Bangladesh Army introduced VT-5 light Tanks and QW-18A MANPADS at Ramu cant. Cox's Bazar.

[Homo Sapiens]

VT-5 Light Tanks and QW-18A MANPADS were introduced at 10th Infantry Division, Ramu, Cox's Bazar by an introduction ceremony yesterday.

 

[Abu Shaleh Rumi]

These systems are "adhunik" but these are not "ottadhunik"! Looking at our armed forces budget can't complain...

 

[Homo Sapiens]

These systems are "adhunik" but these are not "ottadhunik"! Looking at our armed forces budget can't complain...

I think a big chunk of our defence budget is now being used to build-up defence infrastructure that's why we are not seeing any large scale arms procurement. In the last 9 years, Army established 3 infantry division from scratch and raised infantry division number from 7 to 10. It is like 45 percent expansion in Army manpower. Establishing Cantonments, constructing proper infrastructure and furnishing them with all equipment is not cheap. Army also increased production capacity of Bangladesh Ordnance Factory 12 times in the last 10 years and modernized Machine tools factory.

Similarly Air force established Airbase in Dhaka and Cox's Bazar, set up radar units in Barishal and Cox's Bazar. Constructing full fledged air base in Sylhet and Barishal.

Navy is building at a cost of 1.2 billion Dollar Submarine base in Cox's Bazar and a big Naval base in Patuakhali with submarine berthing facility. Navy also acquired and renovated a number of shipyards like Khulna shipyard, Chittagong Drydock to make them suitable to build warships.

India, Pakistan and other countries build these basic military infrastructure in 1950s and 1960s. They also achieved full manpower requirements for Armed Forces many decades ago. They are now just maintaining their operational capabilities and concentrating weapon acquisition and manufacturing unlike Bangladesh which has to build military infrastructure now.

Bangladesh's defence budget is now 4 billion Dollar which is small, but even ten years ago, BD's defence budget was mere 1 billion Dollar! So, if we think about this severe budget limitation and all these physical infrastructure building, we can understand why things are not moving as they should on arms acquisition. Bangladesh armed forces still in physical expansion stage. Once expansion is done, a real weapon capability will pick-up I think after 2030.