Introduction
Dear VO readers! I dare to submit my first article to your judgment. Lacking deep knowledge of classification, types, standards, and even more so the use of techniques of this kind, I do not undertake to prove which of them is faster, stronger and higher. My article will provide a statement of facts collected from media reports, official press releases of companies and statements by various officials related to this topic and the military-industrial complex (hereinafter the military-industrial complex) of the Republic of Kazakhstan as a whole. As stated above, I am not an expert, or even a couch warrior. This article will not provide technical details of the Paramount Group products. All this you can find in the article by Alex Alexeev "Armored vehicles from the Paramount Group" dated November 10, 2014 on "VO".
Plant for the production of armored wheeled vehicles
So, from the latest news you have heard that on November 30, 2015, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev visited (according to other sources "opened") a plant for the production of armored wheeled vehicles, implemented by the joint venture Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering LLP, which has a license for these activities from 13 November 2015. The main activity of the plant is the production, maintenance and repair of armored wheeled vehicles, armored personnel carriers:
Arlan 4x4 aka Marauder
Additional information is provided by the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan (hereinafter the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan).
Infographics of a multipurpose maneuverable armored vehicle with protection from mines "Arlan"
Nomad 4x4 aka Maverick
Barys 6x6 aka Mbombe 6
The production of the listed armored vehicles will be possible in modifications. What is not reported. At the same time, Arlan's hull provides protection level 3 STANAG, and Barys's hull provides ballistic protection at STANAG level 3 and mine protection at STANAG level 4a and 4b.
A promising direction of development is the creation of a modern armored personnel carrier "Barys" with a wheel arrangement of 8x8. The vehicle will have a high level of protection and firepower, mobility and high payload. Interestingly, on the official website of the Paramaount Group there is no information about armored personnel carriers with an 8x8 wheel arrangement and, judging by the image that was placed in the workshops of the plant at the time of opening, this platform will have a turret with a weapon system similar to the BMP-3. Of course, it would not be correct to make assumptions about the caliber and, accordingly, the capabilities of this system, looking at the image of a promising armored personnel carrier. Let's wait for more detailed information.
Photo from the video reportage of the television channel "Khabar"
Official information of the plant: modern high-tech efficient equipment allows to implement a full cycle of such works as laser cutting of sheet metal, welding of armor plates, application of paint and varnish coatings, assembly work, strict quality control. The technical equipment of the plant assumes the solution of a wide range of problems in the field of production of wheeled vehicles for military and civil purposes. All equipment produced at the plant will be manufactured on the basis of international standards, which will allow selling products both within Kazakhstan and abroad.
According to the General Director of Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering Erbol Salimov, the company plans to supply 50% of materials for equipment from the countries of the Customs Union, now work is underway on cooperation with KamAZ to unify engines, bridges, and various electrical systems. Certain agreements have been reached.
The volume of investments in the construction of the plant amounted to 7 billion 80 million tenge, 150 jobs were created, 55 engineers and technical specialists were trained in Kazakhstan and abroad. According to information posted on the website of the electronic licensing of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as of December 2015, Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering attracted only one foreign employee.
If we talk about the markets, then, as mentioned above, partly having a small share in the country's budget for the needs of the military-industrial complex, the plant is focused on the possibility of supplying products abroad, and this is confirmed by the signed memorandum with Jordan for the supply of 50 6x6 vehicles over the next year … The plant's management reports that the main equipment supplied for 2015-2016 is Arlan 4x4. In general, the productive capacity of the plant is 120 machines per year. According to the Tengrinews.kz portal, 50 percent of the plant belongs to foreigners, 50 percent - to the Kazakhstan Engineering company.
On December 15, 2015, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan presented a video of the tests, after watching which the following things can be distinguished: a) sea trials were carried out in the warm season; b) night firing was carried out on June 25, 2015 both in a static position and on the move at distances to the target from 500 to 907 meters, while weapons were used with a caliber of 12.7 mm (most likely a large-caliber machine gun); c) judging by the inscriptions in Turkish on the screen, the optoelectronic component of the combat module is most likely made by Kazakhstan Aselsan Engineering LLP. Why the inscriptions are in Turkish, and not in Russian or Kazakh, is anyone's guess.
Unfortunately, I could not find information on the dates of signing the relevant documents with the Paramount Group on the establishment of a joint venture, perhaps the origins of this transaction can be attributed to the KADEX-2012 exhibition, which was held in Astana in 2012, at which Kazakhstan Engineering NC signed various agreements for $ 1.8 billion.
As a summary of this section, the following points can be highlighted:
Choosing a partner. Paramaount Group is the largest privately held aerospace and defense company in Africa (South Africa). That is, this company is private and from South Africa, which can be conventionally taken as the company's independence from political decisions;
Deep integration. If the plant management has plans to supply 50% of materials for equipment from other manufacturers, this means that Paramount Group, as a partner, really makes serious concessions and is ready for deep cooperation, which once again underlines the benefits of choosing a private company as partners.
Of course, if there was an opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the feasibility studies for choosing a partner, we might know more reliably why Paramount Group.
