Thin Pinstriped Line

The author was lucky enough to visit the CVF assembly hall in Portsmouth recently and see first hand sections of both HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH and HMS PRINCE OF WALES slowly take form. The result, to put it mildly has left him feeling genuinely impressed. Put to one side the on-going debate about whether CVF will be STOVL or CTOL, and ignore much of the argument in the press about whether we need carriers or not, and suddenly several things become extremely clear: a.        The CVF project is a clear demonstration of the skills of British Shipbuilding b.       CVF has probably saved British shipbuilders from oblivion c.        Whisper it quietly, but the CVF build looks like it is going extremely well. d.       Whisper it even more quietly, but UK military shipbuilding is looking dangerously healthy right now… For those less acquainted with the programme, a quick recap is...

There was a fair amount of press coverage recently on the trials of the new RN No4 (No8 in old speak) uniform onboard HMS DARING ( HERE) The new uniform appears to be a vast improvement on the old one – unlike previous iterations of the No4 uniform (which Humphrey has worn and not always loved over the years), this appears to have a sensible series of improvements to help make life more practical for the end user. For instance, sensible combat type shirts, and zip up boots (easy to put on or off in an emergency). Despite much adverse comment about the baseball caps pictured on HMS DARING, which are emphatically not part of the trial (they were privately purchased by the crew), the reaction from acquaintances of the author has been overwhelmingly positive to this kit. It is good uniform, that does a sensible and practical job, and which if adopted will go a long way to making life easier for the average sailor at sea. It is often forgotten that this uniform exists in order to provid...

Humphrey was lucky enough to see the fascinating new Dutch ‘low end’ patrol ship HNLMS Holland the other day. This brand new vessel, commissioned barely 10 months ago represents an interesting resource shift on the part of the Netherlands Navy, and one that could spur on public debate in the UK about the roles played by higher end vessels. The Holland is an interesting vessel – at roughly 3750 tonnes and 110m long, she is the size of a Frigate, and from outward appearances, and at certain angles looks similar to a scaled down Type 45 – particularly from the front with the main mast. However, this is where the similarity ends – she has a crew of only 50 (albeit with accommodation for a total of 90) – there is a large flight deck and hangar for a medium sized helicopter, and bays and stern ramp for the launch and recovery of ships boats. The only weaponry she is fitted for is a 76mm main gun, plus a 30mm and some smaller calibre weapons. They are also equipped with a particularly int...

Now that this blog has been running for approximately three months, Humphrey wants to provide a general update on its aims, direction of travel and other useful information. Aims This blog was created as a result of the author feeling immensely frustrated at the poor level of defence reporting across the media. This is in turn led to regular posts on sites like ARRSE, where many popular misconceptions came up that were debated at length. The author felt that too often, several well-worn subjects were discussed, and that the same arguments cropped up again and again. As such, this blog was born – its original aim was to provide a home to deeper articles on a range of issues which are of interest to the Defence community, and to try to correct misunderstandings on some issues. It also seeks, where appropriate to try to use these articles to put across a different perspective to the one often adopted in the press. The author tries to put together a collection of articles which can ...

  The authors attention was drawn today to a short article on the BBC discussing how a 19yr old had won a competition by GCHQ to provide the best form of online protection against the hacking threat. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17333601   The emergence of Cyberspace as a new battleground has been widely predicted, and many good papers and books exist on the subject. The issue that has raised questions in the authors head is not on the importance of the UK being able to protect itself from the electronic threat, but more broadly how the current generation of computer literate individuals would be able to sit within the defence community as a whole. For those readers with an interest in such things, he would strongly commend a read of the UK Govt Cyber Security strategy paper at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/cyber-security-strategy , which attempts to set out the UK Govts position on how it will meet the cyber threat.   What is clear is that...

One of the most difficult, challenging and moving jobs that the author has ever done was to work as an out of hours duty officer. This role meant working on call overnight, and at weekends to handle the diverse range of crises and challenges that the department always found itself faced with. Within this, the most difficult part was casualty notification.   There were many times when the phone would ring at a very dark hour, and a message would come through that at least one UK service-person had been killed in action – often only an hour or two previously. At this point a well honed service was already kicking into gear, ensuring that next of kin were being contacted, and that the welfare support was being activated. The authors role was to contact Ministers offices and ask them to notify their principals of the casualty – at the time (and the author has no reason to suspect this has changed) all Ministers asked to be informed when casualties occur, regardless of the time. To th...

Humphrey has been unable to post much recently due to a combination of illness (the flu bug doing the rounds) and being extremely busy in real life. As such, a number of fairly important stories have occurred which time constraints have prevented comment upon. To that end, he wants to use a quiet Sunday afternoon interlude to put down some thoughts on a couple of the emerging defence stories of the week, and put his own take on them.   Starving Soldiers Firstly, the Sunday Express has commented on a suggestion that soldiers are reportedly missing meals due to not being able to afford them (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/305915/Soldiers-cannot-afford-to-eat).   To this authors mind, this story seems to be picture perfect – the poor underpaid squaddie, struggling to make ends meet while being forced to train ever harder to go to war on behalf of an ungrateful nation and meddling officials who don’t know what they are doing.   The story though does appear to not tak...