Man, I wish these 'special forces' types quit wearing these ridiculous plastic skateboarding helmets on operations.

I find body armor indispensable nowadays. Even light infantry like paratroopers or rangers should always wear body armor, even if lighter soft kevlar armor, to protect themselves. Even if they can't stop a high-velocity rifle bullet, soft armor can still effectively stop shrapnel and shell fragments. People concentrate too much on how armor should stop bullets, when it is actually shrapnel from artillery (or nowadays, IEDs) is actually the number one killer on the battlefield.

Good armor not only protects, it also serves as a morale booster and provide increased aggression for soldiers. Soldiers protected by armor will take more risks and perform more aggressive maneuvers in combat because they have confidence their body armor can protect them. Armored soldiers can maneuver when unarmored soldiers are forced take cover. While armor won't guarantee no soldier will ever be killed or injured in battle, the percentages of US military casualties have dropped significantly in recent times.

Converting civilian vessel for basing small SF units is very different from transporting, housing and deploying 800 marines, along with their assorted supplies, landing & armored vehicles and helicopters. For some missions, you just have to use purpose-built navy ships.

I guess it's ok for the regular PGA and police personnel that are doing stuff away from the hot areas like roadblocks and such. What I most geram is when the VAT69 units tasked to directly contain the Sulu invaders were wearing stuff similar to this in an active combat area. At least issue a helmet and soft body armor la to them. The troopers themselves also so selamba looking, like that was just a training exercise.

Oh boy....just realized Singapore nearly 100% urban areas, if any serious fighting ever get inside most probable result would be nothing short of nightmarish urban warfare, with all its implications.

Is the SAF actually ready and trained for this scenario?

Apartments with bomb shelters have a nasty habit of becoming tombs once they are bombed. Running into a high-rise building while bombs are falling might not be the best idea ever.



This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Apr 8 2016, 12:20 PM

Be that as it may, I find modern urban warfare paints a rather similar grim picture: ruins of building hiding snipers, small teams of soldiers getting lost, burned-out armored vehicles destroyed by hidden anti-tank teams and mines/IEDs, small-scale ambushes coming in left and right, civilians hiding/fleeing being caught in the crossfire, soldiers tossing grenades into rooms full of civilians, indiscriminate bombing and artillery shelling reducing whole neighborhoods into piles of ruined rubble, smoke rising from many areas of the city, stuff like that.



Probably been seeing too many wars in Iraq and Syria.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Apr 8 2016, 04:03 PM

A bit OOT, but still related.

One drawback of the smaller size of Russian-designed tanks is that this made it difficult to find crews for them. The Russian armed forces had to recruits tank crews no taller than 5' 7" (around 170cm) to crew its tanks starting from the T-72 tanks onwards. Older, smaller Soviet tank designs like T-55 and T-62 is worse because they could only accept crews less than 5' 5" in height to be able to operate effectively, not easy when the average male height in Russia is around 6' 1" (185 cm). This also applies to the BMP-series IFVs, so Soviet and Russian armored and mechanized infantry personnel are noticeable shorter than their western equivalent. This is one reason asiatic Russians (the so-called 'Buryats') is greatly sought after during WW2 and even nowadays, to crew the tanks and mechanized units.



Now with the larger T-14 MBT and T-15 IFV starting to come into service, Russia could probably relax this restriction and gain access to a larger pool of armored crew members.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Apr 11 2016, 08:37 AM

These guys look very spiffy. I guess those CIA 'assistance programs' really pulled through.

From the looks of it, these guys have actual AK copies, not Chinese Type 56s, though from where I can't tell.

Best way to see difference between both is by looking at the front sight. Russian clones have an open semi-circular front sight shroud, while Chinese ones have a closed circular one. A Type 56 magazine also have a more noticeable angle to the curve than Russian-designed magazines. Type 56s also has a shined bolt handle, while Russian AK ones are blued.

Also, less noticeable is although the Chinese Type 56 looks to have a milled receiver like the AK47, its receiver is actually made of stamped steel similar of the AKM.

These governments should set up joint areas with designated sea corridors in the waters of the three countries. Supervise every ship/boat using those corridors and declare the waters outside the corridors as free-fire zones. Any ship/boat caught in these zones are liable to be arrested, seized or even sunk on sight by air and naval patrols.