Ways of development of the military-industrial complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Readers of "VO", as well as residents of Kazakhstan, do not always understand the logic of our Government in relation to the development of the military-industrial complex. Yes, exactly, the military-industrial complex. We have it, no, but we have it. Perhaps a reader who is not familiar with the prevailing realities of the post-Soviet period, when each state needs to build its own life, or a reader who understands the goals of the military-industrial complex of the largest country in the world will find it difficult to understand the goals and ways of achieving them for the military-industrial complex of a country with a population 10 times smaller and a small budget.
So the words of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan Imangali Tasmagambetov, which were voiced during an interview with the socio-political newspaper Central Asia Monitor on October 30, 2015 and posted on the official website of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, give the reader an idea of the factors influencing the choice of the development strategy of the military-industrial complex:
The MIC strategy was developed based on various factors, such as the presence of design bureaus, internal needs, ample opportunities for expert potential, etc. And if we talk about the results of this strategy, then the creation of modern high-tech industries in Kazakhstan with the participation of foreign partners can be called "aerobatics" in terms of investment performance.
The picture of the development of the military-industrial complex is complemented by the words of the political scientist Marat Shibutov, cited in the article "Is the Kazakh army armed with this and so?" the same resource "Central Asia Monitor" in July 2015: For our military-industrial complex, the main goal is the production of at least the most common and most used types of ammunition, the implementation of partial (not major) repairs of certain types of military equipment, as well as the production of some types of equipment. For something more substantial, we simply do not have enough strength, even if we managed to preserve the entire Soviet potential of our military-industrial complex.
With regard to the procurement strategy: the weapons purchased must be widespread enough to change the supplier, if necessary; military equipment should have enough common spare parts so that it can be repaired in local conditions; the supplier of weapons and military equipment must be reliable enough to receive timely and high-quality service in the future. Of course, Marat is not a career soldier and does not work for the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and this allows him to be more free in his statements compared to officials from the Ministry of Defense.
In principle, the theses voiced by Marat are not a secret, and they all follow from:
• the legacy that we got after the collapse of the USSR;
• how and what we were able to preserve and not destroy completely;
• the state of the economy and the position of Kazakhstan in the world arena.
On my own behalf, I will add: according to my foreign colleagues (mainly engineers from Europe working in the oil and gas sector), the leadership of our country, in comparison with the leadership of the United Arab Emirates, is acting more wisely, trying to locate production in Kazakhstan for everything that is possible and increase the local content in manufactured products. This is a side view. In this regard, we have a lot of work, and if only everything were so easy, because corruption is blooming in full bloom.
As they say, man proposes, and God disposes. And in criminal cases, which were launched earlier under the program of modernization of Semser self-propelled howitzers and Aybat mortars, God arranged everything so that in 2013 Deputy Defense Minister Lieutenant General Maermonov Kazhimurat was sentenced to 11 years for the damage caused. The case involved other servicemen of the Republic of Kazakhstan and an Israeli citizen. And it all boiled down to the fact that each of the defendants "signed acts of acceptance of equipment, knowingly knowing about its malfunction." You can familiarize yourself with this story in more detail by reading the article “Self-propelled mortar“Aybat”. International cooperation and corruption scandal "by Ryabov Kirill on" VO ".
God also arranged things for the Cobra wheeled combat vehicle, which, according to the commander of the 36th airborne assault brigade, Major General Dzhumakeev Almaz, was supposed to be produced in Kazakhstan since 2014 by a Kazakh-Turkish joint venture. But things are still there. Whether there is a plant or not is difficult to answer. No matter how God turns everything so that someone else is not imprisoned in this case. According to scattered information, we can say that "Cobras" are supplied by the Turkish assembly in the amount of 10 pieces per year. They are mainly equipped with Airmobile Troops. He himself witnessed the departure of units of military unit 41433 of the Atyrau garrison to the training ground in 2014 on "Cobras" and KamAZ-ah.
And with regard to helicopters, our military-industrial complex seems to be all right: there is a plant, orders, albeit small, are also there. LLP "Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering", which owns a plant near Astana, carries out large-scale assembly, painting and equipment of EC-145 helicopters with special equipment, as of January 1, 2014, 20 pieces were assembled for the needs of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan. There are also plans to launch the production of EC-645 T2. It is difficult to report exact figures on the localization of production due to the lack of them in the public domain.
As a summary of this section, the following points can be highlighted:
1. From the words of the Minister of Defense, a resident of Kazakhstan becomes at least something clear in relation to the development strategy of the country's military-industrial complex. I have a question for you, readers, how would you build the country's strategy in similar conditions?
2. As in any country, we have enough of our own corrupt officials. As well as the mistakes that were made at the very beginning of either the next scam, or a worthwhile case.
3. Our country is small and everything is on the President's account. Therefore, the Deputy Minister can also jail the Prime Minister (Serik Akhmetov, they were given 10 years). In this regard, a very entertaining show turns out when you watch a live broadcast of a meeting of the President and the Government. At least at such moments, you can gloat, sitting on the couch in front of the screen.
Time will show what fate is in store for the products of Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering and the country's military-industrial complex as a whole.
Based on materials:
