ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by saladin

The difference, friend, is CASH.

Sorted that for you, Dude.

Originally Posted by Sangreal

Well, you say 'hear, hear' but the two examples proffered so far are G1 and G3/7 issues (JPA and driver trg). If you guys can't understand the 'G' functions is it no wonder we won't let you near any gucci kit?

Sgt Sangreal: "Right you lot, you've got until 20:00 to get some personal admin done. MSR...where the f#ck are you going?"

Pte MSR: "Just going to this claim in on JPA, and view my SJAR for the boss, sarge"

Sgt Sangreal: "You 'orrible little man! Thems is G1 personnel functions, not G4 admin - unless the DII link has gone down again, in which case its a G6 comms/IT issue! Go and darn some socks or something! And you, Saladin - what are going doing in that office?"

Pte Saladin: "I was just going to book myself on that 2-week hexi-cooking course with the PSI..."

Sgt Sangreal: "The f#ck you are - that's G7 training!"

Originally Posted by brave-coward

If TA soldiers don't take up the few MTDs currently on offer, even though training events are designed to have a balance of fun in them as an incentive, how do you expect that to change by offering the 50-60 MTDs per year and removing the fun elements to enable proper combat efficiency promoting training? Long and short of it, take out the fun to do real military training to enable the TA to operate the complex kit and you suddenly have very few TA soldiers turning up.

Fun??? The man speaks of FUN??? Smithers, get on the phone to morale control and have them release the houunds!

Seriously, unless things have changed massively in the past 6 months - all paid TA training is aimed at delivering specific stuff to Defence - be it individuals at MATT level x, unit-based capability, or IRs/cohorts to support a specific herrick role. The days of paid adventure training and weekends of 'interest' activities are long gone.

That said, training on real kit can be 'fun' - its all about the way in which training is delivered.

What many TA soldiers find frustrating is that they turn up for a Coy or Bn FTX, to find out that their mates thought it might be a bit wet, and stayed at home to some vital DIY, or go shopping with the CoS. The ORBAT then gets f#cked about at the last minute, senior Cpls and Sgts (who should be practising command) get to be riflemen, and people go home wondering what they learnt and why they wasted playing some sort of comical 'Dad's Army' farce, when they too could have been shopping at the Oracle...

There are 3 principle ways of avoiding this:
1) Planning of realistic and interesting training
2) Delivering the promise of being in the 'One Army' and one's chosen Regiment/Corps
3) TaCOS which encourage regular attendance as being the default setting

Others have hinted at the TaCOS part. Whilst there may be some initial bitching and moaning about signing up to do one weekend a month (or 3 every 2 months - whatever), I believe the regularity of it will soon engrain itself into the collective muscle memory, and make it that much harder for the weak to shy off at the last minute.

Originally Posted by brave-coward

I think that there are and always be cultural differences between the regular and territorial armies; this is fine because we use them in different ways. I think that the bottom line is, if you want to operate the most complex kit and command in the most testing environments, you have to make the army your full time career; if you want to do your bit, be in the army but as a secondary career then you have to accept that in your military life, there will be some things that you cannot do.

I disagree - there are graduated levels of capability and readiness. Does a non-deployed armoured regiment train regularly on Mastiff, Jackal, ECM and other specialist C_IED equipment? No. Do they require specialist PDT? Yes.

I don't think anyone is denying that are some capabilities that the TA could never realistically field, and there are many pieces of kit that they could never field at the same level of readiness of the Regular Army - but the whole point of the SDSR was supposed to be to look at what capabilities we needed to keep 'hot', and which could be kept on the back burner*.


*actually, yes, I know the real purpose of the SDSR was for Defence to be seen to be contributing towards the reduction of the National debt, and to clean out the Augean Stables of the last Government....

Originally Posted by Gassing_Badgers

Pte Saladin:

31 years ago.....

1/2 Ton FFR, C42, SLR, real tin hat, puttees, jam in tubes and a TA weekend covered the £4 a week rent on my grotty student flat.....

Originally Posted by Gassing_Badgers

Pte MSR:

21 years ago.....

Pl Sgt: Here's 3 day's pay to cover the cost of renting a Dinner Jacket for the Company Christmas do
Me: Err
Pl Sgt: You're coming, aren't you?
Me: Yes Sgt


Was trying to tell him I already owned one...

Originally Posted by saladin

31 years ago......jam in tubes.....

Well we've got that again!