RMN CNO Talks About MV Bunga Laurel On TV9 26/1/11 at 1030pm

To those who follow my blog, I hope you all receive this message in time to see the show.

Dzirhan Mahadzir - Defence Journalist Navy Chief will be on TV9 tonight at 1030PM to talk abt RMN in Gulf of Aden ops area.

Dzirhan Mahadzir - Defence Journalist Just to add, there will be exclusive footage of incident

Success Only Can Give You Accolades Eh?

Following their earlier success with the rescue of our own MV Bunga Laurel from Somalian pirates, this time laurels of accolade are being thrown towards the crew of BM 5, even by the same people who says the mission is a waste of public funds previously and by those who said that PASKAL were a bunch of cowards for not playing an obvious in the rescue of MISC's two cargo vessels a couple of years ago.

But yet do these people realise that not only the navy but members of the other arms of our armed forces sacrifice and risk their lives on a daily basis, against potential threats and adversaries as aptly stated in this article by Malaysian defence blogger, Asian Security Observer. These are the people who always ask why we should have a standing force of armed forces by asking who are the enemies who want we want to fight with. I hope this can open their hypocritical eyes that threats to our nation are omnipresent, and these people on a daily basis are every ready to meet the threats with potent force.

The Star Graphics

So please realise your calls and your criticism against our defence spending is not helping and will only make them impotent rather than a potent force. So it is quite right that the Defence Ministry attempts to make hay while the sun shines by expanding the expansion of Somalian piracy theater of operations by introducing another vessel, as I have advocated before.

January 22, 2011 20:31 PM

Defence Ministry Ready To Add On Ship For Protection

LABIS, Jan 22 (Bernama) -- The defence ministry is ready to provide another Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) ship to protect Malaysian merchant ships from pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden.

"We can add another ship, as long as the MISC (Malaysian International Shipping Corporation) agrees to bear its operating costs," the minister, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, said this when met during the Tenang by-election nomination process here Saturday.

He was asked to comment on the navy's auxiliary ship, Bunga Mas 5 (TLDM BM 5) which rescued the MT Bunga Laurel from being hijacked by Somali pirates in the gulf on Thursday.

The success (of the rescue operation), he said, demonstrated the RMN's ability to protect merchant ships plying the gulf -- a notorious hunting ground of the dreaded Somali pirates.

The minister said he was inundated with calls from his foreign counterparts who congratulated Malaysia on its achievement and hoped RMN's operation in the Gulf of Aden continued in the future.

The incident occured about 300 nautical miles east of Oman at 11.40pm, two hours after Bunga Mas 5 had escorted the tanker and another MISC liquefied natural gas carrier, MT Seri Balhaf, to a safe zone in the gulf.

The Bunga Laurel is a chemical tanker hired by the MISC to ferry lubricating oil and ethylene dichloride from the Middle East to Singapore.

The navy's Fennec attack helicopter launched from the Bunga Mas 5 was also involved in the operation by providing reconaissance and aerial cover.

Three pirates sustained injuries in the incident and were treated onboard the Bunga Mas 5.

-- BERNAMA

A Duck To Ride On.

The Malaccan DUCK's

It impressed me no less to see an amphibian truck typically called a duck, a legacy of the name of one of its enduring predecessor the DUKW, being successfully operated by a tourist company in Malacca during my recent visit there. Checking their website, I found that the truck is not a DUKW but actually a LARC V or Lighter, Amphibious Resupply, Cargo, 5 ton; which is an aluminium-hulled amphibious cargo vehicle capable of transporting 5 tons. It was developed in US during the 1950s, and is used in a variety of auxiliary roles to this day by no less than 5 National armed forces, and to my surprise by both the Philippines Marine and Singapore Combat Support Services Unit regionally.

