Thin Pinstriped Line

  It’s the time of year when the nights begin drawing in and the annual mass migration of Ikea furniture, dodgy fashion and textbooks begins as students around the country begin the academic year anew. From ancient colleges to modern city universities, fresh faced students will be sitting in rooms wondering how on earth they’ll meet people, how to make friends and eventually ‘how on earth will I get a job to pay off all these tuition fees’?   Thankfully the answer to some of these questions can be found in the ‘Freshers Fair’, a traditional start of year event where every major university society and organisation tries to encourage people to sign up to take part and try something new. Practically every society under the sun can be found here, but on a surprisingly regular basis the armed forces find themselves turned away. It may come as a surprise to learn that all three services maintain a strong link to universities. There are University Royal Naval Unit (URNU), Officer T...

  The Royal Navy has been humiliated once again. The mighty warship HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH has set sail carrying just 8 jets, barely a third of her ostensible capacity. This is in sharp contrast to the US and French navies which apparently sail with carriers laden down with modern jets, while Russia is doubtless hardly intimidated. What manner of buffoonery is going on at the Admiralty? Thankfully Lewis Page , a man who should be admired for the way his total lack of any knowledge about Defence hasn’t prevented him from becoming a Defence commentator has written on the subject.   One of the most tediously depressing aspects of the Carrier Strike programme is the way that people wilfully misinterpret what is going on with it in the most negative way imaginable. This then creates a public perception that the UK is somehow failing, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. This article will try to tackle some of these issues head on to try and explain what is really ha...

In his keynote speech at DSEI, the UK Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, noted the rise in Kamikaze drones and the risk to UK infrastructure from missile attack. There is currently no real ability to defend against surprise attack in the UK homeland, with no missiles deployed to shoot down incoming threats, and no batteries of anti-aircraft guns ready to fight off drone swarms. If a hostile power like Russia chose to launch such an attack today, could the UK really respond? The answer is probably no. On a wooded hill in south London, there is a small neglected concrete plinth that looks like a bandstand, looking out across the City of London. Today it lies all but forgotten, but over 100 years ago it was an anti-aircraft battery designed to shoot down Zeppelins and bombers attacking London. The need to defend the capital against aerial attack is far older than people suspect and a role that has continued until the present day. The history of anti-aircraft defences in th...

  The RAF has too few aircraft to meet operational requirements, while the Royal Navy is reliant on ever longer deterrent patrols to cover up its ageing SSBN force. The Army meanwhile is investing in capability that in 7 years time will make it lethal (suggesting one shouldn’t go to war till that point). The perspective from the outside is that the British Armed Forces are too few in number, too under resourced and equipped with too obsolete equipment to be credible, and that the house of cards is about to come tumbling down. Is this fair? Since 1945 the story of British military power is a constant one of more capable units replacing older platforms in smaller numbers than before. Equipment is not bought and operated for the sake of numbers alone, or to feel good on orders of battle, but to deliver against carefully defined requirements and goals. This may have been to deploy enough ships to defeat a surging Soviet SSN force into the North Atlantic, or to deliver a tactical nuc...

 The news that a British Challenger 2 tank (CR2) has been reportedly knocked out in Ukraine has been met with global headlines, with attitudes varying from shock to joy. This would mark the first time that the CR2 has been taken out of action by enemy fire (one was lost in Iraq as a result of ‘friendly fire’). Is this something to be concerned about or a simple reality of war? Since 1991 the West has become used to conducting military operations in environments where there is relatively limited threat to major armoured fighting vehicles. Operations like Desert Storm, Allied Force and TELIC saw the deployment of main battle tanks without loss from hostile fire. As TELIC morphed into a counter insurgency operation the threat changed from tanks and anti-tank guided weapons into that of IEDs and RPGs, but still without loss of MBTs. This has perhaps given rise to a perception in some quarters that the MBT is more invulnerable than it actually is. The war in Ukraine has marked a return ...