Pukul Habis ranked among top 10 fiction best sellers by The Sunday Times

 

In stock: Quite surreal seeing Pukul Habis on display at Books Kinokuniya's store in Ngee Ann City alongside titles by more experienced authors and big name publishers.

Pukul Habis was ranked among the top 10 fiction Best Sellers by The Sunday Times today (26 March 2023) 🙂 Not bad for a title that only recently appeared in Kinokuniya bookstores in Singapore.

Am grateful to the Books Kinokuniya Singapore team for their expert guidance, tireless support and boundless professionalism in helping Pukul Habis appear in their Ngee Ann City and Bugis Junction bookstores. Big thanks to readers in Singapore who have explored the unthinkable scenario outlined in Pukul Habis' storyline.

Books Kinokuniya Malaysia will have the title soon. Am really curious how Malaysian readers will take to this story of an unthinkable war.

Coming soon: Kinokuniya Malaysia to release Pukul Habis war fiction novel

Excited and a wee bit nervous with the release of Pukul Habis in Malaysia coming soon.

Books Kinokuniya in Singapore already has Pukul Habis. Please visit its main store in Ngee Ann City or Bugis Junction, or check the Kinokuniya online store here. The title should be available via Kinokuniya Malaysia soon. Please enquire with the KL store.

 

For readers elsewhere, please check the Amazon sites that serve your location. "Look Inside" function on some sites shows sample pages.

Singapore: https://bit.ly/3XJzInH

Australia: https://amzn.to/3ViaX0i

United Kingdom: https://amzn.to/3EZ6clA Look Inside

USA: https://amzn.to/3Ui3Eo1 Look Inside. When ordering from Singapore, please click on the "Shipping to Singapore?" button. Ignore the "Temporarily out of stock" notice on the Amazon.com page.

Singapore Army Visit 2023 - Interesting Hunter AFV variants on show

[17 March 2023: Updated with more pictures and comments on smoke grenade arrangement.]

The Singapore Army's annual "Army Visit", which provides a shop window into #armylife for young Singaporeans, is being held from 16 to 17 March 2023.

It was pleasure to be invited to Army Visit 2023. 

The enthusiasm and energy from the Army ambassadors at their various stations was palpable, and their professionalism was all the more remarkable considering that many of the full-time national servicemen were in school a year or so ago. How they have changed - for the better!

Instagrammer sozoplamo managed to get a rare shot of two Hunter armoured fighting vehicles side-by-side with different 30mm Remote Weapon Station configurations. Great catch! Note the different arrangements for the SDS 50mm smoke dischargers and the "cheeks" of the RWS. Callsign "33" has a new seven-per side arrangement for the smoke grenades. See his pix below.

Close up of "33". Note the cluster of seven smoke dischargers per side, which was not seen before. Compare this with the "4x1" launch version below and "2x2" variant which was first displayed in public at the Singapore Army Open House 2022. 

Launch version of the Hunter with a "4x1" arrangement on each side.

Smoke grenades are small beer. The bigger question to ponder is what other mods have Singapore's defence engineers and the Armour community made to the RWS to enhance the Hunter's firepower, accuracy, lethality, and survivability (apart from throwing more smoke, if you know what I mean). Ample room in that turret... [For those interested, my book, Pukul Habis, describes fictional scenarios of Hunters in action with all the bells and whistles fitted.]

Also noteworthy was the appearance of a "naked" Hunter AFV with its front and side appliqué armour apparently stripped off. This was the first time I had seen a Hunter AFV displayed like this. I think the lightened configuration reduces wear and tear on the automotive components during peacetime training. Happy to hear thoughts from anyone who has a different hypothesis.

Note the "2x2" arrangement for the smoke dischargers.

Pukul Habis book available at Books Kinokuniya in Singapore; ranked top 10 on Kino SG's weekly fiction best seller list

Many thanks to the Books Kinokuniya team for the nice placement for Pukul Habis - right after the main entrance of its store at Ngee Ann City in Singapore.

Last Friday (10 Mar 2023), the Kino team unpacked, price tagged and displayed copies of the war fiction novel. By noon, Singapore's biggest bookstore had the novel ready for readers here. This marked the first time the novel (ISBN 9789811861499) was sold in Singapore since its launch online on Amazon.com last November.

Despite being available for less than a full week, Pukul Habis was ranked top 10 on Kino's weekly list of fiction best sellers.

The book is available via Books Kinokuniya Malaysia. Please call the store for availability at 03-2164-8133.

The books printed in Singapore are a limited run. Thanks everyone for the support. 

Special Update: Pukul Habis book now available from Kinokuniya in Singapore and Malaysia

Books Kinokuniya in Singapore has stocked Pukul Habis. Please visit its main store in Ngee Ann City or Bugis Junction, or check the Kinokuniya online store here. The title should be available via Kinokuniya Malaysia soon. Please enquire with the KL store.

The book (ISBN 978-9811861499) continues to be available on Amazon.com. Do check the Amazon sites that serve your location. "Look Inside" function on some sites shows sample pages.

Singapore: https://bit.ly/3XJzInH

Australia: https://amzn.to/3ViaX0i

United Kingdom: https://amzn.to/3EZ6clA Look Inside

USA: https://amzn.to/3Ui3Eo1 Look Inside. When ordering from Singapore, please click on the "Shipping to Singapore?" button. Ignore the "Temporarily out of stock" notice on the Amazon.com page.

Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) F-5S fighter still has secrets to keep

 

Front office: This is what the cockpit of a Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Northrop F-5E Tiger II looked like in the mid-1980s. An extensive upgrade that brought it to F-5S standard replaced many of the steam gauges and gave F-5 pilots an improved radar and NVG-compatible cockpit optimised for night flying.

Visitors who have seen the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) F-5S Tiger II fighter at the Air Force Museum may be curious why the cockpit canopy was frosted.

The fighter type is no longer in RSAF service and was decommissioned in 2015 after 36 years of service. So what’s so hush-hush?

The special HUD in the locally-modified F-5 might have led to the frosted canopy, which conceals everything within such as displays in the NVG-compatible cockpit.

The HUD is thought to be proprietary and possibly unique to the RSAF. Considering that Singapore only had around 40 F-5s, the amount of effort invested to give this relatively small fleet a secret edge is commendable. Hint: the F-5S HUD had homegrown capabilities that were superior to the HUD found on vanilla F-16C/Ds that were of a more modern design.

Hopefully, the full story of the RSAF’s outstanding F-5 upgrade project can be told one day…

Here’s what the front office of an RSAF F-5E looked like in the mid-1980s before Singapore’s defence scientists and engineers had a go at giving the fighter a new lease of life.

P.S. I’ve not visited the Air Force Museum at Paya Lebar Air Base for many years. Will aim to visit one day. 

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