British Military Current Events

[R031button]

Why does that strike me as an RSM driven idea?

 

[Infanteer]

Funny how we are the opposite - we don't tuck our shirt in and we generally keep our sleeves down....

 

[TN2IC]

That post is all RSM / CSM written all over it. The dinosaurs are speaking.

 

[Jungle]

Soldiers up in arms over their 'shabby' uniform in mutiny over shirt they mustn't tuck in

For centuries British soldiers have prided themselves on staying smart – even in the dustiest combat zones.

So they’re not going to be terribly happy with a uniform that make them feel scruffy.

Indeed, they are aghast at orders from top brass that their camouflage shirt must not be tucked into trousers and the sleeves must be rolled down.

Soldiers say the instructions for wearing the new Multi-Terrain Pattern uniform undermine morale, discipline and professionalism.

Many are demanding a return to the smarter way of dressing with the combat fatigues tucked in and sleeves rolled up.

Now Army chiefs have promised to review the guidelines, a move which will cost thousands of pounds at a time of deep cuts.

They decided to act following a deluge of letters to Soldier, the Army’s in-house magazine.

The criticism is embarrassing for the Ministry of Defence which spent £40million on the outfits – the biggest change to the uniform for more than 40 years. Mick Johnson, who recently left the Army after serving with the Parachute Regiment, said: ‘We all wore it tucked in. If you let it hang out it looks terrible. Soldiers like to look the part and it needs to be smart.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150191/Soldiers-arms-shabby-uniform-mutiny-shirt-mustnt-tuck-in.html#ixzz1wD7g435J

I guess "managing change" is not an evaluation criteria on their PER...

 

[daftandbarmy]

Paratrooper fights for life after being found unconscious at barracks ‘after row with rival regiment who bragged about it on Facebook’

Two soldiers arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm following attack on 22-year-old


A young paratrooper was recovering in hospital today after he was apparently beaten unconscious by soldiers from a rival regiment - who boasted about the attack on Facebook.

The victim, 22, was discovered with multiple serious head injuries inside the new Merville barracks in Colchester, Essex.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed two soldiers have been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm.

It is believed the victim had been lying in a car park near barrack blocks for several hours before he was found.

His injuries were so serious that he was flown 40 miles by helicopter to the Queens Hospital, Romford, which specialises in head trauma.

It is understood that the victim, from 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery, had been out drinking in the garrison town earlier in the evening and met soldiers from another parachute regiment.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153371/Paratrooper-fights-life-unconscious-barracks-row-rival-regiment-bragged-Facebook.html#ixzz1wZMB0Siz

 

[daftandbarmy]

SAS free British aid worker kidnapped last month in 'breathtaking and extraordinarily brave' night-time helicopter raid on cave deep in Taliban territory

A British aid worker kidnapped in north east Afghanistan last month has been freed after a dramatic SAS rescue mission authorised by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Helen Johnston, 27, a nutritionist from Stoke Newington in London, Kenyan national Moragwe Oirere and two Afghan civilians were rescued during an early morning raid by members of the elite special forces unit.

All four hostages work for Medair, a humanitarian non-governmental organisation based near Lausanne, Switzerland and were kidnapped on May 22 in Badakhshan province.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153620/SAS-swoop-Afghan-insurgents-breathtaking-rescue-British-aid-worker-kidnapped-month.html#ixzz1wgfm4h3v

 

[daftandbarmy]

Languishing in Arizona, our once-mighty fleet of Harriers... sold for the price of just ONE of their US-made replacements

The once iconic aircraft – whose original versions first saw active  service more than 40 years ago – are among some of the 72 Harriers  that Britain prematurely scrapped and then sold to America for a knockdown £116 million last November.

They are now used for spare parts for US Harriers, which America still consider viable fighting planes.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153741/Languishing-Arizona-mighty-fleet-Harriers--sold-price-just-ONE-US-replacements.html#ixzz1wkXq9hQA

 

[barrybudden]

In reference to the uniform business I can tell you that the Royal Marines never rolled down their sleeves except for when in the field, they also untucked their shirts when on yomps and after speaking to some oppo's they ay they like the new rig a lot better as it is more comfortable in the field.

 

[daftandbarmy]

In reference to the uniform business I can tell you that the Royal Marines never rolled down their sleeves except for when in the field, they also untucked their shirts when on yomps and after speaking to some oppo's they ay they like the new rig a lot better as it is more comfortable in the field.

Even in Scotland in the winter time... holy mother of hypothermia 

 

[barrybudden]

No self respecting bootneck from 45 Cdo would dare to dream of rolling them down or even wearing a tee-shirt underneath, you should know that Daft and Barmy you attended RM Condor lessons i am sure

 

[daftandbarmy]

No self respecting bootneck from 45 Cdo would dare to dream of rolling them down or even wearing a tee-shirt underneath, you should know that Daft and Barmy you attended RM Condor lessons i am sure

Yes, but we had the benefit of a proper scratchy wool shirt KF, not like you youngsters who had to suffer with those poxy thin cotton shirts. Nails you are.

"Also known as the "Shirt Hairy", it would make a man of any scrawny seventeen-year-old, if only by proving that uniform could make you suffer." http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Shirts_KF

 

[barrybudden]

Fair one you've got me there mate now i'll wind my neck in and stop gobbing off!:-X

 

[daftandbarmy]

Fair one you've got me there mate now i'll wind my neck in and stop gobbing off!:-X

You're not doing too badly. I haven't heard the term 'Yaffling spanner' yet.  ;D

 

[daftandbarmy]

Falklands veteran’s tale set for West End

The story of one of the most heroic veterans from the Falklands War is to be made into a West End play.

A generation since Tumbledown, a highly controversial television drama which thrust the suffering of wounded soldiers into the spotlight risked a rift between the BBC and the government, it is to be recreated on stage.

The stage adaptation will tell of the experiences of Robert Lawrence, whose bravery during the conflict, and battles with the life-changing injuries, he suffered inspired the television production.

Starring Colin Firth as Captain Lawrence, the film sparked controversy when it was first broadcast in 1988, due to its graphic portrayal of the conflict and the indifference shown by government and society to the wounded who returned from the Falklands.
The BBC was accused of left-wing bias and the MoD threatened an injunction against the programme, demanding a controversial scene be cut hours before broadcast.
The film’s director, Sir Richard Eyre, was accused of being a Communist, while the Army sought to discredit Capt Lawrence.

An officer with the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, Capt Lawrence, then a 21-year old lieutenant, led the night-time assault at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the final hours of hostilities in June 1982.

Just hours before the ceasefire on 14 June, as British troops reached Tumbledown’s summit, he was shot in the head by an Argentine sniper, and left for dead on the mountain top.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9321482/Falklands-veterans-tale-set-for-West-End.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

I think it's safe to assume that you don't want to be a Para Reg walt:

• Walt using our men KIA – The despicable – Daniel WOLF aka O’Neil

Serving 1 Royal Irish Rangers – 16AA

FB Profile - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1041956374

People don’t get more disturbing and sicker than this person and his lies and use of our dead heroes to big themselves up and are a total case of disrepute and here’s why :

Wolf says he comes from Kilkenny Ireland however 2 Para Capt Woods (RIP) has a Scottish background. On his FB posts his location comes up as Colchester which confused us for a short time but a search on current 16 Air Assault units reveals his regiment as 1 Royal Irish Rangers and put the jigsaw together for us it was then that a photograph of his RIR hat was found. He is in fact serving with 16AA 1 Royal Irish Rangers at Colchester but walting as Para Reg. Read on :

He states clearly as per the photos that he is the son of 2 Para Capt David Woods (RIP) killed in action Falklands 28th May 1982 yet his birthday is 7th May 1986. Wolf has two photos of Capt Woods plus comments on his FB profile. It is NOT true as far as we can ascertain Capt Woods did not have a son, extreme lengthy and detailed enquires show us that our allegations are true and his claims are lies, very sick lies. Many people have assisted us in establishing this fact and have no reason to distort the truth about this. If any family of Capt Woods reads this then we sincerely apologise for any distress caused and only made this exposure public out of respect and to preserve the dignity and memory for Capt Woods.

He claims by speech and photographs that he at some point and in his sad life that he was a member of the Red Devils Parachute regiment Freefall display team. Again lies. The photographs and claims have been made available to many people including Red Devils themselves and there is no trace of this person. He is also not known by anyone going back some 20 odd years on the team.

He claims to be a Corporal with the MOD and which would make him 13 when he joined. Impossible.

He has publically altered his MOD90 and refused to take it down by a member of his Facebook friends and shows it displaying a female’s photograph. The MOD90 expires July 2012. This has been put into the public arena for all to see.

He claims to be currently serving with 1 Para Special Forces Support Group currently deployed on ops and due back in 2 months according to his partner although she seems not to know what Battalion he serves with. He has further compromised the safety of what is clearly servicemen from not only 1 Para but 2 and 3 Para as well.

Also on his profile he alleges having been shot up and displays a picture of a person in the trauma stages in hospital with all the components of critical care going on around him, however when this image was searched it is found to be in fact an image of a person who is a victim of a shooting in Portugal. More lies ! Another photograph depicts Wolf with a bad gunshot wound to the left hand chest cavity with massive bleeding happening – again its fake its all make up but there for all to believe as true.

He has a complex set of photographs pertaining to all three battalions, which to the uninformed clearly and without doubt puts his claim to be a Para beyond dispute and enhances his reputation and self esteem, unfortunately making such claims put him in the spotlight of the WHMC. His web of lies also extended to saying he was HALO / HAHO trained.

As a side issue he is to soon marry into a an extended military family as well although I do think that his wife to be has been duped into his lies and deceptions.

Wolf has not only disgraced the memory of Capt Woods (RIP) but the Parachute Regiment, Special Forces Support Group, Royal Irish Rangers and of course and less importantly himself. I do not know why he has said what he has about Capt Woods and to be honest as this was so serious in my view I have not given him the opportunity to admit his lies I don’t think he deserves that privilege at all by any means.

Needless to say his unit will be informed of his actions, which were clearly led to people being deceived from the outset. He has implicated innocent people security wise and of course Colchester will be informed for their safety as will SFSG at St. Athens. I hope that the family of Capt Woods remain safe in the knowledge that the regiment still protects their own no matter when but has been an unfortunate and uncomfortable privilige to protect Capt. Woods name and honor.

In short a dangerous deluded individual who cant even be shown sympathy in this case. He should be jailed and thrown out as services no longer required.

RIP Sir.

RMP SIB will be informed as soon as possible.

 

[daftandbarmy]

David Cameron warns Argentina against making threats over Falkland Islands

Prime Minister David Cameron has delivered a strong rebuke to Argentina's claims to the Falklands, saying that Britain was not prepared to play a "game of global monopoly" with the islands and that they would remain a British territory.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9332529/David-Cameron-warns-Argentina-against-making-threats-over-Falkland-Islands.html

 

[Retired AF Guy]

From the Daily Mail, a report on how the SAS was able to take out two the top Al Qaida assassins during the Iraq War.

Top secret report reveals how Al Qaeda executioners were captured by ingenious SAS... using Bisto granules

By Mark Nicol and Ian Gallagher

PUBLISHED: 22:11 GMT, 16 June 2012  | UPDATED: 22:11 GMT, 16 June 2012

They killed with apparent impunity, effortlessly dodging capture by the world’s deadliest special forces.

