British Military Current Events

[StudentGrant]

Best of Luck to them

Having done the Canadian Ski Marathon, and been to the Hardangervidde a couple of times, it should be quite challenging!

 

[MarkOttawa]

Lovely plane, but..the Brits sure are stretched:

Vintage VC10 pressed into service with RAF's transport fleet
A vintage aircraft that has been banned from flying passengers bar “exceptional circumstances” has been pressed into service with the RAF’s transport fleet at breaking point.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8217143/Vintage-VC10-pressed-into-service-with-RAFs-transport-fleet.html

The fleet of 50-year-old VC10 planes have been forced to start flying passengers again after the 40-year-old Tristar transport aircraft have been grounded by technical faults.

Coupled with the poor weather there is now a backlog of 570 soldiers waiting to get home for Christmas leave.

But the use of the VC10s has caused defence chiefs to question whether the “airbridge” to Afghanistan has been “stretched beyond breaking point”.

Earlier this year the VC10s, which first came into service in the early Sixties, were ordered to be only used in an air-to-air refuelling capacity. The decision came on the back of the highly critical Haddon-Cave report that highlighted serious safety failings following the 2006 Nimrod crash over Afghanistan which resulted in 14 Service deaths.

The Haddon-Cave review severely restricted the VC10’s ability to carry passengers because it has an outdated ground proximity warning device.

However the aircraft, which can carry 124 people, is allowed to fly troops if a senior officer signs a waiver in exceptional circumstances such as a major war.

“This is something we don’t do in routine circumstances, only if it is a serious national emergency like war when peacetime restrictions are dropped,” said an RAF source...

Two of the 15 VC10s were retired this April after they had amassed a combined 81,500 flying hours.

Keeping open the airbridge to Afghanistan is a massive undertaking for the RAF with its ageing transport fleet that has to fly out 230,000 passengers a year from Brize Norton.

Already the recently bought C17 Globemasters are showing signs of fatigue with frequent breakdowns including one last month when Prince William was stranded in a Middle Eastern country for several hours on his way to Helmand...

 

I flew a BOAC VC-10 from Heathrow to Johannesburg in the mid-60s.  Nice aircraft.  Note:

Any similarities with VC10s living or dead are a mere Ilyushin
http://www.vc10.net/History/Comp_il62.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[StudentGrant]

Plus ça change...

 

[daftandbarmy]

Viking out, Warthog in as 2 RTR unleash new beast.

2 RTR, as the unit is known, will use Warthog’s outstanding manoeuvrability to bring firepower and armoured support wherever it’s needed. To reflect the new vehicle at their disposal, 2 RTR soldiers in theatre are now known as “Warthog Group” – and they are already renowned as one of the most mobile ground units under British command in Helmand.

Warthog is a relatively light but robust tracked vehicle. It consists of two cabs: the front cab houses the driver and commander and is armed with a heavy weapons turret. The rear cab is used for carrying infantry.
The new vehicle has greater armour protection and more power than its predecessor – but still retains the superb cross-country performance for which the Viking was known.

Corporal Tristan ‘Tiny’ Cordery (35), from Fowey in Cornwall, is a veteran of two tours of Iraq and one of Kosovo, and has also served in Afghanistan before. He has now returned to Afghanistan as a Warthog commander with 2 RTR.

Cpl Cordery said: “I’m excited about using the new Warthog vehicle. We can use Warthog to get where other vehicles cannot go. We can move around the battlefield and provide protection to the infantry and engineers while they work.”

Trooper Nick Dinsdale (29), from Basildon, Essex, will be driving a Warthog in Helmand and it is a task that he relishes.

Tpr Dinsdale said: “I joined the Royal Tank Regiment to drive big vehicles and Warthog really is a big boy’s toy. It’s great cross country.

“I like the versatility of tracked vehicles – where you can go and what you can do is so much greater than with wheels. It does take some getting used to though. We’ve tested Warthog to the limit – I’m really impressed with it.”

http://ukforcesafghanistan.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/viking-out-warthog-in-as-2-rtr-unleash-new-beast/

 

[daftandbarmy]

Prince Harry to join Army veterans in North Pole trek

Two of the team are amputees. Cavalry officer Guy Disney, from Oxford, had his lower leg blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan in 2009.

And paratrooper Jaco Van Gass, originally from South Africa, had his left arm amputated at the elbow after a similar attack on operations.

Martin Hewitt, also with the Paras, has a paralysed right arm after being shot by Afghan insurgents, and Steve Young from the Welsh Guards fractured his back when his vehicle went over a buried mine in Afghanistan.

…fortunately, their brains were unaffected - I think

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12173454

 

[daftandbarmy]

Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London.

