ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by guzzijon

Well if this is to be believed and it is predominantly support arms which take the hit, presumably the intention is to replace them with civillian contractors?

A question that will be answered by the soon to begin in-house study into future logistic provision (apologies, I'm outside this loop and the precise name escapes me) which, having had a quick glance at the TORs, translates into "what is the least and cheapest option with a degree of credibility that we can get away with".

Originally Posted by postman_twit

Nothing to do with Her Majesty dropping subtle hints by having Gurkhas flank her dias during the review on Saturday then?

Those Gurkha officers are part of Her Majesty's Household staff, it's a relic of the old Indian Empire, they're present during Investitures, etc., I believe it's a 2 year posting for them. No subtle hints - just a long standing tradition.

Originally Posted by CH512O

Which we do now and they are not quite untrained, very willing and the facilties are pretty good where they fix the wagons!

True, it works well in places like Bastion, but trying to do the same thing with a greater number of contractors in a fast paced, manouver warfare environment might prove to be the undoing of the whole thing.

Keeping organic capacity with in the Army might not be cost effective in "peace" time but ti could come back to bite us on the arse.

PS, cheers for not taking the obviouse "we do that with you bunch of STABs" route.

not the proper ghurka battalions but what about all the others who are padding the ranks? from what I've been told sending the colonials home would meet the 20k easily.

can you imagine a chally2 breaking down during a battle... then the AA wagon tipping up?....

Originally Posted by Tawahi-50

I would guess that timing of this article in yesterday's People wasn't accidental.


I don't agree that Joanna won better pensions, and although her campaign didn't help the future of the Gurkhas, they were still more expensive before she appeared on scene.

Correct. I know we've discussed this before, but "her" campaign was on behalf on Gurkhas who had served and retired before 1997 and the withdrawal from Hong Kong. The changes to Gurkha TACOS had already happened prior to her campaign.

So unless the MoD is bearing social security costs etc for Gurkha families who came to UK as a result of her campaign, she made no difference to the defence cost of modern serving Gurkhas.

Hack, I think it's a safe bet to assume HMG are bearing the social security costs of a sh*t load of Gurkha families who came to the UK as a result of Lumley's campaign.

Sadly the Gurkhas are not the cheap infantrymen they were in the FARELF of Malaya, Borneo and Hong Kong's immigration waves - which was, after all, their raison d' etre.
Time to let that anachronism go.

Originally Posted by postman_twit

Nothing to do with Her Majesty dropping subtle hints by having Gurkhas flank her dias during the review on Saturday then?

As Busterdog says, the Two Gurkhas are the Queen's Gurkha Orderly Officers. Long standing tradition. Two are selected a year I think and undertake that role and their own role (my Gurkha Sig Sqn 2ic was a QGOO AND the Sqn 2ic). Nothing to do with 'subtle hints'.