Network Centric Warfare Speech by Scholar General
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http://www.mindef.gov.sg/fsd/speech_bgKhoo1.asp
Even before he gets on the gist of the argument, he sounds like a clown already. *sigh* I cringe at the rhyme at the end of his speech.
My prediction of future warfare? The robots go in the war zone, and at the end, every one gets packaged bound, gagged and labelled. No collateral damage, save the defenders own (they shoot themselves in confusion).
That's why Network Centric Warfare is irrelevant. You end up with knowledge that tells you when you're going to die. -
The speech is an example of how SAF has outdone itself in technology.
The 2nd generation SAF has got no foundation to go onto the 3rd gen! All you have to show for 2nd gen is a bunch of hardware..... and ppl who knows how to operate them.
Now going into 3rd gen -> Clueless! -
sounds like creative destruction stuff i used to hear doing mgmt studies.
Yah... he got one point right. Money Talks! The concept of force multipler like NCW sounds good, if u have the money. Lui and Lui, boh lui mian gong liao.
The US space policy in the 1990s was called Faster, Cheaper, Better. Apparently, u can't substiute the cheaper portion.
DSTA/ST is experimenting with the Spartan robot. I can tell u, it is cheaper to give a NS punk a M16 and ask him to do sentry duty. No lifecycle cost to think about. -
The speech is reflective of the immaturity of the leadership in SAF.
As for the Spartan Robot, Sony has an even better product.
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/top.html
Just dress these thingys up in SBO helmet rifle and they can act as cannon fodder or decoys! And these are mass produced products! -
I have taken many comms skill courses and the instructors always remind us never to do something outlandishly different from the norm during presentations. You stand a very high change of getting distracted and moving out of point and people will either find the presentation incomprehensible or very easily misconstrut what you are saying.
In the light of such an embarressment, I hope that the internation body would not view the entire SAF collective as arrogant, attention-seeking show-offs. -
With all due respect, BG Khoo seriously needs to get that stick out of his butt.
He raises many good points, but his presentation style is so obnoxious that his audience probably missed them. It is possible to speak in such a flamboyant manner, but you need real chutzpah to pull it off successfully. I did not see this particular presentation, but I have seen BG Khoo before and he does not have the mojo. Sorry, sir, you're smart, you know it, but please don't show it.
Most SAF officers are OK, though there are always some sad exceptions. The WO and specialist corps is definitely better on the whole, though you get your share of bastards, incompetents and bad guys. On the whole, the SAF's people are about as good or bad as those in any major armed forces that I've had contact with. -
I beg to differ. The SAF has not outdone itself in technology, but rather, it has underpreformed in producing personnel that can make the best out of that technology.
Technological bashing in this case here, seems to me more of a case of "bad workmen blaming their tools". Unable to grasp the future of war, many will ultimately end up blaming "weird technology" rather then making full use of it. Consider history, could you be lumped together with the jokers who said that the tank would never replace horse calvary?
Battlefield robots demostrate extreme potential, and it would be foolish to discount their development. The SAF, having realized this, is attempting to get a headstart in the region in developing this aspect of technology. Before anyone here should raise any question, one needs to realize that battlefield robots have already been in service for years and have radically altered the face of war as we know it. Consider the cruise missile, smart bomb, or just any sort of smart munition that is in essence the utilization of robotics to wage war.
While I may not like his style, it does behoove us to think seriously about the implications of technology on future warfare, rather then toss out everything unfamiliar and stick with our false security blankies of familiar "conventional" stuff, lest we fall several steps behind in the loop of arms development. Especially on the brink of a informational revolution in warfare, nations which manage to make the most of it will end up the best.
In the opening hours of warfare, sentimental attatchment to old ideas tend to be radically altered, if not torn apart. We have no crystal ball, but I dare say that somehow we have to get more intelligence then our enemy, share it faster, make sense out of it, and then act on it before they can make their next move, or even respond to ours. What does this sound like?
Network Centric Warfare. -
Catch no balls.....
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No surprise, warfare for the tatical person (you and me) consist of going prone and snapping off shots at targets, how good our rifles are and the like.Originally posted by laurence82:Catch no balls.....
However, wars are not just won by tatics, the stragetic level matters, if not the most. -
Since when was the Spartan supposed to do sentry duty? Maybe you would like to do what the Spartan is supposed to do: Maybe it would be more cost effective for the SAF to wire you up with sensors and send you out as an armed remote sensor platform?Originally posted by koxinga:DSTA/ST is experimenting with the Spartan robot. I can tell u, it is cheaper to give a NS punk a M16 and ask him to do sentry duty. No lifecycle cost to think about.
