"The cabinet yesterday agreed the air force could buy 12 Gripen multi-role fighters from Sweden at a cost of 34.4 billion baht. The procurement plan has been kept low-profile, with air force chief ACM Chalit Phukphasuk refusing to comment. . .
It is the second major arms procurement approved by the cabinet recently. On Sept 25 it endorsed the Defence Ministry's 7.7-billion-baht plan to buy 96 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) from Ukraine and 15,000 TAR-21 assault rifles from Israel for the army, C-802 surface-to-surface missiles and launch systems for the navy from China, and new avionics for the six C-130H aircraft operated by the air force. . .
The decision to go for the Swedish fighters was made by a committee led by air force chief-of-staff ACM Ittaporn Subhawong, the source said. Air force officials briefed the cabinet on the capabilities of the Gripen yesterday and compared it with other planes on offer.
ACM Chavalit had met Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont on Sept 29 and convinced him to back the purchase. He cited the need for new combat aircraft to match the Russian-made SU-30 MKM fighters now deployed by Malaysia."
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/17Oct2007_news01.php
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Cabinet approves jet fighters for Thai AF
Started by Sexpat, Oct 17 2007 09:39 AM
1 reply to this topic
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Posted 17 October 2007 - 12:42 PM
QUOTE
ACM Chavalit had met Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont on Sept 29 and convinced him to back the purchase. He cited the need for new combat aircraft to match the Russian-made SU-30 MKM fighters now deployed by Malaysia."
I guess that's the Thai version of keeping up with the Joneses. It might be understandable if this country had to arm itself against real enemies to defend the nation, instead of throwing it away at expensive and unnecessary millitary hardware.
As I recall, this is the same Thai cabinet that trashed the international patents of several farang-produced drugs six months ago to save an estimated 800,000 million dollars. According to the health minister, Thailand was just too poor to be spending money on buying patented drugs that might be better spent elsewehere. ..... like 34 billion on jet fighters !
Let's hope there's a civilian government back soon because this junta crowd is clearly trying to spend as much money as possible on military hardware before they have to give back the keys to the national treasury. I wonder if this is the way they do it in Burma too.
