Interesting People You Met During National Service

[Papsmearer]

bino and navigation devices under armskote?
my time it was separate but cannot remember the vocation looking after them.

He is from 46SAR, different mah. Armour where got 120 mm mortar in the orbat? Optic devices is under a storeman, not armskote in an all tank unit.

 

[Papsmearer]

That explain the shocking standard of the leadership found in armour. During my BX conversion ICT, there were some lao enciks trainers chit chat with us reservists, somehow the topic turn to LHY and their view of him as an armour officer was not good. Even his stint at 46 CO was very short, machiam just long enough to lead the battlion in the vehicle parade for the NDP. After LHY left, the later COs were mostly farmers, my COs there were two ah pek majors while 42 had young scholar LTC.

There is a reason for why LHY is a terrible armour officer. Personally. as a person, he was a nice chap back than. Very friendly and unpretentious. As an armour officer, lets say I would hate to go to war if he was my CO. The reason is that when he was at SOA, he had the most senang training in the history of armour. Old timers who were instructors at SOA at that time, still bitch about his intake. An order came down from MINDEF that LHY must be in bed by 10pm every night during his TOCC course. This is regardless of whether there was night training. This means that all the tanks must be back early and he must be given time to bath and eat and be in bed by 10pm. Since the TOCC batches are very small, usually between 15-20 cadets (and even smaller because some drop out along the way), there is no way to hide the fact that he is in bed while everyone else is still training. So, in order not to show favouritsm, all the other cadets were also ordered to bed by 10pm. Usually, for a TOCC course, its very siong and most cadet sleep on average at 2am, if not even later. As a result, the knowledge and training that he needed to have was not there. In fact, it was not there for the whole batch. some training methods used on other batches were not used on his, again reducing the effectiveness of the training plan.

The funny part about all this is that every night, the instructors would have to clean tank weapons and service the tanks until midnite -1am while the trainees slept!! LOL. They did not have a choice, especially when the course came back late from the field. Imagine the most sadistic and brutal instructors in the SAF reduced to cleaning your weapon for you, your tank, eating cold food, etc. until wee hours of the morning while you slept.And since they were instructors, they have to lead by example and produce a spic and spank fully serviced tank for u in the morning as well as gleaming clean weapons. Wish I had a photo of them. LOL.

 

[Papsmearer]

I met Chay when we were at HQ 2SIB (perhaps, your men, if they have performed guard duties at HQ 2SIB, may have told you about a "garang" officer from HQ 2SIB). He was DY S1. Although I have been away for about 30 yrs, he and I have kept in touch, and we meet everytime I am in Singapore.

If .

Is this chap Gavin Chay? He is LTC now. Kenna hanta kaki like shit. Took him over 20 years to go from Capt. to LTC. Only promoted 2 ranks. Seow on fucker got trained in Indian Army OCS, where he was tekanned by the apunehs there and butt raped by them. Izzit the same Chay?

 

[Papsmearer]

air defense folks which are RP right?

5 person per vehicle still better than my platoon. total strength only 19 included everybody. minus VCs, drivers, PC, PS, Medic, runner, 2x25mm gunners, only 7 riflemen.

19 is a big number for us. My platoon had only 12 men including VCs, drivers, PCs, and one spare crew.

 

[Papsmearer]

cannot reveal too much.....

but i helped future CO SOA Tan Kah Thiam set up 42 SAR before ROD

i think Colin Theseira was a camel....

Yes, Colin was a Camel. So was Major Sheares (president Benjamin Sheares's nephew) who was CO SOA around that time. I wonder what happened to the glass display they had at 4 SAB HQ with the desert sand from Israel and and the wooden camels?

 

[Kohliantye]

Read all the threads.

What a pity!!!

No one seems to be trained on Pulau Belakang Mati.

The sprawling British / Gurkha camp that was handed over to SAF.

The days when recruits had to board rickety boats from Jardine Steps for Belakang Mati.

Sentosa is nothing compared to that lovely old Belakang Mati.

 

[wikiphile]

Read all the threads.

What a pity!!!

No one seems to be trained on Pulau Belakang Mati.

The sprawling British / Gurkha camp that was handed over to SAF.

The days when recruits had to board rickety boats from Jardine Steps for Belakang Mati.

Sentosa is nothing compared to that lovely old Belakang Mati.

Those that were must be in their 60s/70s. My old man was a MP when they had a DB there

 

[Scrooball (clone)]

Anyone knows a Warren Paul here? Heard that he suddenly left the service for reasons unknown. Sounds fishy.

 

[wikiphile]

What? Rifle PT is banned? That's news to me. what about log PT? What about knuckle pushup during TKD warmup on parade ground heated to 35 degrees by the sun? Is that banned too?

Rifle PT is banned in BMTC, everywhere else is still being continued. Log PT gone a long long time ago, they might as well do zodiac PT

 

[wikiphile]

You know what was the tactical doctrine for the centurions?
In the event of a war, they would be taken out of dryclad, ship home on LSTs and provide artillery fire from the sea.
Wonder which smart aleck paper general came up with this joke.

