The Bangladesh Army is upgrading its fire power projection capabilities in response to the geo-political realities of today.
Neighbouring countries of Bangladesh are heavily militarised, often sacrificing human and economic development for investing in offensive military capabilities including Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that are a threat for peaceful countries.
Bangladesh has faced the brunt of troubles fomented across the border in recent years by Myanmar’s brutal military regime resulting in the expulsion of over a million Burmese nationals intruding in to Bangladesh in 2017.
The Bangladesh government responded to the made crisis in a humanitarian manner, providing shelter, food, medical treatment, education to the foreigners. Unfortunately the same people caused massive environmental and security issues.
Bangladesh has tried to repatriate the Myanmar nationals back to their country without any success owing to pressure from sections of the international community, which benefits from the prolonged crisis. Myanmar has become ever more emboldened by the disingenuous role played by the international communities. In the mean time they received military equipment from China and India to further create a tense situation in the region.
Without making any diplomatic headway Bangladesh has decided that developing an overwhelming military capability will be the only solution to effectively counter belligerent countries of the region.
In his disclosure during a ceremony at Cumilla Cantonment on 7 October 2020, the Chief of Army Staff Aziz Ahmed stated the Bangladesh Army has purchased long range rocket and missile systems.
He added procurement of 155 mm gun-howitzers and advanced mortar systems are also at a final stage.
The Bangladesh Army has awarded Roketsan a major contract for TRG-300 GMLRS (Tiger Surface-to-Surface Tactical Missile System) last year. Those are expected to be delivered soon according to Defseca.com’s sources.
Three new artillery brigades as well as new mortar regiments have been raised. Air defence capabilities of the Army are also being expanded with acquisition of Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile systems, Oerlikon GDF-009 anti-aircraft guns, French mobile air surveillance radar systems and man-portable air defence weapons.
Other important branches including aviation, armour, engineering, signals have also been boosted with a large array of modern acquisitions from mostly Europe, Turkey and China.
