Everything's for sale.  Its only how much you have to pay for it - but you may not also not get  what you paid for.     

I believe the Israelis, South Africans and Russians will sell anything for a price. Maybe SG too.

Pay the ransom, save the hostages,  pass the tanks to whoever paid ( plus cost of ransom )  for  it ,  pass  the ammo  to the pirates  & neutralise the pirates at a later date. 

Remember the " fog of war ". 

In almost all wars,  AD crews have the nasty habit of downing ALL aircraft including friendlies, with & wo Intel or IFF.     This usually happens after the AD cresw get whacked by enemy aircraft or oherwise.

Then I suppose we have both flavors.

Yeah, I think our last Spyder purchase was a pretty good example of that.  Hardly anything was said when we evaluating them.

Which version of SPYDER did SG purchase ?

SG has the means & will to bring the fight to whoever wants to take us on. And the strategy does not end there -  it is geared to ensure that it wins quickly & decisively.   But it is neither in the aggressor's nor SG's interest  to fight  a war the first place. Both sides will surely suffer as there is no such thing as a win-lose outcome ( only a lose-lose one ) , but  SG will also ensure that the aggressor suffers very much more militarily, politically & economically.  

SG armed forces are already structured & organised to mobilise quickly.  You do not need to mobilise ALL your reserves to initiate operations - you need only to mobilise sufficient forces faster than what your aggressor can bring to bear against your forces.

The region's geography also lends itself to fast & easy movement of men & equipment via the seaways which have relatively calm waters.  Assault boats etc  & plentiful other civilian resources are all available on mobilization.  

I do not believe that a buffer zone is restricted to a meagre  50 or 60 km. Personally, it is too close for comfort.  

You tell that to the shipping line and I see how many will register under S'pore.

Flags of convenience.....are you high or what?

You sure SAF has all it takes to PROJECT power? Prove it. What SAF also depends on are ties.....lack that and I would like to see how you PROJECT.

only 16 and very lonely

 

Obviously, you do not know the purpose of  registering a ship under a  flag of convenience. It is purely for commercial  reasons and does not entitle the ship to protection from the country it is registered under. I am not high - you are just dumb.

Being 16 and very lonely, it is no surprise  that he /she is clearly ignorant that SAF can project power. The only issue is the extent of the power that can be projected.   If you look at the weapons systems SAF has available, one can clearly see major elements of  its expeditionary capabilties.  Operationally, its power to project its forces quickly  has been to some extent already tested during the tsunami disaster.

hello dude. no issues with what you are saying here but i find that really hard to swallow.

can you substantiate it ?

the only two precedents i can think of is the cambodia evacuation and the SQ 93 "hijack" butter knives

incident and both involved exceptional set of circumstances

 

sgstars

Pardon me , but what is hard to swallow ?

You have already given 2 good examples of  what SAF is capable of  doing to protect S'pore citizens to substantiate extent of  S'pore's  commitment  in "incidents " involving "exceptional set of circumstances".

When any significanty number of Singapore citizens anywhere in the world are held hostages, the SAF will  respond immediately , be it the Navy, SOF or Airforce. But it will be only with the permission of the the country where the "incident " takes place. The SAF has the will , organization , people & hardware to project power on this scale for this kind of "incident". 

Singapore flagged ships are flags of convenience. No need to get excited when one is hijacked.  

I think it is not only that SAF or civilian leadership needs to be ready.  The entire nation needs to be ready.  

Clearly it will not be easy to start  afresh after 20 years in SAF.  Another issue is that when  you are around 40 years old, it  will  be  very tough to start as an new employee with no relevant job experience. Unless of course if  the experience in the SAF is  also relevant to the job you seek  eg  technical  vocations.

One must also be realistic and accept that you will most likely start off on new career with lower income.  It is  a matter of managing your expectations. But, given time, hard work and perserverance, you shud be ok.  

Best of luck.

Gurkhas are no ordinary mercenaries. They have a long tradition of loyalty & fighting fiercely  for their " masters ".  

