ST: Officer Cadets make aim with paintball guns

spacemarine SG

From ST today. I don’t have ST online access. OCS cadets using M16 replicas that fire paintballs in training. OCS commander Col Ong said that if current paintbal trials were successful, it would be implemented wider in the SAF. There is more realism to the training and painful bruises from paintball impacts make the soldiers learn and react faster. On Sat, OCS arranged a shootout between Foxtrot Wing and 5 NS men. Sounds like fun!

auringedotcom SG

Woohoo! Sure sounds like fun.. The new NSFs sure have it good.. Going to ROD loh!

crazy monkey SG

go another thread in Militart Nuts Rolling Eyes

crosshairs SG

I find it a very bad idea unless they enforce the rule of wearing safety goggles.
When you put powerful toys in big boy's hands, things go wrong.

oxford mushroom SG

Shiok! Play with night vision goggles even better!

zoik SG

I've never seen people do this kind of thing without face/eye protection.
Its mandatory to wear protection, and also for insurance purposes.

Paintball is the only type of this sort of sport that I've heard of people indirectly dying from paintball rounds to the head [not all paintballs break on impact, and in the old days, people were known for freezing their paintballs so they dont break on impact causing maximum damage/pain].

Thankfully, though, they'll be using RAM/RAP's, which use smaller calibre paintball rounds which do less damage to you even if they do not break on impact.

other related threads:

http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=129075&page=2

http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=116326&page=4

Other agencies around the world already use this sytem, or a related system [see threads] for training purposes.

They, along with airsoft guns, were also used on a British tv show called: "SAS: Are you tough enough?" for public displays of training/scenarios.

Gordonator SG

the cadet featured in the article is wearing goggles. Wink

Ponders SG

anyone know what calibre paintball they were using??

The paintball gun i owned last time was a 0.5in calibre paintball and it can't shoot straight for nuts because of the aerodynamics.

it seems the modified m-16 can take smaller paintball and is able to shoot straighter.

The only other paintball calibre i know was 6mm. but from the pictures it does not look like a 6mm paintball nor does it look like 0.5in (12.7 mm).

anyway, people in the past has frozen paintball to shoot rock solid rounds.... but my friends tried out 0.5 BALL BEARINGS. haha. the rounds can travel far... about 10-15metres.. but velocity was around 280-290 fps (approx 75-90 meter per sec)

Gordonator SG

ya sure paitball is fun and all that, but just think of how the cadets are going to get rid of the paint once they get back to their wing. Laughing

wuming78 SG

yah.. that is one thing i cannot figure out. unless they are provided like disused uniform just for the purpose of the exercise. or maybe the paint is those easily washable type (does this exist??)?

SpecOps87 SG

Yup,the paint used in paintballs are all bio-degradable.Even a slight drizzle can wash them off

wuming78 SG

but if they are too easily washable, wouldnt sweat or water wash them off, defeating the entire purpose of it? Wink

zoik SG

these RAMs use either 0.43 or 0.40 [the former is the usual standard calibre used iirc]

i cannot recall if they have an adjustable hop-unit - if it does then it can fly pretty straight for a longer range than you'd otherwise think, coupled with an increased velocity [also adjustable - but 400fps was a quoted shipping velocity last time i checked].

because of their calibre they are not permitted in normal paintball games or tourneys.

they are not 6mm - 6mm paintballs are the same calibre as airsoft guns, but are not recommended as they are known for breaking within the mechanism and wrecking the inside of airsoft guns.

Yup,the paint used in paintballs are all bio-degradable.Even a slight drizzle can wash them off

the paint is water based.