Serious Malaysia might station Chinese rocket launchers in Johor to threaten us, than

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Thanks to the PAP, Singapore is now caught in the middle of a dangerous game of one upmanship by the US and China. I refer to the recent reports that China wants to loan to Malaysia a battery of mobile rocket launcher system, a powerful weapon that can fire 8-10 rounds of rocket equipped with up to 250lb warheads within 60 seconds, then scoot off and hide some where to reload an appear and fire again. As you can imagine, such a system is very hard to defeat. By the time you locate the source of the rocket firing, the whole system on an all wheel drive platform would have moved on to another location or gone into hiding. In the hands of a good crew and battery commander, they are very difficult to locate and destroy. During the First Gulf war when Iraq fired an older system known as Scud at Israel, the Coalition spend much resources and air craft to seek and destroy them. They were hard enough to find in a flat featureless desert environment, they must be that much harder to find in our type of terrain.


This is an outright provocation, there is no other way to interpret this. China has long been sore about the accommodations the PAP has made for the US Navy at Changi Naval Base, as well as the aircraft repair and maintenance facilities at Paya Lebar for the USAF, as well as Singapore being a port of call and liberty port for the US pacific Fleet. Bearing in mind that both China and US are rachetting up the sabre rattling and preparing for a conflict in the south china seas. And Knowing that Singapore is a major logistics base for the US Navy and with substantial ability to repair US Naval vessels and aircraft, what better way to negate and threaten this then by basing the aforementioned rockets in the backyard of Singapore.


These Chinese rockets, the AR 3 MLRS (Multiple Launch rocket system) can in within seconds, destroy the Changi Naval base, destroy hangers and repair depots at Paya Lebar and elsewhere, crater runways and possibly even sink several US Naval ships in port. The 280 km radius also puts all US naval assets under threat as they transit through the Straits of Malacca and as they approach Singapore and its surrounding areas. While true that US Naval vessels have very good anti missile defence systems such as the 20 mm Gatling gun type Phalanx Close in Weapons System (CIWS), and Sea Sparrow anti missile missiles, what makes the AR 3 system so deadly is that it can be fitted not only with conventional unguided warheads but also be fitted with guided missile warheads, and when fired in salvos with as many as 30 missiles going for one target, makes it very difficult to defend against. Anti missile defences on ships are designed to defeat the one or 2 missiles fired at a time from a single aircraft or even from a flight of aircraft. But 30 missiles at a time is an altogether different prospect. This in effect will turn the AR 3 into a mini ballistic inter theatre missile system. A very frightening prospect is this.


The fact that the Chinese are so eager to have this missile battery installed in Southern Malaysia, across the causeway from Singapore, in the state of Johor is not lost on the Americans and the PAP. How eager are they? They are so eager, they are prepared to give the Malaysians the AR 3 for free, on a 50 year loan, saving the Malaysians the cost of buying them outright. Wow, what a deal. Why couldn’t the RSAF get its F-16s and F-15 on a 50 year loan too? The loan is set up as a purchase to own type of deal where, I suppose the Malaysians will pay on installment over 50 years. I wonder how agreeable the Chinese will be to forgiving the loan down the road, I am sure they will be. The Chinese will “loan” the Malaysians 12 MLRS system, good for 4 batteries. One battery targeting the Changi Naval Base, One battery targeting Paya Lebar, One targeting Tengah Air Base, and one targeting the oil storage and tank farm facilities on Jurong Island, would decapitate singapore’s abilities in a 60 second salvo.


But who will man these MLRS when and if they arrive? I am sure that Chinese advisors and technicians must be on hand to help operate and maintain them. You can be sure that since these are still technically Chinese property, until paid in full, the Chinese will try to keep them operational at 100%. This would be in stark contrast to other weapons systems operated by the Malaysian armed forces and air forces where weapon availability is somewhat less then 100%. But who will actually control them? The Chinese or the Malaysians? Even if this report is untrue, this would set an interesting future precedent. What if China offers to loan Malaysia 3 squadrons of Chengdu J-20 Stealth Fighters? Or 3 battalions of Type 99 MBT? They would then have the ability to point dagger at the US base of operations in Singapore.


If this gets hot, and the Chinese MLRS are fired from Malaysia into Singapore, what can the PAP do? They have just put Singaporeans in the way of these missiles. We are just like puppets being manipulated by the US and China. Thanks to our close affiliation with the Jewish State, and the US, I expect all our muslim neighbours to hate us. But I never bargain that even far away countries like China could potentially also be our enemies one day. I bet the PAP never saw this coming. I wonder if we can request to be a colony of the UK again, and let Whitehall handle our foreign relations? Because, as far as I can see, the PAP is just not cutting it.

Just my 2 cents


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