SHAH ALAM: Mortar Gempita in the Wild. The mortar variant of the Gempita or IFV Mortar Carrier – has been shown in public – via the Facebook page of the 12th RMR (Mechanised), of course. The Gempita Mortar carrier attached with the 19 RMR (Mechanised) took part in a live firing exercise at the Gemas range together with the 12th RMR in preparations for the Army Firing Exercise scheduled in late September, according to the post.
Gempita Mortar Carrier firing a mortar at the Gemas range. 12th RMR.
It is unclear whether the Gempita mortar carrier was conducting post-delivery trials as the post did not mentioned this. From the pictures from the post it is clear that the Gempita mortar carrier is fitted with the Thales 120mm 2R2M semi automatic mortar, the same one as fitted on the six-wheeled Adnan ACV-S variant, also in service with 12th RMR.
On the Way. Gempita Mortar carrier firing a 120mm round. 12th RMR
The first public firing of the ACV-S was conducted in 2017. Adnans from 12th RMR fitted with the 81mm mortar also took part at the exercise.It must be noted that both the mortar carrier and ambulance version were displayed for the first time locally when Defence Minister Mohammad Sabu visited the Deftech plant in Kuantan earlier this year. The official visit was not open to the media. It was unclear whether the vehicles had been delivered to the Army at that point or were still with the company when they were displayed for the minister.
12th RMR Adnan ACV-S variant also fired its weapon at the exercise. 12th RMR.
It is also unclear how many Gempita Mortar carrier has been delivered to the Army, from the eight ordered. It is likely 19th RMR, the first user of the 8X8 is also the first operator of this variant.
12th RMR Adnan mortar carriers at the Gemas range firing line. 12th RMR.
With the NBC variant already shown publicly, I believed there are only two variants left to be put into service with the Army. They are the fitter and recovery variants though I admit they could already be in service with the Army or under trials, as the service seemed to be media-shy off late.
Gempita NBCR vehicle
The recovery Gempita, I was told some time back, will be the last one to be put into service as the Army had already ordered two Volvo wrecker vehicles instead.
One of the two Volvo FMX heavy recovery truck
Anyhow it must be noted that there is only eight ACV-S variant of the Adnan in service with the Army so the Gempita mortar carrier is in good company. Will the Army more Gempita in the near future? Or even buy the South Korean version which could fit into the standard variant of the Adnan to replace the current version?
The South Korean 120mm mortar on board a KIFV. DAPA
As the South Korean one had just completed development, even if the Army is interested, it will take several years before it could start ordering it. And that is a big if.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (122)
How many tubes are there in 1 mortar platoon?
For our mechanized battalions we have
8x MIFV 81mm mortar
10x adnan 81mm mortar
8x adnan 120mm mortar
8x gempita 120mm mortar
So probably each battalion has 4x of mortar carriers each.
BTW is there an official list of battalions/regiments to receive the current batch of the gempitas?
What we do know for now
19 RAMD Sg Petani
3 KAD Sg Petani
1 KAD Kuantan
2 KAD Port Dickson is going to get its own gempita soon, new garages done and trainings for gempita has started.
I believe for Kor Armor Diraja, the gempita will only replace the Sibmas, with its regiments to have both gempita and condor for now.
I really hope there will be a 2nd batch of gempita in the future.
BTW marhalim,
You have reported on the signal variant in 2016.
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ACVS.jpg
Your comment for the picture
" Gempita AVS, the signal variant. It is armed with the Reutech Rogue RWS fitted with a 12.7mm machine gun. The vehicle took part in Eks Satria Perkasa in October, 2016 "
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I forgot about that...
"Or even buy the South Korean version"
The question is (if we are buying more that is), are we going to buy more MIFV/KIFVs, or continue to get Adnans instead? If its the latter, we already have the 120mm mortar variant so adding more numbers/ replacing old units are not an issue. Having one weapon system instead of 2 will greatly simplify spares, maintenance, training, & familiarity during use.
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The issue here is that the South Korean one is designed to be fitted on a standard MIFV or Adnan. The Thales one is only suitable on the six wheel Adnan.
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/12me.jpg
From the picture above.
The nearest 4 adnan in the picture is the 81mm mortar version. The furthest 2 is the 120mm version.
I hope so too because if there are no follow on orders and no economics of scale; we shouldn’t have licensed produced them in the first place.
I also hope that Deftech will look at ways to add whether improvements are needed to subsequent AV-8 batches. Despite all the acceptance tests I’m sure there are certain aspects with it that the army isn’t happy about - the AV-8 wasn’t selected because of its technical specs or because it outperformed its competitors during local trials.
More than a decade after the Adnan entered service, it is unknown if Deftech actually has made any plans to upgrade or improve them in the near future. Unless and until Deftech can offer some improvements and conduct R&D on ways at offering an improved Adnan or its eventual successor; it will essentially be a company that licenses produces foreign designed stuff without offering the end user and the tax payer any added value; nothing to shout about. To be fair, the government shares a large part of the blame.
I see. Is there any reason for your disapproval of the 6 wheeled Adnans? I would assume mechanically they are 99% similar to the standard versions so maintenance, et al, will be similar as well. Or logistical? But the extra road wheel length won't make much of a difference.
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I am not dissing the six wheel Adnan just the fact that we only bought 8 of them for the Thales mortar. The rest of the MIFV/Adnan are all the five wheel versions
@Azlan
"the AV-8 wasn’t selected because of its technical specs or because it outperformed its competitors during local trials"
Are you sure about that? AFAIK at that time it was one of the first 8x8 that came factory fitted for STANAG 4569 Level 4 protection. Another could be the OEM willingness to fulfill the various versions that TDM required. Also being from a Muslim country helped boost its credentials (where there's less likely chance for spareparts to be embargoed).
There are many ways into mortar carrier vehicle. We have the quick and dirty, ghetto-tier solution like cutting a hull off an armored vehicle and put a 81mm mortar on it (because 120mm is gonna wreck the whole suspension without some kind of hydraulic recoil system) to the turreted mortar system like nemo or atmos
Actually I like the ghetto mortar solution because of how simple it is and other than the Adnans, we could also apply such system to radpanzer condor and sibmas, which is a cost effective solution and a good alternative uses for both sibmas and condor.
As a matter for consideration is that we should procure more 120mm mortars for the infantry battalions. We should not just allocate 1 or two tubes per battalion but issue at least 4 tybes of 120mm n 4 tubes of 80mm. Smaller 60mm mortars should also be issued down to platoon level
joe - “Are you sure about tha”
I’m very sure. The thing is, are you?
Neither Adnan or the AV-8 were selected because of their technical performance or how they performed during local trials.
Also a lot of the specs were not laid down by the end user but by the local industry. I’m not saying the AV-8 is a bad design; merely that had an objective/proper evaluation been carried out: it might not have been selected.
joe - “Also being from a Muslim country”
Turkey being Muslim and its willingness to allow license production were the key factors. No matter how one wants to spin it; Adnan and the AV-8 were not selected based on their merits but based on other factors : full stop/period. I’ve touched on this issue before; the same goes with many other things we bought: from the AUGs to Jernas to the PT-91. In the case of Adnan we never even trialed it in local conditions alongside other designs.