Pinstripedline Twitter Posts Index

 

Pinstripedline Thread Index

This serves as a living archive, providing updated content regularly for all twitter threads from @Pinstripedline since 2024.

@crowncopyight

2026

Date	Thread	Summary
27 Jun	Scrapping the Wessex	Secret files reveal the 1980s Whitehall staff battle in which the RAF fought to stop the Army taking over support helicopter forces when the Royal Navy sought to scrap its Wessex fleet - interservice rivalry at its worst.
13 Jun	SAS Training the FBI	Secret army files show how the SAS was responsible for training the FBI in the 1980s.
29 May	CDI Runners & Riders	Thread on who was likely to have become the next Chief of Defence Intelligence in the 1970s.
25 May	The IWM 15-inch Guns	The little-known story of how the Imperial War Museum acquired its prized 15-inch naval guns - a tale taking in the scrapping of HMS VANGUARD, atomic weapons, the space race and a great deal of financial paperwork.
17 May	RMP in Lebanon	The story of how the RMP close protection teams operated in Lebanon during a suicide bombing on the US Embassy.
16 May	DREADNOUGHT and Iran	How DREADNOUGHT never transited the Suez Canal and went to the Falkland Islands instead.
6 May	Hunting Red October	From the mid-1970s the CIA knew far more about the Soviet TYPHOON class ballistic missile submarine than Tom Clancy could have guessed, as declassified files on American spying against the Soviet programme reveal.
26 Apr	How Reliable Were RN Weapons?	A SECRET series of 1983 Royal Navy meetings assessed just how (un)reliable the Fleet's weapon systems - including Sea Dart and Sea Wolf - really were in the aftermath of the Falklands War.
19 Apr	Canberras and Tall Boys	TOP SECRET 1950s plans envisaged RAF Canberra bombers carrying out an audacious attack on Soviet shipping canals with Tall Boy bombs, to stop the Baltic Fleet deploying in the event of WW3.
17 Apr	Intelligence Meetings	Summary of forgotten 1950s intelligence meetings in Singapore by the UK, US and France.
15 Apr	New Zealand's South Pacific Command	A TOP SECRET 1954 map shows how the UK planned for New Zealand to assume defence responsibility for British and allied islands across the South Pacific in the event of global war.
27 Mar	War Book Planning	Summary of subjects closed to public release
24 Mar	Fleet Effectiveness Report	The state of the Royal Navy in 1990 – How effective was it?
16 Mar	ASTUTE Contract	Approval from the Treasury to order the ASTUTE class SSN
13 Mar	The DGI Goes to Washington	The 1984 trip report of the MOD's Director General Intelligence covers spies, espionage, ZIRCON, TYPHOON submarines and sneaky Royal Navy submarine visits to the Barents Sea.
13 Mar	Classified Submarine Missions	An example of how a secret submarine mission can be compromised via the National Archives
3 Mar	The F16 Offer	In 1995 the US offered to lease F16s to the RAF to replace the Tornado F3 in the air defence role - an offer the MOD swiftly rejected for reasons that show why 'leasing American' can cost more than 'buying British'.
28 Feb	Targeting the V Force	How Britain drew up its earliest nuclear target plans from 1948, aiming the V Force at every Soviet city of over 100,000 people, and how it planned to defeat Russia in a global war.
28 Feb	Somaliland	Single post map image of a Victorian style terrain swap
24 Feb	Logistics Win Wars	A 1958 MOD study of wartime logistics stockpiles across all three services revealed alarming shortfalls of stores, equipment and ammunition for general war.
23 Feb	Mogadishu and the Flash Bangs	After two SAS men helped GSG9 storm a hijacked Lufthansa airliner at Mogadishu in 1977, requests for SAS counter-terrorism training - and for their 'flash bang' grenades - poured in, including from the Iranian Government.
16 Feb	A Most Unusual MI6 Memo	A 1958 MI6 memo circulated by the JIC warned that Egyptian school teachers across the Middle East and Africa were, in British intelligence's eyes, a front for subversion and espionage.
14 Feb	Berlin Airlift	Thread on how close the UK came to war with Russia in 1948
14 Feb	Suez Troops	Map showing troop deployment in the Suez Canal in the 1950s
11 Feb	The Minister's Counter-Terrorism Brief	The actual June 1983 induction brief given to incoming MOD Ministers on the role of the SAS and SBS in counter-terrorism operations, including the standing UK teams of Ops MINSTREL and GASTRIC.
11 Feb	The Bunker	Short thread on the Cabinet War Rooms potential use during the Cold War
8 Feb	Hong Kong Garrison	Map showing size of Hong Kong Garrison in 1984
7 Feb	Soviet Naval Interactions	Thread on how the RN / Russian navy goaded each other during the late Cold War in the Barents Sea.
31 Jan	Gibraltar Rules of Engagement, 1982	Fearing a Spanish attack on Gibraltar during the Falklands War, the UK Government issued covert Rules of Engagement setting out when British forces could open fire on Spanish forces, and brought the military to readiness for war.
16 Jan	The Forgotten Aircraft Carriers	In 1952 the Admiralty was tasked to convert Mk3 LST landing ships into 'catapult aircraft ships', each embarking up to four Venom jets for one-use-only launches in WW3.
11 Jan	Near-Mutiny on HMS VANGUARD	TOP SECRET files declassified in late 2025 reveal how HMS VANGUARD came close to open mutiny while carrying the King to South Africa in 1947 - a story involving MI5, the Admiralty and the King himself.
6 Jan	The Red Arrows Behind the Curtain	Air Vice Marshal Pilkington's report on the Red Arrows' July 1990 displays in Leningrad and Kyiv captures the hope, optimism and worry of the Cold War's final months.

