Improvise, Adapt and overcome

Gentlemen good morning,

Teddy throw follows:

Yet again the culture imposed on UK forces on operations of “improvise, adapt and overcome” has raised its head – only weeks after our glorious leader promised that what troops needed they would get

Sgt. Brown’s comments – see link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6179120.stm appear to be yet another run through of the same kit issues. Following on from CBA, UGL ammo, vehicles, .50 ammo etc

I recognise that Thomas's shopping list is always going to slightly un-realistic, however I would like to share my own experiences from my shiny seat in the West Country wrt to lift assets (helicopters).

I have watched with growing anger the failures of Government, MoD, Command and Industry.

Any muppet who has attended a command course at any level (or for that matter watched the history channel) can tell you of the value of Helicopters – particularly in environments such as Telic or Herrick.

A series of requests for support were sent out to industry following Mr.B Liars well publicised comments – IMHO the response was rather good. For example – whatever your opinion of Wastelands (ooops – sorry, my bad sort of declared my hand there) they did rather stump-up in the form of “we can divert and re-fit some export EH101’s to make Merlins pretty sharpish”.
Even our Froggie cousins came to the party with some nice Puma’s on steroids.

Now I’m not saying that the Cider quaffing pointy heads or Cheese eating surrender monkeys were going to do this for free – but it seemed pretty sharp – and available in a matter of weeks / months – all nicely packaged with support and training.

The response from JHC and the MoD began with errr……ummm…….well? er?
and then denigrated into three areas:

Let’s spend our time arguing about who’s going to own the assets: mainly Crabair fighting with Navy (CHF) – but still have time to brand our helicopters ‘cos we don’t like the media calling them “Army Helicopters”
Then….
Lets see what everyone else has – ‘cos Wastelands are shit (normally a fair comment) So – we began the serious contemplation of 36 year old shagged Puma’s from Portugal. You know Portugal – the 3rd world pikey nation attached to the Costa-del-chav: you can guess the condition of these lovelies.
Finally…
Lets ask industry a series of fatuous, stupid questions until they loose f’ing interest or find a customer who will actually stump up some cash

The bottom line is: a culture of spend as little as possible, make big statements and then don’t make a decision is costing lives – emotional; but I challenge you to prove me wrong.

I refuse to denigrate the service of Senior Commanders in the higher echelons of the MoD – but to be fair most of their operational experience was gained in lower level conflicts and peace keeping / making operations of the 80’s and 90’s. The current tempo of operations demands pressure on Industry and Government to deliver goods and cash respectively – not, I had it bad in my day, so you can too

Couple this with Tony and his band of “the only service I have ever experienced is silver” chums and we look as if we are settling in for a pretty rough time – enjoy boys!

Rant over.
Make safe.

 

On a serious point, could the great minds of ARRSE & E-goat & RumRation get together and figure out what kit and how muchof it we all need? i.e. 8 Chinooks for the Crabs, 800+ troops for us, 90 roll mats for the booties etc.

We could probably work out how much it would all cost as well.

Could make quite an interesting document once its finished.

T C

 

I typed a great long thing, then read it through and let OPSEC get the better of me. Suffice to say that it would appear from recent converstaions, that a few more helicopters would make life easier when moving light guns around... and that not everyone in the world is familiar with international legislation with respect to land mines.

 

Would sugesting numbers of Eqpt breach Opsec? I dont really know now...

Do you think we could do it without breaching Opsec?

T C

 

TC, it was more that there were examples in my rant which, on cooler reflection, I felt might be fine for the office but not quite so sensible for the pub, if you see what I mean.

I suspect that the way to go about this, if one were so inclined, would be to start from the position of current Ops, add in the slack to allow for the 'two medium sized simultaneous deployments' on top of current enduring operations, since that was supposed to be the benchmark over the top of nothing else going on. Now decide on force levels required for that to function whilst allowing for a sensible op tour frequency. You now have a required force level - you could choose to make that all regular or factor in cheaper but more tricky to utilise Territorials/Reserves.

The penultimate stage is to allocate resources to the troops which you need - this is the point at which to consider whether it is really possible to have an Airmobile Bde without and Airmobile Bde's worth of Aviation, for example.

Finally, take these figures and subtract those for the extant British Army (you can add in 5,000 RM and a Bn's worth of RAF Regt if you want)

Hey presto, the G1 and G4 figures that you're after. Of course at that stage you'd have to work out how to fund the 2 Corps of soldiery that you've just imagined (and well enough that it becomes the first job choice for 95% of UK school leavers...)

It's an interesting idea, have a mull over the weekend and have it on my desk my 0800 Monday, I'll have it red penned for you by January...

 

Thats very in depth! I was thinking more along the lines of...
"Well for Afghan we need 4 more chinooks, 20 more WIMIKS etc etc and it works out that we can buy it all for ££££"...

That way we could go to Tony B and say "Hey, remember you said we could have what ever we needed? Well here's the list!"

T C

 

do you reckon he will give us topless models working in iraqi NAAFI's if we ask him nicely

 

Orr, you could be a bit clever and get some engagement going with the public (and stick a thumb in G Browns eye).

Public appeal for funds 'Our boys need x y and z, donate here'.
Bet that would get some headlines.....

 

Don't know if you heard Lord Bolokchops in Radio at 1300 today. His response was that there were adequate stocks of night vision sights in station (are night vision same as IR imaging?), they had not received any CoC complaints re duff ammo. The Commanders were responsible for issueing the grenades - each man had 6 anyway. Everything was pushed down the line "I was out there last month and spoke to 3 PARA and RM and they all said how well everything worked" This from the man in charge of procurement. With that attitude and haversack full of quotes, it would seem pointless trying to see what might be needed.

 

Sorry Daede,

"Public appeal for funds 'Our boys need x y and z, donate here'.
Bet that would get some headlines..... "

Done already see WWII , Saucepans for Spitfires, Railings for Frigates and the best one of all . My sister for the yanks !

seriously though , do you think the public would donate ?
WW

 

Wheelchair - youve hit the nail on the head. Last time that kind of appeal was needed, the country was in danger of falling apart, national crisis etc etc.

If the Govt doesnt give you the equipment out of tax payers money, then go direct to the public. Its all about PR and creating awareness, which mumbling amongst yourselves and 'coping' isnt going to do.

Plus if you had a pretty girl handing out badges outside of liverpool street for donations, you would quickly be the richest army in the world.

 

I hate to say it, but it's been done before: that's pretty much how they put together the Army for the Boer War (and the units mounted and equipped by private subscription were commonly better dressed and horsed than the regulars!)

Eidted to add:

I wasn't there - I just read about it.

 

You fight todays war with what you had on the shelf last night, not todays wish list.
john
Untill the wish list cums in TOM will pay the price in blood and bones.
Always was so, suppose always will be.
Once there was a system to treat TOM and his broken body, now gone on a politicans whim.

 

The problem lies with senior management at unit level. How many OC/CO's do you know actually tell the truth when there are high ranking/Vip visits to Op theaters (Boots fit, mails getting through = High morale). No one is prepared to stand up and be counted and say actually it's all going pete tong, we need X Y and Z now. Look at Tim Collins' treatment by the MoD after Telic 1. He was a darling of the press, and he was still hung out to dry. I really worry for Sgt Browns future, I hope the CO stands by him.
The senior management needs to start looking at itself to see if they are following the guidlines set out in the Values and Standards guide. I say these people are FAILING the troops with a lack of moral courage, Integrity, and ultimatley loyalty.

To all those who've done well and you know who you are; Well Done!

 

That will be a no then!