The Singaporean LARC V

The Phillippines LARC V

That got me wondering why our own armed forces or security agency has not thought of this solution for our amphibious needs, if not the army or navy, at least the police or JPA3 Civil Defence agency should operate at least a squadron for use during our flooding season. We always complain that we do not have suitable transport to reach water logged areas, but the solution has been staring at our Powers-To-Be faces all this while. In the US the LARC V is undergoing SLEP as it has been found to be useful in emergency relief work, so should we not also consider this a viable solution. Don't la say that it will take a study tour to the States to decide on this, as it is already proven and operating locally. I have read that the Police managed to set a circumnavigation record with an amphibious RHIB on trial some time ago, but a RHIB will not have the capacity of this 5 ton Duck. Hopefully this post will get some brain juices working in someone working in our National Security Department. In any event, the Malaccan DUCK's should be made available for duty during a National emergency, but still this is a poor solution to an omnipresent threat.

The NGPV Is FInished, The SGPV Is Started

For a project that has gone through a tumultuous time to complete over a decade, the NGPV saga that had finally ended yesterday with the commissioning of KD Selangor by the Chief Of Navy, did not merit wide coverage in the news including Bernama below.

Six Patrol Vessels For Navy

LUMUT, Dec 28 (Bernama) -- The government has issued a letter of intent to Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd for the building of six second generation petrol vessels under a programme starting in 2012, Chief of Navy Admiral Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar said Tuesday.

The additional vessels will ease the asset restraint that the Royal Malaysian Navy have had to endure since surrendering 17 of its ships to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, he said when launching KD Selangor, the sixth RMN petrol vessel, at the base here.

KD Selangor is the last ship ordered under a programme which started in 1999. The other vessels are KD Kedah and KD Pahang, based in Kota Kinabalu, and KD Perak and KD Terengganu, in Kuantan.

KD Selangor will be based in Lumut alongside KD Kelantan.

-- BERNAMA

She will be based together with KD Kelantan in Lumut while her sisters KD Terengganu and KD Perak are in Kuantan and Kd Kedah and KD Pahang are based in Kota Kinabalu respectively. The CNO commented that despite all what has happened, the Kedah-class construction has been worthwhile as they have provided a high level of readiness and carried out their duties with excellence.

The CNO has also announced that with the LOI issued to Boustead Naval Shipyard, the second generation patrol vessel project(SGPV) should commence in 2012. I do wish though that they are consistent with the name of the project as it seems it can easily alternate between LCS and SGPV depending on the wind, pun intended. Nonetheless there is still no news on whether the Kedah class will be upgraded even though the press releases has emphasized the class' ability to do so under the fitted for but not with concept. Well we may yet need to wait when if ever the upgrading will occur with bated breath for a while longer.

The Perils Of Defence Blogging

The past few days the military vein of the internet was abuzz about which order that Samsung reportedly received a one billion five warship order from an unidentified southeast asian country.

Daewoo Shipbuilding Stock Gains on $1 Billion Asian Contract for Warships

By Saeromi Shin and Jun Yang - Dec 15, 2010

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s second-biggest shipyard, rose to the highest in more than two years in Seoul trading after announcing it received an order worth $1 billion.

The South Korean yard received an order to build five warships for a Southeast Asian country, it said today in a statement, without naming the buyer.

The contract follows the $1.1 billion order Daewoo Shipbuilding announced earlier this month for a drill ship and semi-submersible rig as a global economic recovery fuels demand for vessels.

The shipbuilder climbed 3.5 percent to 33,800 won, the highest close since Aug. 29, 2008. The benchmark Kospi stock index gained 0.4 percent to 2,017.48 at the 3 p.m. close of trading in the city. (Source: Bloomberg)

Another version of the story did not even mention the type of the warship but still did not identify the nation making the order.

Daewoo Shipbuilding wins $900 mln deal

Tue, Dec 14 2010

SEOUL, Dec 15 (Reuters) - South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering , the world's second-largest shipbuilder, said on Wednesday it had won a $900 million deal to jointly build 3 ships with an unnamed Southeast Asian partner.