2025

Date	Thread	Summary
31 Dec	Gorbachev at Brize Norton	In December 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev stopped at RAF Brize Norton for talks and lunch with Margaret Thatcher en route to Washington - a positive meeting, but one in which he directly attacked her over British missiles reaching Afghanistan.
29 Dec	The Chief of the Air Staff in Russia	The CAS's May 1990 visit report from Russia offers a fascinating insight into Soviet fears of German unity, the state of Soviet airpower and the 'airborne ballet' display.
27 Dec	The CDS Visits the USSR	ACM Craig's December 1990 visit to Moscow, Leningrad and Murmansk as Chief of the Defence Staff - the first in a series of powerful end-of-Cold-War visit reports by senior British officers.
29 Nov	Special, Sensitive, Clandestine, Deniable	The differences between 'special', 'sensitive', 'clandestine' and 'deniable' operations, and how the Government sought to conceal 1970s SAS, MI6 and GCHQ activity from official records.
29 Nov	Special, Sensitive, Clandestine, Deniable	The differences between 'special', 'sensitive', 'clandestine' and 'deniable' operations, and how the Government sought to conceal 1970s SAS, MI6 and GCHQ activity from official records.
18 Nov	The LPH That Never Was	In 1992 the Royal Navy made serious plans to permanently convert HMS ARK ROYAL into an LPH instead of ordering HMS OCEAN - the culmination of 1980s ambitions for Aviation Support Ships to carry the Royal Marines to Norway in wartime.
10 Nov	Sinking the 25 De Mayo	On 29 April 1982, in the early stages of the Falklands War, the MOD met to agree the rules of engagement under which the Royal Navy would be authorised to sink the Argentine carrier 25 De Mayo, one of the biggest threats to the task group.
26 Oct	Cold War Spy Ships	In 1967 the US Navy sought British permission to base USS PALM BEACH - sister ship to the captured spy ship USS PUEBLO - in the UK to conduct top secret intelligence missions against Russia.
21 Oct	The Dutch New Guinea Crisis	In late 1961 the British Cabinet debated what military support, if any, the UK would provide to the Netherlands in the event of Indonesia attacking the colony of Dutch New Guinea - a forgotten military crisis.
3 Oct	SDI and Chevaline	In the 1980s the US Government wanted to buy Royal Navy Polaris missiles to test the SDI missile defence system against them, an approach seen as both an opportunity and a serious threat to UK nuclear security.
23 Sep	Exocet 1983	In August 1983 Ministers feared the Argentine military planned a surprise Exocet attack on a Royal Navy warship off the Falklands, with the RN assessing that Seawolf had only a 35% chance of intercepting an inbound missile.
21 Sep	The Second Surrender Document	In 1983 the MOD launched a formal investigation into rumours that a second copy of the Argentine surrender document existed and was being kept by Maj Gen Jeremy Moore RM, who had taken the surrender in 1982.
24 Aug	What MI5 Really Thought	As a new book made claims about KGB plans for the UK in a run-up to war, this thread turned to actual Cold War MI5 documents quoting Oleg Gordievsky (codename OVATION) to establish what MI5 really believed.
22 Jul	The Armageddon Scenario	Highly SECRET files released that day revealed that in 1989, after Tiananmen Square, the UK Government began planning in utmost secrecy for the mass evacuation of millions of people from Hong Kong ahead of the handover to China.
