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I'm new here and I'm a Singaporean. Thus I would like to shed some light regarding the new Singapore Frigates.
But first I want to comment something. Ido not know why the ppls here love to do country 'bashing' by throwing verbal abuses at the other. The forum is a place to dicuss military equipments of various nations, but not a place to satisfy one's "over-heated nationalism' I believe the new Chinese type 054 is a good attempt by the Chinese to catch up with new and modern ship design and technologies. No doubt it might not be as good as the French designs, the technical and design difficulties faced will definitely be solved as the Chinese gets more experienced. The Chinese might get a taste of better technologies with the arms embargo potentially coming to an end. Wat the Chinese lacks is a suitable and credible AA equipments ,while their surface to surface weapons are sufficient. The FM80 8 cell anti aircraft missile provides limited air defense against aircraft and missiles. The range is only 13km on the FM80 while the improved FM90 has 17km. Thus the air defenses need more improvements.

FRIGATE DESIGN

Delta design is a smaller derivative of the French La Fayette class stealth frigate with low radar, acoustic, infrared and electromagnetic signatures. A high level of automation and closely integrated combat and ship management systems have been selected to allow the frigate to be operated with a crew of just 80. The overall length is 114.8m.

FRIGATE MISSILES
The frigate is armed with the Boeing Harpoon surface-to-surface anti-ship missile. The Harpoon missile has a range of 130km and uses active radar guidance. The missile is armed with a 227kg warhead.

The frigate is fitted with the DCN Sylver vertical launch system with MBDA Aster 15 surface-to-air missiles. There are four eight-cell SYLVER A43 launch modules with 32 missiles. The two-stage Aster missile is a very high agility and high manoeuvrability defence missile for deployment against incoming sea skimming anti-ship missiles which use evasive terminal manoeuvres and re-attack modes. In anti-missile mode the Aster 15 has a range of 15km. Aster also provides protection against manned and unmanned aircraft to a range of 30km

FRIGATE GUN
The main gun is the Oto Melara 76mm/62 Super Rapid gun which fires 6kg shells to a range of 16km at a firing rate up to 120 rounds per minute.

FRIGATE SENSORS

The Herakles multi-function radar, supplied by Thales, is the frigate's primary surveillance radar. The phased array radar is a passive, three-dimensional, search and fire control radar operating over E- and F-bands. The radar, installed in a radome on top of the main mast, carries out long-range air and surface surveillance and weapon control. The Herakles radar is integrated with the Aster air defence missile system.

The frigates surface search and navigation radar is the Terma Scanter 2001, operating at I-band.

Some are asking why S'pore frigates are smaller. Basically S'pore is a small island republic ( slightly bigger than HK) with mostly neighbours with many small island surrounding or archipelago like nations. Thus it would be wiser to use smaller vessels as it would be more manoveurable and more efficient in terms of man power or fuel. Besides, S'pore has one of the worlds most busy ports, and the waters are crowded thus if ur ship is big there might be collision.

Sumdud, wat u say is nothing to worry. S'pore and most Southeast Asia republics are too small or too economically backward to be of a threat to U.S. or EU thus most probably they may not play attention to S'pore Thus arms embargo? Unlikely!
Not to fret, S'pore do have some small local defense company, which produce weapons S'pore uses like assault rifle, IFV, self-propel guns and ammunitions.

Hi Sumdud,

Singaporean here as well. Glad you found things interesting in my country!

I think he means Singapore is slightly bigger than HK Island, our country is roughly 60% the size of the entire HK SAR if I'm not wrong. We are also deciding between the F-15E and the Rafale as the main air superiority fighter for the comming years.

well, S'pore related military stuff u will have to check out the various official websites of the Singapore Armed Forces. I don't think there is any blog like websites about Singapore armed forces.
To answer ur question regarding the parking of arms. I am not sure if u could remember wat u saw on ur only trip to S'pore. S'pore population mostly live in small apartments in high rise flats, which are highly populated.
Thus many forested places are available for military training and installations. The area available is quite big and regiment level manoveurs and exercises can be conducted.
But due to limited air space and waters, S'pore navy and air-force frequently train overseas like Australia or Taiwan for brigade and above. S'pore also practise some form of conscription in which ppls must serve for the forces in a period of time, to create a large enough detterent forces.