Power out

laser51088 SG

Just wondering, if Singapore's power get knocked out by some foreign force trying to do some real damage, how dead are we?

TVs will not be working, so how do you do an open mobilisation? unless TV mobile? but TV mobile also limited reach and only the ones on the buses will work

Battery-operated radios? not everyone will have.. prob the handphone radio?

both cases are assuming the broadcast stations still have their power or got some backup power

can the NSmen be contacted by handphone if the local GSM networks are jammed by people trying to call relatives, call police, call SCDF?

supposedly the landlines were still available, but thats assuming the NSmen for call up are at the workplace or at home...

just venturing some ideas... i've never been to NS myself (not until abt 2-3 more years anyway, so i wont know any "real" stuff.. )

sgboy2004 SG

i am sure the recent blackout sent many pple who are in the management of these basic ammenities and security to go back to the drawing board.

So much for putting a minister to look at Security of Singapore, and all is done abt setting up alliances and putting up security guards at transports facilities, oblivious to our basic utilities like power, water and even the air.

I am really flabbergasted tat the power supply is so easily "disengaged" in singapore; and equally shocked that they are starting NOW to conceptualise a second natural gas parallel line as backup. What were these pple doing after 911...building bomb-shelters in their own courtyard?

It takes a unseemingly harmless blackout incident to wake up these pple who are paid and charged with the security and survivor of Singapore... so much for being "world class"...

*walks away from the podium, feeling dejected and sian....*

Troy437 SG

U guys forgot we have public alert sirens...by the time U heard this we men will have the hunch...aren't we required to fight now?

The recent black-out makes us all very uptight now...wat if this and wat if that...What if got one Nuclear bomb drop and we are reduced to ashes before we can even think 'wat if'...

Dun worry...we will know wat to do when it comes. We Sporeans got brain one Mr. Green

tspg SG

Dun worry SAF always have units on stand by round the clock for such emergencies.

During the blackout they were turn out.

We are prepared and ready. Cool

sgboy2004 SG

The element of surprise is there...and if mi were the terrorists, mi will incapacitate these units first...

it will be too late then even we hav units on standby and in the midst of such confusion, nobody knows wat is happening and who are the enemies... looks at the confusion in whitehouse and Pentagon during the trial to find out wat went wrong prior to 9/11.

It is pointless to have forces on standby when the element of surprise is enforced by the terrorists... I am not doubting the capability of our armed forces; rather the time factor is important.

Looking at the vulnerability tat we are now in... a few drops of very toxic chemicals in our reserviors; may not kill many, but would set us in a "drought" condition.

sgboy2004 SG

I wish to ask how many guys know that they hav to report back to camp when the public siren system wails?

GSM network was almost down during the recent blackout...how to do recall; and u can forget abt tv and radio as most pple hav no electricity at home.

We are fighting with invisible warriors now, not the usual conventional warfare, nor even FIBUA we were trained in.

One cannot use logical on terrorists...

By the time our forces gathers, the terrorists might be long gone... laughing their way out...

tspg SG

Sgboy2004 how is a few terrorist going to wipe out a BN of few hundred men?
You need a full scale invasion.

chunyong SG

well, there are small generators dat run on diesel, a few of them can support quite some stuff for quite some time….there is this thing called back-up power thing loh….mian gia…

Ecxentrique SG

just on another note..

not long ago got activated. supposed to be a silent recall but activation done by armas. i know of it thru a friend's sms. (activation time was 10am, i have heard of some friends getting beeped when they check out of camp... Exclamation ) if there was a real case of turbulence.. total power blackout, mass comms network jam.. and armas being so unreliable. how fast can we really mobilise our defense..

sgboy2004 SG

my point is...it will be in total chaos at that time esp when the mode of recall via GSM or watever network ... might be jammed or worse if it is downed.

Without info, wat is there to deploy?

Let's see the pple go back to the drawing boards and wat happens next...not forgetting that the natural gas storage backup will come only in 2005... wat happens from now till the time the new backup storage is in place???

chunyong SG

they will mass-page and mass-sms.

