Kit shortages put troops lives at risk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionidX0EDATGJLDLVQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/19/ntroops119.xml

Kit shortages put troops' lives at risk
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:54am GMT 19/01/2008

Thousands of troops had their lives endangered when they were sent to Afghanistan without essential equipment due to Government dithering, a damning report obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows.

Have Your Say: Why is the Government so reckless with troops' lives?
Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

The revelation is contained in a document which forms part of the Board of Inquiry report into the death of paratrooper Capt James Philippson of 7 Para, Royal Horse Artillery, which it partially blames on shortages of vital kit including night vision goggles and machine guns.

Appeals for supplies to fight the Taliban were ignored because politicians were afraid of committing money to an operation that might not proceed, the report discloses.

In a repeat of the kit failures that led to lives being lost in Iraq, the document says troops were sent to the most dangerous province in Afghanistan without enough body armour.

Despite being the first British forces to enter the lawless Helmand province in April 2006, the paratroopers of 16 Air Assault Brigade also went into battle without vital kit such as heavy machine guns, night vision goggles and ballistic matting for Land Rovers. The report says Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) were not processed because Whitehall dithered over sanctioning the operation.
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Don't worry though. Our MP's are well looked after.

That's all right then.

 

People are going to see the army as a right load of b1tches soon. Lets stop claiming that kit shortages are killing our troops. Lets start realising The Taliban are!

Edit to a point.

This is not a dig at the blokes who have been killed. This is me realising that from Body armour to Snatches, Wicking T-shirts to boots some people will blame anything other than a Taliban/Sadr/Jam gunman for killing British troops.

 

Bad Crow, Jim Philippson was a good bloke, I can vouch that on the tour we had no:

Tracer ammo
Minimi
UGL
Grenades
NVG
Heavy weapons/support weapons

We went out on patrols with 6 mags and that was it. The yank SF gave us tracer to help out a bit

The OP was on a fag packet. 12 men were sent in to Sangin on there own effectively. That would def not be the case now, it took a Battalion of yanks, canadian and 3 PARA to take the town after that.

I Def blame kit shottages for the loss. Were you there at the time Bad Crow? you are not aware of the full situation and therefore can't comment really on the matter mentioned.

 

I would almost say about starting up a bond scheme for use civies to help pay for equipment with a charity organisation holding the equipment when not needed but then that relieves this crappy governement of its duties which they do not deserve

Duncan

 

Just a bit of a back up for blobmeister here, Jim was in my Platoon at Sandhurst and was a damn good soldier, I knew that even after the small amount of time I knew him for.

I agree that the Taliban are killing the troops, BUT and it's a damn big BUT...as I keep saying in my safety meetings, if you can't remove the Hazard you have to reduce the risk.

The lack of equipment increases the risk, so although the lack of equipment isn't the cause, it is the main factor in the risk being high. As it is the only thing we (the gobermont anyway) have any control over, the failure to supply equipment is seen in law (at least HSE guidance) as the main causal factor of any death.

S_R

 

No I wasn't involved in that particular tasking, however.

At no stage did I say he was not a good bloke.

I would simply say that its not lack of kit that kills our lads. Its the Enemy.

If it was lack of kit we'd have lost battles most of our battles from Rourkes drift to Crossing the border on Telic 1 where some blokes had as little as a mag of 25 and a smoke grenade.

Its not an empty QM store that kills our lads. Its a member of The Taliban operating a weapon system.

I would further like to point out that I at No stage said anything bad of the dead and find it an insult that you think thats what I was getting at! I may be a first class cnut however I like to think that no British soldier would have a dig at a soldier killed in action.

I don't blame our government for fallen friends and colleagues. I blame the Pakistani/Iranian/(Oh yeah and afghan) fella with an AK.

It may be cnutish of our government to not supply us with all the things ideal for doing the job. However it was obviously deemed safe enough to send blokes out with only 6 x mags by someone otherwise it wouldn't have happened. The sad truth is that the patrol/op in question resulted in a death. However had other kit been available there is no saying that the patrol would have ended differently with regards to casualtys.

I don't blame lack of up armoured vehilces for killing members of my regiment in Iraq last year. I blame the pieces of sh1t who laid the IED's.