Russia western half for industry, eastern half for resources la. That's where the good stuff like gold, diamonds, uranium, Petroleum and rare earths comes from la bro!

It's estimated while Russia only has 2% of the world's population, it holds 30% of the world's natural resources. Former US secretary of state (cannot think either Condoleeza Rice or Madeline Albright) stated outright " Siberia has too many resources for Russia alone, I think this is unfair".

Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince seeking to build a mercenary Air Force


Technicians installing an electro-optical pod on a modified Thrush 501G aircraft

For several months, workers at a company called Airborne Technology, located about 30 miles south of Vienna, Austria, “had worked nearly nonstop to modify an American-made Thrush 510G crop duster to the exact specifications of an unnamed client. Everything about the project was cloaked in secrecy,” Jeremy Scahill and Matthew Cole reports. The client was only known as “Echo Papa,” and company officials “instructed employees to use code words to discuss certain modifications made to the plane.” Echo Papa was Erik Prince, who it turned out, “owned more than a quarter of their company. “

The plane was decked out with “surveillance and laser-targeting equipment,” as well as “bulletproof cockpit windows, an armored engine block, anti-explosive mesh for the fuel tank, and specialized wiring that could control rockets and bombs. The company also installed pods for mounting two high-powered 23 mm machine guns.”

According to Scahill and Cole, journalists who had long investigated Blackwater, “The conversion of crop dusters into light attack aircraft had long been part of Prince’s vision for defeating terrorists and insurgencies in Africa and the Middle East. In Prince’s view, these single-engine fixed-wing planes, retrofitted for war zones, would revolutionize the way small wars were fought. They would also turn a substantial profit. The Thrush in Airborne’s hangar, one of two crop dusters he intended to weaponize, was Prince’s initial step in achieving what one colleague called his ‘obsession’ with building his own private air force.”

The government of South Sudan is a likely client, especially as Prince can draw upon his earlier dealings with Salva Kiir, the country’s embattled president. South Sudan is essentially broke, stuck in an ugly civil war, under threat of an arms embargo and has essentially no infrastructure capable of supporting more than the most basic aviation needs. At the height of the fighting, Kiir’s forces might have welcomed the capabilities that Prince’s modified Thrushes.

Project Iron Fist: Erik Prince's plan to initiate mercenary warfare in South Sudan



In early 2014, Erik Prince (founder of the military contractor company Blackwater) and Citic Group, China’s largest state-owned investment firm, founded Frontier Services Group, a publicly traded logistics and aviation company based in Hong Kong. FSG offered services such as shipping minerals, chartering flights for executives, and occasional medevacs from remote African locations. Over the past two years, Prince has given interviews and speeches describing his vision of FSG. “This is not a patriotic endeavor of ours,” Prince said of his new company. “We’re here to build a great business and make some money doing it.” China, he said, “has the appetite to take frontier risk, that expeditionary risk of going to those less-certain, less-normal markets and figuring out how to make it happen.”

Prince had promised the South Sudan government in 2014 a turnkey military solution: a foreign mercenary force if it hired FSG to provide logistics and aerial surveillance. Prince did not inform FSG executives of this side deal, claiming he had offered only “monitoring the oil fields, monitoring any activity in and around them, to give the government line of sight so they could keep the oil flowing,” according to the source familiar with internal FSG matters.

“Erik promised them ISR, planes that drop bombs, attack helicopters, medical evacuation capabilities, a 300-man strike team, and training for 4,000 local soldiers,” said the second person with knowledge of the plan. “The contract was for logistical support and camp building, things to support the oil fields. [Prince] verbally promised the rest.”

In the meantime, one of Prince’s lieutenants, a retired South African special forces officer, began building a proposal for Prince that could be pitched to President Kiir. Code-named Project Iron Fist, the proposal stated that Prince and his colleagues had been “invited” by South Sudan to “design a proposal” for “oil field security training, security intervention and protection support services to the government of South Sudan.”