Daewoo said in a statement it plans to deliver the ships from 2013. (Reporting by Danbee Moon; Editing by David Chance

Thus the net chatter was for a while wondering which country was making the order, and some from Taiwan to the Phillipines even believing the order was for their navy. The funny thing was that being Malaysian I suspected this has something to do with the contract signing between NGV Tech and DSME for 2 patrol cum training ships, but the details was quite different than what was reported by our own news bureau. But to be responsible you really cannot comment unless you are really sure that the news at least is verifiable by a reputable source.

So here it is, something from the trade news source that reported the news more accurately, with a picture even.

Daewoo Over-achieves Order Target

2010-12-15 issuer:eshiptrading.com Reading Times:31 times

DSME president Mr Nam (right) and CEO of a local shipyard in Southeast Asian nation are signing the naval vessel joint construction contract

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has met its order target for this year by signing a naval ship contract worth up to $1bn.

On December 14th, DSME's president Nam Sang-tae was in a Southeast Asian nation to officially sign a contract with a local shipyard to jointly build naval vessels and transfer related technology.

The Korean shipyard will design and build the hulls of the vessels. Arming and outfitting work on the ships will be conducted in the local shipyard in the Southeast Asian country through technology transfer.

They are scheduled for delivery from the local yard since 2013.

Mr Nam said, "This contract is a complex business model in cooperation with local shipyard to boost exports of naval vessels."

DSME is also planning to secure similar contracts with other Southeast Asian countries, Brazil and Russia.

The Korean shipbuilder aimed to achieve new orders of $10bn this year and it has now secured $10.9bn worth of new ship contracts so far this year. Source:Asiasis

Well then we can at least confirm that the unidentified country is actually Malaysia but the most important factor is that the contract is potentially "worth up to $1 billion" , meaning not actually one billion dollars yet with our own insight on the story. Another problem is that the other news sources got the wrong number of units to be built. So therein lies the perils of defence blogging. You really have to verify your source of information unless you too want to contribute to the misinformation on the information superhighway.

Navy's Procurement Chugging Along Just Fine

It is good news that NGV Tech have confirmed their receipt of the Royal Malaysian Navy order for two training ship cum patrol ship, that will have design assistance from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.

December 14, 2010 16:36 PM

NGV Tech To Build Training Vessels For Malaysian Navy

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14 (Bernama) -- Shipbuilder NGV Tech Sdn Bhd is collaborating with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd (DSME) to construct two 75.9-metre training-cum-patrol vessels for the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN).

"In the period of 24 months, we will collaborate to design, build and deliver the naval vessels," NGV Tech Executive Chairman Datuk Zulkifli Shariff told reporters after the contract signing ceremony here today.

"DSME will do the retail design; the vessel blocks will be transported to Malaysia and we will start joining it together at our 24-hectare shipyard in Sijangkang," he added.

NGV Tech builds about 40 ships annually, generating about RM500 million in revenue.

Zulkifli said the company had previously built and delivered naval vessels for foreign countries but the new units were bigger and more elaborate and sophisticated in design and capabilities.

"This will be our maiden project with the RMN. And with our local manpower and experience to be derived from DSME, we are confident that we will produce superb marine vessels for them," he said.

He also revealed that both vessels would be worth about RM150 million to RM180 million each depending on the negotiation outcomes.

Meanwhile, NGV Tech has also offered DSME to design the Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) which the RMN has a need as well.

"We will start the retail design as per the requirements of the RMN and once orders have been confirmed, we can start building immediately," he said.

Currently, the company is in talks with other potential MRSS buyers, namely Nigeria and Egypt.

"By doing the design first, we can save about 20 months as designing this kind of vessels is time consuming, especially when MRSS is a large vessel which is 157 metres in length," he said.

He added, the MRSS could cost potential buyers about RM1.2 billion to RM1.3 billion each.

Present at the ceremony today were former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed and DSME President and Chief Executive Officer Nam Sang-Tae.

