The Joneses…Indonesia Purchasing SRBM

The Khan SRBM system from Roketsan.

SHAH ALAM: The Joneses..Indonesia purchasing SRBM. Indonesia will become the third country in South-east Asia to operate a Short-Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM) system after it was revealed that it signed the Khan missile system from Turkiye. The contract was reportedly signed at the recent Indo Defence exhibition in Jakarta.

Defence News reported:

MERSIN, Turkey — Turkish missile-maker Roketsan signed a contract with Indonesia this month to supply Khan missiles and a multilayer air defense system for the Asian nation’s military.

This is the first time the Khan missile system, an export version of the combat-proven Bora ballistic missile system, will enter the inventory of a force other than the Turkish military.

The deal was announced at the Indo Defence Expo & Forum, which ran Nov. 2-5. Speaking to Turkish media, Roketsan’s deputy general manager, Murat Kurtulus, stressed the importance of the Southeast Asian market to the company.

A Bora launcher being reloaded. The Khan is the export version of the Bora SRBM system. Roketsan.

The other SRBM users in SEA are of course, Vietnam (Scud) and Philippines (Brahmos). As for the multi-layered air defence system contracted by Indonesia, it is likely the Hisar ADS also from Roketsan and Aselsan.
A HISAR missile launched a from TEL. Aselsan

From Roketsan:

HİSAR Air Defence Missiles are used for the protection of military bases, ports, facilities, and troops against attacks from rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

One of the Spyder ADS battery with a single Airbus C295W transporter accepted into service of the Philippine Air Force on November 8. PAF

It is also interesting to note that on November 8, Philippines officially took delivery of two batteries of the Spyder air defence system. The Philippines is the third user of the Israeli made Spyder ADS after Singapore and Vietnam.

— Malaysian Defence

If you like this post, buy me an espresso. Paypal Payment

Share
About Marhalim Abas 2311 Articles
Shah Alam

16 Comments

  1. Naw it is ok, everything is cool. It doesn’t matter if they have dozens of 2nd hand tracked SPH and will be adding ballistic missiles. We will continue to wait and wait and wait… for our golden spanking brand new wheeled SPH. Mean time we can always throw spitballs in their general direction if things hots up.

  2. Btw you don’t counter a SBRM with another SBRM.

    Still since India is getting awfully chummy with Malaysia we should ask them for Brahmos Missile to be integrated to MKM as well as shore battery version of Brahmos. The focus should be on defending our water though Brahmos could be used for ground attack as well

  3. They seem really ambitious with Rafael F15 fremm iver frigate and many more.is it just Mou or confirmed deal?

  4. Alex – “Still since India is getting awfully chummy with Malaysia we should ask them for Brahmos Missile to be integrated to MKM as well as shore battery version of Brahmos”

    We have had a long history of defence cooperation with India; buying stuff and training people but we’re not exactly “chummy” per see and one doesn’t necessarily need to be “chummy” to buy things.

    On Brahmos I don’t see the value at this stage when there are other far more pressing things to get. Also, we need MPAs, UASs and coastal radars to form the needed strike recce complex if we intend on exploiting Brahmos or any other missile to its full potential. No point having Brahmos if the target is beyond the range of its acquisition radar or if we are unable to detect, track and hit targets in time sensitive scenarios.

    Alex – “The focus should be on defending our water

    With adequate numbers of hulls, MPAs, UASs, fighters and radars; all fully networked.

    Nazem – “They seem really ambitious”

    Internal politics, prestige, worries about China; the need to modernise the TNI, etc. For those who remember; in the mid 1990’s Indonesia publicly expressed an interest in Scuds.

  5. Nazem – “They seem really ambitious”

    Deterrence is an art of convincing rival that the cost > benefit of war. The posture depend entirely on which part of society the target audience is. be it the opponent politicians,public or military or your own public.

    ID asset acquisition seems aims at the general public both public & abroad but the military aren’t likely be swayed. They lacked a lot of basic stuff as Azlan mention to make those weapons effective in a kill chain.

    MAF meanwhile in my opinion, priorities the basic item for an effective kill chain just without the stockpile nor the weapons which put suggestions to the opponent that a 3rd party could be involved which dramatically change the cost benefit equation for them while scaring the public (by not prioritizing big item purchased) so they push the politicians to do take defense seriously.

  6. Rather than Brahmos I’d prefer if RMAF is getting Taurus cruise missile if the deal for FA-50 is materialized. For shore defence a better option is NSM so training and logistics can he simplified. If needed we could always add another battery of Astros with GPS-guided missiles.

