Hi Guys, Most of us will have followed the disturbing revelations emerging from recent inquests into deaths of service personnel. I’m thinking particularly of the Nimrod explosion, the reported shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan and the apparent lack of suitably protected vehicles for troop movement on the ground in hostile environments. I’m not trying to knock the Labour Government, but I do believe that at no time have our forces been at the forefront of their thinking.
From my own experience I can cite my time in Rhodesia where we used vehicles supplied by the South African army, which had a distinct “V” shaped under belly, so that should the vehicle trigger an IED (the weapon of choice of the ANC) then the force of the blast was deflected away from the occupants. The design worked, they were not expensive to produce, simply a redesign of our own 4 tonner, which were produced by many of the local manufacturers. This was thirty years ago! It seems to me there is a reluctance to learn from others, it is as if we have to experience the deaths of our own soldiers before action is taken. A bit later, my time in Northern Ireland taught us through bitter experience that the only safe way to move troops around the badlands was by helicopter, Warren Point was a particularly poignant lesson; (cause an incident, then attack the follow up recovery operation). The Taleban have learnt how to effectively attack a better armed and resourced army, but even after six years of warfare we seem to be stuck with equipment and tactics better suited to Central Europe than to the wilds of Afghanistan.
All the best. Dave
paul croxson
Dave, far be it for me to differ (that's a load of rubbish for a start) but to blame all of these problems on the Labour Party is a bit steep. As far as I know there isn't a single Labour MP who has had any Military Service experience, rather like myself in that respect. I think the Tories have one and a couple of TA's, who nowadays are quite important
Decisions regarding equipment are basically controlled - after the original requirement is established - by the Ministry of Defence which is and has been since 1882 totally non-political. The way these things work used to be that specifications would be drawn up and then....shock horror, the experts would be called in.
"If we had this or ... if we had that" the trouble starts; "can we have it multi-purpose, sky-blue-pink; what about some brass knobs on the military version?" The Civil Service love it as it gives them more work, the contractors loves it as the size of the contract balloons, (those magic words "Agreed extras".) These experts are often ex-service trying to do their little best but have absolutely no commercial expertise.
So, there's the recipe for complete disaster. Experts who don't need to count the cost; civil servants who have a vested interest in keeping the system going and contractors who want to extract every penny they can. Add to this that peculiar thing 'approved contractors' and what do we get? If the labour Party is in power and the Daily Mail has their way it's always all down to them.
I got furious when the Mail was going on about the lack of desert gear and our poor darling troops having to go round in green rather than sand coloured kit. How many of our troops actually needed to merge into the surrounding countryside? One in ten? That's the usual ratio if I recall. The same with the boots, they weren't exactly bare-footed were they! We all like the best but should the Government now start ordering arctic equipment by the gross in case we are suddenly called to another political nasty in the arctic? (Oh, by the way, I've seen quite a lot of green stuff growing in Afghanistan anyway that they could merge into quite nicely!)
This problem has been with us since the year dot and will continue to do so. The problem is that with modern communications we all know what is going on and can all have a bloody good moan. Read the reports in 'The Times' from their correspondent in the Crimea 1854-1856 and there aint no difference!
Whilst you were still a snotty-nosed schoolboy, Dave, we Old Men were defending Democracy in Langeleben and the uniforms that we all wanted to get our hands on (or rather, feet in) were the Canadian lumberjack boots and the leather jerkins. Get some of these and you were Princes amongst the 'hard men' as those photos 1952-1956 show. Talk about 'Dead men's shoes'. Somebody would have them off you the moment your name went up on 'Orders'.
Oh, and would you like a list of military fiascos which happened during the various Conservative administrations. It's quite long.
David Thomas
Hi Paul, How could you ever assume that it is possible for you and me to disagree about anything? I know the problems I mentioned are not wholly the responsibility of our current Government, but you will never convince me that the military registers very prominently on their RADAR.
I should perhaps own up to the fact that for some 8 years I worked for one of the preferred defence contactors you mentioned. I came out of the Army in ’85 and got a job in project management at BAe, for the most part it was the Navy that received the benefit of my extensive expertise, needless to say most of the ships we fitted Seawolf to, are now decommissioned. I did work on one Army project however, it was for the Royal Artillery, called (by us) the Battery Command Post Processor and sought to bring computerisation into their gun range finding and shell trajectory. What you say about the procurement process being torturous is absolutely true, add to that process, the very fast development of computer design and you have a continuing recipe for disaster. All the best. Dave
paul croxson
In my impecunious days (even more than nowadays) I let out the ground floor of my house to 4 engineers who worked for Vickers at WQeybridge and all of whom had been involved with the development of the TSR2. The day came when it had to be demonstated as being a worthwhile project to continue. They were at it hammer and tongs and I found out after that the undercarriage (that's the wheels bit Dave,) would not retract and so they had welded into place and made sure that when taking off and landing it was not in the public view for too long. Three had been built and just this one ever flew. It was scrapped in favour of a US plane and this was also scrapped.
These disaters are all due to our pretence of being a World Power (mainly for the egos of our Prime Ministers. As Thatcher said "we punched above our weight". Didn't we just and we are now reaping the harvest.
Aircraft carriers, nuclear submarine, multi-role combat aircraft, Iraq, Afghanistan ... the list goes on.
