Wednesday, 21 March 2012

How to deal with "lone gunman"-type scenarios

"An active shooter, by definition, is someone that displays the ability and willingness to shoot people indiscriminately and without regard to his own life, said Maj. Sean McCarthy, the deputy provost marshal and commanding officer, Military Police Company, Security Battalion."
Yet another example of realistic training to adapt to actual conditions on the ground. Recently discovered that the personnel guarding the Sungei Gedong camp were no longer soldiers from the units inside it. This move towards professionalism is a good move.

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Rescue 3D - showing how military units can help, and not just destroy

Quite inspired by this film that I watched at the Singapore Discovery Centre, during my reservist training. It's more "soft sell" than the usual defence promotional videos. 

Granted that it isn't produced as a promo video, but as a 3D documentary. Another thing that got me thinking. What could a armour battalion (the unit that I belong to) do in such a scenario?

I was stuck for a while. We didn't have helicopters or big airlifters. We had a medical platoon, but that was available in all combat battalions. Using my brain a bit more revealed some possibilities.

We have a few Broncos (all terrain vehicles) that could be used in a "Haiti situation" (i.e. an earthquake) to transport rescue crew and earthquake victims to and from the affected areas. The Broncos have excellent cross country capability, and exert low ground pressure. These characteristics would allow it to go where the roads were blocked, without the danger of causing more collapsed buildings.

The Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV) variant of our Bionix vehicles could also be used for rescue operations, by using its crane to lift heavy loads, e.g. clear rubble.