The Ultimax & the Americans

[sleaguepunter]

In other words, the whole concept of layered air defence applies in all deliberate battles. Also, where it is possible, the SAF would have either destroyed enemy air assets or prevented them from taking off - hence the F15s and F16s, and Special Ops Forces.

that only happen in plans, in the real world, it dont happen this way. F5/F16/F15 could suffer losses or engine failures. And RSAF could only commit part of its aircrafts to the front as a number will be held in reserves or defense or in maintainence.
all the missile platforms also need time to reload upon firing off all its load and the AA guns not that great. As most are radar guided, then they are themselves attract missile attack upon turn on their radar systems.
i still insist on giving Igla to riflemen as the last line of defense, no one will complain on over protection as nobody want to taste their own dogtag in their mouth.

 

[sleaguepunter]

IN the SAF case, neither the Bionis or AMX-13 are designed to go toe to toe with the PT-91. They cannot win if it happens. Statistically, they are more likely to encounter an APC/IFV like a Condor or KIFV or Adnan. These are equiped with 20mm calibre weapons and can be defeated by a Bionix or AMX. I think fear of PT-91 is overated. They will not allow Bionix and AMX to operate if there is no Leos or KPs nearby. By the way, all this command the high gorund stuff is nice theory. What the SAF does not tell u is that the enemy also wants the high ground, and since they are there first, probably we will have to fight and take to it from them. In this case, given your scenario, they will be engaging you from 2000m. Good luck to you. LOL.

argh... in the situation of armour attacking high ground, it not going to happen. You should remember we are a asian country, where leaders view equipments more important than lives of the soldiers. If time come to push, then it will be the riflemen lives pit against dug in armour on the other side. We had experience countles times in our 4D3N tour of lim chu kang where us pengkias to make the assault unsupported, to capture and secure objective then will the vehicles come out from their hiding place a few klicks away to link up with us straight legs. KNN, imagine each understrength AI platoon with 3gpmg dismount from bionix for extra firepower bashing the vegetation for few klicks just to reach FUP b4 assaulting unsupported by arty. suicidal is the only word i can think of.
seriously, i have not much respect to the SAF officer corp. most have not much knowledge, almost all have no EQ. It not only the junior occificers that are poor, even those CO level type also cannot make it. I still remember being training troops for SOA conversion course, there is major converting to armour from guards, ordering my platoon to assault enemy MG post across open ground. We cannot believe our ears, even the sec 2IC (cpl) acting as sect comds disagree but kenna pull rank by the major who is the pc for the excerise. This is the standard of SAF senior occificers, the little respect i had for the SAF officer corp gone into the rubbish bin after this incident.

 

[johnny333]

I have no problem with this. There are many good designers in the west. Singapore has no tradition of weapons manufacturing or designing.

I remember reading an interview with Uziel Gal, the person who developed the Uzi & Galil rifle. He was asked why Israel made good weapons.

According to him making weapons is an iterative process of feedback between manufactures & troops. Each feedback results in improvements,

As far as I know the SAF is not involved in real combat. Does Spore Technologies etc even listen to the feedback from the troops

 

[johnny333]

The $10 billion plus annual defence budget is bloated beyond belief. Why buy 30 year old Lockheed P-3 Orion sub hunters for $200 million plus when your neighbour's subs can barely float out of the harbour?

Money is behind ALL decisions made in Spore.

The question is who is benefitting

 

[Papsmearer]

seriously, i have not much respect to the SAF officer corp. most have not much knowledge, almost all have no EQ. It not only the junior occificers that are poor, even those CO level type also cannot make it. I still remember being training troops for SOA conversion course, there is major converting to armour from guards, ordering my platoon to assault enemy MG post across open ground. We cannot believe our ears, even the sec 2IC (cpl) acting as sect comds disagree but kenna pull rank by the major who is the pc for the excerise. This is the standard of SAF senior occificers, the little respect i had for the SAF officer corp gone into the rubbish bin after this incident.

Nice story but it pales in comparison to the dozens of armour stories that I know off

Have you heard the one about the Infantry Battalion Commander who ordered a AMX-13 PC to dismount the crew from one tank, take thier personal weapons with them, and assualt an enemy 2 man OP on a hill? LOL. Even after the PC explained to the major that if one of the man was killed or wounded, the tank is effectively useless. Imagine the PC have to walk back to his platoon and arrow the Sgt to dismount his crew and assault the OP. They looked at him like he was crazy.

How about the one where the Battalion Commander, during coastal hook exercise to tekong Operation Golden SAnd, order the AMX-13 PC to advance his platoon across a beach m&d flat at low tide. Even after the PC complain the sand will not bear the weight of the tank, the Major insisted. The PC was smart enough to commit only the cub tank and true enough, got stuck in beach m&d. The second tank send in to retrieve it also got stuck. The best part was when the high tide arrived, you can only see 2 barrels sticking out of the water. Needless to say the tanks were total write off, had to go to SAE for major overhaul including engine. ANd Battalion had to carry out its excercise without armour support. Sure fail ATTEC like that.

