Tuesday, June 28, 2011

SAF Has New Toys

It was in 2005 that a Cedric fool, as Minister of State for Defence, who bought treadmills to run the 2.4 km Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) in air-conditioned environs of the Safra National Service Association clubhouses at Tampines and Toa Payoh. Instead of pounding six times round an outdoor track with the wind and sun on their faces like real soldiers do. Other tests - chin-ups, sit-ups, shuttle run and standing broad jumps - were also conducted in the comfortable cool of the multi-purpose halls. No pain, no gain, must sound so alien to these wussies.

Now the softness has gone to the heads of the generals. The military is buying 8,000 iPads at $668 each to "harness our advantage of today's technologically savvy servicemen." Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant-General Neo Kian Hong said troops can use the iPad's built-in camera to take photos and video clips in the field, and send questions to their commanders through a live messaging system and group chat discussions. No longer will commanders have to rough it out with the men in real-life outdoors with the heat and the humidity, virtual reality is the new cool. Last year, BMT recruits were issued with laptops, maybe those didn't come with built-in cameras. Taking photos during field training was once banned for security reasons, same reasons why mobile phones had to be camera free. You know the SAF has way too much taxpayers' money to blow when they splurge on i-toys, what with the Defence Budget creaming off the largest cut of the national budget.

One can understand that arming the F-15SG Eagles and Apache helicopters with AIM and Maverick missiles cost big bucks (why we need all that fancy gear when we don't even have sufficient flying space is a separate question altogether), but how do iPads help to fight battles? Can you defeat an enemy by smashing him over the head with an iPad? Is there a private contractor designed app that will zap a combatant at 100 meters? Maybe they plan to lob iPads loaded with the mee-siam-mai-hum podcast, and attack while the enemy is ROTFL. One wonders how the Auditor General will look at the frivolous expenditures. What next, camouflaged OSIM massage chairs for the hard working generals?

17 comments:

  1. Nothing new! This is a direct result of having a government that is totally not accountable and transparent to the people. Do people have a say on how the taxpayers' (people's) money is spent by the government? Any debate at all in parliament to check on such expenditure before it was approved? We never heard of any army including the mighty US forces would buy so many ipad for its soldiers to play with. It will be the first in the world, I guess. It is always good feeling to be the first to do it.

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  2. Since we have no real war to fight, maybe war games on an Ipad will make do. Otherwise how to justify their ever increasing defence budget ?

    And hopefully with the latest toy, some of our servicemen will no longer question what are we defending the country for ?

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  3. Aiyah, you got it all wrong lah. The iPad are meant for the female soldiers for their monthly hemorrhage.

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  4. "Halt! Who goes there? Identify yourself or I will take a photo of you with my iPad and copy my commander and Straits Times!"

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  5. Another case of miw trying sooo hard to win over these Gen Y. Maybe they shooting some angry birds on virtual reality might just divert the angst towards phantom enemy instead of leaders. Besides, when you make ipad so relevant to their life, why would they even question how relevant all these NS is. Soon they will close an eye and let more non-NS serving MPs in..all part of the sweetening deals to bribe our cadets into silence..you should see the excitement it generated on tweeter chats!

    http://rsismilitarystudies.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/relevance-of-the-singapore-armed-forces-a-journey-into-singaporeaness/

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  6. Don't forget that they need to sign-up a wifi or 3G account in a foreign land in order to send their photos or videos back to HQ!

    Real soldiers who have done their bashing in Brunei or Taiwan will tell you even direct wireless radios will fail much less getting satellite signals!

    How ingenious!

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  7. "Can you defeat an enemy by smashing him over the head with an iPad?"

    A new way to fight - another Singapore first! LMAO!

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  8. Soon our Sin Soldiers will at least become the best virtual fighters in the World.

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  9. LOL funny how SPF now wants to put a price tag on crime.
    Me think they could use a productivity & effectiveness metrics like # of days for cases solved, # of turnaround for escaped offenders # of resources deployed but failed to solve the case, # of cases lodged but no answers to public etc...

    Maybe SAF should do the same..put a price tag on toys per soldier, price of security per citizens to justify all their frivolous spending in the jungle

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  10. frivolous spending by the govt has been going on for a long time. ever walked the fire escape stairs in traffic police HQ? the walls are lined with marble (or granite)... marble, for god's sake!

    i recall a former speaker of the house bringing up such absurd wastage in parl many yrs back. that was his last term in parl.

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  11. seriously is this a joke or what..freaking $5.3m!
    the recruits will be busy with porn than their rifle.
    they think these new toys can add inches to their pxxis?
    all paper tigers..not to mention IT support, anti-virus maintenance cost etc..how do the hell do they justify that?

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  12. Playing with our money?

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  13. every mother and father in town want their kids to sign up for NS now..
    maybe janil will also kee-chiew leh?

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  14. /// i recall a former speaker of the house bringing up such absurd wastage in parl many yrs back. that was his last term in parl. ///

    Tan Soo Khoon on The Seven Wonders of Singapore.....

    http://www.askmelah.com/tan-soo-khoon-spore-7wonders/

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  15. Just a note, the air-conditioned IPPT is only an option for NSMen, active soldiers (and most reservists) still get to “[pound] six times round an outdoor track with the wind and sun on their faces like real soldiers do”.

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  16. The most idiotic thing was to trade a combat proven M16 for this toy call SAR21.

    Obviously to please ST & the Upper Being.

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  17. Very dangerous to give our soldiers the iPad especially when they use it overseas. All iPads need to go thru the communication network of the country they are in, and so all confidential military info sent across can be easily intercepted and downloaded by the network without the knowledge of the soldiers. Looks like we are exposing all our military secrets to all the countries that our soldiers go to.

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