Forum: Introduce Yourself

Geez! This place is full of little n00bs!
It's alright though, I must commend all you youngans, you're not the typical trolls I see on other boards. Wink

Alas, I'm just out of n00bdom myself....I'm 27 Very Happy

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Hi Habu2,

No, the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) didn't send troops to 'Nam. I was a battalion signaller (Signal Store Sgt) attached to an amphibious engineer unit.

The closest we got to any action was when some of my chaps were attached to some assault boats when there were an influx of Vietnamese refugees on board a ship anchored off S'pore. Sort of police duty.

As their assault boat came alongside, someone from the ship tossed a gerenade into the boat but it didn't go off 'cause the other pin was still in ( there are 2 pins you have to pull out). It scared the hell out of them!

As for me, I was ashore, acting as a relay station in the rover.

hawkeye, didn't know you were in Singapore. I made the typical American assumption you were also from the US - my mistake. I saw your age (close to mine) and I was thinking of common events we might have experienced growing up. I remember on my 18th birthday they came and yanked me out of class (senior year in high school) and had me fill out the forms to register for the draft, right then and there. It was d*nmed if you do and d*mned if you don't in those days. Sad

Forum Veteran Joined: Nov 07, 2003 - 09:12 PM Posts: 901

Greetings hawkeye!!

Nice to have you around!
cheers, Very Happy

Hi Pumpkin,

Thanks!

Habu2,

After our full time national service (NS), during my time, 2 yrs for other ranks, 2 1/2 yrs for NCOs officers and 3yrs for engineer officers, we are put under the reserves.

The annual in-camp training applies and you train just like the fulltime NS men. After 5 in-camps in the infantry my whole battalion was transferred to the Civil Defence force (CD) - similar to fire and rescue agency.

We spent 2 weeks of in-camp for conversion and were taught fire fighting, rescue in confine spaces, first aid ... the works. The first Sat we were all confined to camp as we 'green horns' were on standby in case there was any castrophe. Thank goodness no siren that night!

After 3 in-camps , my cd battalion (about 100 men) are allocated to zone and within that zone given a housing area of about 2,000 to 3,000 residents to be responsible for during an emergeny.

During the yearly in-camps , we would get familiar with the area like where to setup the temporary mortuary, schools to be used as relief centres, entry and exits routes, the number of private clinics in the area, etc.

At the age of 45 , we are discharged from our obligations from NS but the training acquired still stays and we are prepared mentally but not always physically for any contingencies.

How about you in the States?

Dunno 'bout the States, but in Romania we used to have conscription till a month ago. The last conscript troops will be raised in December and after they get deactivated we're gonna have a professional army. That's pretty damn good. For 3 reasons.
1. More money to spend on the pros.
2. Military service was nothing more than a waste of time in the last few years. You only spent like 8 months (only 4 for the university students) in the army. IMO that's nowhere near what you need to learn something properly, but it is long enough to **** up your study plans. Mad

3. Now I'll be able to use my gap year to the fullest (I was thinking of speeding my call up so that they would wouldn't call me when I was 20... and away at university). Now this might seem pretty unpatriotic or chicken or whatever, but everyone who was conscripted and I talked to told it was sh*t and you didn't really win anything out of it anyway (and this includes my parents... both of them).

And so, now I've got one less problem to think about when making my plans for the future Cool

... even though I think I would've enjoyed myself some if made the paras Rolling Eyes

Well, to get back to the off-topic, I'm almost 40, married, and have my firstborn, a 7month old boy.... I just thought of a topic to add to this forum....

Kevin
The Ejection Site

Quote:

my cd battalion (about 100 men)

that should read as cd coy (for company) (about 80 men). Embarassed

Congrats kmceject on being a daddy!
What's the kid's name? Very Happy

Michael Robert is his official moniker however he has many nicknames, the primary one being <a href="http://www.ejectionsite.com/31devon/mikesabot7a.jpg">Micro...</a> This photo shows him holding on to a 105mm Target Practice Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot projectile. We are using this as a reference as he was just about that length when he was born (and similar in weight too.)

Thanks for the congrats...
Kevin

Quote:

This photo shows him holding on to a 105mm Target Practice Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot projectile

Isn't that used against tanks or armoured vehicles?

Yup, that is an anti-tank SABOT round. The version is used for practice in 105mm tank guns as used in the M-60s and M-1 slicks. The projectile is 'wrapped' in a metal section that centers it in the gun barrel. This 'sabot' breaks into three main sections on exit of the barrel and flys off. The dart like projectile then continues on its merry way until it intersects with some object. If that object is an armored vehicle, the heavy mass (that practice round weighs 9lbs) with its large velocity (~1200-1500 metres per sec) gives rise to a large amount of kinetic energy on a very small area (the frontal area of the projectile). This kinetic energy transfer is typically enough to push its way thru a significant thickness of armor.

<img src="http://www.ejectionsite.com/kmctank.gif">

I'm 44. Hawk, you're still in the lead.
stik

39

Loader

22 here hawkeyes still in the lead

kmceject wrote:

Yup, that is an anti-tank SABOT round. The version is used for practice in 105mm tank guns as used in the M-60s and M-1 slicks. The projectile is 'wrapped' in a metal section that centers it in the gun barrel. This 'sabot' breaks into three main sections on exit of the barrel and flys off. The dart like projectile then continues on its merry way until it intersects with some object. If that object is an armored vehicle, the heavy mass (that practice round weighs 9lbs) with its large velocity (~1200-1500 metres per sec) gives rise to a large amount of kinetic energy on a very small area (the frontal area of the projectile). This kinetic energy transfer is typically enough to push its way thru a significant thickness of armor.

<img src="http://www.ejectionsite.com/kmctank.gif">

I wold hope that's a training round, I mean I don't think you'd want your baby touching a depleted uranium round! Shocked

Forum: Introduce Yourself

How old are you?