This is what happens when you have scholars scholars marking time in the SAF until called up to political office or some govt. career. Every army got cock up, even the best of them. But there is a difference between combat cockup and amateur cockup, and the SAF is very good at amateur cockup. They should stick to NDP and not go out in the field at all.

 

[Papsmearer]

I remember reading an interview with Uziel Gal, the person who developed the Uzi & Galil rifle. He was asked why Israel made good weapons.

According to him making weapons is an iterative process of feedback between manufactures & troops. Each feedback results in improvements,

As far as I know the SAF is not involved in real combat. Does Spore Technologies etc even listen to the feedback from the troops

Well, this is a catch 22 situation, isn't it? I am sure the SIngapore defence establishment wants to listen to feedback from the troops, but really, how relevant is this feedback when they have never seen combat.

By comparison, you look at the Malaysian army. They send their troops with Condor APCs to join the UN peacekeeping force in kosovo. Immediately realised their condors were death traps from feedback of the troops and their allies, and put in a rush order for KIFVs, which is many times better than a condor. In Israel's case, the feedback is actually a result of combat experience. Singapore got this meh?

 

[lockeliberal]

Dear Wiki

Most modern AA guns MANPADS etc are outranged by the air to ground weapons which any half decent air force would carry. The modern concept is not one of point defence, but rather one of ambush whereby Medium and Low Level Radars detect the incoming threat and then at the last sec alerting the AA and MANPADs to go active to accquire fire and then destroy hopefully before the Fighter has time to react.

Locke

One of the dumbest things told to my friends in ADA operating the 35mm was that the effective range of it was about 3000m and then they point out that the missile fired from a helicopter or an aircraft is probably from 5000m. So when asked how would they mount an 'effective' defense with their 35mm, the instructor told them to suck it up and just fire at something they can see whether or not they can hit the target and pray they are 'lucky'! WTF?

 

[sleaguepunter]

By comparison, you look at the Malaysian army. They send their troops with Condor APCs to join the UN peacekeeping force in kosovo. Immediately realised their condors were death traps from feedback of the troops and their allies, and put in a rush order for KIFVs, which is many times better than a condor. In Israel's case, the feedback is actually a result of combat experience. Singapore got this meh?

there no need to experience combat, just everyday of using the equipment will let the operators know whether the equipment is any good. but do ST designers ever ask end user for their input? A BIG FAT NO. The american M113 is an example of many input from troops over the years but the bionix were designed by a bunch of idiots who sit in aircon room all their lifes. What were they thinking to put the 25mm loader lever under the gunner seat? totally unaccessible and we gunners have a hard time loading the ammo up the chute. So we cheat by loading it by standing in the trooper compartment instead of doing it the prescribe way of doing it in the gunner hatch. how the hell we are going to reload in the field where it not possible to do it in the trooper combatment. the floatation kit is rubbish, not enough compartments inside the vehicle to latch ammo and other equipments resulting in many equipments such as iron pickets, sledge hammer, monkey ram etc to the strew on the bionix floorboard unsecure. in the event of vehicle overturn, troopers suffer serious injuries when these heavy equipment fly about inside the trooper compartment. All these faults made me wonder did the designer ever place end user safety and ride comfort inside his design. may the farker who design this piece of shit rot in hell forever. :oIo:

M113 is a much safer and user friendly combat vehicle than that death trap bionix.

 

[Windsor]

there no need to experience combat, just everyday of using the equipment will let the operators know whether the equipment is any good. but do ST designers ever ask end user for their input? A BIG FAT NO. The american M113 is an example of many input from troops over the years but the bionix were designed by a bunch of idiots who sit in aircon room all their lifes. What were they thinking to put the 25mm loader lever under the gunner seat? totally unaccessible and we gunners have a hard time loading the ammo up the chute. So we cheat by loading it by standing in the trooper compartment instead of doing it the prescribe way of doing it in the gunner hatch. how the hell we are going to reload in the field where it not possible to do it in the trooper combatment. the floatation kit is rubbish, not enough compartments inside the vehicle to latch ammo and other equipments resulting in many equipments such as iron pickets, sledge hammer, monkey ram etc to the strew on the bionix floorboard unsecure. in the event of vehicle overturn, troopers suffer serious injuries when these heavy equipment fly about inside the trooper compartment. All these faults made me wonder did the designer ever place end user safety and ride comfort inside his design. may the farker who design this piece of shit rot in hell forever. :oIo:

M113 is a much safer and user friendly combat vehicle than that death trap bionix.

The M113 of yesteryears is a different animal now with larger engine capacity, better armour, mounted weapons and more comfort to passengers plus a bomb curtain to reduce the effect of damage should any explosion occur inside the vehicle. That was 11 years ago I recall when I was working with the Israelis to promote it, now it could be even better.

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

The Ultimax developed by Chartered Industries and went into service with the SAF in the early 1980s and were subsequently sold to a number of armies. Designed in collaboration with people associated with the M16, the Singapore Govt was trying to persuade the US to buy it. Though given samples, the Americans appeared to give a lukewarm response everytime the matter was raised. The assumption by the locals was that the US was too proud to realise it's value.

