St Crispin’s Day

BBC NEWS | UK | Forces’ centre gets £24m boost

Working on the assumption that this government has no empathy for our armed forces (and the current track record does not give lie to this idea), we can only assume that this increase in the budget to Headly Court is beause we are in these wars for the long haul.

It must be welcomed, at the very least we will have a better facility for a few years to come.

Let’s hope the locals don’t complain again!!

Third of Army helicopters fit for the front-line - Telegraph

I can shed some more light on this from what I observed in Iraq & Afghanistan recently.

Despite the fact that they are needed in Iraq for surveillance purposes, the fleet of ageing Sea King helicopters have been moved over to Afghanistan where they are needed more.  They have been replaced by Lynx, which have a much shorter duration(they spend less time over the target), and they won’t be able to fly at all in the summer as the temperatures are too high.

SOme of the outlying Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan only get one planned visit by a support helicopter every 10 days unless their is a medical emergency.  On one occasion I heard that a company commander was “over the moon” that a soldier in his base had been injured, as he would now get a helicopter load of ammunition & food days before he was expecting it!

Hat tip to Rogue Gunner for doing the research.

Thank you to al who continue to pop in here from time to time. SOrry it’s been a little thin, but I’ve been away for the last two months.  It’s no excuse I know, but I’ve been away in the heat (then mud) of Basrah, and have had my internet access mightily curtailed by the stingy MOD.  Soldiers (and civvies like me) have to pay $5 per hour for so-so internet access via wireless at the NAAFI.  I hear on the grapevine that this may be made free in the future, but, like the improved housing, I won’t be holding my breath!

The rocket attacks were not as bad as I had expected, but were consistant and we quickly got used to throwing ourselves to the floor!  Mostly it was salvos of 2-4 107mm or 122mm rockets.  Thankfully the Iranian (yes lets not pretend we don’t know where they are getting them from) school of artillery is not as advanced as ours, and most fell outside our areas.  Those that did were successfuly enganged by this beast.

Thanks again for tuning in.

I’ve been here 7 days, and it seems like forever.

We had our first rocket attack after I’d only been here a day.  Basically you hear the siren , dive for the floor, and whilst laying there, get your body armour on. Three minutes after the last impact, you can get up & look for hardened shelter (or if you’re unlucky your legs!!).  Usually after about 5-10 minutes they sound the all clear.  The real pain is when this happens when you’re in bed!  We sleep in little “coffins” made out of breeze blocks so that if a rocket or mortar lands on YOUR bed, the blast doesn’t kill your buddies. 

 Body armour goes everywhere with you unless you go for a run.  It’s sat outside the loo cubicle, by the showers, stacked up in the food hall, and sat by your rowing machine in the gym!

So far we’ve had two attacks & one false alarm in a week, which is apparently the average at this time of the year. It has been worse, 4 months ago it was 5 attacks a DAY!!

The food is fine, but not as good as Afghanistan.  I’m managing to go to the gym pretty much every day, so that is a bonus!

We have most of what we need.  The facilities here are much better than in Afghanistan.  There are a few shops on camp selling the usual Arabic tat.  A couple of NAAFI’s so we can get toothpaste etc & sweets.  Also, there are a couple of ECHOS which are coffee shops run by a Dutch Christian mission to the services (although most of the staff are eastern Europeans).  They make fantastic milkshakes!!

Despite the rumours of a withdrawal, the contractors are building three huge cookhouses. These may be needed to feed the Yanks who will have to replace us, as clearly the job here in the South is nowhere near finished!  I can see a day in few months time when we all decamp to Kuwait to fly from there, and the politicians can claim that we’ve withdrawn from Iraq.

I’ll be here until December the 10^th and will be back in Afghanistan by the 5^th of Jan.

That’s all for now amigos.

Yes, you’re welcome to it!

Thanks to the contract civilian airline that took 2.5 days to get me here (It’s closer than Afghanistan & the RAF only took 39 hours to get me home from there!!!).

Thanks to the Al Mahdi lonatic who marked the end of Eid with a rocket attack on the base which just co-incided with my first evening here!!  I have now worked how to hit the ground whilst donning body armour at the same time!!

In a strange way I’m pleased to have experienced it, as it’s almost a right of passage to experience your first indirect fire attack.  Sadly, the second one the next day was taking it too far!

