SINGAPORE : Imagine an artillery cannon capable of moving on its
own, instead of having to be towed around.
Well, that is exactly what the Singapore Armed Forces wanted.
So, the Defence Science and Technology Agency and ST Kinetics hit
the drawing board and designed a self-propelled Howitzer.
After six years of development, the mobile "Primus" is the envy of
many other less-endowed bug guns.
But it is more than just a big-moving gun.
The SAF said it was four times more effective than howitzers towed
behind heavy vehicles.
And it is what the 21st Batallion Singapore Artillery have always
dreamed of having in their arsenal.
Colonel Lim Teck Huat, Chief of Artillery, said: "There has always
been a gap in our inventory and when we support the combined arms
divisional forces, the towed guns do have limitations in terms of
mobility, the towed mortars, the short range is a liability and it
could not support the armoured operations."
Equipped with a state-of-the-art targeting and navigation systems,
the Primus can fire 155mm rounds at targets 30 kilometres away and
with pin-point accuracy.
So artillery units can resort to a very effective hide, shoot and
scoot strategy.
This means the gun crew can stay hidden under thick vegetation,
fire at the enemy and then escape at speeds of up to 50 kilometres
an hour.
To confuse the enemy and prevent detection, the Primus also used a
smoke-screen defence system.
Andrew Tan, General Manager of Ordnance Development and Engineering
Company, said: "We wanted to have a rapid fire capability and for
that, the artillery rounds are heavy so we designed an ammo
handling system and what it means is the work of two dozen men
today that the field artillery is using, is now operated by just
four men."
Fully loaded, the Primus weighs less than 30 tonnes.
And that includes armour which can withstand small arms fire from
anything up to a 7.62 calibre general purpose machine gun.
For the gun crew it takes up to 10 months to be fully trained to
operate such a high-tech weapon.
The public will get a chance to see the howitzer at the Asian
Aerospace exhibition in February next year.
The SAF's new self-propelled howitzer was commissioned on Monday at
Kranji Camp by Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean.
He praised the close cooperaton between the SAF and the local
defence industries in building a weapon customised to Singapore's
needs.
Rear Admiral Teo said the Primus was Singapore's technologically
most complex product to date.
Separately, he said the Singapore Landing Ship Tank deployed to
Iraq has arrived in the sea off the country and the morale among
the men was good. - CNA
