NDP 2010: The Velites

The Velites were light infantry who fought alongside Roman legions thousands of years ago.

These combatants came to mind when I saw the Guard-of-Honour (GOH) contingents march towards the Padang for CR2 last Saturday.

Here are Commandos from the 1st Commando Battalion marching in step.

As the Commandos filed by, they were followed closely by another bunch of assorted auxiliaries or skirmishers...

... known during Roman times as the Velites.

I don't know their role but I'm guessing this is the fatigue party tasked to pick up blank cartridges after the feu-de-joie (fire of joy). If that's the case, can't they make their own way to the Padang rather than tailing the smartly-attired GOH contingents?

The Velites are the last GOH "contingent" spectators see and their riff raff appearance detracts from the pomp and ceremony and the air of formality that the leading GOH contingents radiate.  

Blast from the past

NDP 1995: Mobile Column participants and their armoured vehicles emerge after a tropical downpour to rehearse for NDP 1995.

Participants of yesteryear put in long hours of rehearsals - rain or shine - just for 10 minutes or so passing by the Padang in disciplined formations. But the men and women all took it in the right spirit.

Leading the rehearsal are SM1 light tanks, armed with a 75mm gun which was modelled after the deadly Kwk 42 7.5cm gun mounted on German Panther medium tanks. The Singapore Army and Singaporean defence engineers enhanced the lethality of the SM1's main gun with a cannister round, packed with 400 ball bearings for clearing vegetation, as well as a sabot round.

NDP 1995: Singapore Army Bv206s mass along Nicoll Highway. Notice how all three lanes were used for the Mobile Column to form up in review order. Behind the Bv206s are Combat Engineer Tractors, followed by M-728 Combat Engineer Vehicles and a pair of M-60 Armoured Vehicle-Launched Bridges (AVLBs).

NDP 2000: In the millennium year's parade, Mobile Column vehicles used the eastbound lanes to get to the Padang. Seen here after a thunderstorm are M-728 Combat Engineer Vehicles, each fitted with a Pearson Engineering Track Width Mine Plough (TWMP), followed by a pair of AVLBs.

NDP 2005: Singapore-made Bionix 1 infantry fighting vehicles roll down Nicoll Highway on their way to the Padang. The Mobile Column in 2005 was the last time SM1 light tanks appeared during a National Day Parade.  

NDP 2010 CR2: The same view five years later, with Singapore Army Terrex infantry fighting vehicles rolling down the same city-bound lanes. This part of Nicoll Highway now has a right turn leading to Middle Road.

NDP 2000: Police officers from the crack Special Tactics and Rescue (STAR) team seen along Nicoll Highway before mounting up for the National Day Parade 2000. There's a story behind this picture. The STAR team was amused to see me show up every weekend for the NDP 2000 Combined Rehearsals. The team's only ground rule was no face shots, which I respected. On the actual day of the parade, they allowed me past the cordon for a photo shoot.
In 2007, the STAR team apprehended Dave Teo, the full-time National Serviceman who ran away from camp with a SAR-21 assault rifle and 5.56mm bullets. Thanks to contact made at NDP 2000, arrangements were made and the Singapore Police Force granted me an exclusive interview with the STAR team.
The police officer on the right is the one who led the assault team that caught Dave Teo in the Orchard Cineleisure toilet.
I have the highest regard for Singapore's special forces community.

25 pounder gun drill. Battery Take Post!

Catch gunners from Charlie Battery, 20 SA, as they rehearse the 21-gun salute. Click here.

The first round is fired when the President begins inspecting the Guard-of-Honour contingents and the last round should be timed at the end of the review.

The stiff formality of the gun drills can be traced back to the days of black powder artillery when gun crews had to echo the battery commander's orders to ensure they could be heard over the battlefield noise.

Hand signals indicated which guns were primed and ready to fire. Before firing, the battery commander would indicate the type of rounds to be loaded and the firing sequence. In this case, blank rounds to be fired at his command.

Note how guns 4, 5 and 6 are unloaded at the end of the sequence. The 25-pdrs were kept loaded in case a gun failed to fire and a round needed to be discharged immediately.

The ceremonial 25-pdr field guns seen here are older than the gunners who man these artillery pieces.

Second Lieutenant Li Yong Rui and 2LT Ira Yong are the 20 SA officers who will command the six 25 pounders used for the Presidential Salute. (Can someone please provide the rank/name of the WOSE to the officer's left?)

Takeaways from NDP rehearsals

There's no time out for Singapore's citizen soldiers, even with National Day Parade (NDP) rehearsals in full swing every weekend till 9 August 2010.

