A military training facility will be built southwest of Lim Chu Kang, to build up training realism for soldiers, Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen announced in Parliament on Friday (3 March).
The 88-ha Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute (SAFTI) City will spread more than 200 buildings including dense clusters of shop houses to low-rise residences, and extensive networks of roads enabling soldiers to train for operations from homeland security to counter-terrorism.
Mentioning that modern warfare and peacekeeping missions are more likely to take place in built-up cities, Dr Ng said: “The new SAFTI City will allow any battalion to fight across different terrains successively as they will do in real life missions. It will therefore have both urban and conventional terrain. In the urban setting there will be low houses and high-rise buildings. In the open terrain – jungles, hills and rivers to cross.”
The first sector will be located at the northern edge of the Poyan Reservoir, to be allocated for training servicemen in island defense competencies, including coastal defense operations.
It will comprise a petrochemical complex, warehouses and container parks.
It will also meant for the Army to train servicemen for disaster-relief operations, and for civil contingencies like floods to support the Ministry of Home Affairs, Dr Ng explained.
The facility will also be equipped with battlefield-effect simulators to bring about an immersive environment for more realistic training.
Along with this plan, in existing SAF training areas in western Singapore three battle circuits will also be developed. These will be placed in the Pasir Laba and Ama Keng training areas, and the Murai Urban Training Facility (MUTF).
The Pasir Laba circuit will be used for light, motorised and mechanised infantry operations, up to three infantry companies to train at the same time. It will include, among other facility, battle courses where platoons can train their drills for attack and defense scenarios.
The Ama Keng circuit will allow motorised or mechanised infantry platoons to train drill-based training, enabling two such platoons in unison. The battle drills will include ambush exercises and securing and clearing mine clusters.
These battle circuits will also have an improved battlefield-monitoring system and are aimed to intensify and conduct more efficient training in smaller spaces.
Dr Ng had also announced the plan via his Facebook.
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Ng Eng Hen: Singapore to build $900m Safti-city for military training
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