Can this be true, 5 rounds on the front line?

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/18/wirq218.xml

"Some British troops sent to the front line in Iraq were issued with only five rounds of ammunition, soldiers have told visiting MPs."

Can this be true? Anyone heard this anywhere more reliable than a politician?

Pato

 

Pato

1. The soldiers themselves were telling the MP - he wasn't making it up.

2.  He may be a politician but you ought to know he is ex-HAC, still a member and on the Court, so I would say he a. knows what he might be being told and b. can be believed

3.  The question is were disgruntled soldiers exaggerating a minor problem  ?

If this is true, things need to get sorted and James is one of the right MPs to tell.

 

Was certainly true that at up to 3 days before crossing into Iraq 1BW had about 500 rounds 5.56 for the battle group + 3 grenades

 

How the hell can that happen? So if Saddam had thought "Sod it, I'm not waiting to get attacked, I'm going for Al-Khafji II" we would have had a kicking?

Surely that's just not possible, I mean, the guys must have had more ammunition. What about the rounds they'd have had for range work etc. Surely the QM's were holding war stocks? Wait one, Liney you're right. That programme the other night , showed 1BW receiving 20t of ammunition, but that wasn't till a couple of days before launch I think....  :-/

Words absolutely fail me. I don't dare type what I'm thinking

If DLO need a new procurement and distribution system, start by

1. Sacking those useless CANTS who can't write software for toffee, as they continually prove, but the Government keeps using them

2. Go to Tescos or Sainsburys, and ask to licence their JIT systems, they work, they're proven, and the work and a great deal more pressure, than peacetime Army systems. They'd be a bloody sight cheaper too. No hang on, that won't work, it makes sense.

 

38 hrs before h-hr.........they had to "borrow" 5.56 from some americans near by to zero etc.  Large amounts of the time prior to this was spent running about the desert shouting "BANG","THUD" and "What the **** are we doing??"

 

I can see all this JUST. Assuming that there were a large number of other units between 1BW and the en.

But this article implies that during the actual war-fighting phase soldiers doing supply runs up a very dodgy piece of highway were doing so with enough ammunition to ensure only that they weren't taken alive.

Or is this the assumption that the Gray was after.

 

Ref the 5 rounds story, it certainly can be true.  I have recently returned from Op Telic and my unit was unable to deploy until 3 or 4 days before the Op due to the fact we couldn't get hold of ammo for love nor money. (Except for the 25 rounds in an M16 mag some Yank traded for an empty rifle mag that is!   Honest!)

That isn't all, my unit also had difficulty in obtaining supplies of NAPS during the conflict.  In the end we got them when we had 1 or 2 pills left (depending on if you had forgotten to take any or not!)

Lets be clear about one thing though - I am sure MOD will turn around and say the ammo etc was in theatre. They may even be right.  The point is that there was so much arriving into theatre in such a short period of time,  it would have been impossible to distribute all the expected (but not neccesarily absolutely essential) kit, given the time the government left the military to work and (bearing in mind that short amount of time) the rather limited manpower to receive the kit and distribution resources (drivers/lorries) available to the loggies.

Meanwhile, over in Spam land, they were sending their kit over before and during Xmas, and continued to do so right up to the conflicts start.  Of course, all that costs an awful lot of money.......makes you wonder doesn't it?

 

Brian Burridge's comments are worth noting - after Hoon lied presented his side of the story, Burridge weighed in:

"The logistics organisations would say we held the stock appropriate for the planning assumptions and that additional boots were ordered," he said.

"But I was in Basra on April 23 [two weeks after the fall of Baghdad] and people were still wearing black boots. The boots were just arriving in theatre at that point."

He also said 'that the arrival of "desertised" Challenger 2 tanks was "a close thing" and that the communications systems were "inadequate".'

Now, either Hoon's not being paying full attention to his red boxes (expecting a move that didn't materialise), or he's spinning things. Surely not?

 

Let me precis it

Hoon and Blair are full of sh1t. .