Please, think before you speak. -
The name Spartan is quite misleading... I wonder if ST is trying to distract attention over the 'other' Spartan project...
This is the REAL spartan.
http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/may_03_23.php
Enjoy. -
Network Centric Warfare -
Maybe SAF underperforming not because of technology or the lack of ppl with the aptitude to use it but rather as a war organisation with an established (not war proven) system in place ........ missing the Warfare part sorely.
That's my concern. Resources deployed to build tools for a job you think you know about. Reading, attending seminars having chats with generals, West Point notwithstanding. -
I would say, the Peacekeepers that we sent to East Timor and Iraq are the best bet we have for our SAF.
Don't be mistaken, those who are sent to these UN missions volunteered for it, and they are not paid peanuts, but given top quality sharksfin. They are given the best equipment and training that we can dream up of.
I've heard stories of regulars who respond with gusto when the call for volunteers is made, only to retract the next day because the wife doesn't want him to go. That's why NSF and NSmen are given the opportunity as well.
I salute these men who go and hope that when they come back, they give a counterbalance to the scholar generals who stay in office all day.
In any case, they tell better stories than that BG Khoo anyway. -
Well, you have to realize that the most devastating styles of modern combat came essentially "out of the blue".
Blitzkrieg and massed tank formations were scoffed at until they utterly demolished the more traditional French in WWII. Everyone then started to create Panzer divisions like the Germans and beat them at their own game. The American performance in Desert Shield/Storm was also very unexpected. You may not remember anymore, but just prior to ODS the US armed forces were not held in high regard due to their loss in Vietnam and their subsequent degeneration. The idea of winning a war with waves of precision weapons delivered from the air seemed ridiculous until the 5th (?) largest army in the world folded up almost without a fight. Now everyone wants to do it.
Transformation is not a specific set of technologies. It is not unmanned platforms, cyberwarfare or stealth technology. It is simply the realization that the art of modern warfare advances in great leaps that seem ridiculous until they are shown to work. The transformed SAF might be robotic, or men on bicycles, or flocks of exploding chickens. At least we should admit we don't know and take a look.
While we simply don't have that many people experienced in "real war" due to having ever fought any wars (which is good), we have more people than you think. My PC in OCS fought Abu Sayyaf and muslim guerillas in Phillipines while he attended the military academy there. He's not the only officer I know who has seen actual combat. We have guys doing peacekeeping. The more the merrier. The main thing is to hope that they get heard, and to test as much of our doctrine and technology in combat as possible. In this respect, the SAF seems reasonably OK. -
The beef I have with the SAF system is that while we have people like your PC in OCS who have seen actual combat, they are usually NOT in the place to influence the policies made. For that matter, that particular PC you mentioned was in OCS!! Shouldn't he be in some place where his experience could be tapped on. I am not saying that this is purely a SAF problem. One can see that happening in the best of armies, e.g. US where you can always surf and find sites run by serious army types with tons of experience and wealth of advice but are not in the position to push it forward.
Our SAF meritocratic system has always depended on office bound scholar generals and colonels to lead the way. While that has been good in general, the fact of the matter is that they are often then not stuck in ivory towers. From my personal experience, the analogy best applied is those who are in the actual ground experience e.g. sales or marketing and those academics who sit in their cubicles reading theoretical business principle. While each have their own perspectives and worthy input, an effective organization needs to have both inputs with wise decision makers who can apply it. SAF needs to have that balance too. Scholarly generals need to be bloodied too. See how men like Westmore and the guy in "we were soliders too" contributed to the general growth of the US army.
my 2 cents. -
how do you reccomend we "blood" them??
start a war with someone??
turn them into mercenary for hire??
or would you prefer we send them to afganistan??
maybe the slaughter house?? kill a few chicken or slit a pig's throat with a long knife??
different scenario, different situation, circumstances and millions of factors DEMANDS a unique solution to each of them....
there aint no such thing as being blooded means you got the right experience for the next fight...
every fight is unique, every enemy is different, every encounter is a mix of multitudes of variables...
so... in frank.... the key is in the details and foresight. not simply getting blooded.... else i would put stars on a tiger... the've been blooded their whole life!! -
Ha, blooded? Why don't we follow in the canablistic ways of the so called Malaysian spec ops? And better, like them, take pride in behaving like chimpanzees (which not surprisingly, are profilic canabials.
