Inside the SANDF plan to spend R55,000 per soldier on new uniforms

[oafpatroll]

From today's Daily Maverick

While reading this I was reminded of a few things which came up in no particular order.

* Even if R55k per uniform issue is a reasonable number, which I very much doubt, it's a budgeted amount and could easily double as is the way of these things.

* Given how tenders work in SA there will be layers of hungry middlemen and only a portion of the amount will be attributable to the actual costs of production, reasonable profits, procurement and stocking.

* If the production of the items was done in SA it could probably jumpstart one or more of the textile businesses that have gone out of business in the last twenty five years but it's as likely as not to be outsourced to China

* How the high (on their own supply) and 'mighty' have fallen that they now need to grub around for paltry single (billion) digit procurement deals to skim off. How they must long for the heady days of the original arms deal.

* One of the reasons quoted for not being able to use the substantial stock of existing uniforms is that they are 'too big or too small'. Having seen many of the SANDF's finest waddling about I buy the former but the not the latter quite so easily.

[GAZZAMCK]

Weren't the current soldier 2000 uniforms manufactured with IR reducing tech etc
One has to wonder what went into the new threads, one of the patterns looked pretty good
The digital not so much. Some of the camo almost looked too green for SA environment

[paulnb]

Super sizes => extra material required => increased costs :)

[ady]

I'm hoping some milsurp pattern 2000 camo comes up for sale.

Epic hunting clothes.

[1911 Guy]

This seems to be a decent amount, as far I know without confirmation, each soldier gets between 2 - 4 uniforms? Back in 2019 when I was chatting to a general in Simon's town he said the foot wear is around R4000 each as it needs to get you atleast 2 years out of it.

[Johann du Toit]

I shared a video a while back of female soldiers in military parades from across the world. When it came time for our SANDF to shine - a bunch of hippos in jumpsuits toy-toying instead of parading and marching.

Point is, if jumpsuits for bloated manatees somehow come down to R 55 000.00 per soldier then that is grossly overpriced (unless it some new nanotech self cleaning, bulletproof jumpsuits, which I somehow doubt).

[oafpatroll]

This seems to be a decent amount, as far I know without confirmation, each soldier gets between 2 - 4 uniforms? Back in 2019 when I was chatting to a general in Simon's town he said the foot wear is around R4000 each as it needs to get you atleast 2 years out of it.

The allocation they described was "1x bush jacket, 2x long-sleeved shirts, 2x short-sleeve shirts, 2x long pants, 1x cap, and 1x bush hat. This is together with a cold-weather coat and rain suit — though these are issued “sparingly”, Olivier says — and two pairs of boots."

R4k a pair of boots really sounds a lot. A quick scan around the interweb comes up with some very high end footwear that I can buy one pair at a time for less. I can't help but thinking that there's a bunch of gravy in each pair of those.

[Raw1]

The allocation they described was "1x bush jacket, 2x long-sleeved shirts, 2x short-sleeve shirts, 2x long pants, 1x cap, and 1x bush hat. This is together with a cold-weather coat and rain suit — though these are issued “sparingly”, Olivier says — and two pairs of boots."

R4k a pair of boots really sounds a lot. A quick scan around the interweb comes up with some very high end footwear that I can buy one pair at a time for less. I can't help but thinking that there's a bunch of gravy in each pair of those.

If they are going to be issued Lowa Z range of boots like the STF then 4k sounds about right.

[ady]

Have you guys just arrived in Africa?

Off course the new issued uniforms won't cost R55k per soldier. I don't get the outrage and debate when it is so obvious. This is YOUR tax money hard at work.

The SANDF struggle to operate and pay salaries, but they can have a farewell dinner for some high ranking guy and put Johnny Blue and Chivas on each table.

[oafpatroll]

If they are going to be issued Lowa Z range of boots like the STF then 4k sounds about right.

They should go and have a look at https://www.lowabootsouthafrica.co.z...ting=priceDESC where the most expensive boot in the men's section (some mad mountaineering boot) is listed at R2,042.

i don't buy the idea that if you are ordering 10s of thousands of pairs of boots that you'll need to pay anything approaching retail unit cost unless you 'need' or want to. I'm sure that whatever they end up buying, it will cost a great deal more than it should and those that actually get issued will be utterly wasted the vast majority of recipients.