This Is The Way

Four Gempita undergoing various stages of manufacturing process. The vehicles look like the command, RWS and reconnaissance variants as they lacked proper turrets. MAF

SHAH ALAM: This is the way. It appears that the Gempita production will continue until 2021 as I had predicted about a year ago. The continuing production although limited to a small number of units was confirmed by pictures of the Deftech plant in Pekan, Pahang on December 4.

The pictures were published in the MAF headquarters Facebook page following the visit of the CDF, Gen Affendi Buang to the plant.

A Gempita undergoing assembly at the Deftech plant in Pekan. Picture taken on Dec. 4, 2020. MAF

π—Ÿπ—”π—ͺ𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗑 π—žπ—˜π—₯𝗝𝗔 π—£π—”π—‘π—šπ—Ÿπ—œπ— π—” π—”π—‘π—šπ—žπ—”π—§π—”π—‘ π—§π—˜π—‘π—§π—˜π—₯𝗔 π—žπ—˜ π——π—˜π—™π—˜π—‘π—–π—˜ π—§π—˜π—–π—›π—‘π—’π—Ÿπ—’π—šπ—œπ—˜π—¦ 𝗦𝗗𝗑 𝗕𝗛𝗗 (π——π—˜π—™π—§π—˜π—–π—›)
PEKAN, 4 Dis 2020 – Panglima Angkatan Tentera, Jeneral Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Hj Affendi bin Buang TUDM telah mengadakan lawatan rasmi ke DEFTECH di Pekan, Pahang hari ini.
Lawatan tersebut bertujuan untuk melihat operasi pemasangan GEMPITA dan seterusnya memandu uji Kenderaan Taktikal Ringan (Light Tactical Vehicle) di Makmal Integrasi Sistem.
Beliau turut melihat Sistem Pengurusan Medan Perang (Battlefielfd Management System), Navigasi Taktikal (Tactical Navigation) dan Sistem Platform Pengurusan (Platform Management System) yang dibangunkan sendiri oleh DEFTECH System Intergation.

Four Gempita undergoing various stages of manufacturing process. The vehicles look like the command, RWS and reconnaissance variants as they lacked proper turrets. MAF









Two of the pictures published (above) showed at least five Gempitas in various stages of completion. Yes I know there is still around 20 days before the end of 2020 but from the pictures it is unlikely that these vehicles could be completed and undergo factory testing before being handed over to the Army for acceptance testings prior to the official handover.

Zamrose (centre) looking at an ROV. A bevy of Gempitas can be seen in the background. One of them may well be one of the engineering vehicle as part of crane boom could be seen. BTDM.

Army chief Gen Zamrose Mohd Zain also visited the Deftech plant on November 27 though the Gempitas could only be seen in the background of the pictures. On Nov.23, Zamrose also attended a demonstration this time involving the AENNBCRV Gempita of the 12 Skn RAJD at Gemas. This was the first time, pictures of the vehicle was publicly shown after it entered service with the unit about two years or so ago.
Army chief Gen Zamrose Mohd Zain (right) inside a Gempita AENCBRNV of the 12 Skn Rejimen Jurutera Di Raja (CBRNE) during a demonstration at Gemas on Nov. 23. BTDM

— Malaysian Defence



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Shah Alam

22 Comments

  1. https://www.malaysiandefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Av2.jpg

    the furthest from the camera, near the corrugated wall is a SURV variant with the wrapped vingtaqsII mast seen on the rear of the vehicle.

    So how many more vehicles to be completed from the 257 vehicle order? Turkey seems not to consider these gempita assembled in malaysia in their export numbers. for last year, they only declared the 3 CBRN recce gempitas in their export list, as those are CBU from turkey.

    anyway i have written a long reply in the topic run for your lives, which i think is very important for me to talk about. email me which part you dont want to publish.

  2. related to the gempita.

    Seems like Denel south africa is in big trouble. The problem is that there is no suppprt from south african government on the company. It got a few export contracts, but had to be cancelled because they cannot get bank guarantees for their production.

