Singapore has bought from a range of countries, including the Russian Igla. You it is a bit buy all over the place.
Singapore as they used the word is "kiasu"--closest meaning is overdoing it. Singapore is better off with more medium tanks or AFVs rather than MBTs.
The Malaysians not only spend less than Singapore, their government also spends their defence dollars more ineffectively. This is an opinion held not just by me but also by an external observer like Dana Dillion, writing on
'Security Challenges in Southeast Asia' in 1997 who said:
"From 1985 to 1993, Malaysia and Singapore spent roughly the same amount of money... Yet in all respects, Singapore's military is far more capable than Malaysia's armed forces... The MAF, on the other hand, still has shortfalls in operational efficiency, readiness, and sustainability." Further, "to replace one aircraft, the A-4, RMAF has purchased: the MiG-29, the F/A-18, and the Hawk-200. Further exacerbating the problem is the low number of each aircraft purchased, which makes buying spare parts and services relatively more expensive and retention of an adequate number of qualified crews considerably more difficult."
When you look at the Malaysian defence spending pattern, it has quite a bit of ups and downs - demonstrating that it is not their national priority. If you look at SIPRI data, there was never a Malaysia-Singapore arms race. Rather, Malaysia spent money on defence whenever her budget allowed for it. In the last few years, the SAF has grown smaller. In fact, we have reduced the size of our air force (and even transferred 7 F-16A/Bs to Thailand), stood down some army units (infantry and artillery) reduced the duration of conscription and length of reserve cycles - because there is no peer threat. Beyond purchasing the Aster 30 and A330MRTT from the Europeans, to give you an idea of how SAF sources for weapons, here's a limited list as follows:-
(i) Swedish built submarines (i.e. 4 Challenger and 2 Archer classes of Swedish submarines) and mine sweepers (i.e. 4 Bedok Class), the ARTHUR weapon locating radar, the GIRAFFE series of radars for the RSAF/RSN. In particular, the Royal Swedish Navy played an instrumental role in helping the Singapore Navy develop its submarine capability;
(ii) French designed Frigates (Formidable Class), French built Super Pumas & Cougars, the Life Extension Programme of RSN's Swedish built Bedok class mine countermeasure vessels performed by Thales, the towed sonar array and the Herakles multi-function radar on the Formidable Class, Mistral missiles, and so on. The French Government is keen to cultivate close defence ties with Singapore and on 16 April 2014, Singapore and France marked a decade of Joint R&D, with Singapore's only offshore defence R&D laboratory located in France (see this
post #69 for details);
(iii) since the German win of the design contract to build the 6 Victory Class corvettes from 1987 (each with 4× Maybach MTU 16 V 538 TB93), the RSN has increasingly depended on German engines for marine propulsion. For example, the 11 Fearless Class (2× MTU 12 V 595 TE 90 diesel engines, each), 6 Formidable Class (4× MTU 20V 8000 M90, each), and the forth coming 8 Littoral Mission Vessels (MTU 20V 4000 M93L diesel engines), along with the 2 Type 218SG submarines on order. The Singapore Army are users of the Leopard 2 and its derivative support vehicles; and Singapore built armoured vehicles, like the Bionix, Bronco, and Terrex also use German passive armour technology, from IBD. The Singapore Army also uses the MAN 16.284 LAERC 5 Ton Trucks, Leopard 2SGs and the German made M3G Float Bridges. Coupled with the fact that Singapore armour trains in Germany, Singapore pretty much entrust a significant degree of our defence needs to the Germans;
(iv) the acquisition of HIMARS, the Ford Everest utility vehicles, MaaxPro DASH MRAPs for the Singapore Army, and the acquisition of a range of American aircraft types for the RSAF/RSN (eg. F-15SGs, F-16C/Ds, Apaches, Chinooks, KC-135Rs and Seahawk naval helicopters) and even ScanEagle UAVs and Harpoon missiles for the RSN. Further, the back-bone of Singapore Tri-Service integration is built on American supplied Link 16 communications and encryption terminals. More importantly, even when a platform is 'Singapore-made', it can have significant American content (eg. Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicle and Bronco All Terrain Tracked Carrier are powered by Caterpillar C9 and C3126B engines, the Primus has a chassis from United Defense and powered by a Detroit Diesel engine). Coupled with the fact that all three services of the SAF trains in the US and the ongoing intense defence cooperation, Singapore has placed its bet on a long term and strategic defence relationship with the Americans;
(v) Russian designed SAM missiles (Igla); and
(vi) Israeli supplied Spike anti-tank missiles, Protector USVs, Heron 1 and Hermes 450 UAVs, G550 AEWs, the Barak missile system on the Victory Class vessels, the EL/M-2238 3D-Surveillance & Threat Alert Radar on the Endurance Class, the Typhoon Gun stabilised gun system on various classes of RSN vessels, and the Spyder air defence anti-aircraft missile system, just to name a few. In Lee Kuan Yew's book, "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000," Singapore's founding father and its first prime minister, disclosed the secret that had been kept for almost 40 years: It was the Israel Defense Forces that had a critical role in shaping the Singaporean Army's doctrine when it was first founded. The Israeli military training mission to Singapore in the late 60s to early 70s was headed by Yaakov (Jack) Elazari, then a colonel, who was later promoted to brigadier general,
making the SAF's supply network truly global. Having said the above, a reader can be forgiven in thinking that I'm happy with each and everyone of Singapore's arm's purchases. That is not the case. In actual fact, I have some concerns about capability gaps, deployability and sustainability due to platform age.