Nothing, it seemed, could stop Al Qaeda’s two top Iraqi terrorists as they orchestrated a campaign of high-profile kidnappings, car bombings and executions in Baghdad and beyond.

At the height of their reign, one of them, Maher Ahmed Mahmoud  az-Zubeidi, better known by his alias Abu Rami, was believed to have been responsible
Yet perhaps even more ferocious was his charismatic co-leader, Abu Uthman, whose exploits in two battles in Fallujah earned him the nickname Abu Nimr – The Tiger.

The American military bestowed on him a more prosaic title: Number One HVI (high-value individual).

But by mid-2008, despite years of trying, US special forces were still no nearer tracing either of the men who, helped by a vast network of supporters, rarely slept in the same beds for longer than a few weeks.

The Russians were also searching. Rami was blamed for the beheading of four embassy workers abducted from a diplomatic car in Baghdad and Vladimir Putin put a £7 million price on his head and a team of assassins on his tail.

Until today the true extent of the Al Qaeda men’s murderous influence has never been revealed and neither has the extraordinary story of how they were eventually stopped.

The Mail on Sunday can disclose that it was not US special forces who finally killed Rami and captured Uthman – as was reported at the time by The Washington Post – but the SAS.

How they did so was typical of the cool efficiency for which the regiment is renowned.

Both operations were also smart, subtle and meticulously planned, using hi-tech ingenuity. Perhaps most of all, though, they were less obvious than those of their American counterparts.

The missions took place during the SAS ‘D’ squadron’s six-month tour of Baghdad in the second half of 2008, a time when car bombers were wreaking carnage in the capital.

Documents seen by this newspaper – accounts of the tour by the regiment’s senior officers – suggest the SAS was helped by a controversial set of ‘legal freedoms’ permitting the detainment of any individual, even without  evidence to justify their captivity.

It is understood they were granted some time before the tour started.

The powers mentioned in the documents include ‘security detention without criminal evidence, continued detention without sufficient criminal case, transfer to judicial system without sufficient criminal case’.

According to the papers, the regiment used their new freedoms to great effect, capturing hundreds of terror suspects and their associates and holding them at Tactical Screening Facilities.

Crucially, the freedoms helped provide much of the human intelligence needed to thwart the enemy.

Baghdad in 2008 was a city gripped by fear of mass-scale terror attacks. Sunni Muslim extremists had ‘revived’ their capacity to plant bombs in some of the heaviest patrolled parts of the capital.

But the US-led coalition was fighting back, and British special forces were playing an integral part.

While US commanders argued with their British colleagues over the performance of the armed forces in Iraq, there was widespread respect for the SAS and other elite units.

This helped senior British officers convince US Major General Hammond to let the SAS take the lead in the hunt for Rami and Uthman.

In the papers, Hammond is described as a ‘robust and forthright American football veteran’ who ‘demanded visible activity and was hard to convince of the... need for time to develop  targets.

On a number of occasions he sought poster campaigns to disrupt the known locales of our targets.

‘This had the effect of reducing still further the fleeting opportunities when the senior AQ-I [Al Qaeda Iraq] targets showed themselves.’

But eventually the officers’ appeal succeeded. Quietly, carefully, the SAS took control of the hunt for both men.

The documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show ‘approximately 50 operations were run out against him [Rami] with no jackpot’.

To succeed where others failed, Sergeant A – his identity cannot be revealed – went undercover, joining a group of Iraqi counter-terrorist personnel called Apostles and setting up a car dealership in an open-air market in the Rusafa district of Baghdad.

His hair dyed, his face blackened by layers of fake tan – or Bisto gravy granules when he ran out – and wearing brown contact lenses, Sergeant A mingled with Rusafa’s movers and shakers, bought and sold cars and recruited sources.

Details of all Sergeant A’s sources were logged by the ACE (Analysis and Control Element) at the Baghdad Operations Centre.

Scrupulous cross-referencing of phone, residential and criminal records paid off when it was discovered that a brother of Abu Rami was serving a prison sentence at Camp Bucca – a US detention facility at Umm Qasr on Iraq’s coast.

