Time to do some early morning shitposting
How are MKU Helmets? Someone argued with me in Reddit saying some "Singaporeans" commented they are trash. I know MKU is exported all over the world. Either those countries that are importing are idiots or "Singaporeans" who didn't fire a single bullet are enlightened. I have no faith on OFB products but I can't help but can't automatically assume bad about private companies.
Well the best way to look into this would have been to buy one MKU helmet and shoot various rounds at it and settle all debates. But that'll get me behind the bars and after funding DFB I don't think our Admins have any bucks left to bail me out.
So the next best way is to look at other clues. First one being patents.
Personally I consider patents, especially those filed in USA and European Union a good indicator of R&D. Because if someone is filing a patent there then it means they are sure that their invention is novel even in countries having such an old and large R&D base. This is in stark contrast with other (read 90%) Indian firms that scratch the logo of imported systems and claim it to be completely IDDM.
The next thing is their German Facility. They have a legit German subsidiary "MKU GmbH" tasked with R&D and overseas sales. If a firm is willing to set up a proper offshore facility then there should atleast be some sense of return on investment for its products.
And lastly as you've already pointed, their portfolio of customer is quite big and includes NATO countries. To get into any NATO military one must qualify STANAG tests and those are some serious benchmarks.
Now coming to the specific case of Singapore, there are only two reasons why a helmet can be trash; it either lacks in primary feature or in secondary.
Primary function is stopping bullet without too much BFT (Blunt Force Trauma) to the cranium. It's impossible to believe that a professional military like Singaporean would let a helmet into service that fails to stop a bullet during trials. So the next thing could be that the quality of helmets post trails have deteriorated significantly and some unfortunate grunt have lost his/her life. But then again Singapore is a democratic country with opposition, good media and a small population. An incident like a soldier losing his life due to procurement of substandard helmets would have caused a shitstorm of unprecedented levels. If you wanna get an idea then I still remember how in 2019 a poor chap lost his life after he was crushed by the barrel of SSPH Primus howitzer and it was the breaking news on every platform. Media reporting, simulations, national level investigation everything. This kind of incident get ignored as "acceptable occupational hazard" in even Tier 1 militaries like USA.
Secondary features are things like ease of use, paint quality, fitting, comfort. These are the only things a soldier can genuinely feel to be "trash" without taking a bullet to the head.
Take a look at this helmet
It's obviously a size or two smaller than the head resulting in not properly covering. Additionally there's no point of a high-cut helmet if you don't provide ear-protection. So ya, the "helmet" are trashy but not the MKU ones.
Turns out there are two manufacturers that provide similar high-cut helmets to Singaporean Army; one being MKU Ltd and the other being Dae-Sung Tech Co. Ltd from Korea. Now some say that initially MKU helmets were procured but then switched to other because of quality. And some say it was just to cut cost.
But whatever the reasons were, these new helmets are obviously smaller leading to not just discomfort but exposure to enemy fire.
Now add a few sprinkles of racism against Indians in Singapore and suddenly MKU becomes the worst helmet on the planet.