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Isn't it through many hard battles that a war is won? Sending them anywhere where chaos reigns and their authority counts for crap will do. Afghanistan, Iraq etc.
In any case, these scholar generals think that by just debriefing the people who went there is enough to absorb all their experience... I laugh at them.
The issue here is that - arrogance. Do you think scholar generals are bothered with details? Obviously you haven't seen one in action before right?
Foresight? When things go wrong, just blame it on Hindsight right? -
It's well and good to send this generals and officers (scholars or no) to 'war'........
What worries me most is the brigades and their organisation.......
Every war is different but the lessons learnt invaluable .........SAF now thrives on 2nd hand info glean from armies that are not organised the same.
This applies more to the organisation of the brigardes and their lines of C3........from the 7 men section up!
I don't believe you can proceed until you test fly the thing! -
aiyah... you all very color vision lah...
so what is a scholar??
a scholar does not neccessary a good general will be...
likewise... a non scholar does not neccessary a good general will be too...
having a scholar title means they rise fast fast to the top.... but then that does not make them good generals...
likewise.. a non scholar rise slow slow to the top... but then they too does not guarantee they make good generals...
so... whats in a title? is SAF gonna be flooded with scholars only?? how many scholans are there every year? majority of the commanders would still be non scholans....they are the laulans, sialans, jiaolans and honkangs...
me?... i no look up officer... true lah... during NS i met some good crabs... but then... for every good crab i see.. i see 2 crap crabs plus at least half a dozen bolan yong shoulder bars....
from NS experience.... Specialist and WOs are the true leaders... they very jai... officers?? i consider then as messenger boys which pass down information and orders from higher level messenger boys... afterall... thats the only thing they are able to do ok ok...
i saw some of those Officer battle plan... and i tell myself... its a monkeys' masterpiece!! -
The opportunity for our SAF to experience a 'baptism of fire' may be sooner then we expect.
Has anyone heard of 500 SAF ground combat personnels to be sent to IRAQ, in addition to the one piece C-130 and one piece LST Endurance Class that are going over ?
The scholar generals are probably tested on their mental endurance, clarity and depth of analytical thoughts, leadership quality under constant pressures, and will probably be monitored by the Minister, Minister of State, and Permanent Secretaries, as well as by the PM, DPM, and probably SM.
It is not only the scholar generals that need to be tested, but also the vision of the political leaderships that need to be tested, questioned, and judged. -
we should have sent 2000 troops plus afew homemade weapons...
then put those troopers in the middle of the sunni triangle... then we will see if those scholans can score or not....
of course.. if they mess up... its gonna look bad on SAF and PAP...
but it will be a good measure of the SAF adaptability and flexibility in dealing with ever changing hostile diverse environment... which require alot of ingenuity rather then technology to surmount the odds.... technology can help alot... but in the end... its still the human mind and heart that is the ultimate weapon of war. -
Originally posted by tripwire:
I agree that it is not guaranteed that a non-scholar will be a great commander and likewise there will be great scholars who are also great commanders. Probability and statistics.
[b]aiyah... you all very color vision lah...
so what is a scholar??
a scholar does not neccessary a good general will be...
likewise... a non scholar does not neccessary a good general will be too...
[b]
However, my main problem is that the great scholars have these one way track planned for them. Even during NS we all know that when a scholar CO comes in, he will only spend XXmths with this battalion and then move on. My own AVP in a GLC who was a LTC when he ROD told me the same thing when he got his scholarship to go to Oxford.
I understand that these "plans" are SOP for the MINDEF top brass to move their "investments" quickly thru the system so as to reap their ROIs. But becos of this factory style method, I believe many of these scholars who reach BG or COL at very "tender" age, do not have the full capacity to empathise what the lower ranks feel or think. What more being able to absorb their inputs...
The old guards of Singapore (both Political and Military) had to go thru "shit" to reach their position. But in our haste to replicate a great model, they have lost out in giving that same shit experience that made them great to the younger generation.
For my part, when I started work, altho I had the piece of paper to prove my "worth", my boss wisely put me in my place and made me start off with a nominal entry position (altho I did things beyond that job description). People around me told me to complain but on hindsight that made me a better worker as it made me learn how to "earn" my place in the organization.
Back to the generals...from what I can see, there is this lack of emphatic depth in them that allows them to "learn" and the humility to absorb what lao jiaos and experienced people can provide in terms of their input. technological buzz and digital toys are something they can get into faster and better than good old information of how to fight a war (the dirty and bloody way).