    Besides even when we do have cash to spare for the army there are plenty of other, arguably better things to get than SBRM like transport helo, SPH, new tank to complement (and eventually replace) PT-91M, etcetera

    Indonesia is a concern and they do seems to implode with anti malaysian rhetorics for the prettiest of reasons but hopefully their military are more mature than their people. Good thing we don’t exactly have any major land issue with them as well

  7. Zaft – “MAF meanwhile in my opinion, priorities the basic item for an effective kill chain just without the stockpile nor the weapons”

    Understand that most of what we buy is capability driven in line with our policy of having a level of deterrence to deal with threats we foresee. The reason we do what we do is driven not just by funding but policy and threat perceptions as well. Planners also do recognise the need for various enablers and as you’ve noticed – or not – various things have been done over the years with regards to acquiring certain enablers.

  8. Seems to me Mr Prabowo is desperate to meet the minimum essential force requirement before his term ended. Doesn’t seem to care about commonality or interoperability between the assets.The leaked paper showed Indonesia gov trying to get a USD125b loans but only managed to get 25b from UAE. If you look at what they were sourcing like F-15, FREMM, Scorpene,A400M, Rafale, Arrowhead 140, Iver Huidfeldt bl bla bla. I only see this kind of bulk purchase from oil rich country from middle east. I dont think it’s achievable even with the 125b loans. Without an effective contract i only see this a purely rhetorical to maintain public support.

  9. In my opinion, the purchase of Indonesian weapons such as the Rafale, KF-21, F-15idn, Trisula LRSAM, KHAN, Frigate Arrow Head 14, FREMM, Scorpene, C-130J, A400M, Drones is to protect the interests of its national territorial defense. To anticipate all threats from the North and South. A strong TNI will have a positive impact on the security of the neighboring countries around it.

  10. If not mistaken MEF plan had been axed and a new essential force plan is being drawn up.

    Weapons procurement is always a trade off between quality & quantity. Quality on the extreme end of spectrum allow a military to operate in multi domain ‘high end’ kind of fight but without the ability to sustain it for long while quantities allow for abilities to sustain operations, at the extreme end even for decades like the war in Afghanistan,ID war of independence, regional insurgencies etc etc.

    Great power are great power because they can afford both quantitative & qualitative advantage. For others they may choose to prioritize qualitative advantage if they are ‘non aligned’ while others who choose to aligned themselves would prioritize qualitative on the pretext that a willing 3rd party would at the very lease releasing their stockpile allowing for sustain long term high end operations. If they willing to provide more the better.

    The benefits of alignment is as we can see in Ukraine. one can punch well above their weight as they borrow the financial, industrial, technological power of a great power. The disadvantages is, well there’s no such thing as a free lunch. They aren’t exactly doing it out of the kindness of their hearts so to speak.

    ID official position is ‘non aligned’ as not only their internal political issues put them at a high risk of embargoes & sanctions but History also play a roles of installing distrust to Extra regional power play. On top of that They themselves had a ‘great power’ ambition. Thus they don’t see a need to aligned as they bound to be a big man themselves one days, eventually, hopefully.

    Thus it effect how they do things. ID had always maintain a huge quantitative advantage and now they are acquiring some qualitative assets to have ‘some’ high end capabilities. For the immediate future They do not required commonality nor interoperability because they are not buying enough of it in the first place nor high end qualitative Warfare is not their bread & butter so to speak.

    They are ‘making a big deal’ out of their plans purchase of high end equipment as they themselves seek publicity both as internal political tools (to pleased their rakyat without actually having to do painful reforms nor have to increase their defence spending) on top of extracting concession by pitting supplies against supplies to get better TOT (to prepared themselves for the manifest destiny), as well as external deterrence.

    A bluff for better or worse is an important part of Warfare. Russian go scout free to do whatever it pleased for a very long time due to the effectiveness of their propaganda in influencing the western public of their ‘supposed’ strength.

  11. It is likely UAE isnt the only one giving them cheap loans.
    It is also more likely they will get those things they said they will buy as compared to us…

  12. I dont know…they like prepared for war..I wonder if they really have much money??..buying F15..Rafael..babcock ship..arrowhead 140 frigate..but they owes some money for submarine and kfx boramea from korean…

  13. Azhary – ”In my opinion, the purchase of Indonesian weapons”

    Internal politics; prestige; worries about China; etc. Note that the Defence Minister is a former general who has greater political ambitions; the TNI still exerts a lot of influence as an organisation is part of the national psyche.

  14. Aron “..I wonder if they really have much money?”

    Not right now, but they can always borrow from their future self.

    ID current GDP per capita is around US4,000. Assuming they able to continue liberalising their economy they should have an easy but healthy grow of 6-8% annually from industrial investment moving away from China due to rising salaries (and other things) for the next 20 years at least.

    “worries about China”

    I thought the khan srbm is basically just Turkish licence copy of Chinese equipment. No?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*