Thin Pinstriped Line

  General Sir Patrick Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), delivered a keynote speech on the importance of Land operations at the RUSI this week. The speech was a thoughtful and at times surprisingly (for an official speech), honest take on the state of the British Army today. It gained attention for some of its carefully crafted phrases, clearly written to land as soundbites to the media (e.g. describing Challenger 2 as a ‘rotary dial’ telephone). There were several themes emerging from it that are worthy of comment and further analysis. The first thought is that the speech majors on the poor material state of the British Army right now. There seems to be a growing narrative about the state of the vehicle fleet, its old age and its poor condition that seems to, in the eyes of some, imply that only more funding would make this right. Is this a fair assessment to make? There have been the usual range of articles and comments unfavourably comparing the procurement of two...

  The C130 Hercules has flown its last operational mission in Royal Air Force service. The final act was a formation flown across London as part of His Majesty The Kings birthday flypast. The Hercules served the nation for decades, with the first production flight in 1966, some 56 years ago. It had a reign almost as long and as glorious as Her Late Majesty flying for 55 of the 70 years She reigned, while the current 74-year-old King was just 18 when it flew for the first time. Hundreds of thousands of British service personnel will have flown in one at different times and for different reasons. Some will have flown on them for exercises, flying out to far off lands to work with allies. Others will have flown in them during the darkest hours of their life as they are moved at speed to be reunited with family members and loved ones when the Service pulled out all the stops to get people home at any cost on compassionate reasons. Others will be proud of taking off in plenty, but rar...