    If it can be taken over for cheap, IMO it is a company Malaysia should take over. At least the division that makes turret. Currently it supplies the turret and ingwe missiles for the gempita.

    There is a precedent to malaysia taking over and controlling south african firm. South African major petroleum company, Engen Petroleum, is majority owned by Petronas for more than 20 years already.

  3. “Beliau turut melihat Sistem Pengurusan Medan Perang (Battlefielfd Management System), Navigasi Taktikal (Tactical Navigation) dan Sistem Platform Pengurusan (Platform Management System) yang dibangunkan sendiri oleh DEFTECH System Intergation.”

    An indigenous BMS? Great!! I would suppose they will installed it in every gempita or only the command variants right? I hope that BMS would eventuallu make its way to our PT91s as well.

    Reply
    No it is supposed to go into other platforms of the military. Gempita got its own BMS already.

  4. @Marhalim

    “No it is supposed to go into other platforms of the military. Gempita got its own BMS already.”

    Thanks marhalim. So Gempitas use BMS from thales right? If so, our own BMS should be able to operate/connected with Gempita’s BMS as well in order to fully capitalize both BMS usage.

    Reply
    No, that’s the reason Deftech designed its own BMS

  5. AVR version…. Seems no AVR version has been seen yet though it is part of the 12 variant.. The fitter version has been fielded already… Any news on that AVR version…

    Reply
    Probably part of the last batch

  6. What was that “Kenderaan Taktikal Ringan (Light Tactical Vehicle)”? Something to consider as Condor replacement?

    Reply
    Something like the GK-M1

  7. A Denel takeover? That’s worth considering. But is there any Malaysian company or outright government agency that’s interested in taking over Denel? I personally have not read (recently) from any South African source indicating Denel is offered for sale to any outside bidder. But all the same, a very interesting preposition.

  8. O/T
    As mentioned by … in another post France indicated that they are close to finalising a deal with Indonesia on the sale of 36 Rafales. Not only the Indonesians are also weighing on the options of getting Scorpene subs and Gowind corvettes.

    Other than wondering on how are they going to pay for all that, I am also wondering about the plans on our side. No LCS, LCA also mute, LMS halfway there…

    Also an interesting snippet that I got from The Warzone comments area is that apparently the Indonesians Navy isn\’t satisfied with the build quality of the Damen ships, hence their interest in Les Gowinds.

  9. @Taib
    If Denel ever got sold, it won’t be as a whole unit. Some of its most prized JVs ie Rheinmetall Denel Munition will continue to exist with significant SA presence as it suits their interests to continue having base there with intent to export otherwise restricted materiel to less scrupulous customers. DW had done a documentary relating to how RM bypassed German munitions export laws by utilising the above entity to export German weapons to 3rd parties. Clean hands and all that plausible deniability BS.

    On the subject whether we should be interested, well we can’t even “save” our own defence companies, whatmore those halfway around the world. If their businesses were good, they wouldn’t be in trouble at the first place, ain’t it?

    Reply
    As the Army has not signed the contract for ISS for the Gempita it will not be very practical even for Deftech to do so. So what if they bought parts of Denel to support the turrets and such but then the Army gives the ISS contract to another company?

  10. I just wonder if this gempitas can fit with 105 guns used for fires support and tank hunters..

    Reply
    It can but as have been written here previously, there is currently no requirement for more Gempita in what ever variant old or new ones

  11. @ ASM

    I have written a long reply in the topic run for your lives, that actually can answer all your questions, but was not approved by marhalim. I will rewrite it here instead with additional info to answer you if marhalim approves. Waiting for marhalim reply on this.

    Also as i said previously, the sigmas are designed more to OPV rather than to full naval standards. For instance there is a full front to rear main corridor inside it without any watertight door partitions.

  12. “If it can be taken over for cheap, IMO it is a company Malaysia should take over. At least the division that makes turret. Currently it supplies the turret and ingwe missiles for the gempita.”

    If we do buy any company, it must be because it is commercially viable. Not because it produces the items that we operate- our local needs are too small to sustain the company.

    We must also ensure that under our ownership, the company can continue to produce turrets, RWS and missiles (if we buy that business) that are competitive with other options on the market.