Singapore's air space is criss-crossed by a heavy volume of civilian air traffic; is protected by a customised fibre optic linked IADS, with a number of onion layers; these onion layers can discriminate between normal civilian air traffic with a filed flight plan, and any aircraft that deviates from its filed flight plan — this capability to conduct 24x7 homeland air defence and air sovereignty, was demonstrated on
23 January 2008, when a Cessna 208, flew into Singapore air space without an approved flight plan and failed to communicate with Singapore air traffic control — this resulted in the closure of commercial airspace for about 50 minutes (that disrupted 23 flights in and out of Changi Airport), while F-16s scrambled to intercept the Cessna 208. This was a sound tactical decision to ensure the safety of the civilian population. As the 2008 air intercept demonstrates, there various onion layers in Singapore's defenses.
(i) The outer most onion layer of Singapore's
networked air defence zone, is provided by five fighter squadrons (including F-15SGs, F-16C/Ds and F-5s), whose intercepts may be guided by airborne controllers on the
G550-AEW (or ground based controllers using the FPS 117, a 3-dimensional surveillance radar, which has a detection range of over 400 km), before coming into the range rings of the Aster 30 (or
upgraded I-Hawk air defence batteries) that may be cued by Singapore's Shikra radar (which is based on the Thales Ground Master 200) or the
Giraffe AMB radars or linked to the
AN/TPQ-53 (V) counterfire target acquisition radar systems.
(ii) Below the outer air defence onion layer, lies the
Spyder batteries; and thereafter, the short range air defence systems, like the Igla (including the
Mechanised Igla squadrons), Mistral, RBS-70 and such other counter-fire batteries that may be adopted.
(iii) Even if these onion layers fail, dispersals are part of the RSAF's war plans. That is, if a RSAF aircraft cannot land at location A, then divert to location B, if location B is attacked, then divert to location C. The RSAF currently has 3 fixed wing air bases and at least 11 runways (not counting alternate runways or aprons). Therefore, runway cratering alone is not seen as the most effective way to keep a tertiary air force, like the RSAF from sortie generating, as runway repair crews are trained to conduct repairs in "nn" minutes.
(v) Further, to make things even harder for the attacker, the Singapore has an underground National Emergency System (NEST) and underground ammunition facilities (see
here for more details). NEST controls more than 250 sirens that form Singapore's Public Warning System to alert Singaporeans to tune in for emergency broadcasts, warn of impending air/missile attack. Food security, energy security and the continued running of essential services such as fresh water, electricity and transport are among items addressed under NEST. The NEST checklist reads like a doomsday survivalist's manifest, but upsized enormously to protect Singaporeans should the worst happen.
While the forum members don't take ourselves too seriously in discussions, our members have a thing against trolls, who can't follow the
Forum Rules or take simple instructions from the Mod Team, not to continue to post one-liners and derail threads (eg.
Phd8511 aka
Jeneral2885 who was repeatedly banned for ignoring numerous warnings). Please note that a
name appearing as pink in colour is a banned member.
) but Armenia is out.