More news from Mesopotamia in the next few days.

Just to let you lovely readers know that St Crispin is off on his travels yet again.

This time it’s Iraq.  So peek in here every now anf again to see what snippets I can gain from that theatre of conflict?!?

Mr. G Brown has never liked the troops, and yesterday’s announcement of cuts to troop numbers in Iraq was nothing to do with thier suffering, and everything to do with that old friend “spin”.  Brown has taken everything learned by Blair, and will continue to use it to his advantage.  As I suspect would any other flavour of government!

The facts: 1000 less troops by christmas?  Well 500 of these were already announced, and indeed 250 of the KRH had already returned home to Tidworth!

What we should keep a close eye on (HINT HINT tories!) is the numbers of military we currently have in Kuwait?!?

I suspect that these have been creeping up slowley over the last few months, and will continue to do so. We will need a presence in the are, and Basrah is only 50-70km from the Safwan border crossing so we could quickly come to the rescue of the badly infiltrated iraqi security forces when (not if) needed.

Rememebr being in Kuwait is no less punishing on a units moral & efficiency than being in Iraq, just a, it’s a bit safer (for now).

EDIT: Just saw this blog over at James Cleverly’s site.  I love the quote from unnamed Tory conference goer!

BBC NEWS | Politics | Troops to get council tax rebate

 Total spin, and a zero sum game, yet again.  The government really thinks we the public are stupid by insulting us with this announcment.

The money comes out of the forces budget, so there’s no overall benefit. In fact, it’s worse, as rather than paying additional monies to the MOD for the “extra” war fighting, it’s actually making them take more from thier budget for activities they have not chosen to do (i.e. it’s Blair, Brown who decided this. the Army would have probably prefered to stay at steady state readiness on the existing budget).

The military should not be paying so much council tax in any case, as many services such as nurseries & social clubs are proved on military bases and are wholy or partly paid for out of MOD funds anyway.

When we fight wars, we should draw a line under the peacetime budget, and any additional costs must come out of a war chest or reserve simple as that.

Why just Afghanistan & Iraq?  It’s just as sh*t being away from your family for 6 months in Sierra Leone, or Kosovo, or the Falklands as it is in Afghanistan. 80-90% of troops are in support roles and are not directly involved in fighting operations, so camp Bastion is no different for a chef than anywhere else?  It’s not WHERE your serving that really matters, it’s the fact that intervals between tours are getting shorter regardless of where in the world they are.

In 2004 I could not hide my delight in being constantly asked by US Marines from Gunnery Sergeant to Brigadier “How do you guys manage to keep your losses so low”  This was at a time when hundreds of their “boys” were being thrown into the cauldrons of Najaf & Faluja.  Smugley I would reply “well, you know, we just sort of know how to do this stuff, Northern Ireland was a great classroom for us”.  Now the same people are looking down thier noses at us.

Talk amongst the staff officers was that “if only the yanks would stop worrying about force protection, and get out on the streets with foot patrols, then they’d start to win over the locals”.  Well look what the British have gone & done.  We blew it.  All those killed, what for?  Welly, Les & Jane, sorry guys!  We withdrew from our bases, and are now hunkered down in only two (shortly to be only one).  How’s that for keeping the enemy off thier guard?

Someone has messed up right royally, and I’m not sure who.  But I can take a guess that it’s something to do with the Blair Brown handover.

Sorry people of southern Afghanistan, your lives are going to be pretty harsh for the forseable future.  Maybe even worse than under Saddam?

Let me look into my crystal ball dear reader, and see what the Army has to expect over the next few years?

hhhhmmm….. the mists are clearing.

 I see a troop withdrawal frrom Iraq ( Gordon ridding himself of Tony’s legacy), followed by the imploding of the southern region of that country & many people dying (certainly at higher rates than they did when Saddam was in control!).

I see the press pushing the line (and as we all know this will become popular opinion) that the whole thing was a failure, a defeat for the Army (the Army will always be most scrutinized of the three services as it has the biggest role).

The Army’s moral will plummet.  Recruitment (already very bad) will dry up.  The overstretch will become unbearable for a lot of service people & they wil leave in droves.

Finally, the country will have no discernable defence force (appart from the TA & the Cadets) and the french will invade & we’lll be eeating snails & singing the La Marseillaise

Ok, the last paragraph is probably not going to happen but you never know………………………..