Just ask the Singapore Army's Leopard 2 main battle tank (MBT) tank crew.

Last week, the 48th Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment (48 SAR), brought their Leopard 2A4s outfield. After the exercise ended, 48 SAR had to prepare its big cats for a date with low loaders. A convoy brought the MBTs to their form-up point for the first National Day Parade Combined Rehearsal (CR1) on 19 June 2010. Sorry can't be more specific, but if you know, you know :-)

By the time the Leopards were unloaded and secured in the vehicle laager, it was early Saturday morning.

Along with other elements of the NDP 2010 Mobile Column, 48 SAR did one run past the Padang under blazing hot Saturday sunshine before preparing for the parade's full sequence later in the day. By the time the participants returned to their unit, Sunday morning was also upon them.

A look at the NDP 2010 rehearsal calendar may fuel the incorrect idea that parade participants have loads of time to get things right.

In practice, they only have two full rehearsals to get things squared away. The last full rehearsal ended a few hours ago. As I type this, Mobile Column participants have just sent their vehicles back to their parking lots and will send arms before bedding down for the night.

By CR3, the third Combined Rehearsal, parade participants will be performing in front of their parents and loved ones at a special closed door preview just for families of NDP participants.

CR4, 5 and 6 are National Education (NE) shows attended by thousands of primary school students - certainly not the place to goof up.

The Parade Preview will be attended by the Singaporean public and is the last full dress rehearsal before Singapore celebrates its 45th year of independence on 9 August.

For an accidental nation, the SAF's order of battle, firepower at its command and slew of defence operations it undertakes everyday are all noteworthy achievements.

What the SAF protects, others covet. Which is why there's no let up in SAF ops.

Island defence and protection of installation operations spearheaded by the Island Defence HQ continue unabated, 24/7, with or without NDP.

The coastal defence screen put up by naval and Police Coast Guard patrols deters opportunistic sea robbers from landing on our shores. It may sound incredible but in the 1980s, sea robbers from Indonesia were known to target sites on mainland Singapore as far apart as the East Coast Sailing Centre and fishermen off Tuas. The opportunists are still around and if one weakens the Maritime Security Task Force elements, they'll hit Singapore again within a month.

The SAF's war games calendar, so vital for honing integrated operations between land, air, sea and intelligence forces, remains as packed as ever. Indeed, the SAF is one of the few Asian nations for whom the sun never sets on its military training. This is because SAF training takes place round the clock and round the world, thanks to training detachments in  places including, but not limited to, Australia, Brunei, Thailand, India, Sweden, France and across the continental United States.

Coming back to NDP, the rehearsals are among the SAF's largest peacetime operations.

The two hours or so of NDP pomp and ceremony, the massed displays and sing-alongs, capped by the oh-so-expensive fireworks, demand an army (no pun intended) of logistics and communications specialists to get things right.

Each NDP demands and practices many other skill sets too.

During NDP, Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) warplanes and helicopters fly racetrack orbits in holding areas, waiting for their cue to wow NDP spectators. That holding pattern takes into account weather patterns, the height of the cloud base and has secondary and tertiary holding areas built in. When the ground controller (callsign: Mothergoose) whistles the birds in, the flying participants make an entrance timed to the second - give or take several seconds or so.

The same skill sets are used during close air support missions when a ground forward air controller (GFAC) cues the heavy hitters onto their targets.

The thousands of NDP participants need to be fed and watered and the amount of food that caters to people with different dietary requirements is mind boggling.

This goes along with a medical preparedness plan that can handle medical situations from people who faint while on parade to large-scale evacuations due to natural or man-made situations like an attack by terrorists.

If the two situations above sound faintly similar to non-combatant evacuation operations, it's because they demand the same core skills and attention to detail.

As for my personal favourite, the Mobile Column, the effort needed to deploy hundreds of vehicles and track their subsequent dispersal across the island is a complex operation that many tend to overlook.

To be sure, many countries have fielded their own Mobile Columns during military parades. But few do so in a city state with an urban density like Singapore's. If road closures are ineptly handled, the tailback of traffic and knock-on effect this will have on arterial roads could result in massive traffic jams across the island.

To avoid traffic snarls, each Mobile Column must deploy in proper march order and stick to a pre-scouted route and movement schedule. That said, it takes the dedication of the Military Police Command to ensure march discipline at various traffic control points.

Similar skill sets for convoy management and routing would be used should the Singapore Army need to deploy its full force potential.

