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The Submarine that Never Was

When Malaysian govt decided to buy a couple of Scorpene class submarines from DCNS, it was inevitable that the issue became politicised. Amongst the accusations thrown at our Navy was we had paid RM6.1 billion to buy a couple of scrap metals as submarines.

RMN Scorpene class Submarines, renamed as Perdana Menteri class. Photo sourced from Wikipedia. 

What more, some of these rumour mongers said they had heard it from their relatives who were serving in the Navy. They saw the rusting submarines under the sun berthed at Lumut Naval Base.

Many of us defence writers had tried to correct this perception for years. True, we bought a couple of submarines. They were bought brand new, and no, they are not rusting out at Lumut Naval Base.

The culprit of the rumour is actually PSC Naval Dockyard Sdn Bhd. Well, it was not their intention, but it was the unintended consequences of their actions when they purchased a couple of Zwaardvis class submarines from Holland, hoping to score quick cash from the Navy.

Photos of Zwaardvis class submarines rusting in Lumut. Photo credit to now defunct defence magazine, Tempur.

Both submarines were not only rusting, but were rickety and may not be sea-worthy anymore. But that didn't stop the then owner of PSC Naval Dockyard Sdn Bhd, Datuk Amin Shah from his greed of trying to push these submarines to the Navy. I still hold that this man single-handedly destroyed our Royal Malaysian Navy.

Thankfully, the Navy was adamant and Zwaardvis never made it even through the selection. PSC ended up with a couple of rusting scraps, which they had sold later as scrap metals.

As for him, he is still a free man, despite single-handedly destroying RMN.

Know Your Stuff Before You Try to Talk Shit with Me

Say that you got a job and a girlfriend. And now you're looking for a car to impress your girlfriend. What if I tell you I can sell to you a Mercedes-Benz at the price of RM1,000. I tell you why buy from Mercedes-Benz Malaysia for RM300,000 when you can get the same for only RM1,000. But there is a catch. I'm selling to you a Mercedes-Benz made in 1965, as compared to the 2015 Mercedes-Benz that Mercedes-Benz is selling to you. Which car will you buy?

Definitely a no brainer. You will definitely buy a 2015 Mercedes-Benz even though it is much more expensive.

Helicopters of Malaysia

The recent hogwash over the so-called reluctance of rescue helicopters going up to Mount Kinabalu, specifically Laban Rata to rescue climbers trapped on the Mountain after the earthquake made me think.

Just so people can understand better, I've decided to compile a datasheet of helicopters that are in Malaysian government service, both military and civilian.  From this datasheet, you may determine if I had tried to pull your legs why we should have bought all 25 units of EC725 instead of only 12 units.

Sabah Earthquake - Lessons Learnt

The recent earthquake in Sabah has exposed once again the inadequacy of Malaysian government's approach to Search and Rescue operations.  However, contrary to the approach that many people took the last few days when it comes to criticizing the Malaysian government's response, I choose to look at this unfortunate event from a different perspective.

And They Say We Don't Need It

When the Government under Tun Abdullah announced Malaysia intended to procure Eurocopter EC725 CSAR version with 5 rotor blades, there was a strong uproar from the opposition party, saying the helicopter was way overpriced and the government did not study other options before putting the dots on the i's and crossed the t's.