Indonesia orders 13 long-range military radars from Thales
Indonesia has ordered 13 long-range military radars from Thales to boost airspace surveillance efforts across its immense archipelago, the French manufacturer and state-owned Indonesian defence firm PT Len Industri said today. — AFP pic
Sunday, 18 Jun 2023 2:05 PM MYT
PARIS, June 18 — Indonesia has ordered 13 long-range military radars from Thales to boost airspace surveillance efforts across its immense archipelago, the French manufacturer and state-owned Indonesian defence firm PT Len Industri said today.
The Ground Master 400 Alpha (GM400a) radars will allow the Indonesian military to “benefit from a single air picture integrating the detection of all types of threats, from jets and missiles to hovering helicopters and unmanned air vehicles”, the companies said in a joint statement.
The amount of the contract, which spans several years, has not been disclosed. Each radar costs several tens of millions of dollars.
The GM400a is a mobile radar with a range of 515 kilometres and “integrates artificial intelligence capabilities to manage the massive amounts of data” it receives, president of Thales International Pascale Sourisse told AFP.
The purchase of the 13 latest-generation radars “shows this country’s concern for monitoring the surrounding airspace, which is directly linked to the situation in the Indo-Pacific”, where China is asserting its ambitions, she said.
The contract provides for Thales to build the radars and the computer system for processing the information they receive. PT Len is in charge of building the stations where the equipment will be installed, as well as certain components of the radars.
Growing geopolitical tensions have led to strong growth in the radar market, and Sourisse said this was why Thales had transformed its industrial organisation and developed production capacities in new countries as well as France.
“We have to set up in new countries to meet the needs in terms of production volume, but also the requirements of our customers who want to take advantage of these contracts to develop their country’s economy, create jobs and benefit from technology transfers to master” new skills, she said.
More than 80 GM400 and GM400a radars have been sold to 19 countries, according to Thales. — AFP
Sunday, 18 Jun 2023 2:05 PM MYT
PARIS, June 18 — Indonesia has ordered 13 long-range military radars from Thales to boost airspace surveillance efforts across its immense archipelago, the French manufacturer and state-owned Indonesian defence firm PT Len Industri said today.
The Ground Master 400 Alpha (GM400a) radars will allow the Indonesian military to “benefit from a single air picture integrating the detection of all types of threats, from jets and missiles to hovering helicopters and unmanned air vehicles”, the companies said in a joint statement.
The amount of the contract, which spans several years, has not been disclosed. Each radar costs several tens of millions of dollars.
The GM400a is a mobile radar with a range of 515 kilometres and “integrates artificial intelligence capabilities to manage the massive amounts of data” it receives, president of Thales International Pascale Sourisse told AFP.
The purchase of the 13 latest-generation radars “shows this country’s concern for monitoring the surrounding airspace, which is directly linked to the situation in the Indo-Pacific”, where China is asserting its ambitions, she said.
The contract provides for Thales to build the radars and the computer system for processing the information they receive. PT Len is in charge of building the stations where the equipment will be installed, as well as certain components of the radars.
Growing geopolitical tensions have led to strong growth in the radar market, and Sourisse said this was why Thales had transformed its industrial organisation and developed production capacities in new countries as well as France.
“We have to set up in new countries to meet the needs in terms of production volume, but also the requirements of our customers who want to take advantage of these contracts to develop their country’s economy, create jobs and benefit from technology transfers to master” new skills, she said.
More than 80 GM400 and GM400a radars have been sold to 19 countries, according to Thales. — AFP
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kt comments:
Indon is going about its air defence in the correct way, planning, purchasing, maintaining & hopefully sustaining its many required components of the air defence system in required numbers and not by drips and drabs which would be the usual Malaysian Air Force pretend-kerbau-play-play way, no doubt constrained by the Finance Minister & his/her civil servants rather than the thoughts of uniformed (professional) staff.
Please refer to my 2015 post National air defence - if we don’t play-play, extracts of which are reproduced below for your convenient reading:
Then I wrote at length about the air force’s daily state of readiness and the paltry number of interceptor aircraft we have, and I also posed a question: Surely, we aren't suggesting that air defence is ONLY about peninsula Malaysia, or worse, just its north-western part centered around the Butterworth air base?
