Originally Posted by GeNeral_MisFiT

THREAT ASSESSMENT!!!!!!!!! you can't teach it in a 40 minute lesson!!!! (never mind 6 weeks)

But if the people joining the courses are infantry WOs / SNCOs who've presumably done numerous tours in Iraq / Afghanistan, I'd struggle to say they don't already have a good grasp of threat assessment?

They'd probably argue they've a better idea than someone who's spent a few tours in the ammo depot, or filling hesco?

Like I say earlier, good luck to everyone who does the course. I hope old politics doesn't sabotage the whole thing. EOD can surely only get better by opening up the recruiting pool.

Originally Posted by giftedamateur

Originally Posted by Bubbles_Barker

Perhaps the real answer would be to pursue a Counter-Insurgency rather than a Counter-IED campaign in Helmand.................

and how should we secure the population and neautralise the insurgent when we cant move for IEDs?

Take some more tactical, operational and strategic risk. With a properly constituted COIN campaign you'll find that eventually there'll be few IEDs around to neutralise. Prevention, rather than Cure if you see what I mean. The US have discovered this, naturally we lag behind, banging on about how fantastic we are at all this and arguing about whether Loggies or Sappers are better at snipping wires.

C-IED is a central function of COIN, it doesn't work in isolation from it or act as an alternative. That is why the activity of disposal/neutralisation is just one of the processes and one of the main principles of IEDD - preservation of forensic evidence feeds directly into exploitation. Defensive operations are all about finding and avoiding IEDs as well as feeding intelligence in order to expolit or conduct offensive operations.

How is any of that divorced from mainstream COIN?

I agree the Americans have made great progress in COIN and even more so at C-IED. We have lost ground over the last decade because we have convinced ourselves that C-IED and IEDD were one and the same and something we as a Corps just didn't want to do. The perception was that it was all old-hat, NI centric and completely un-necessary in the modern world. Utterly stupid and short sighted and whilst it is easy to blame the rubber-wheels fraternity, too many senior ATOs were happy to support the demise for a variety of reasons

If you think all we do is contemplate who is best to cut the red/blue wire then you are sadly mis-informed.

Back to checking tyre pressures if I was you Bubbles

Herrumph,

I now know who you are so many thanks for the earlier comment.

I've avoided posting over the last couple of days as people seem to be missing the point. I already said that something needed to be done and I didn't know what it was. But I am working on it. It'll be too late by then anyway. Got told of another master retrain retest strategy yesterday. I'll give the RE credit for something, by f**k when your chain want something they bloody go for it.

My only concern as previously stated is that we are training for UK!!! not Afghan it's a totally different set of skills.

Blow in situ unless it's been 360'd is a f~~~ing stupid idea! What if it's daisy chained?

In my time here I've lowered the flag at the memorial 4 times and it's not a nice thing to do.

At the end of the day I don't care who does it as long as they've been trained properly. But what happens to the trade in 4 years time when we aren't getting baby ATs on the JS/DEOD course because it's full of everyone else? What happens out in the det locations because it's full of all arms getting their experience? Who does all the MIDs who does the inspections? Who does the CMD shouts? Where are the Troop WOs of 10 years time going to be?

Remember what happened in the late mid to late 90s when we stopped AT courses?

Love and hugs as always.

Originally Posted by thiswayup

Herrumph,

I now know who you are so many thanks for the earlier comment.

I've avoided posting over the last couple of days as people seem to be missing the point. I already said that something needed to be done and I didn't know what it was. But I am working on it. It'll be too late by then anyway. Got told of another master retrain retest strategy yesterday. I'll give the RE credit for something, by f**k when your chain want something they bloody go for it.

My only concern as previously stated is that we are training for UK!!! not Afghan it's a totally different set of skills.

Blow in situ unless it's been 360'd is a f~~~ing stupid idea! What if it's daisy chained?

In my time here I've lowered the flag at the memorial 4 times and it's not a nice thing to do.

At the end of the day I don't care who does it as long as they've been trained properly. But what happens to the trade in 4 years time when we aren't getting baby ATs on the JS/DEOD course because it's full of everyone else? What happens out in the det locations because it's full of all arms getting their experience? Who does all the MIDs who does the inspections? Who does the CMD shouts? Where are the Troop WOs of 10 years time going to be?

Remember what happened in the late mid to late 90s when we stopped AT courses?

Love and hugs as always.

Yes I certainly do and when I said it was stupid people looked at me as if I was a dinosaur. Then the AS of A became business-centric (whatever that means) and started flogging IEDD courses to the world and its wife. Heaven forbid training AT's. As for carrying out inspections - how passe.

TWU - as ever good points, but I have to say lots of emotive ones too. Thge all arms thing is only because there are not enough ATs. There will be in time, then it will most likely get turned off - unless all arms operators are demonstratably better than ATs - at which point the trade WILL have a problem.

