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BASIC TRAINING
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EIGHT
IX. TRAINFIRE
Training to shoot with a rifle was part of a bigger package of small arms training which
spanned the basic, section level and officer cadet phases. The overall small arms training
module included instruction and practice on the rifle, the anti-tank rifle grenade, the hand
grenade, the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), the Infantry Rocket Launcher (IRL),
and the old British 52mm light mortar. In the 1960s, the M203 grenade launcher had not yet
been introduced into the SAF, but there was a rifle grenade that could be fired from the SLR.
In later years, it became fashionable to describe the infantryman as a one-man weapons’
platform. It is a valid description. The infantryman vocation is conceived to seek and destroy
the enemy in any terrain and weather and his main resources are the weapons he carries on
his person. Of these, the centerpiece is the rifle and its accessories: the bayonet and the
grenade launcher. The GPMG, the IRL and the light mortar enhance the infantryman’s
mission profile when operating within a platoon or a section. Those assigned to use these
latter weapons are sub-specialists within the vocation. The individual infantryman provides
the cross-terrain mobility, but more important, is his independent self-directed operating
capability, which allows him to break down a team mission into his personal component
and execute it on his own volition. His basic ability, therefore, must be proficiency with
his personal rifle and its accessories and his training with the rifle must result in it being an
extension of his psyche, e.g. he must be able to shoot instinctively and hit a target at close
range.
The rifle presentation ceremony conducted solemnly on the night of 2
nd
June, following the
attestation before a magistrate, had made each first intake trainee emotionally charged about
his rifle, as intended. No doubt each entertained visions of being an expert marksman, though
many would be disappointed. Basic marksmanship—the ability to hit a target the required
minimum number of times prescribed by the establishment—can be achieved by nearly every
shooter given a good grounding in the principles of holding, aiming and firing and sufficient
practice. But, there are practical limits to how much time, effort and resources can be devoted
to a large body under training. Moreover, like any skill, it must be constantly honed to get the
combination of sighting, breathing and squeezing the trigger to work fluidly and instinctively.
Trainfire began with company level lectures on the development of rifles and the firing
mechanisms and other theoretical subjects. There were also lectures on the organisation
and conduct of small arms ranges, with the key admonition that no firing would begin until
the red flag was raised on the range flagpole. The first intake was fortunate in that it did
not have to move out of SAFTI for range practice other than a couple of times to the old
Seletar Range for specialised shoots because it had virtual monopoly of the three ranges in
the complex.