The vehicles are low-loaded or driven to the form-up point for the column at the carpark next to Leisure Park Kallang overnight, and around 12pm is a good time to see them moving off.
The packet information on the vehicles lets one get an idea of the work needed to position even this small cross-section of Singapore's military and civil defence vehicles in place.
As usual, the carpark is not cordoned off, and a fair few members of the public have taken the opportunity to get up close and personal with the column and speak to the soldiers and Home Team personnel manning them.
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While vehicle commanders from the Army dismounted to guide their vehicles around tight bends, strangely, the Air Force M113 Igla group negotiated it straightaway rather than stopping to let the vehicle commander out. leading to one or two close scrapes with the pavement. The view isn't the best from the driver's compartment, and it was rather surprising to your author who was trained in armoured infantry. Perhaps it is standard practice in the Air Force, considering the marshallers directing traffic didn't bat an eye.
Further and more detailed coverage can be found on the excellent Kementah blog.
Considering that pioneering servicemen are taking part in the parade, I can't help but wonder if an opportunity was missed to bring vehicles now out of service out for the column. I'm perhaps influenced here by the Russian practice of keeping historical vehicles such as T-34 tanks in their Victory Day parades.
Quite apart from their historical value, they would also highlight the changes in the SAF ORBAT and Home Team's capabilities. The infantry, for instance, now has the Terrex to showcase, where in previous years they were mounted on tonners! (The column starts at 53:13, led by the then-new Bionix 1, which has been fully displaced from recent mobile columns.)
I'm not too clear on the state of the vehicles - I want to say older vehicles are still kept around, but I do know that much of certain fleets have been disposed of. In a pinch sourcing surplus in a pinch M113s and AMX-13s from abroad would not be terribly difficult, although they would need at the very least external visual modifications.
Finding operators and drivers wouldn't be terribly difficult; if not ROD-ed NSmen, regulars could also be tapped. Some of the warrant officers I met in my NSF days had been in armour since the pre-M113 Ultra days. I am sure that such a proposal wouldn't have slipped the committee's mind, but it is a shame that it did not come to pass.
On the subject of NS matters - another thing that's always tickled me about these columns is that NSmen spectators would be perfectly capable of driving and operating a large number of these vehicles, and it was a bit of a shame that this wasn't brought across. I personally felt like giving directions to some of the more beleaguered RSAF M113 drivers. The logistics of, say, manning half the vehicles with NSmen would be something new, but it would be quite a testament to the capabilities of the NS system and speak to the true nature of the Army's order of battle.
Another part of the SG50 NDP I'm looking forward to is the air flypast - post-2000 flypasts have been a bit muted, and this year's one looks like a return to the glory old days. The RSAF is certainly practicing hard here - instead of confining practices to weekends, they are flying almost every day.