Fucking brillant idea, the damn recoil would eventually make the ship unstable or the tanks to swim to the bottom of the sea. Future divers will go like WTF when they see a tank underwater

 

[Papsmearer]

Before I left for OCS (4 SMC), the CO of 4 SIR was Maj Neo Poh Chuan and the RSM was WO1 Tan (an RSM with many tatoos on his arm)

There were many regulars in the 4 SMC who did very well in their careers:

Tay Swee Yee (not sure from Bravo or Charlie Coy) who became a BG and Commander 4 SAB

Tan Kah Thiam (from A Coy, my platoon mate) who became COL and CO 41 SAR

Ulas Nair (maybe from Bravo Coy) who became a Maj in one of the OCS Coys

Sng Kok Beng (not sure from Bravo or Charlie Coy) who became a LTC

Hate to bust your bubble, but Ullas Nair was a condemned Major due to a training exercise mishap in Temburong. One cadet under his platoon almost died during uncontrolled topo. When he told me the story, he was still quite bitter. It was not his fault, and he was not there, but the cadet family was a somebody and he was a WH. Nair became the the scapegoat and hanta kaki after that. I recall he was tankee officer before, and used to talk cock about his time training as a tank officer with the Bundeswehr in West Germany.

 

[Papsmearer]

no more Starlight now?
heard for years that they were going to stop as Taiwan wants to increase the price....
Are the centurions still there?

Starlight stopped as of this year. Centurions brought back long ago, and retired long ago too. Price got nothing to do with it. Most of the training is given free for friendship reasons. but we have to build many facilities that are given to the ROC military when we leave. For example in Hukou, there is a SAF compound that was build by the SAF to house trainee soldiers. This facility now goes to the ROC FOC.

 

[Papsmearer]

Not ISD, which deals with internal security, but may SID (Security and Intelligence, MINDEF).

Not much of a secret any more.

Yellah, why u worry. So many PRCs and Apunehs running around, SID better worry they don't infiltrate SAF.

 

[Jlokta]

Anyone knows a Warren Paul here? Heard that he suddenly left the service for reasons unknown. Sounds fishy.

Warren Paul as in his name or Warrant Paul?

If its the latter, is this Warrant A. Paul you're talking about?

 

[Papsmearer]

You know what was the tactical doctrine for the centurions?
In the event of a war, they would be taken out of dryclad, ship home on LSTs and provide artillery fire from the sea.
Wonder which smart aleck paper general came up with this joke.

That's not right. Firstly, they are not in dryclad in taiwan. Secondly, if they were and u put them on and LST and sail them to singapore in the event of war, the war would be long over by the time they arrive here. thirdly, the idea of placing tanks on commercial ships and using them as a floating cruiser was successfully tested by the ROC military, and it fits their doctrine. For them, they need to bring firepower onto a beach assualted by the PLA, and these are quick and would appear to work. Probably not now due to the technological advances in the PLA.

What u see in ROC is only a fraction of the total number of Tempest we have in Singapore. Ask yourself why when the Malaysian ordered the PT-91 in 2003, we did not run around with our panties in a bunch. After all, the PT-91 will make minced meat out of the AMX-13s. The reason is that we have enough stock of Tempest and skilled crew such that we do not fear the PT-91. Only in 2007 did the SAF order the Leo 2 to offset the PT-91 and even than, I think they became operational only in 2011 and in limited numbers. All this time, the SAF was secretly relying on the Tempest to counter anything the neighbours have. In my opinion, given the age of this tank, its still one of the top 10 in world.

 

[wikiphile]

That's not right. Firstly, they are not in dryclad in taiwan. Secondly, if they were and u put them on and LST and sail them to singapore in the event of war, the war would be long over by the time they arrive here. thirdly, the idea of placing tanks on commercial ships and using them as a floating cruiser was successfully tested by the ROC military, and it fits their doctrine. For them, they need to bring firepower onto a beach assualted by the PLA, and these are quick and would appear to work. Probably not now due to the technological advances in the PLA.

They actually did that successfully?

 

[Papsmearer]

They actually did that successfully?

Pic is from PRC ship, but ROC have same idea

 

[wikiphile]

Pic is from PRC ship, but ROC have same idea

View attachment 5630

As i am now in the shipping industry i know how unstable a ship can be on the sea. The problem is with range, sea conditions and weather. The combined recoil of a battery of 6 105mms is way bigger than the 75mm blanks they fire from floating platforms during NDP. Add that to the weight of the tank itself, the centurion is about 50 tons each and you would need a relatively flat deck to position and fire them.

Interesting idea on paper but the actual execution would be hilarious to watch to say the least

 

[Narong Wongwan]

Starlight stopped as of this year. Centurions brought back long ago, and retired long ago too. Price got nothing to do with it. Most of the training is given free for friendship reasons. but we have to build many facilities that are given to the ROC military when we leave. For example in Hukou, there is a SAF compound that was build by the SAF to house trainee soldiers. This facility now goes to the ROC FOC.

I thought all along that was the agreement? That the facilities would belong to ROC eventually.
What about the other overseas bases? Did SAF built them from ground up or just tumpang?

 

[Narong Wongwan]

Warren Paul as in his name or Warrant Paul?

If its the latter, is this Warrant A. Paul you're talking about?

I knew a WO2 Paul Sim from Amour.......formation boxer.....100% indian look but got chinese surname......adopted by chinese family i think........got chinese wife also.