Sergeant A flew to the prison and briefed troops from the UK’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) who entered Camp Bucca and waited to intercept anyone visiting Rami’s brother.

When his mother arrived they confiscated her phone – a standard procedure for visitors – and while she was speaking to her son stripped every detail from the SIM card and placed a tiny geo-locating device in the handset.

Rami’s mother returned to Baghdad and was tracked to a house in a northern neighbourhood.

Next, Sergeant A arranged for Rami’s brother to be moved from Camp Bucca to Camp Cropper – a US detention facility at Baghdad International Airport.

As hoped, the frequency of family visits increased and Iraqi undercover teams called Mohawks followed cars and watched addresses. Still there was no sign of the man himself.

In late September 2008, it struck Sergeant A that as a practising Muslim, Rami would be obliged to see his family during the festival of Eid, which fell on October 1 and 2.

Sergeant A briefed the team for a night raid.

The mother was at home and Rami’s sister was tailed to another house nearby. It was noted by the Mohawks that a car made two journeys between the addresses, on each occasion appearing to ‘do a counter-surveillance loop’.

Sergeant A and an assault force from D Squadron drove to the second address. Ducking into position, A trained his night-sight across the windows and doors of the two-storey house, and studied the pick-up trucks parked outside.

Sergeant A gave a signal and a Mohawk raised a megaphone. ‘The house is surrounded, Abu Rami, come out, everyone come out now, you will not be harmed,’ he said in Arabic.

For a few minutes nothing happened, then the front door opened and children scampered outside.

A message crackled in Sergeant A’s earpiece: ‘We’ve got one times mam (military aged male) and one times echo (female) leaving the building. Do not fire, the mam is holding a child, repeat, the mam is holding a kilo (child).’

Wearing a flowing cotton shirt, and carrying a child in one arm, the man shuffled slowly and silently towards a gate and the front of the compound. ‘Show your other arm! Show your other arm!’ said a Mohawk through the megaphone.

Suddenly the man raised his hidden arm to reveal a pistol. Immediately he fired and a round passed through a Mohawk’s leg. He fell to the ground.

Sergeant A pulled his rifle into his shoulder and squeezed off a 5.56mm round. The man fell dead. The child ran screaming inside the house.

When another young male confirmed Abu Rami was inside, and was armed, an SAS trooper took lethal action. He lifted a 66mm rocket launcher on to his shoulder, flipped up a plastic sight and pulled the firing lever to send a missile flashing through an upstairs window. ‘Entry team: go!’ said Sergeant A into the radio microphone.

Suddenly SAS troopers dressed in black kit scaled the rooftop and swung down.

They were armed with short-barrelled machine guns and carried alsatian dogs. The remaining windows were smashed and the dogs thrown inside.

A ground assault team charged through the front and back doors.

Abu Rami, the most wanted active terrorist in the world, the Al Qaeda leader who had foiled the Americans and the Russians, was gunned down by the SAS during the house clearance.

His body was dragged outside and photographed for identification purposes. The image showed his white T-shirt stained crimson and his head lolling lifelessly to one side. The capture of Abu Uthman – also known as Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri – had taken place three months earlier.

Led by Sergeant B, it began with the removal of US posters offering rewards for his capture from Rusafa, a terrorist stronghold.

Street patrols were also stopped. The idea was to convince Uthman that he enjoyed freedom of manoeuvre and could stage meetings with his associates.

Leads generated in part by the new legal freedoms led to many of Uthman’s ‘bed-downs’ in the city’s northern neighbourhoods being identified.

At one point Sergeant B contacted a tribal sheikh who claimed he could lead him to Uthman through family connections – but the sheikh said he needed money for a taxi fare for their first meeting.

His shortage of funds, said the report, indicated ‘he was a very low level player’.