The Singaporeans kept pestering at every opportunity. Until one day one SAF hero turned up at the Pentagon with the usual well worn pleas. This time the US chap and guess but who the then chief of staff , Colin Powell. He ordered that the SAF chap be given the test report done on the Ultimax.

The report was highly technical and detailed showing every tests in in including metallurgy. The US had done the test years ago but kept it away from the Singaporeans to avoid embarrassing their close partner in this region.

The morale of the story - soundblaster is flash in the pan. Know your limitations and know your position in the food chain.

Few years later an Australian working in his garage developed an entirely new type of machine gun.

Bill Sullivan was given one mio bucks to design n develop the Ultimax; the 100 rd magazine was subcon to his buddy. Bill was part of the team which developed the A15 or M16. It was patented but it patent really was about laws of physics!

The marketting team was led by Daniel Goh of Unicorn and did not make much of a dent albeit lots of money was spent on its marketting blitzes//////// Some African countries bought handful but likely becos of kickbacks//

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

Never go to war, want to sell their pathetic wares. We all know how ST Kinetics conduct it's business. Who else besides SG army dare to buy.

Yet we got lots of asses promoted there for achieving nuts..... n trying to sell Ultimax and Bionix to USA which is a stupid notion to start with................ imagine the huge sum of money spent on market with zero result but glorification to some who know how to exploit the system to gain promotions after promotions from VP to President n VP to CTO

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

extra incentive, lol!

anyway, i believed that one of the bros here asked what happened to the bionix tank (not the lego one). I remembered it died a quiet and unnatural death. What was the story bro if you care to repeat it in a succint manner?

Like I said the Bionix got lots of asses promoted! What bloody joke! The CTO of ST Engrg was one ass...

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

In short, the steep learning curve all paid for by taxpayers. They went into all these projects without a clue how to profit from them, but they have plenty of ideas how to innovate schemes to milk the locals. On hindsight perhaps they should have bought the weapons instead of having such expensive projects that are failures economic-wise. No neighbour would buy them even if we give them at cost. Good examples are Refurbished A-4 Skyhawks, Bionix, SAR-21, Ultimax and etc. Singaporeans will never know how much was spent in these ventures but I am pretty sure our yearly defence budget will give an indication.

Datz why SAF bought old Leopards which the German junked............... rather than have ST Kinetics fucks thing up again at huge cost. If Bionix was so great, a MBT would have followed.

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

All this weapons talk has got me wondering.

Has Singapore ever produced a good piece of military hardware which we were able to sell and earn a lot of $$$?

Or is the our secret military industry another one of those wannabe fantasies where the secret is not the killer hardware we build but how much we lose on it annually?

How about the mortar bomb fuze AZDM 111 made under license from Diehl/Junghans???

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

The SAR 80 was designed and developed by Daniel Goh, a mining engineer who got zero experience with firearms other that text book knowledge///////////// scary??

 

[Leckmichamarsch]

Money is behind ALL decisions made in Spore.

The question is who is benefitting

The asses smart enuf to exploit the system

 

[johnny333]

Well, this is a catch 22 situation, isn't it? I am sure the SIngapore defence establishment wants to listen to feedback from the troops, but really, how relevant is this feedback when they have never seen combat.

If the NS man has no relevant combat experience, what about the designers of the hardware What experience do they have?

From the feedback of NS guys who've used the Spore made hardware, the locally designed hardware is poorly designed. They probably have a bunch of scholars like Ho Ching designing the hardware

In the past , the SAF bought alot of second hand equipment but at least they were battle proven. With the current budget SAF has, they could probably buy the best but of course it's more profitable for LKY & Co to peddle arms

 

[wikiphile]

Dear Wiki

Most modern AA guns MANPADS etc are outranged by the air to ground weapons which any half decent air force would carry. The modern concept is not one of point defence, but rather one of ambush whereby Medium and Low Level Radars detect the incoming threat and then at the last sec alerting the AA and MANPADs to go active to accquire fire and then destroy hopefully before the Fighter has time to react.

Locke

SAF doctrine of layered defenses has a range of 200 KM, for any aircraft that can penetrate the layered air defenses and we have to resort to the 35mms will be an epic fail

 

[steffychun]

The Weste themselves don't really care about anti-aircraft guns or SAMs. The Russians do.

 

[Papsmearer]

Bill Sullivan was given one mio bucks to design n develop the Ultimax; the 100 rd magazine was subcon to his buddy. Bill was part of the team which developed the A15 or M16. It was patented but it patent really was about laws of physics!

The marketting team was led by Daniel Goh of Unicorn and did not make much of a dent albeit lots of money was spent on its marketting blitzes//////// Some African countries bought handful but likely becos of kickbacks//

Are you sure or not? I thought it was Jim Sullivan, to be exact Leroy James Sullivan. I never heard of a Bill sullivan involved in the Ultimax.