Thin Pinstriped Line

News broke a few days ago that the Royal Navy has finally sold its four Type 22 Batch Three (T22C) frigates for scrap – fetching some £3 million from the sale of them to ship breakers for ‘recycling’. The ships were paid off under the outcome of the 2010 SDSR, although they had originally been planned to be run on till the latter part of this decade. Since being paid off the ships had been stripped of parts and were looking increasingly forlorn on the RNs equivalent of ‘death row’ (Fareham Creek) where decommissioned warships are left until disposal. There was some surprise on some RN related websites that what was arguably the finest class of surface escorts produced for the RN since WW2 had not been sold on for use in another navy. The aim of this article is to try and explain why this may not have happened. The first thing to note is that the MOD always tries to get the best possible return on its investment when selling off decommissioned warships, planes and equipment. Indee...

The news that HRH Prince George of Cambridge has been born is on the one hand an unlikely subject for a defence related blog. But, to Humphrey this happy news is perhaps more telling as a sign of the importance of ‘soft power’ and the extent to which the UK and its Royal Family can still exert a surprising level of influence to this day. Soft power is something which is extremely difficult to understand or perhaps place a value on – an ORBAT can easily show what a nation can do militarily, while a GDP statistic shows a nations theoretical economic power. Soft power on the other hand is intangible – it is something which helps a nation, influences on behalf of a nation, but perhaps cannot be quantified. It is very difficult to imagine the birth of the first born son of the first born son of the heir to the throne of many nations occupying much column space – similarly, replace throne with President and even less attention is likely to be paid. At best a short paragraph in a co...

The long announced retirement of the UK Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) General Sir David Richards, and his replacement by General Sir Nick Houghton has occurred. Following a short change of command ceremony, instigated by General Richards, in what may be the first (and possibly last) ceremony of its type, the baton has been passed on to a new CDS, who will now spend the next five years at the very pinnacle of the military. General Richards leaves after only three years at the top, but his departure sees the end of an era, as one of the last soldiers in HM Forces service who will have been based in the Far East and Singapore finally retires – perhaps in more ways than one marking the closure of one period of UK military history, and the start of another. The challenges facing Gen Houghton are significant and he will have much to occupy his time over the coming weeks and months. The purpose of this short article is to try and provide some personal views as to the sort of challeng...

Several UK newspapers reported this week the findings of the UK Parliaments Intelligence & Security Committee report that during OP ELLAMY, the UK had relied on Germany to provide mapping for the RAF to conduct its missions. This was apparently a disgraceful sign of a nation in decline and that we should all be jolly ashamed of ourselves. The reality (as ever!) is a little different and one worth thinking about. Maps are something that we all take for granted in our daily lives, and they are an utterly indispensable part of modern military operations (even in the hands of a newly appointed young officer). We perhaps take for granted the information on them, without considering how it is obtained. In the UK the Ordnance Survey has over many hundreds of years done a phenomenal job of providing accurate information almost down to the last manhole cover about what lies where. At sea the Hydrographic  Service has similarly spent many hundreds of years charting the oceans and w...

The Daily Telegraph had an article over the weekend about how the UK needed to acquire a ‘real army’ in order to be a world power, rather than relying on the current planned force structure of regular and reservists to provide a ‘total force’ concept. The author (John Baron MP) had previous experience as a junior officer in the Army during the 1980s, and it is interesting that the article refers with an almost longing sense of desire to see the UK re-establish a force not seen since that time. Humphrey has a very personal view that when people call for the military to be changed, it usually involves change to try and make it reflect the military that they served in. For decades people have been complaining bitterly that the UK military doesn’t do what we want it to do, and that only deep change can possibly solve the problem. Meanwhile the British Armed Forces carry on deploying and succeeding on their missions, despite this lack of a ‘wonder weapon ORBAT’. It is very easy to loo...

Humphrey has finally gotten around to trying to improve his online media presence and created a Facebook page for this blog. The aim of the page is to try and provide links to posts as they occur, and also post links on some of the other excellent defence writing out there in an easily shareable format. In addition it allows anyone who wishes to contact the author to do so via the messaging system or on the wall. The page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thin-Pinstriped-Line-blog/201503350017062 Enjoy!  

The long awaited paper on the future of the Reserve Forces was announced in Parliament on Wed 3 July. The paper marks the latest in a long chapter in the UK on the best way to employ and make effective use of the Reserve Forces. For as long as the UK has possessed a formed reserve (rather than a militia or local arrangements) there seems to have been unsolved debate about what the Reserve actually existed to do. In two world wars, and during the Cold War, this role seemed clear enough – to provide a body of men who had a reasonable level of military training in their spare time and who would be relied on during the outbreak of war to bring the regular military up to full strength, either through the addition of formed units, or specialist individuals into a wide range of areas.   The end of the Cold War marked the next stage of the wider debate about the utility of the Reserves and whether they could or should be used in roles outside of general war. The Reserve Forces Act 19...