SHAH ALAM: Senior Defence Minister DS Hishammuddin Hussein on September 1 announced that the French government had given its commitment for the completion of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) project. He made the announcement after meeting a representative of the French government at his office at Jalan Padang Tembak. He did not identify the representative who gave a written letter to him.
The release from the minister:
Pertemuan bersama pihak Kerajaan Perancis hari ini memberi tumpuan terhadap komitmen antara Kerajaan kedua-dua negara berhubung perolehan Littoral Combat Ship
Seperkara yang cukup penting, Kerajaan Perancis sendiri telah menyatakan bahawa meneruskan dan menyiapkan LCS merupakan keutamaan tertinggi Kerajaan Perancis.
Ini merupakan perkembangan yang mustahak terutama di fasa mobilisasi enam bulan seperti diputuskan Jemaah Menteri April lalu.
Malah komitmen Kerajaan Perancis ini juga selari dengan syor beberapa pihak terutamanya Jawatankuasa Kira-Kira Wang Negara (PAC) serta keputusan Jemaah Menteri supaya projek LCS diteruskan demi kepentingan Tentera Laut Diraja Malaysia
Despite the announcement, we have yet to be given an exact date of the resumption of the project. Based on the six-month remobilisation period as announced last April, we should be getting a firm announcement on the project resumption soon. This could be announced on October 7 when the 2023 national budget is expected to be tabled in Parliament.
Despite the commitment from the French government, I am still off the opinion that we should scrapped the LCS project altogether. The reports by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) clearly showed that the project is no longer viable. And despite claim by the minister that the project must continue in the interest of the Royal Malaysian Navy, it is clearly not. It is in the interest of the government that they showed something for the billions (whatever the final tally is) squandered on it. Of course, RMN is still following the official line.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (24)
Utterly dissapointed and depressed with the state of our military. To think that by now we were supposed to be somewhat modern and on par with our neighbours. I wonder when will we ever be able to catch up...
Still ...
Does the government learned nothing or just simply ignorance?
The failure of the LCS project starts from the denying of the Navy's requirement and wish to have the Sigma class design instead of Gowind class design.
Just abandon ship, scrap the LCS and start fresh.
I'm pretty sure the Italian government would also give their full commitment to finish the new LCS. Above all, it's all about money.
If the end user remain equipment as per the DCNS original equipment catalogue.. the situation can be fixed in no time.. but right now.. it is what it is...
k.o.m - "Does the government learned nothing or just simply ignorance?"
Understand that defence spending is part of the system of patronage and that priority is national interests not the armed services or tax payer.
k.o.m - The failure of the LCS project starts from the denying of the Navy’s requirement and wish to have the Sigma class design instead of Gowind class design"
Incorrect. It's due to a combination of factors; hubris and lack of oversight on the part of the government; failure to ensure BNS was in a sound position financially and capability wise [it was not put through a learning curve and hadn't constructed anything for years] and the system we have in place which enabled the local industry to override the needs of the end user.
All the elements were in place for a cockup of this magnitude to occur; it would have mattered not if Sigma had been selected.
If procurement can be done directly with no middlemen who operated in shady businesses in the name of “technology transfer” i think we can afford even a FREMM frigates. Gowind was designed as an OPV. But the recent completion of the Egyptian navy corvette el-fateh added some milestone in this design. Yes RMN need the assets badly but that doesn’t mean we have to wipe the mess under the carpet and be done with it. BNS must be held accountable. Halt the project, terminate the contract and put BNS under insolvency management to sort out its debts. At the same time do a fresh deal with the French to acquire a platform which is compatible with all the equipments we have paid for (provided all are in place and not lost).
If the French Government are still interested then let's revisit the revival plan again as that was made with assurance from BNS they could continue work which is obvious today, they are not. Let's go back to the plan and get NAVAL/DCNS to take over the revival project. I'm sure they could at least provide a definite costing for the whole completion. BNS, their CEO, and their top management have proven time and again to be untrustworthy so even their confidence to continue leading the revival plan is questionable.
What is not questionable is restarting the whole thing again. We simply just cannot afford it.
"The failure of the LCS project starts from the denying of the Navy’s requirement"
More like the navy won't accept blind procurement rather than the gov denying navy their requirement.
There's not much difference in cost & performance for gowind vs sigma, exocet vs NSM, setis vs tacticos nor mica vs essm.
Qamarul - "If procurement can be done directly with no middlemen who operated in shady businesses in the name of “technology transfer"
Correction. It's the government which has a penchant for ToTs and offsets and it's the the government which has put a system in place which allows agents or local companies to do what they do...
Understand that the government as far as possible wants big ticket purchases to go through local outfits because it's policy; national interests; hoping it benefits the local industry; creating jobs and rewarding certain elements as part of the system of patronage.
Qamarul - "BNS must be held accountable"
As has been explained before; BNS isn't solely to blame. Hunan nature to want to appropriate blame or find a villain but to really understand how this cockup occurred; we first have to understand what our defence policy is about and how it works.
Qamarul - "but that doesn’t mean we have to wipe the mess under the carpet and be done with it"
Looking at our record - the various things that went ratshit - you seriously think we will learn from our mistakes and to be transparent about what has gone so horribly wrong [way before the LCS cockup became widely known to Joe public there were various other cockups]? You seriously think we have the political will to acknowledge that our defence policy is rotten to the core?
Zaft - "There’s not much difference in cost & performance for gowind vs sigma, exocet vs NSM, setis vs tacticos nor mica vs essm"
Look further ... Major difference between NSM and the latest MM-40. The are also subtle differences between Gowind and Sigma. It's also not only "cost and performance" but a host of other factors including support issues and costs which would endear a piece of kit to an end user. Not just "performance and cost".. Also if there's not much difference between performance with ESSM and Mica asaswhy you state why pray tell did the RMN prefer ESSM for the Lekiu Batch 2s and LCS?
NSN range - 185km
MM40 block3 range - 200km
Not that much of a difference since max range is useless. NSM is newer and adopted by USA as the JSM so it has better development potential.
Zaft is quite right about the differences between Gowind and Sigma platform, differences for such would be negligible as both are from well establish shipbuilders; like choosing between Toyota Vios and Honda City really. Gowind would have the servicing advantage since we have already engaged them for our Scorpenes. Also to my untrained eye, I'd say Gowind 'looks' more stealthier as it has less protrusions and exposed bits compared to Sigma. When both platforms are comparable, it really up to the other criterias (cost, TOT, etc) that had put one over the other.
But basically it is immaterial since platform doesn't matter, and as you said we should be system centric and not platform centric, right?