Eventually, one of Sergeant B’s analysts compared the accounts of interrogations of various Uthman associates and identified one of the terrorist’s closest henchmen. Working on this information, an assault force from D Squadron, stormed a house in Rusafa on August 10, 2008 and questioned its male occupants.

A man agreed to lead Sergeant B’s team to the home of Yassin, another close associate of Uthman. Yassin and his parents were gagged and bound.

The following morning, a mobile phone call was received and an interpreter instructed Yassin to answer it.

The caller was Falah – understood by Sergeant B to be Abu Uthman’s gatekeeper – who told Yassin: ‘Come to a meeting at the mosque, you should be here already, hurry up.’

As the sun rose over the River Tigris, Sergeant B’s team bundled their hostages into a minivan and set off across Baghdad to the mosque.

He radioed the SAS Operations Centre to request air support – a US F-16 jet to provide covering fire should an ambush ensue, and a UK Puma helicopter from the RAF’s Special Forces flight, for casualty evacuation.

He also provided the cell phone details for Falah so he could be tracked. An SAS ground assault force was also mobilised.

As the sergeant approached the mosque, he tightened his grip on a Demarco rifle and peered through the minivan’s dusty windscreen.

Seeing Iraqi police officers manning a checkpoint, he sensed danger. A Mexican standoff developed with Sergeant B and his troopers taking aim and the police officers pointing back. ‘Drop your weapons!’ shouted an SAS interpreter, ‘No, you drop yours,’ said the police officers.

Then to his disbelief, Sergeant B saw Uthman walking behind the mosque, and towards the mini-van.

Seizing the moment, the sergeant scrambled on hands and knees, pulled open the minivan’s back doors and jumped on the Al Qaeda man before taking him into custody. 

The SAS had snared The Tiger.

Article Link

 

[daftandbarmy]

From the Daily Mail, a report on how the SAS was able to take out two the top Al Qaida assassins during the Iraq War.

Article Link

Always nice to see the SAS doing it's job.... drawing publicity fire away from those who make these kinds of operations possible: the Intelligence community.  ;D

 

[daftandbarmy]

Army to be split into two forces as major restructuring expands special operations

The British Army is to be split in two as military chiefs seek to cope with budget cuts and keep pace with modern warfare.

The new-look forces will shift their focus to covert special operations, surveillance, intelligence and cyber security.

The drastic restructuring comes as part of an overhaul that will see personnel numbers hacked down by a fifth over the next eight years, from 102,000 to just 82,000.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161465/Army-split-forces-major-restructuring-expands-special-operations.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

I wonder what protocol dictates that you say when greeting they guy that blew your Uncle into tiny pieces?

Former IRA commander to meet Queen Elizabeth II in major milestone on path to peace

LONDON — The Irish Republican Army-linked Sinn Fein party says one of its leaders, Martin McGuinness, will meet Queen Elizabeth II next week — a once-unthinkable symbol of progress toward peace in Northern Ireland.

McGuinness, a former IRA commander, has been invited to attend an event with the queen in his role as deputy first minister of Northern Ireland’s Catholic-Protestant power-sharing government.

Neither Sinn Fein nor Buckingham Palace revealed detailed plans for the meeting. Britain’s Press Association news agency said McGuiness and the queen would meet and shake hands in a private room at the beginning of the engagement. But even if it amounts to little more than a quick handshake, the meeting will have great symbolic value.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, will visit Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of her United Kingdom-wide tour celebrating 60 years on the throne.
Sinn Fein leaders declined to meet the queen last year during her first state visit to the neighboring Republic of Ireland, arguing it was still too soon after the end of decades of conflict and bloodshed.

But party President Gerry Adams said Friday the party has decided McGuinness should meet the monarch, a decision that is sure to meet opposition from some Irish republicans, who want to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/former-ira-commander-to-meet-queen-elizabeth-ii-in-major-milestone-on-path-to-peace/2012/06/22/gJQAVEkBvV_story.html