If you think about it, get the privilege to tour the NDP's back-of-house operations or hear about the NDP experience from people in the know, you will quickly realise the enormity of the tasks that each NDP Executive Committee has to bear.

At a more basic level of addressing commitment to defence, it should be obvious even to folks who are not defence watchers to realise that a citizen's army succeeds or fails based on the support from its people.

Each NDP therefore represents an ideal platform for the SAF to touch base with Singaporeans.

And if one takes the morale, attitude and turnout of Mobile Column participants as a reflection of how NDP participants feel about their burnt weekends, I am hopeful the vast majority will take these CRs in the right spirit.

To be fair, I'm sure some NDP participants do occasionally feel they'd rather be elsewhere. And it's no fun being yelled at by your Captains in public for not getting the gun salute timing right. My PRIDE Day suggestion to these young officers: Next time, ask the drivers to switch off the engine of their vehicle before you talk to your men. Practise the drill, then switch the engines back on after that. Your voice can never match that of a dozen idling vehicles and I don't think the Singapore Army trains its soldiers to lip read.

At times, one might naturally feel frustrated practising the same confounded sequence over and over again, in stifling heat and with a roaring engine inches away from your face.

But up and down the Mobile Column during last week's CR1 and Saturday's CR2, Mobile Column participants seemed in high spirits.

It should be obvious to all Mobile Column participants - vehicle commanders, drivers, crew and assorted road marshals  - that thousands of Singaporean will line the roads during rehearsals to watch your vehicles roll by. They do so because the Mobile Column appears once every five years and is a thrill to watch.

I'm sure some of those eyeballs belong to foreign observers who will take their cue on the SAF's modernisation drive from things they observe.

At an NDP years past, a foreign military officer wasn't interested in the song and dance items but kept his eyes peeled for the manner in which the show timing and sequences were managed. He walked away impressed and told a friend of mine assigned as his liaison officer that the SAF knew its job. This was pre-Operation Flying Eagle and the SAF's performance during that demanding post-tsunami relief mission in two theatres (Indonesia and Thailand), plus the round-the-clock coordination of international relief in Singapore, validated the foreign officer's takeaway from NDP.

I am quietly confident that you will all get your sequences right and vehicle alignments right.

In time, I'm sure you will also eventually understand that the Mobile Column is more than just a 12-minute sequence past City Hall.

This show of force, this rolling arsenal, all that firepower on the move, is a palpable and visible reminder to all of how far our country's defence and security forces have evolved since the last Mobile Column rolled by in 2005.

Lastly, it's about nation-building and our Army connecting with the people.

Years after NDP 2010 when you grow up, I bet some of you will burn your own Saturday afternoons to watch future generations of SAF personnel strut their stuff in war machines we dare not even imagine today.

When that day comes, you will realise the bigger impact the long hours of rehearsals has had on your life.

See you next week at CR3.

Acknowledgements: I'm grateful to the NDP 2010 EXCO for sharing Mobile Column rehearsal timings and for tolerating stalkers. : )

National Day Parade 2010: 2nd Combined Rehearsal

This afternoon, the Mobile Column held its second practice in Singapore's City Centre.

Here're some images of CR2. A commentary on NDP rehearsals will follow shortly.

Achtung Panzer! Singapore Army Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks in march order trundle down Nicoll Highway on their way to the Padang. Evident here are the improvements made to the armour protection of the Leopards, seen on the third tank onwards.

Made in Singapore: The Terrex infantry fighting vehicle, made by Singapore Technologies Kinetics, will make its debut at this year's National Day Parade. The Singapore Army packs a hefty punch with armoured fighting vehicles and combat service support vehicles tailor made to excel in the kind of terrain the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) expects to fight in, should deterrence fail.

Reach out and touch someone: A Singapore Army company marksman broods over his PGM 338 Mini Hecate .338 sniper rifle. Precision fire, matched with precision information and precision manoeuvre ensures SAF infantry battalions will make hostile units pay for every yard of aggression. 

View to a kill: A Singapore-made SAR-21 5.56mm carbine with all the bells and whistles attached is a lethal weapon in close-quarter urban shootouts. But the big stick comes from the communications gear carried by this infantryman kitted up with the Advanced Combatman System (ACMS), which displays information on his eyepiece. The battlefield computer carried in his fullpack links him with the SAF's battlefield management network, allowing him to call for fire and alert nearby units of the sources of hostile fire in realtime.

Worth reading up on: M-346 Master

The Aermacchi M-346 Master, click here.

Court verdict on the death of 2LT Nicholas Chan in the Land Rover incident

The court case has ended on the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) death that started this this blog.

