SAF exploring new range complex to boost NSmen weapons training

Straits Times

2 days ago

The new facility could also provide a 'chance for us to allow more people to experience a slice of national service', said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
SINGAPORE - The Singapore Army is exploring building another multi-mission range complex that will allow national servicemen to do practice shoots on a more regular basis.
The idea is for more people to be able to maintain the currency of their weapon skills, just as they do for fitness conditioning now, said Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing.
This new facility could also provide a 'chance for us to allow more people to experience a slice of national service', he added.
There is currently one multi-mission range complex, located at Pasir Laba Camp in Jurong.
The three-storey indoor range complex, commissioned in 2013, allows soldiers to simulate day and night conditions, as well as different range lengths – making live-firing exercises more efficient.
Such buildings, which combine conventional training methods with new technologies, can help the Singapore Armed Forces optimise its local training areas and intensify their usage, Mr Chan said.
There will also be more opportunities for women and people who have not served national service to contribute to the SAF Volunteer Corps, Mr Chan said in an interview with local media on June 25.
The corps, founded in 2014, allows Singaporean women, first-generation permanent residents and new citizens between 18 and 45 years old to take up supporting roles in the SAF.
There are now eight applicants for every one person selected for the corps, Mr Chan said.
'We are asking ourselves if we can review the programme to allow more people to participate, maybe not at the same intensity, maybe at different levels of intensity, depending on the skill sets that people bring,' he added.
On women serving in the military, Mr Chan said more are coming forward not just in the Volunteer Corps, but also as SAF regulars.
'With the technologies that we are bringing in, the physical demands are quite different. In fact, the intellectual demands are also quite different,' he noted.
'And today, as we expand the deployment of female officers across the entire four services of the SAF, we see much more opportunities for them to make contributions.'
Asked about the possibility of conscripting women as well, Mr Chan replied: 'I don't think we are making that decision now.'
He said Singapore has not conscripted women because it does not see an operational need to do so.
'If we want to do conscription, there must be a real operational need,' he said, adding that it must also be done with basic principles like universality.
Even so, the Ministry of Defence has heard 'loud and clear' calls for more women to be given the chance to experience national service.
'Many more of them want to experience and see and also to contribute, and that's why I think we have such strong support for the SAF Volunteer Corps.'
His ministry is thinking through how it can respond to this demand, Mr Chan added.
Answering a question from Malay-language daily Berita Harian about concerns over the appearance of tokenism in the advancement of minority races in the SAF, he said selections are made on merit.
When the SAF selects people, it does so on their ability to carry out their duties and on the basis that the deployment will allow the armed forces to make the best use of their skills, Mr Chan said.
He said: 'We will never apply tokenism to any deployment. It does injustice to the individual. It does injustice to the system.'
Whether or not a minority, or anybody, takes up a senior position in the SAF is 'not a here and now issue', Mr Chan said.
'It is a continuous effort, because for us to get a chief warrant officer, for us to get a brigadier-general, or whatever, that person must be in the force for the last 20 over years.'
The soldiers in high positions now are the result of efforts to step up outreach and recruitment 20 years ago, Mr Chan said, adding that the SAF will continue to broaden its recruitment of people from diverse walks of life.
He said the SAF is able to bring more people into the system as it offers diverse job scopes that cater to different capabilities.
'Our defence ecosystem has evolved quite a lot from many years ago… it is a much more diverse and much stronger ecosystem.'
Former NSmen, of which there are around 750,000, are also increasingly playing an important and useful role in Singapore's defence, Mr Chan said.
'In the past, when the physical demands were much higher because of the way war fighting was done, maybe we will retire people after 12 years,' he noted, referring to two years of full-time national service and 10 years as an NSman.
Many more older NSmen are now returning to the SAF to contribute in specific areas based on their skill sets, he said.
NSmen and NSFs also bring to the military their skills and familiarity with the latest technologies that they use in their civilian lives.
'When we talk about flying drones… Actually, today we don't have to try very hard, because many of them are flying drones outside already,' Mr Chan said.
'Many of them have real capabilities to do this, so I think we (should) just make use of what they have.'
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