Nam said the deal with NGV Tech was the first of its kind for DSME.

"I think this is a good starting point for us although we do not see any significant impact in the near term," he said, expecting more collaborations with NGV Tech in future.

-- BERNAMA

Within a twenty four months period, the navy will have two additional 76 metre platforms to enhance their patrolling capabilities that has been decimated by the transfer of patrol crafts to the MMEA.

The other good news is that NGV Tech has also gone ahead with the retail design of their proposed MRSS, so if the Navy finally gets approval to order the ships, it is expected to shave 20 months from the lead time as the building can be started immediately. The below design is supposedly by Daewoo. Can we expect something in a similar vein for Malaysia? But what interest me more is the fact that Daewoo built the Submarine Rescue Ship for the Korean Navy. Maybe we can also parlay their participation to either build a similar ship or get cooperation for submarine rescue in the unlikely event an accident happens.

Let's Read His Thoughts -Part 1-

As Dzirhan has mentioned before, he will no longer comment on the excerpts as he managed to get hold of the book itself. So let's read his thoughts on the first chapter shall we.

My Thought's on Chapter 1 of Dr. Kua's book-pt1

by Dzirhan Mahadzir - Defence Journalist on Sunday, 12 December 2010 at 19:32

Ok folks, apologies for the slowness but work left me pretty busy, for those unaware, there's a good write-up on Dr. Kua's book launch yesterday, in which more nonsense spouted by Dr. Kua, someone should point out to Dr. Kua that no UMNO member could die fighting Japanese in WWII since UMNO was only formed in 1946, link below

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/fmt-english/news/general/14065-patronage-the-practice-in-arms-spending

Wasn't surprised Dr. McCoy was present there, but nice to note only 30 people including media/NGO/PKR reps attending which shows how much interest there is in it ;), Notice Malaysiakini now carrying commentary from the book etc, all I guesss to make up for lack of interest, didn't see any coverage in mainstream media. Intersting enough for all the interest in defence issues etc and citing of my articles in the matter in a book and in Parliament by Pakatan MPs and NGO, nobody seems to see fit to speak to me and ask, same for media be it mainstream or online on defence issues, guess people who work in the business not credible in contrast to people who know little save for what they read ;). Anyway enough on that as that will be a note for another day.

Now I have no problem with defence spending being scrutinized or criticised, but my problem is when the matter becomes politicised, distorted and used by people to fulfill their own agendas or when people doing such don't know what they are talking about or when they deliberately used racial issues which is the entire problem with Dr. Kua's book.

The first flaw in the book is the manner of citations used, there's an inconsistancy in Dr. Kua's approach, he gives name credits to articles by writers like my old boss Bob Karniol, who recruited me into Janes and a few others but the numerous times he cites articles in Janes and Defence Review Asia (mostly mine) and the mainstream media articles in NST, Star and others, he can't see fit to name the authors and title of the articles. Now the reason for this is important as knowing who wrote the article, so we can judge the accuracy and quality as not all writers are the same, and the context of the quotation based on the article title. The other problem is just on a personal basis as Dr Kua quotes my JDW focus on the Malaysian Armed Forces several times but it doesn't rate a mention in the selected articles list in the bibliography, wherelse articles he quotes once or twice does which again falls foul of normal conventions in such, like I said I get no credit ;).

The other flaw in the book is that in all honest sense, the supposedly well researched book has no original information, as pointed by both Marhalim and Azra, all the book does is quote materials published publicly, even then Dr. Kua doesn't bother finding out additional information or digging out new information. The so called expose is a lie as nothing contained in the book hasn't been talked about. Furthermore if it really is to be an expose, why did Dr. Kua not find people willing to talk, even anonymously about the alledged wrongdoings etc. If the publishers and writer had been honest enough to state that the book simply was based on open sources and a compilation, I'ed have been less critical but as it is..