On Tuesday, Singapore Army Private Muhammad Abdul Qaiyuum Muhammed Iskander was fined $5,000 and barred from driving any vehicle for four years. The sentence was passed after PTE Qaiyuum, 19, pleaded guilty to causing the death of 21-year-old Second Lieutenant Nicholas Chan Wei Kit on 3 July last year after the Land Rover he was driving backed into the young officer. The tragedy took place just two days after SAF Day.

In owning up, PTE Qaiyuum showed a sense of responsibility way beyond his years.

The SAF’s death record has been clean thus far and this fact both worries and reassures me.

I fret over the clean record because training death statistics indicate that we’re just about due to chalk up a training fatality - if past year trends are indicators of things to come.

The last time a death-free period lasted till June was in 2006. In that year, the SAF had a clean spell until 20 June when 2LT Lionel Lin Shi Guan, 24, drowned while undergoing training at the Hendon Camp swimming pool.

Before the close of 2006, two more SAF servicemen would die on duty. These were NSF Private Ambrose Yeo Chang Wen, 20, who died on 18 Sept 2006 and Second Warrant Officer Tan Boon Toon, 45, who died on 17 November 2006.

We’re now into mid-June 2010 and the SAF has not reported any training deaths.

Past is not prologue. We should still strive for the ideal of zero fatal accidents. The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) have enjoyed fatality-free years in the past while running at a high operational tempo.

Even as we aim for the ideal, we must be realistic that fate sometimes intervenes and throws us out of step. SAF personnel must harden themselves to life's harsh realities.

I am reassured that the SAF and Army leadership have reinforced the training safety message with much vigour.

Time and again, SAF regulars and full-time National Servicemen are reminded to think and act safely.

The SAF comes down hard on non-compliance with training safety regulations. These are lessons paid in blood in tragedies of past years when a moment’s neglect resulted in training deaths and casualties.

The move to raise training standards must be complemented by continued transparency when it comes to reporting SAF training incidents.

In the past year, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) has learned the hard way that commitment to defence is hurt whenever Singaporeans are unhappy over perceived foot-dragging, or misconceptions that MINDEF is aloof or has shown dilatoriness over training incident reporting.

Public anger over the shotgun incident in Thailand is a timely reminder that Singaporeans expect to be informed when sons or daughters are injured while serving the SAF.

It is not their privilege to know. It is their right to be informed.

The tens of thousands of SAF Regulars, NSFs and Operationally-Ready NSmen who report for duty every day to defend Singapore against terrorist threats and deter aggression make a strong statement of their personal commitment to defence. We must not take such commitment for granted.

To those who know 2LT Chan personally – his family, loved ones and friends – it may be cold comfort knowing that his loss was not due to system failure where weak processes or procedures contributed to the tragedy.

I have covered several training deaths as a journalist and remember every wake I attended. I have seen the pain that SAF training deaths cause. In many cases, the distress is exacerbated by the loved ones' search for answers.

Many of you do not know this but after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, a Land Rover relief convoy that I helped organise to Krabi, Thailand, ended up as the only Singaporean-led mission to record a death. I was away covering the tsunami relief mission in Indonesia and only met the dead volunteer's family weeks later. The pain of having to explain to his 13-year-old son that his father died while doing good is not something I could do with dry eyes.

That painful episode showed me the value of a strong family support network, which the Land Rover group thankfully enjoyed as the drivers closed ranks with the family, as well as timely updates.

I hate the term “freak accident” beloved of newspapermen because it conjures the idea that there’s such a thing as a planned accident.

I can well understand how PTE Qaiyuum reversed into 2LT Chan. The reverse gear and first gear on a Land Rover are located very close to one another and it is very easy to allow the vehicle to slip into the wrong gear when shifting the gear stick forward.

In my case, I have seen vehicle inspectors put my Land Rover into the wrong gear on numerous occasions while on the vehicle inspection lane. No mishaps occurred as experienced inspectors usually tap the accelerator gently to nudge the vehicle onto the brake inspection rollers – the first station during the vehicle inspection test. Land Rover drivers usually move off in second gear. This involves pulling back the gear stick, so there's no chance of putting the vehicle into reverse by accident.

The Land Rover death case may have ended but the drive to ensure Public Affairs Directorate (PAFF) stays true to its mission statement continues.

To that end, I am encouraged by the fact that the system is taking steps to introduce a new Director Public Affairs.

My friends and I are quietly confident that a better tomorrow awaits MINDEF PAFF, because now that they’re in the cellar, the only way is up.

RIP 2LT Nicholas Chan.