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SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) said wars these days are moving increasingly from jungles to more of an urban environment. So it has opened its first urban training facility, which every soldier in the country will have a chance to go through.
The scenarios at the new training facility are designed to be injected with a huge dose of realism.
At an exercise on Friday, watched by Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, a seven-man section team entered what was essentially a computer store to rid it of enemy forces.
The leaders of the seven-man section were equipped with the new 8kg-lighter, weather-proof Advanced Combat Man System, jointly developed with the Defence Science and Technology Agency.
The system has features like head-mounted displays showing maps of the terrain, cameras on the soldiers' SAR 21 and a portable computer to feed back real-time information from the battlefield.
And with that, the battle commander will call the shots.
Commander 9 Division/Chief-Infantry Officer (DIV/CIO), Brigadier-General (BG) Chan Chun Sing, said: "That will give the soldier the ability to fight not as an individual, not even as a section of seven men, but leveraging on the fire power the sensor network on the wider SAF system that he has."
But what if the technology fails? SAF said soldiers would have already been well-trained in the basic military skills before getting this new equipment.
During training, wired-up buildings can also track the movement of troops when they enter buildings in real time, with cameras to record the action for review later.
Soldiers have been training at the facility since last month.
The sprawling Murai Urban Training Facility resembles a typical town. When completed, it will have as many as 200 buildings - like houses, shops and an industrial area - to expose soldiers to different urban environments. - CNA/vm
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