SAF showcases complex mission at Exercise Wallaby

An enemy tank was on the move, having been spotted by the Singapore Army’s eyes in the sky — a suite of drones that had been persistently monitoring the battlefield.

- Samuel Devaraj Correspondent

For Major Marcus Lee, callsign Relic, the mission for his F-16 fighter jet was to use the intel gathered to locate and strike the target with a GBU-49 - a 500-pound, GPSand laser-guided bomb.

The ensuing successful hit - and on his first attempt dropping a guided weapon — was a good confidence builder, said MAJ Lee. It also served to validate the army’s and Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) ability to jointly execute a complex mission.

This strike mission was one aspect of the integrated live-firing exercise that has been taking place at Exercise Wallaby, the Republic’s largest overseas military drill held annually at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland, Australia.

The exercise began in September and is scheduled to end in early November. It is now in its third phase or “frame”, which runs from Oct 16 to Nov 2.

Other manoeuvres included the integrated firing of the RSAF’s F-16s and AH-64 attack helicopters, alongside the inaugural live-firing of the army’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars) rocket launchers at Shoalwater Bay.

The exercise involved more than 400 personnel from the army, RSAF and the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), alongside over 100 engineers from the Defence Science and Technology Agency, DSO National Laboratories and SAF’s defence industry partners.