St Crispin’s Day

I went to a very interesting meeting today (which I can’t tell you about)

I learned that the government has made some political decisions about the armed forces (which I can’t tell you about)

These will directly lead to bad thing happening (which I can’t tell you about)

I’m sure they have a plan to deny it all or ignore it or cover it up.

BBC NEWS | UK | Forces’ centre gets £24m boost

Working on the assumption that this government has no empathy for our armed forces (and the current track record does not give lie to this idea), we can only assume that this increase in the budget to Headly Court is beause we are in these wars for the long haul.

It must be welcomed, at the very least we will have a better facility for a few years to come.

Let’s hope the locals don’t complain again!!

Well,  It’ been less than 24 hours since Boris became mayor, and already my car has had the window broken (whilst in SE London) and the Satnav stolen!

God! I hate wordpress!!

Sorry to Geoff, as I had to delete a couple of posts he had commented on as they had reformated the WHOLE WEBSITE.

I’m getting tired of waiting for minutes for the editor to load in WPand the strange formating mistakes it makes.
More importantly I’m angry that my it’s so hard to upgrade to another version.  ANyone out there able to help?

UK helicopter industry ‘will die in MoD cuts’  
A £1 billion helicopter project has been “offered up as a sacrifice” for defence cuts as the Ministry of Defence struggles to manage its funding crisis, it was claimed yesterday. 
The termination of the Future Lynx deal would herald the end of major helicopter manufacturing in Britain if Gordon Brown decides to go ahead with the reductions.  But defence sources said it was now “highly likely” that the order for 70 Future Lynx utility helicopters, which were to be bought for the Army and the Royal Navy, will be axed. The decision could lead to the closure of the Westland helicopter plant in Yeovil, Somerset, with the loss of 800 jobs. Douglas Carswell, a Tory MP who has written a paper on scrapping the Lynx deal with the Italian firm Finmeccanica, said: “This is a bad deal and the sooner we get out of it the better. “We could announce, for example, that we would buy the same amount of helicopters from Sikorsky - and still have £580 million to spend addressing funding shortages elsewhere in the Armed Forces.” He added that the Sikorsky Seahawk helicopters would be available within 12 months. The Lynx is not expected in service until 2013. But one programme that defence sources have confirmed is certain to go ahead will be the two aircraft carriers being built for £4 billion in Scottish constituencies with strong Labour Party ties. The issues are expected to come up on Thursday when industry chiefs meet Baroness Taylor, the defence procurement minister.
 

 I must comment that this is an ongoing issue with  military procurement.  We could always buy cheaper from other countries.  Everything from artillery ammunition to helicopters is better purchased from other countries such as the USA due to economies of scale. The problem is that when you need the spares, and the country who manufactures them is at war with you, then, the cupboard is usually bare! Hellfire missiles & Chinook spares were cases in point when the current conflagration blew up.

We need our own arms industry no matter the cost.  What we do need to do is sell our product to lots of others so that our economies of scale can work for us!

Just a note (for Geoff really) to say that I’m in Gibraltar for the next few days (until 28 Apr)

If he’s in ROM then look me up!

 Or look for the disorderly officer in casemates sq!!

Hi all,

 I’ve been off for quite a while working for the Army, and personal events have sapped my will to blog.

But I read this today whilst in the gym here at Larkhill, and it just raised my spirits.  I’m surrounded by loyal hardworking soldiers.  Some “special” wear the badges of their efforts as wings or daggers (or both).  But most are just good soldiers. Capable of deploying in role doing INCREDIBLY complex & technical stuff and some out of role doing equally demanding work.  The utility of the gunners is astounding.  I salute them all (including the two who passed me without saluting me … ahem….).

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Harstad, Norway | Marines in naked rap | The Sun |HomePage|News

 I suggest that the MoD spokesman is sacked immediatly, if he thinks stripping naked, and pissing on each other is “out of character” for Marines, then he’s not got the experience needed for this job.

Marines strip at the drop of a hat!  It’s tradition!

BBC NEWS | UK | Prince Harry rejects ‘hero’ label

I’ve been considering this news for a couple of days, trying to decide whether it has much significance.  Undoubtably it’s a media coup for the MOD, and they have, I think, played it rather will. What does jump out at me from the page is the fact that the much heralded “online media” crowd have let themselves down quite badly. 

As you all know the deployment of the prince was the subject of a “D Notice” type media blackout that all the established media (papers TV & Radio) subscribed to.  The news was broken by an online source (not in the UK). 

Online media (mostly blogs & news sites) have put themselves up as the new, “fast to print”, way of giving us the news we want.  I believe they have shown thier lack of maturity in this case, as all the grown up organisations know that they must have a difficult balancing act between being “all over” the establishment and “biting the hand that feed it”.  Online media have shown that they have no yet got this balance right.

BAE puts HERTI on show in Singapore - UPI.com

What a load of B&llocks!!  I was there when it was trialled, and it nearly crashed!!  It had engine failure on finals!!