Putting the 'Great' back into 'Britain':


http://www.eyeonvirginia.com/videos/524/yeoman-warder-at-tower-of-london

 

[daftandbarmy]

Life with the Lancers: What's it like to be shot at?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12018214

 

[REDinstaller]

We hosted WO2 Gould and his RSM in our mess in 2008, while the QRL were in Suffield.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Attack of the drones

Unmanned aircraft are now a vital tool in war zones, but our skies could soon be buzzing with spy planes that feed information back to the police – and even the paparazzi

There is a second-and-a-half delay between the RAF operator pressing his button and the Hellfire rocket erupting from the aircraft he is controlling, circling in the sky above Afghanistan.

That's a long time in modern warfare, but the plane is an unmanned "drone" and its two-strong crew are 8,000 miles away at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Right now, the Reaper is being commanded from a console with twin video screens shaped to resemble a plane's cockpit.

The UK has five Reapers like this one operating in Afghanistan. With a wingspan of 66ft, they are 36ft long, reach a top speed of 250 knots and usually carry four Hellfire rockets and two laser-guided bombs. These Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – which rely on fibre optic cables, European "upstations" and satellite links – are part of an international trend towards remote combat. RAF-controlled Reapers used their weapons in Afghanistan 123 times in the first 10 months of 2010.

British forces are also using smaller drones, such as Lockheed Martin's hand-launched Desert Hawk. The lightweight surveillance aircraft is flown by Royal Artillery controllers to provide army patrols with "over the hill" vision for improved reconaissance. Last summer the Ministry of Defence ordered £3m worth of an enhanced version that will give troops in Afghanistan "greater situational awareness" and upgraded "target acquisition" capabilities. On the US side, there were more than 100 CIA-led drone strikes in Pakistan last year and the Pentagon is about to deploy its intimidatingly named Gorgon Stare airborne surveillance system, a multi-image video device for tracking suspects across large areas.

But interest in UAVs is not limited to the military. Advances in remote control, digital imagery and miniaturised circuitry mean the skies might one day be full of commercial and security drones.

They're already being used by the UK police, with microdrones deployed to monitor the V festival in Staffordshire in 2007. Fire brigades send similar machines to hover above major blazes, feeding images back to their control rooms. And civilian spin-offs include cheaper aerial photography, airborne border patrols and safety inspections of high-rise buildings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/16/drones-unmanned-aircraft

 

[daftandbarmy]

‘Fearless’ Paras Earn Respect Of Local Population

British soldiers today marked a security success, by facilitating a district governor’s shura – a traditional Afghan public meeting – in the previously troubled town of Showal.

http://ukforcesafghanistan.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/‘fearless’-paras-earn-respect-of-local-population/

 

[daftandbarmy]

£1.7m for soldier who lost a leg  when his company was caught in an Afghanistan minefield

A British paratrooper who lost a leg in a fateful mission in Afghanistan has won a £1.7million payout in a rare High Court decision.

Cases involving services personnel injured in the face of the enemy very rarely make it to court because the Crown enjoys 'combat immunity' against such claims.

Sergeant Stuart Pearson was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal after the tragedy in Helmand Province, which killed Corporal Mark Wright and injured five other comrades from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348646/1-7m-soldier-lost-leg-minefield-death-mission.html#ixzz1BWBw8AQ4http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348646/1-7m-soldier-lost-leg-minefield-death-mission.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Braveheart Programme

The Braveheart Programme began its journey in early 2009 in the humble surroundings of the last military pub in Aldershot, The Trafalgar Inn. It is a grass roots Charity, established for veterans by veterans with a core belief that the men and women from our Armed Forces deserve to be helped when they leave the Services, to which so many have devoted and, in some cases given, their lives.

Many of our comrades-in-arms are unable to live normal lives for a wide variety of reasons.  These range from physical and mental injuries to complicated incompatibilities created by their military training.  In some cases the separation and alienation from normal society and the extreme experiences, which military service often entails, result in uniquely severe psychological problems that demand equally unique attention and resolution.

As an enabling organisation, Braveheart’s core aim is to focus on mental health research through a programme that commissions detailed and, in some cases, ground-breaking studies into the effects of war trauma in order to better inform the outcomes for and treatment of this tremendously deserving and brave-hearted group in British society.

In these our early stages, we are developing the knowledge from which this expertise will be created.  As our full name suggests, everything we do is deliberately programmed and carefully researched in order to get things done. As we were when we served in HM Forces, so too are we now dedicated to being totally effective.