    The question is what Malaysian entity has the expertise to do that and manage a company like Denel. Petronas has enough expertise to own other O&G companies, our plantation companies have enough expertise to own Indonesian plantations. What do we have in the defence field- local agents? Stride? Without the proper expertise, we’ll run the company into the ground and lose what we paid for it.

  13. Marhalim: “It appears that the Gempita production will continue until 2021 as I had predicted about a year ago.”

    ZekMR: “Its not all gloom for Malaysian fefence industry..”

    Rather gloomy actually. This was not the original production schedule. The programme was to have been completed earlier. But some years ago it was announced that production would be stretched out due to budget constraints.

    As to the definition of the term “defence industry,” what exactly is Deftech? It is an assembler of CKD kits and a local agent that benefits from our policy of requiring local agents. The policy only jacks up the prices that we the taxpayers have to bear and deprives the armed forces of the equipment it deserves, which is why our AV-8 are the world’s most expensive by far.

  14. With reintroduction of GST, hopefully we will be back on track.

    Reply
    It depends on what the government wants to do with defence really. When we had the GST, defence didn’t really got any boost from it. So saying when the GST is reintroduced, a big if really, will somehow put defence on the right track, is really wishful thinking

  15. ZekMR: “With reintroduction of GST, hopefully we will be back on track.”

    The way Marhalim put it is spot on. GST will not solve the kind of problems we have at BNS, or fix the broken policy of paying inflated prices to local agents. Even if we had a huge budget increase, it will be wastefully spent, the way things are now.

    I personally agree with GST. There are currently too many people going untaxed while the bulk of the tax burden falls on the middle class.

    GST won’t solve the problem of tax evasion by the super rich. The amount of GST they pay is tiny compared to their rightful tax bill.

    But getting the untaxed masses to pay is a good start. If people want to support a government that imposes GST, then they should have it.

  16. AM – β€œEven if we had a huge budget increase, it will be wastefully spent, the way things are now.”

    The way things have been for a long time. A highly flawed defence policy heavily driven by political imperatives in which the interests of the end user and taxpayer become secondary. The result is a MAF whose actual whose capabilities don’t reflect whet we’ve spent.

    The problem is so deeply ingrained in the system that there’s no easy or quick solution. Nor will it simply go away or mend itself.

  17. @AM
    “If people want to support a government that imposes GST, then they should have it.”
    Yeah but isn’t that what the rakyat didn’t want?

    Anyways GST don’t have much impact on defence expenditure. The real correlation is our currency and making it stronger give us better or more stuff for the same we spend in USD.

  18. joe “Yeah but isn’t that what the rakyat didn’t want?”

    Hence I did not say that the rakyat wants GST itself. The rakyat naturally did not want GST but their support for the camps that instituted and that abolished GST is more or less even.

    joe “The real correlation is our currency and making it stronger give us better or more stuff for the same we spend in USD.”

    That can only happen if we reduce the level of government debt, and if we make Malaysia more competitive as an exporter and as an investment destination. Are we willing to do what is necessary? Whether for defence or otherwise?

  19. @AM
    “support for the camps that instituted and that abolished GST is more or less even.”
    That is the current stalemate we face now. No government would risk it by implementing GST again at least for another generation of electorates. Or else suffer the very clear consequences….

    “That can only happen if we reduce the level of government debt”
    Government debt actually has nothing to do with it. Japan & USA has government debts many times their reserves yet their currencies remain strong most of the time. There are myriad factors in strengthening the currency but it really boils down to increasing our rakyat purchasing power. (Disclaimer: That’s not the same as racking up debt by spending). That’s where your 2nd point on competitiveness & investment hits the mark. What we really need is “quality investment” and not continue vying to be the factory of Asia as it only turns us into the foreign worker capital of Asia. We need professional jobs for locals that would in turn spur the economy by their increased purchase power and to do that we need to educate the rakyat properly so they can attract these jobs.

    Again as I said before, defence matters is not just about defence alone but in relation to the bigger picture, and how we should improve on the bigger picture before we can zoom into defence itself.

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