak buat R&D.
Haper nak di buatkan??
Itu jer jalan yg bley buat $$$ dari fening kefaler.