So in short, I am not saying that we need to just bloody our scholars but that somehow a way must be created to put more humility and willingness to learn into them, the mojo that set apart our founding fathers from the rest of the people in their generation. -
The OCS PC that fought guerillas in Phillipines was a scholar
That's why he was attending the military academy (university) there. He had a thousand different tips on what worked and didn't work in combat. Nearly got shot several times, at least one kill (cut off the guy's ears as a trophy). SAF infantry tactics worked great against Abu Sayyaf, apparently. He's probably a "crab" now, and might make stars if he's lucky. Other scholars have attended Sandhurst military academy, patrolled Belfast and fought IRA terrorists, though I've not met these people personally.
Note that SAF scholarships require the scholar to be attached to foreign military units during their education, so my PC was not unique. Scholars are the most likely people to have seen combat in the SAF, so don't look down on them too much. Of course, having survived a few firefights and gotten a few kills doesn't necessarily make you a good leader. Many scholars are still crap. But saying that people with combat experience should lead is basically saying that the situation we have now is perfect.
I think the problem is more basic. The personnel advancement system in the SAF needs a revamp. Unit leadership performance should count more toward an officer's promotion than performance in staff or training billets. Or even better, officers who do well in unit leadership positions should get them more often, but not be crippled in pay compared to his staff colleagues. And officers who do well in staff or training positions should get them more often. That would make so much more sense. No more desk jockeys getting laughed at by the men, or fire-breathing combat machines wasted in the office. -
The hi-tech wizardry of the US army's "digital division" is facing its first real combat test in Saddam Hussein's powerbase in north-central Iraq, where soldiers say it is helping disperse the fog of war and crush anti-occupation forces.
News from the first Digital Div on the field, hope that SAF could get some tips from them.
Troops from the 4th Infantry Division (4ID), based in Tikrit, were among the first to land on French beaches on World War II's D-Day, and their successors are now making history by becoming the world's most technologically advanced division.
"I was sceptical," said Captain Lou Morales, who works in the 4ID's operations centre in a palace building of the ousted Iraqi president.
"But having come here and seen it from a test-bed all the way through to using it in combat operations, I'm a believer."
What he believes in is his division's unique ability to see the battlefield using a technologically advanced but extremely user-friendly "tactical Internet" system.
It allows tanks, helicopters, personnel carriers, jeeps and artillery units to share their locations, information on where enemy units are, and real-time text messages with each other and with officers in command centres.
The battle scene is portrayed on screens in the fighting vehicles and in the command centre, with friendly units shown as blue icons and enemies as red ones on maps that can be magnified to show individual buildings.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, can provide real-time video of battle scenes to complete the information sent by satellites, vehicle-mounted sensors and human observers.
Major General Ray Odierno, who just a few weeks ago was seen on the world's television screens recounting how his men captured Saddam, visits the 4ID's Command Information Centre here several times a day for an update on the state of play in the restive region his men patrol.
The room, littered with laptops and radio sets, is dominated by three large screens that portray maps of the theatre of operations, video feed from UAVs, and tactical information.
The 4ID's technology played a part in the December 13 capture of Saddam in a hole in the ground on a farm near Tikrit.
"The rapid movement of 600 soldiers into the area to cordon it off and tighten the noose was all done in a digital environment," said Lieutenant Colonel Ted Martin, the 4ID's chief of operations.
The technology was developed for "high-end, high kinetic, metal on metal, very fast-paced operations," said Martin. Which in lay terms means full-scale battle between two well-equipped armies.
The US army's first computerized force however missed major combat operations in Iraq in March because Turkey did not let it deploy from its territory into northern Iraq.
The 4ID instead came in through Kuwait and moved north to take up its current position patrolling the so-called Sunni triangle north of Baghdad.
But soldiers in Tikrit say the digits are proving useful in combating the low-level insurgency that supporters of the former regime are conducting against coalition forces.
Sergeant Major Salvador Martinez of the 4ID's 1-22 Battalion is another believer. The system saves lives and cuts down on friendly fire incidents, and because it's Windows-based it's as easy to use as a home computer, he said.
"Those are targets that we hit last night," he said, tapping with a stylus on a "ruggedised" computer screen mounted over the passenger seat on his jeep. On the screen several buildings are highlighted on a map of Tikrit.
If the "digital division" is deemed a success, of which most soldiers here are confident, the next step is likely to be an integrated digitalised army, navy and air force.
Even foot soldiers could be equipped with mini screens showing the same information seen by commanders and crews in vehicles.
CHARGE!!!