Ecxentrique SG

yup and add to the chaos to the network if its not already down and jammed.. or i suppose they are paging on a separate dedicated network.. but if its really emergency.. there are a lot of numbers to mass page.. so i m wondering about the time we get informed about the activation.. likT+? hr.. when i heard of the experience which my camp mate had.. just made me wonder.. he got the beep from armas after he walked out of camp... i still cant believe it..

chunyong SG

eh....they only need to 'page' the whole callsign then got software or wat page one lah, just like u email a grp, the whole group got the email but do u email every single one separately ? no right ? same logic loh wah lau

laser51088 SG

yeah, but put of his point was also that the GSM networks flooded liao leh... something like new years eve.. i sms my fren and she said only recieve my msg like dunno how many hours later...

unless the sms to mobilise sent out on different network lor, like someone else already mentioned...

power kaputed at night this time round, if it kaputs during the day... u'll get even worse flooding of the networks... the businesses gotta run and they will be tryin to find out whats wrong, the workers calling home, etc.

and places where the power better got backup are like psa, changi, and ur air bases, else ur ships will start crashing n planes start dropping... though they probably have already, govt not stupid.

hmm, if its NSman, u dun get mobilised, but hear the siren, will report back to CMPB? must report back to CMPB?

and sorry, i never have any real experience, but can CMPB cope if everybody turn up when power out because they heard the sirens? must remember that CMPB will not be fully staffed themselves since they wont be expecting the power out...

but then by the time all the NSmen turn up at CMPB and power still out we're all quite screwed though, cos the power will have to be out for at least a couple of hours already

tripwire SG

wahh.... you people very dramatic leh....

lets consider something slowly here...

1... the power out is not island wide... if half the island got power and answer a mob... that's at least 150,000 men.. more men then the entire MAF.

2... the power out lasted average 1 to 2 hours.... i dont know who our invaders are... but how much forces can be sneak, move, attack or deploy within 2 hours before the generators come back to life?

3... our RSAF would still be around... probably make a scramble if attack was imminent... i guess the same would happen in the navy and army.

terrorist? they will strike even if there is power..... i never heard of terrorist striking only during power outage.

in a war... power station sure kenna wack one lah... so... any recall system cannot be dependent on these power supply.

nowadays HP very common... even little boy and girl in primary school also carry them...

if need to.... ask singtel shut down all sms and HP from calling out... and reserve for armas sendouts...

sgboy2004 SG

not war lah....come on, terrorist attack lah... Neutral

octega SG

Most likely scenario I can think of would be SAF depolying rovers or GP cars with huge speakers and go around neighbourhoods to call up mob.

Although slow but would be effective (again in theory Mr. Green .....)

tripwire SG

the only real and effective way against terrorist is tit for tat (covertly of course)...

they blow up our power plant... we send bomb expert to blow up their supporters... "power plant" or whatever of much higher value..... Mr. Green

the aim is to shove into their head... that terrorism carries a very very very costly price....

spyder SG

indeed... the recent power blackouts does make us a little uptight, i am so surprised actually that our source of power supply can be disrupted so easily. Sad surely we must have some form of backup system or something, maybe they purposely never activate it and pretend to show others our 'vulnerability'???

regarding recalling ns men to report, i think there are many many ways to activate everyone when war is impending... anyway, if we are fighting against terrorists, i dont think they will come in battalions or whatever... i think we have our national security guys covering terrorists...

in case of war, i guess when any country is 'unhappy' about singapore, we will surely prepare in one way or another to be ready for war... i think minimum, there will definitely be units on standby... during peace time, there are already active nsf on standby, so i think shouldnt be a problem, we have some units to 'tahan' till those lao jiao nsmen report back to camp... Wink moreover, dont forget our airforce is quite powerful too...

to summarise, they just need to make sure blackouts dont disrupt our normal lives la... Razz

Moxie SG

Actually, I don't think there's anything to be greatly alarmed about. In a nationwide blackout, the SAF can always do a silent mob - & if you've done recall i/c before, you'll know there's alternate measures to rounding up your people if the phones are down. (Supposedly classified info, but it's an open secret among male citizens.)

If it's a terror attack by a shadowy cell, the standby units will be deployed ad-hoc - that's what they're structured for within the system.

If it's a terror act by fifth-columnists preceding an invasion force, I dare say a lot of NSmen will already be called back to camp by then.

The thing is, you don't mobilize such troops on a whim; the respective divisional staffs would've put forth an approved plan - however preliminary - before the activation order goes out. & as long as the foe represents a conventional force - let's say on the orders of an ultra-nationalist or fundamentalist neighbor government - the Singapore government (& local populace) would've taken note of their foreign-policy aggressiveness on the outset.

I remember when I was doing NS in '86-88, there was overt Malaysian hostility over a series of events - the Israeli PM visit, then GCK's comments about Malays in the army, then a supposed SAF assault-boat intrusion into their waters - which the SAF took seriously, certainly more than the subsequent complaints in the '90's about our planes flying into their territory. We raised our alert status to a high level & was prepared for any eventualities; I experienced the tension, even if it was essentially for deterrent's sake, cuz my unit was RECON 1.

I expect the SAF will do a thorough review on whether operational readiness would be severely hurt by another such blackout; one area I had in mind - & I stand corrected if I'm wrong on this - is civil-resource requisition, which I believe is only done by open mob(?) under the existing system. They may need to introduce logistical contingencies in terms of recalling all the relevant vehicles.