Finally, we exist solely for the continuing care of our comrades-in-arms. All our fundraising events are aimed at bringing the ex-Forces community together to enjoy each other's company and ensure that individuals don't slip through the cracks into personal difficulties. We do this by fostering the Services’ ethos of comradeship, support and professionalism for veterans of HM Forces as they try to make their way in civilian life.

http://www.braveheartprogramme.org/

 

[daftandbarmy]

Soldier leaves voicemail marriage proposal - on wrong girl's phone

A British soldier is at the centre of an identity hunt after making a marriage proposal to his girlfriend in a voicemail message - but he had called the wrong number.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/853708-soldier-leaves-voicemail-marriage-proposal-on-wrong-girls-phone#ixzz1C70trZNA

 

[daftandbarmy]

Scrapping the RAF's £4bn Nimrod fleet 'risks UK security'

The scrapping of the RAF’s £4 billion fleet of Nimrod surveillance aircraft will create a “massive security gap”, the country’s leading military figures have warned.

In an open letter to the Daily Telegraph, former defence chiefs from all three services say the decision to destroy nine MRA4 Nimrods to save money is “perverse” and could cause serious long-term damage to the country’s interests.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8284935/Scrapping-the-RAFs-4bn-Nimrod-fleet-risks-UK-security.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

British soldier killed in Afghanistan disobeyed order and ran to help injured colleague

A soldier who became Britain's 350th military fatality in Afghanistan died after disobeying a direct order and running to help an injured colleague, his Commanding Officer has disclosed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/8284940/British-soldier-killed-in-Afghanistan-disobeyed-order-and-ran-to-help-injured-colleague.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

Am I dreaming? Brilliant...

Problem pupils will have to enrol at 'boot camps' run by former soldiers

Former army officers who fought in Afghanistan will keep the youngsters under close supervision while teaching them teamwork and basic skills.

Almost three million working days a year were lost with some 308,800 teachers taking at least one day off in 2009, according to latest official figures.

The rising levels of sick leave mean more pupils are taught by supply teachers who may not be specialists in the subjects they are teaching. They are also expensive, up to £210 a day.

Michael Gove blamed the problem on stress caused by the amount of bureaucracy introduced by Labour.

A spokesman for the Education Department said yesterday’s Bill would cut the burden of red tape.
There will be a strong emphasis on physical exercise including assault courses and training similar to the Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme.

Children will be taught maths skills by learning how to use a map in a forest. They will also be expected to volunteer in their community.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351229/Problem-pupils-enrolled-boot-camps-run-soldiers-says-Education-Secretary.html#ixzz1CIVHrTqF

 

[daftandbarmy]

Antique Nimrod subhunters scrapped – THANK GOODNESS!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/27/nimrod_scrappage/

 

[daftandbarmy]

British guns used against Nato forces in Afghanistan

Dozens of British machine guns have been stolen in Afghanistan and used against Nato forces, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

Serious questions are being asked about a cover-up by commanders in Helmand after the 59 Minimi machine guns were not reported missing for almost a year. The theft was revealed only when American forces recovered two of the guns following a battle with the Taliban.

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, who was told about the incident this week, is said to be furious that the weapons were allowed to be taken by the insurgents and, potentially, could have been used against British troops.

He has ordered an inquiry into why enough weapons to equip an infantry battalion could go missing without anyone noticing or being informed.

The light machine guns, which can fire 1,000 rounds a minute, were flown from Britain to Camp Bastion in Helmand last October. They were then transported overland to British forces operating at Kandahar airfield but it is believed the convoy was either ambushed or the weapons were illegally sold. No one realised or reported that they had gone missing until last month, when American forces operating in southern Afghanistan discovered two of the guns, whose serial numbers matched those stolen. Defence sources have described the incident as a “terrible embarrassment for British forces”.

“We have no evidence that they have been used against British forces but clearly it’s an alarming situation,” said one defence source.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7981157/British-guns-used-against-Nato-forces-in-Afghanistan.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

Ex PARA Officer Dan Jarvis to run as MP for Barnsley.

The seat is currently held by Labour MP Eric Illsley, however, he has announced his intention to stand down after admitting to dishonestly claiming over £14,000 in expenses.

Eric Illsley will stand down after claiming thousands in expenses (PA)
Mr Jarvis, who was announced as the Labour candidate on Thursday night, spent 15 years as a soldier and has served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Iraq.

He was also a Parachute Regiment Company Commander in Afghanistan.

'Barnsley is a great community with a proud history and I'm honoured that local Labour party members have chosen me as their candidate for Barnsley Central,' he said.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/854075-war-hero-dan-jarvis-is-labour-candidate-for-by-election#ixzz1DyJjzUoz

 

[daftandbarmy]

Captured! Dramatic moment Royal Navy swooped on Somali pirates who were holding five hostages

British sailors have freed five hostages who were held captive by Somali pirates for three months.
A naval boarding party from HMS Cornwall discovered the Yemeni hostages after searching the pirates' sailing boat in the Indian Ocean, the Ministry of Defence said.
The boarding crew also found and destroyed weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, and three skiffs used to launch attacks.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357712/Royal-Navy-sailors-free-hostages-held-months-Somali-pirates.html#ixzz1EAd6cNxy