In other words, what if another MAS airline (and may the heavenly thunder strike my naughty mouth for scenario-rizing this) taking off from Kota Kinabalu airport for Hong Kong were to turn right and head east towards the south of Mindanao, into the Pacific Ocean?
Would we expect a poor Rafale or whatever aircraft is or will be based at RMAF Butterworth to zoom across the South China Sea to intercept that naughty wayward aircraft which will by then be over the Mariana Trench, the deepest sea in the world?
There is no free lunch
You want the air force to intercept this and that, so brother, sisters, uncles and aunties, just remember that there is no free lunch. As I wrote, we should consider a ‘national’ (not just Peninsula Malaysia) air defence system, otherwise buying those expensive 16 Rafales will be nothing more than Malaysian Defence fooling around with its ‘boys toys’ or keeping up with the Jones.
We should be locating aircraft fighter units at Butterworth, Gong Kedak, Kuala Lumpur, Kuantan, Johor Baru (or a new fighter base at the current heli base at Kluang), but far far more importantly, at Kuching, Miri or Labuan (latter has limited room for development), Kota Kinabalu airport or (a new base at) Kudat, and Sandakan.
That’s nine fighter bases to cover the entire nation, not just peninsula Malaysia. We can play around with the numbers but I reckon anything less than eight will be not a national system. Let’s not treat Sabah and Sarawak as second class states with no air defence, please.
With a squadron comprising a modest number of fighter-aircraft, say 12 (and that’s really very modest), at each location, we’re looking at about a total requirement of 110 aircraft.
What does our wee little neighbour have in terms of only fighter aircraft?
Just a mere 24 F-15SG Strike Eagles, 74 F-16 C/D Fighting Falcons, 41 F-5S/T Tiger II, making up a total of 139 aircraft, and I read that Singapore will be purchasing more of the F-15SG Strike Eagles, an aircraft that costs as much as the Rafale with a basic price of US100 million or RM422 million.
With armaments such as missiles, etc, training, engineering support and whatnot, we’re looking at a billion ringgit each though some of the cost will be either a one-off or only further required to replenish used ammunition such as missiles and bombs.
Incidentally, just for Dr Kua’s information, his preferred heli-gunship that he believed should have been used at Lahad Datu without even realizing the RMAF or Malaysian Army didn't/doesn’t have any, namely the Boeing AH-64D Apache which by the way Singapore has 20 of them, cost US65 million each in 2010 - and that’s the basic unit cost, at 0.65 (or 65 percent) of the cost of a Rafale. Dr Kua can work out the likely cost of the total package for a fleet of Apache gunship involving armaments, spares, pilot and technical training, etc.
Additionally, an air defence system, apart from ground radars and interceptor aircraft requires other supporting air vehicles.
Let me name what our Singapore neighbour has (if only to make our mouth water and turn our eyes green with envy - grin!): four Grumman E2-C Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW & C), four Gulfstream G550 AEW & C, four Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker (to refuel the interceptor fighters without requiring the short endurance jets to return to base for refueling), five KC-130B/H also for air-to-air refueling of fighters, and has on order six Airbus 330 MTT for the same purpose.
Our air force should not purchase the Rafale aircraft UNLESS we have the money to buy 100 of them, and also to purchase AEW aircraft and more refueling tankers. Sixteen (16) Rafales will only be fooling ourselves about their meaningful usefulness within the national air defence context.
Thus we should of course look for cheaper options, perhaps even used aircraft like the Dassault Mirage 2000-5 MK II from France, Qatar, UAE and Greece as these countries are changing to Rafales or other equivalents - here’s our chance to grab them for cheap.
The Mirage 2000-5 MK II may be just a wee dated but with upgrading and weapon enhancements by the company Dassault, it can be a credible weapon platform for the RMAF, and it costs only a fifth or quarter of the Rafale, meaning we could get 80 re-conditioned but upgraded Mirage 2000-5 MK II for the same amount of money we may be thinking of spending on a mere 16 Rafales.
The operative word is QUANTITY because we have a very large country, from Kangar to Tawau (ever heard of this town?), and we need around one hundred fighter aircraft. The 80 Mirage 2000-5 MK II will be a good start.
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