Military

‘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?

A soldier has admitted fraud after taking his older brother’s DNA paternity test so that he could avoid paying child maintenance, Leicester Crown Court hears.

Army private Samuel Robinson, and his elder brother, Christian Robinson, admitted jointly committing fraud by false representation at court earlier this week.

Christian Robinson, 26, had persuaded his younger brother, now 20, to take his DNA paternity test for him so that he could avoid paying his child maintenance fees after the child’s mother made an application naming him as the father.

The ruse backfired when the DNA results came back to show that the man who took the test was not the father but was closely related to the baby.

The MoD is facing an exodus of military medics over gender attitudes “30-40 years behind”, a leaked official review has found.

Citing “traditional and hierarchical” behaviours, the Defence Medical Services (DMS) leadership was told more work was required “to understand how to actively engage” with the organisation’s diversity and inclusion agenda.

The review of the DMS, the overarching health and medical body for the MoD, states: “During our discussions, we noted concerning feedback from one area where we were informed that several staff were actively looking for alternative roles due to gender biased behaviour towards them.

“Some interviewees described behaviours in these areas as ‘traditional and hierarchical’ with a perception that these were ‘30-40 years behind what is currently viewed as being accepted behaviour’”.

They’re complaining about hierarchy in the military.

It’s possible, just, that they’re in the wrong career if that’s a problem.

Two other attempts to escape were made during his time there but he never got beyond the camp grounds. He was subsequently sent to Stalag Luft III, near Sagan, the scene of The Great Escape.

Whilst at Stalag Luft III he met Talbot Rothwell, who later went on to write many of the Carry On films in which Butterworth was to star.

OK

Butterworth was one of the vaulters covering for the escapers during the escape portrayed by the book and film The Wooden Horse. Butterworth later auditioned for the film in 1949 but “didn’t look convincingly heroic or athletic enough” according to the makers of the film.

Titter.

Camp comedy, in both senses, was peculiarly British in tone but a sense of humour was not unique to British prisoners. The German PoW sent to work in the garden of one Mrs Graham of Boscombe was most helpful in 1945 but in the spring, after he had been repatriated, the crocuses came up in the middle of her lawn and spelt “Heil Hitler”.

Wilfred, a builder whose deafness had spared him the horrors of the Great War

No, don’t worry where that’s from, not relevant to the point.

Why is it that deafness, flat feet, bone spurs, possibly adenoids or whatever, means you’re exempt from being conscripted into dying for your country? A rational societal planner – which is what conscription purports to be, what with reserved occupations and so on – would have the lame and the halt at the front collecting the lead poisoning and the fit and healthy young things back home siring the next generation, no?

Without the Army, Prince Harry will have a gaping void in his life

The sort of hole that uxoriousness is supposed to fill. And if it doesn’t, well…..

A decorated two-star general has been forced to leave the British Army after being found guilty of lying about his relationship with a female subordinate, The Telegraph has learned.

Major-General Chris Bell, 48,

This might be a little out of date but there comes a point where it’s up or out. Do your 2 or 3 year posting, gain promotion from it or that’s it, pension time. This usually starts at age 55.

But as you can see, there are only a couple of steps left to the top there. And he’s 48. He coulda been a contender.

On the other hand this is part of what the system is at this level. A vicious competition to see who will make it to that top.

The US army has developed a supergun that has fired an artillery shell over a distance of 70km, hitting a target “on the nose”.

Believed to be the longest precision-guided cannon shot in history, it was the equivalent of firing a shell from London to Basingstoke or Luton.

It’s Slough that has to be hit. Come along, any fule kno that.