As for MIDs etc etc, no ATs will be out of 11 as a rsult of all arms, they will be filling GAPPED PIPDs. So no change to AT manpower, but perhaps a bit of respite from being on the pager? CMD shouts - Def EOD operators. Tp WOs in 10 years time? ATs Cpls currently. There will be no erosion of AT numbers, but until the numbers grow to match the liability there are two choices - get by with current manning (cannot sustain this) or get the rest of the Army to help out (might not sit well with some, but might just help you out)

Def EOD operator course is not training for Afghanistan - and there is no plan to send Def EOD operators straight to Afghanistan.

Originally Posted by Herrumph

C-IED is a central function of COIN, it doesn't work in isolation from it or act as an alternative. That is why the activity of disposal/neutralisation is just one of the processes and one of the main principles of IEDD - preservation of forensic evidence feeds directly into exploitation. Defensive operations are all about finding and avoiding IEDs as well as feeding intelligence in order to expolit or conduct offensive operations.

How is any of that divorced from mainstream COIN?

I agree the Americans have made great progress in COIN and even more so at C-IED. We have lost ground over the last decade because we have convinced ourselves that C-IED and IEDD were one and the same and something we as a Corps just didn't want to do. The perception was that it was all old-hat, NI centric and completely un-necessary in the modern world. Utterly stupid and short sighted and whilst it is easy to blame the rubber-wheels fraternity, too many senior ATOs were happy to support the demise for a variety of reasons

If you think all we do is contemplate who is best to cut the red/blue wire then you are sadly mis-informed.

Back to checking tyre pressures if I was you Bubbles

Very funny - either my jokes aren't as funny as I thought or you need to lighten up. My point is that we seem to be concentrating more on FP and C-IED not as a part of COIN but as an end in itself.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who take the long walk - and many of them served their apprenticeships in transport regiments!

Even as a dyed in the wool Trog, I nevertheless find it disturbing to see the amount of in-fighting that has gone on in the ammunition fraternity - I can't see how you can blame Truckies for it!

Originally Posted by Bubbles_Barker

Originally Posted by Herrumph

C-IED is a central function of COIN, it doesn't work in isolation from it or act as an alternative. That is why the activity of disposal/neutralisation is just one of the processes and one of the main principles of IEDD - preservation of forensic evidence feeds directly into exploitation. Defensive operations are all about finding and avoiding IEDs as well as feeding intelligence in order to expolit or conduct offensive operations.

How is any of that divorced from mainstream COIN?

I agree the Americans have made great progress in COIN and even more so at C-IED. We have lost ground over the last decade because we have convinced ourselves that C-IED and IEDD were one and the same and something we as a Corps just didn't want to do. The perception was that it was all old-hat, NI centric and completely un-necessary in the modern world. Utterly stupid and short sighted and whilst it is easy to blame the rubber-wheels fraternity, too many senior ATOs were happy to support the demise for a variety of reasons

If you think all we do is contemplate who is best to cut the red/blue wire then you are sadly mis-informed.

Back to checking tyre pressures if I was you Bubbles

Very funny - either my jokes aren't as funny as I thought or you need to lighten up. My point is that we seem to be concentrating more on FP and C-IED not as a part of COIN but as an end in itself.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who take the long walk - and many of them served their apprenticeships in transport regiments!

Even as a dyed in the wool Trog, I nevertheless find it disturbing to see the amount of in-fighting that has gone on in the ammunition fraternity - I can't see how you can blame Truckies for it!

I have to say that I also fail to see how the stinking fucking trogs are to blame, surely the blame for all of lifes problems rests squarely with those stupid fucking morons called 'Movers'.

Originally Posted by BPS666

I have to say that I also fail to see how the stinking fucking trogs are to blame, surely the blame for all of lifes problems rests squarely with those stupid fucking morons called 'Movers'.

BPS,

Movers are not stupid fucking morons , they are very intelligent and very good at their job.





































Its just that they only exist to piss people about.

Originally Posted by Bubbles_Barker

Originally Posted by Herrumph

C-IED is a ...blah blah blah you Bubbles

Very funny - either my jokes aren't as funny as I thought or you need to lighten up. My point is that we seem to be concentrating more on FP and C-IED not as a part of COIN but as an end in itself.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who take the long walk - and many of them served their apprenticeships in transport regiments!

Even as a dyed in the wool Trog, I nevertheless find it disturbing to see the amount of in-fighting that has gone on in the ammunition fraternity - I can't see how you can blame Truckies for it!

What jokes? - and I have never been an ato-lite

2years in a transport Regiment - an apprenticeship?!!! You have to be kidding.

We only have in-fighting because there is something worth fighting over. Fighting over transport and movements issues- I'd rather sack it and go to the bar