Prince’s $300 million proposal to aid Kiir’s forces explicitly called for ground and air assaults, initially to be conducted by a 300-man foreign combat unit. Prince’s forces would conduct “deliberate attacks, raids, [and] ambushes” against “rebel objectives,” to be followed by “continuous medium to high intensity rapid intervention,” which would include “search [and] destroy missions.” Various drafts of the proposal, obtained by The Intercept, reveal meticulous planning, down to the exact number of munitions and specific hand-held radios that would be purchased. Iron Fist called for the acquisition of at least 600 bombs, 3,500 rockets, 7,500 mortars, and more than 30 million rounds of ammunition.

After FSG’s logistics contract fell apart and the government halted its payments to the company, Prince traveled alone to South Sudan several times in early 2015 in an effort to salvage the deal. FSG officials said that Prince never briefed the company on his meetings and they were never given a formal explanation of what they had failed to provide the South Sudanese government. “We never got paid and I made the decision to shut it down,” said Smith.

Germany Is Taking Over the Dutch Army



Dutch tanks are now under German command—preparing the way for a German-led multinational tank division and a European army.

Huge portions of the Dutch military are being merged with the German Army, a process that many want to see rolled out across the whole Continent. Two of the Netherland’s three combat brigades have officially begun the process of*joining the Bundeswehr.

The 11th Airmobile Brigade came under German command in 2014. Then on March 17,*the 43rd Mechanized Brigade officially became part of the German 1st Armored Division. The Dutch Army now has only the 13th Mechanized Brigade, plus special forces, support and headquarters staff under its own command.

This is a revolutionary change, not just for the Netherlands, but for Europe and, in time, the world. It is paving the way for a newly capable German-led military force.

Germany sees this unprecedented cooperation as only the start. It has begun preparations for similar arrangements with Poland. The Czech Republic has asked Germany several times for a similar arrangement to what the Dutch now have—it also wants one of its armored brigades absorbed into the German Army.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said she wants to build a European army this way. In February she announced, “We will set up a multinational panzer division next year.” “This should create a unit with up to 20,000 active soldiers, which should be operational by 2021—which would be the nucleus of a European army.”

Well, seeing that 2 out of 3 main routes for large-scale attacks from Russia into western Europe passes through Germany itself (North German plains, Fulda gap and also the Danube valley, in Austria)
I think the Germans need all the help they can get. This is more of a Cold-war type scenario, but geography doesn't change.

Interesting to see that most NATO documents say Poland is essentially screwed in any hot war with Russia. Any initial exchange (conventional or nuclear) between both sides would inevitably be directed at Poland as both sides try to take the initiative. As soon as Russia crosses the border and the missiles fall from both sides, military planners say up to 2 million Poles will die and the country irrevocably destroyed.

Newly constituted 'Russian Guards' to be authorized for overseas peacekeeping operations


The Russian Internal Ministry's MVD troops will be the among the units absorbed into the new 'Russian Guards'

A draft presidential decree detailing the main tasks and functions of the recently established National Guard agency allows it to take part in international operations including peacekeeping missions.

The possible use of National Guard troops in operations in other countries radically distinguishes it from Interior Ministry troops that serve as the basis for the new force. Current Russian laws don’t permit sending Interior Ministry forces on foreign missions.

The document, published on the federal website on Tuesday, gives the new force the official name of Rosgvardia (short for “Russian Guards”), in addition to the National Guard name used by Vladimir Putin when he announced its creation earlier this month.

It also officially establishes the previously announced scheme under which Rosgvardia is commanded directly by the president of the Russian Federation. According to the draft decree the new force will soon receive its own emblem and flag.

Other functions include fighting extremism and organized crime, reads the draft presidential decree. It will also protect public order and security and guard various strategic installations. As the Interior Ministry’s departments that provide commercial security services and gun licensing will be incorporated into the new force, Rosgvardia agents will be responsible for these functions as well.

Kedah-class are quite modern and automated, the tech is there, the weapons aren't.

Build 13 la so we have all 13 corvettes to correspond to each state in Malaysia, and this time, please install those RAM and Exocet missiles during construction, yo.

We don't need another 'fitted for but not with' BS.

26 ships? Somehow that sounds way too costly for Malaysian-level economy. Do we even need that number? Around 12-15 ships would have probably been a more sustainable number.

Lipanbara. Lel