Military

Umm:

Joan Wingate Lamb was born in Chicago in 1940, to Deborah (née Bent), a housewife, and Theodore, an architect who died in a plane crash in Portugal in 1943.

American, plane crash, Portugal a neutral state, 1943?

Architect? Possibly, but probably not the reason for that flight.

Britain could move nuclear submarines to France if Scotland backs independence

It should be easier if you’re only trying to hit the place you’re already in….

I served with the Nato mission in Afghanistan – it was a bloated mess
Anonymous
From relying on outsourced contractors to failing to tackle corruption, the west’s military presence was not fit for purpose

The military aren’t the group you rely upon to tackle corruption. Further, the military always rely upon outside contractors. There’s no point in spending years creating a trained killing machine to then use it cooking omelettes. Or, as my brother did, ordering in flavoured grits.

China has developed the world’s most advanced wind tunnel, capable of simulating 30 times the speed of sound and handing Beijing an edge in the race for hypersonic weapons.

The JF-22 facility in Beijing could replicate speeds of up to 23,000mph, far outstripping its rivals in the United States. It is due for completion this year.

Although myself I might wonder whether it’s actually going to work. “Due for completion” and “could” are little signals there.

Did you note that remarkable fact in Harding’s obit, that he was retained on half pay after his enormity with Lady Buck – a service tradition?!

Remarkable? Marshals – whether Field or Air Force – plus Admirals of the Fleet never do retire. So they don’t get pensions, just go on half pay.

OK, so it is remarkable, but I thought all knew it already?

Sophisticated military equipment gifted to the Afghan National Army by British and US forces could be used by the Taliban, experts have warned.

For years, US, British and Nato forces have supplied the Afghan security forces tanks, weapons, armoured vehicles, helicopters and sensitive communications equipment so they could resist the insurgents without Western help.

However, now the Afghan National Army has been routed, huge quantities of military hardware has been found, often in pristine condition, after its soldiers fled their bases.

Equipment meant to be used against the Taliban has instead now become part of their arsenal.

Experts warned that although the equipment was of limited use without training, maintenance and spares, the Taliban could either be given help from Pakistan or they could coerce former pilots by threatening their families.

Well, yes. Except this sort of hardware requires a lot of maintenance. A lorra lot.

I even know someone, have been mildly in business with for decades, someone who supplies such spare parts and maintenance. To, actually, these very bits of kit often enough.

It’s not even that they’ll not be able to get those spare parts to do the maintenance. It’s that the economy simply won’t support their doing so. Not, even, on cost grounds. There’s simply not the depth of knowledge and skill to keep complex kit operating.

To take just the one example, to keep those helicopters in the air they need maintenance teams from the US or ex-Soviet states (depends on which bird is being talked about). Local knowledge ain’t enough.

So, those birds are gong to fly for weeks, maybe at a push months and certainly not years.

The US president said as recently as 8 July that there was no likelihood of Afghanistan being overrun.

Hmm. And here’s a problem that afflicts any at all hierarchy that tries to do stuff:

The Sigar report also lambasted the tendency for politicians and senior military to look for good news. It says there is a “natural desire for good news to pass on up the chain of command”.

“In the words of one former senior military official: ‘As intelligence makes its way up higher, it gets consolidated and watered down; it gets politicised. It gets politicked because once policymakers get their hands on it, and frankly, once operational commanders get their hands on it, they put their twist on it.

“Operational commanders, state department policymakers and Department of Defense policymakers are going to be inherently rosy in their assessments. They will be unaccepting of hard-hitting intelligence.’”

All factories report that the Plan is met being, Comrade!

As to the specific problem:

It also raises the question of why the Biden administration ever thought it was safe to leave Afghan forces on their own after decades of dependence on the US for key skills, including air cover, logistics, maintenance, and training support for ANDSF ground vehicles and aircraft; security; base support; and transportation services.

So anything complex wasn’t to be done locally by locals.

At the outset, the US began transforming the Afghan National Army from a light-infantry force to a combined-arms service with army, air force, and special forces element.

The local economy – in the broad sense, in that sense of capabilities and technical competence, not just money – couldn’t support a complex military. Thus, perhaps, it would have been better to simply remain with what could be supported locally, a light infantry force.

The plight of hundreds of Afghan interpreters who have served alongside British forces over the past 20 years is becoming increasingly desperate. They are hunted by a resurgent Taliban. They are executed for “collaboration”. They are ignored by a Home Office refusing to grant many of them a right of resettlement. Our national failure to acknowledge our obligation to these men and their families is a moral catastrophe. In putting things right, we might begin to rescue not only them, but also ourselves.

Incentives matter.

They have helped our military. Therefore, in order to gain help from indigenes for our military in the future we should be flying planeloads of them here. Right now. And being liberal about it too. Better that we bring too many than too few.

Not doing so is worse than being illiberal or whatever, it’s an error.

‘What if someone buried my son?’ Anguish of search for Armenia’s war dead

Well, yes Madam. But would you prefer it if no one had buried your dead son?

Bring in Army to solve migrant crisis, former Border Force boss says

You know that liquid bit that goes up and down? Tanks and horses don’t work well there. It’s the other lads you want, with the blue uniforms. The Navy. They too have guns to sink the boats, it’s just their guns float…..

His hat is on the wrong way around, medals and name badge on the wrong tit each, he’s wearing a big girl’s blouse from the buttoning and he’s even gone so far as to mirror write his name.