I'm not going to bother with analyzing the foreword as it's a waste of time,not to mention the disgusting insincere dedication and go to Chapter 1, first off Dr Kua states that defence spending is passed through Parliament without too much debate, conveniently forgetting that he was once an MP, so whose fault is that if MPs, especially DAP, PKR and PAS don't do their job during the budget debate?? Now as to the issue of tying in withdrawal of subsidies and defence spending, the problem is if we don't spend money on defence, the problem is that we could lose billions down the line due to loss of sovereignity or inability to defend ourselves and Dr. Kua fails to take into account much of the spending is making up for the years where defence spending was postponed. It's ironic that Dr Kua criticised the mainstream media for defence reporting but then cites them extensively in his book, a very hypocritical approach. On pg 2 he cites an article in NST as example of coverage of defence exhibitions but it deons't mention if the article was purely a fluff feature or serious news, btw at least mainstream media covers the defence exhibition, don't recall online media save for KL Security Review covering at all.

On page 2 Dr Kua cites an article by Kym Bergmann on DRA about the Su-30 engine, as I work for DRA and Kym is my editor, it's a actually in my opinion a mix-up or editing mistake on the two stolen F-5E engines and a story about the Sukhoi engines being damaged, there's no Sukhoi engines missing, of course this illustrates the problem of simply relying on articles written, honest mistakes do occur in defence articles written overseas and also locally, even I screw up sometimes but thing is, if you want to cite something which has not been written anyway else, verifying the matter independently is important

As I've already talked about his comments on what RM1 billion can buy, I don't need to add on it but I think I need to ask why is it that when a Malay makes a comment as to what is seen as racist or race baiting, everyone gets up in arms, one the other hand when a non-Malay like Dr. Kua does so in his implication that no Indian and Chinese schools are being built due to defence spending, no one makes noise about it. I'm not a fan of Perkasa or Ultra-Malay nationalists but I think everyone should be held to equal standards.

Interestingly on Pg 5, Bob Karniol's article is cited as saying (the bad grammar clued me in as something being wrong-see end thoughts):

"Looking at the actors in East Asia security compex, defence expenditures of China, S. Kora and Japan, each of their respective airacft procurement budgets would dwalf that of all of SE Asia combine. Look at South Asia Security Complex, against some big numbers for India. What is the impact of Malaysi's 1 squadron purchase in comparison to India's current order of Su-30s (or for that matter China's building plan for the J-10)? Given the disparity in defence budgets, ASEAN countries cannot be said to engae in an arms race agaainst regional powers like India or China, it would not be a race." (5)

Footnote 5 states Robert Karniol "Arms resurgence in Southeast Asia" Straits Times, 15 March 2010. Now look at the online copy of the article at link below where this para does not exist at all, so was this part edited out in the ANN online version of it or it never existed at all and was made up?

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?sec=1&id=10740

More to come later....

and this was the addendum..

Did Bob Karniol's quote in Dr. Kua's book exist at all

by Dzirhan Mahadzir - Defence Journalist on Sunday, 12 December 2010 at 19:36

I'm just repeating my last para in my previous note to bring up this issue:

Interestingly on Pg 5, Bob Karniol's article is cited as saying (the bad grammar clued me in as something being wrong-see end thoughts):

"Looking at the actors in East Asia security complex, defence expenditures of China, S. Korea and Japan, each of their respective aircraft procurement budgets would dwalf that of all of SE Asia combine. Look at South Asia Security Complex, against some big numbers for India. What is the impact of Malaysi's 1 squadron purchase in comparison to India's current order of Su-30s (or for that matter China's building plan for the J-10)? Given the disparity in defence budgets, ASEAN countries cannot be said to engae in an arms race agaainst regional powers like India or China, it would not be a race." (5)

Footnote 5 states Robert Karniol "Arms resurgence in Southeast Asia" Straits Times, 15 March 2010. Now look at the online copy of the article at link below where this para does not exist at all, so was this part edited out in the ANN online version of it or it never existed at all and was made up?

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?sec=1&id=10740