(June 30): Singapore will spend around $400 million to build what it calls a next-generation smart training facility for its armed forces.
The new training area, dubbed SAFTI City, will replicate urban areas and feature configurable buildings, battlefield simulators, targets with shoot-back capabilities and data analytics, Singapore’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The project’s first phase will be completed in 2023 and house more than 70 buildings, including three 12-story blocks, simulated underground facilities and urban training structures. Phase 2 will see the construction of an industrial complex for training, according to the statement.
The facility will prepare troops for "a wide range of operations that include homeland security, counter-terrorism and disaster relief operations, as well as conventional operations in all types of terrain," Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said.
In June 2018, Ng said the armed forces would need to continue to change as Singapore is facing its highest terrorism threat level since the U.S. was attacked on September 11, 2001. Since then, the minister has announced plans including better cyber defence capabilities and orders of Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 fighter jets to replace the nation’s aging F-16 fleet.
Ng first announced the need for a new army training facility in 2017.
