SINGAPORE: A crew of 46 operationally ready national servicemen (NSmen) has been tasked with operating the RSS Vigilance.
The crew attained operational readiness status on Tuesday (Jul 17), witnessed by Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How on a visit to the Republic of Singapore Navy's (RSN) 188 Squadron.
AdvertisementThe team is the second group to be granted the status to operate a Victory-class missile corvette (MCV). A team of NSmen was named earlier this year to run the RSS Vengeance.
On Tuesday, Mr Heng sailed on board the RSS Valiant, where he saw the NSmen execute a series of naval operations. These included navigating the ship in congested waters, fire-fighting and damage control, conducting surveillance operations, as well as identifying and neutralising simulated threats from the surface and air.
"This has been a very important journey for the crew of the missile corvette Vigilance," said Mr Heng. "Today marks not just the completion of their in-camp training, but also (their status of being) operationally ready to operate this warship. This really testifies to our investment in the National Service, for both full-time servicemen as well as our NSmen."
NSman ME1 A Sunderason, a communications systems operator on the RSS Vigilance, is confident that his crew can deliver to protect Singapore’s shores when the need arises.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"It is very challenging ... because we have to get the ship from zero to a battle-ready ship within two weeks,” he said. “But ... we have performed very well ... given the fact that we have one to two days of proper training per cycle per year."
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