The Americans were prepared, because they were always going to invade, full stop. Meanwhile in La-la-Land, we were led to believe there was a UN option, right down to leaving the proper preparation for war as late as possible.

HoonyTune and Blair are full of sh1t.

Hoon, the 2 faced clown, is the single . slimiest most insincere bullsh1tting SoS Def there ever has been, and he has had some stiff competition, but he has pissed it. Everything about him screams insincere Bullshi1tter. My that statement about "The Press should apologise" had me in creases, after the steam had dissappated that is.

I hope someone in Fleet Street, or the TV media (Are you listening Journoblokes, I know you're here) can get the knife in hard. Hoon looks the kind of sleazoid to have a Mistress tucked away somewhere, you can start there. I'm sure between you and the Spooks, we can get the right result.

We're counting on you  

 

[shakes head]

 

This is all too familiar....

The logistic back up for troops out fighting was absolutely shit.  No two ways about it.  We were consistently told not to worry, and that the kit was in theatre.  Well done the loggies (and I'm not slagging the capbadge, but the whole organisation, our Sp Sqn was excellent, and started deploying back to the SPOD to pick up stuff which should have been outloaded).

Maybe the reason why it didn'y get forward was because the weasels who should have been sending it were too busy themselves in pilfering the stocks bound for the front.  And before people atsrt getting defensive, I base my case on the box of 300 GPS, which when it arrived contained 175.  On the boxes of 700 sleeping bags, arrived - 400.  And even our Bn t-shirts?  75 missing.  I mean, who else was going to wear them?

What is going to piss me, and probably everyone else towards the pointy end will be the mutual back-slapping about how it all worked out and that wew did what we were sent to do.  The fact that had any more oraganised resistance been afforded us by way armour etc, then the 2 turret stocks of ammo we had across the BG (in theatre!!!!!) would have been tight.  Our mortar platoon fired off almost all of the reserve ammunition available to us, leaving no more in theatre (or so we were told).

Ammunition did indeed arrive late, and we were nearly caught out, in that we had to deploy a couple of days early in case Saddam was indded heading south.  As I have said before on other posts, we had only 8 hours of NBC consumables.  Furthermore, and we all had to laugh about this least we cried, we were told that detectors were only to be switched on post first-strike.  What the?????  And this was against an enemy who had WMD at 45mins NTM.  

As for Hoon.  Couldn't agree more.  He had the gall to turn up to our Bn and not to want to speak to the troops.  How dare he?  That said all we would have received would have been duplicitous bollocks anyway.

That said, troops on the front line with 5 rounds.  Unlikely I'm afraid, and certainly not in the Bde I worked in.

Someone needs to be shot.

 

Calm down chaps.  Those purported to have been issued with only 5 live rounds were RLC.  Your cry to have some one shot is understandible, but slightly misguided.  I'd like to know who gave those grotty unhygenic cu*ts rounds?  Now that's the c*nt who needs shooting.  They should have been issued with soap and a lesson on how to use it by the environmental health nurse.  In their usual state of attire, NBC kit has to be issued to those around them, so that they don't catch anything from the trogs.  Besides, the Iraqis were avoiding the smell.........and accused us of using 'dirty bombs', until some American Colnel discovered a troop of trogs hiding up a Wadi.

RLC - Dirty, dirty little men.

 

I wouldn't worry about the trogs only being issued 5 rounds a man, cos if their anything like the trogs that share our camp they'd have been round pilfering off of everyone else and ended upwith more than the spams had. When they go on exercise all the thieving stops, but it isn't them.

 

Then you should hide you money under the soap..........they never look there.  

If you suspect it's a female, then hide it under your shaving kit..........seen this RLC subbie out in Kabul last year, she had a better 'tache than Saddam!  Sad thing was, she thought she was 'totty'.  Took 'operationally pretty' to a whole new level did that lass!  

Mind you, the 'tache and the smell helped her blend in with the locals!

 

How many rounds is your average joe issued with in the Gulf now the hostilities are supposedly over?