The serve a very important role in Singapore in that they will follow the rule of law and are impartial  to religious or racial sentiments.  

All organizations or communities are certainly not immune to having problems & the Gurkhas are no exception. They are people too.  

There's something called diplomacy and the realisation that war fuks your country up even if you start it.

Ideally big powers will resort to diplomacy. Also, rational people ( politicians included ) know that war is a lose-lose situation.

Unfortunately, in reality there are madmen in this world who are politicians & they cant tthink rationally.    

Otherwise, we will all not need an armed forces.

We cannot keep the A4s even of we want to  because we do not have the pilots & it makes no sense.  

Pilots  are not like infantry.  I think you can still handle and shoot an M16, SAR 21 , throw a grenade , operate a SAW, GPMG and carry out section & platoon  tactics after  a short  refresher even when you are 40 yrs old.   With pilots,  you need to have flying hours on the airplane &  it makes no sense to keep current on an obsolescent one.  

Same as the old number 4, officer and warrant rank on the shoulders, specialists/men on the sleeves what. No difference. Why are you questioning it now?

Why follow  old number 4  ?     Isnt the new  uniform about  improvements ?   If you are captured , better  not  be so obvious as senior ranking officer , spec ops personnel etc.   

Best  is  that the uniform does not distinguish you from an officer or private.

I guess if ones passion is for military flying, then shud go for it. But one must be aware of the pitfalls. Any way , you shud always have a Plan B  shud u later  realise tat military flying is not exactly yr cup of tea after all.

Aussies are correct not to have IADS given the size of the country and  the distance it is from any conceivable threat.  The Air Force and Navy  shud be the primary defence against air threats.

Aussie GBAD assets shud be focused on mobile point and perhaps area AD systems.

Irrelevant to  compare with Singapore's AD system.  We are in striking distance from point blank range of any air threat. Even a single armed UAV getting thro our AD can cause  significant damage.  

The A4s will be replaced by a new generation advanced jet trainer. No point keeping  obsolescent A4 aircraft  as they will be  ineffective in any conflict - unless you choose to use them against pirates.  

Anyway the A4s are very near the end ( if not already beyond ) of their airframe life.

Everyone forgot other AA weapons  at  Oz's disposal - GPMGs, MINIMIs & AUGs.   

Rank for officers on chest  and other ranks on sleeve ?   What is the rationale ?   Wud'nt is better  for ALL whether officer & other ranks all wear rank on chest or same location ?  Before being captured in war all ranks & badges  shud be discarded. Why make it so easy for enemy to tell who is an officer & who is not.    

Disappointing to note that cant get their act right even for a show. Cant imagine what will happen when you have the real thing.  

Bottom  line is that  SAR 21 is probably not much better than old M16.

Black rifles really stand out when next to camouflage.  Shud have rifles also be in pixelated camo for 100 % effect 

I seriously doubt that there will be an M1A3.  The US is focusing on the Future Combat Systems program to eventually replace the likes of the M1s and M2s.  At the moment however, the FCS program looks like a long way off from  realizing its final objectives & in the meantime the M1 & other MBTs will soldier on with upgrades for probably the next 20 years.  

However MBTs such as the M1A1 and A2 have more than proven their worth in the the recent ME wars  even in urban warfare.  But , they remain vulnerable if  opponents have advanced weapons such as the latest ATGMs as shown by the Hizbollah against Merkavas.   Of  course active protection systems such as Trophy  may be the solution, but they are  still not proven or battle tested  -  only time will tell.  But these  systems will  improve , but so will the AT weapons which will then be designed to defeat these systems.   

You cannot attach the range of accessories that are available to M4 to other rifles such as SAR-21 unless the rifle is modified accordingly to accept these. However, the M4 has evolved over the years (  due  to  the US military's needs thru combat experience )  to the current situation where an M4 can be tailored to suit the various combat situations.   

There is no rifle system that I know of that can give the user such a wide range of accesories.

I think M4s with scopes are only issued to front line combat soldiers. Ordinary soldiers still get M16s & not M4s -   someone please confirm.