Or, alternatively, the picture editor has inverted the photo left to right……

And yet government procurement still gives us:

It comes after trials of the vehicles had to be suspended from November 2020 to March of this year, after it was found troops had suffered swollen joints and tinnitus while being inside the vehicles.

In a Government report seen by The Telegraph it states that safety limitations on the tanks include “speed restrictions of 20mph” as well as “limiting time in the platform to 1hr 30mins before crew change”.

The report warns that due to the speed restrictions, which are understood to be caused by design flaws that have resulted in excessive vibrations that prevent cannons being fired on the move, the Household Cavalry regiment “cannot conduct effective collective training on the platform”.

Meanwhile, it states that due to safety limitations the current design means “the vehicle cannot reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high”.

You should have seen the food in the Soviet rations shops after only 70 years of government procurement.

Still, this is fun:

The programme to deliver a new family of armoured fighting vehicles was decided in 2010, with 589 different variants of the vehicle ordered in 2014.

Gonna be fun with spare parts, isn’t it?

On the banks of the Stossensee there was a stand-off between British and Soviet troops, who tried to secure the crash site but failed. They watched suspiciously as the British ostensibly started the task of salvaging the fighter and returning the wreckage and the bodies of the airmen to the Soviet authorities.

Attlee had called in navy divers from Britain to examine the Soviet aircraft. The British and Americans were particularly interested in the Yak’s secret radar, which was known as Skipscan, which was more advanced than anything operated by the western air forces, as well as the fighter’s turbojet engines.

On the surface of the lake the British appeared to struggle to raise the jet or find the bodies of the crew. On the bed of the lake Attlee’s divers removed the Yak’s radar and engines and dragged them to a secure location far from prying eyes. The latest Soviet technology was then put in crates and flown from Berlin to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough in Hampshire for analysis.

Less than two days later the radar and engines were returned to the wreck of the Yak, which was then raised and passed to the Soviet authorities along with the bodies of the Soviet airmen. It was a remarkable operation. Within a year the British and Americans had reduced the critical gap in radar technology.

Explosive weapons used in cities kill civilians 91% of time, finds study

That’s a bit of a turn up for the books.

I have a possibly unrealistic definition of what it is to be “fit”. If you can do it in twice the time of the world record then you’re good to go. No, not a good athlete but you meet my rough and ready standard of fit. The mile is 4 minutes or so. So, if you can run two miles in 16 minutes then you meet my standard. And that’s not, if we’re honest about it, all that tough a target. This is a near 4 hour marathon if continued for that distance. Something thousands upon thousands manage at every public race. Yes, OK, a marathon is harder than two miles but…..

And now?

Specifically, without a separate, minimum standard for combat arms, the requirements to join the nation’s combat forces could soon be as low as performing ten push-ups in two minutes, running two miles in twenty-one minutes, deadlifting 140 pounds three times, and performing only one repetition of a leg tuck or, failing that, two minutes of a plank exercise.

The British tests are here. They look superficially similar. But they’re minimum entry level for the Army, not for combat roles……

makes me wonder about his pension. He was an Admiral, Field Marshal and Air Marshal. Did he earn three salaries and hence three pensions ?

Anne’s bloke, Timothy whatever, he made Vice Admiral as an actual job. Sure, pushed more than a bit but still. So, full pay and pension.

Philip definitely did enough years active service to get some pension, possibly a gratuity back then, possibly an actual pension.

But those Royal ranks, hmm, well?

Not sure:

The Duke of York has asked to defer an honorary Navy promotion he was due to receive when he turned 60, Buckingham Palace has said.

Prince Andrew was set to be promoted to Admiral on 19 February, in line with a policy that sees senior royals treated as serving military members.

But the palace said he had asked the Ministry of Defence to defer it until a time when he returns to public duty.

Does he get paid/pensioned as an Admiral? Or only the rank he achieved properly? Umm, Lt. Commander wasn’t he?

Re pensions Philip is probably easier as Admiral of the Fleet, not mere Admiral – alongside Field Marshal. And there are no pensions there, it’s half pay for life. I think.

I would venture a very assured guess that it won’t be three of those half pays.

But do the Royal ranks come with pay or not? Dunno – Jason Lynch might tho’……

“It is necessary to deprive the German command of all initiative, forestall the adversary, and to attack the German army when it is still in the deployment stage and has no time to organise the distribution of forces at the front,” wrote the Soviet commanders to Joseph Stalin. The day on which they did so is by far the most surprising part of the document: 15 May 1941, one month and one week before Hitler attacked the USSR. In the spring of 1941, the Soviets considered attacking the Germans first, writes Sean McMeekin in his latest book, Stalin’s War.

The grand mistake? The only useful way of defending against an armoured invasion being defence in depth? The one thing Stalin absolutely forbade?

If you actually fire that sort of gun with that sort of hold aren’t you going to end up with a very burnt hand?

Sure, nice piccie and all but…..on the other hand he is RAF…..

Making peace with the Taliban would be to sacrifice 20 years of blood and treasure
Biden’s peace deal represents a betrayal of Afghanistan, and of the hundreds of British soldiers killed there

“So, what do we do now?” is the only interesting question…..

Saw the word “arras” being used and didn’t quite know what it meant. Bit of a castle fortification or something? Turns out it’s a big tapestry hung on a wall. OK. But in looking it up get told this by Wikipedia:

Arras-class aviso, a class of thirty French avisos

Umm, yes, and no doubt when “aviso” is looked up it is defined as one of the 30 that make up the French arras class?