18 Jul	OP ZEUS - Invading Uganda	In 1972, at Ministerial request, the MOD made SECRET plans for a parachute assault on Entebbe Airport with SAS raids, RAF airlift and RN airstrikes, to evacuate 7,000 UK nationals from Idi Amin's Uganda.
30 Jun	Their Trade is Treachery	Following allegations of a Russian spy in MI6, a return to the 1981 Whitehall spy saga and leak inquiry surrounding the book 'Their Trade is Treachery', which involved every living British Prime Minister.
31 May	F35As and the SDR	As the SDR signalled that the UK may acquire F35As capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons and expand the escort fleet to 25, this thread examined why the tactical nuclear mission would be a huge, and hugely expensive, commitment for the fast jet force.
18 Apr	Carriers for Vauxhall Vivas	In 1968 Tony Benn asked Denis Healey for Royal Navy aircraft carriers to ferry British-made cars, like the Vauxhall Viva, to the United States due to a shortage of shipping - and the RN did its best not to comply.
13 Apr	Soviet Spy Ships in UK Waters	The long Cold War history of Russian spy ships covertly operating in UK waters, the threat vessels like the VISHNAYA class posed to the nuclear deterrent, and the extensive steps the Royal Navy took to stop them.
15 Mar	The Forgotten Destroyer	The little-known cancelled Type 43 destroyer, designed in the late 1970s to succeed the Type 42 with Sea Dart air defence, was far more important - and far more capable - than generally realised.
8 Mar	Immigration After Armageddon	A classic of the crazy Cold War document genre: the Home Office's SECRET wartime instructions telling Immigration Officers how to process visas and illegal immigrants arriving in the UK after a nuclear attack.
16 Feb	Trident and the Moscow Criterion	In 1992 the British Government feared that the US administration's moves to cooperate with Yeltsin's Russia on missile defence threatened the credibility of the Trident deterrent and the 'Moscow Criterion' - a story of espionage, a Soviet defector and nuclear warheads.
8 Feb	Exercise SKUA	In March 1963 the submarines HMS GRAMPUS and HMS PORPOISE conducted secret Arctic trials, sailing over 500 miles under the icepack, with archive files yielding remarkable unseen photographs of RN submarines deep in the Arctic.
21 Jan	Twenty Divisions and 48 Hours	A TOP SECRET 1972 briefing warned Ministers that if NATO forces in Central Europe were reduced to 20 divisions under the MBFR process, the only way to avoid defeat in war would be to use tactical nuclear weapons within 48 hours.
19 Jan	The 1972 Threat Assessment	Based on still TOP SECRET JIC intelligence reporting, a 1972 MOD study assessed the conventional Soviet naval and air threat to the UK and concluded the country could not defend itself against it.

2024 (from 27 April)

Date	Thread	Summary
28 Dec	2024 Royal Navy Fleet Stats	A short statistical review of the Royal Navy's year: no warships ordered or commissioned, nine decommissioned, and an RN/RFA fleet down from 81 ships in January 2023 to 72 by December 2024.
24 Dec	The Channel Tunnel Goes to War	In 1986 the UK and France signed a secret agreement covering the defence use of the Channel Tunnel, with major plans for its use and protection spanning logistics, hospital trains and transition to war.
22 Dec	Down to One Carrier?	A response to an Express story claiming the RN would be down to one carrier - technically true, but a misrepresentation of what was actually happening, since no navy in history has continuously operated two.
20 Nov	The November 2024 Cuts	In the biggest cuts to the RN in nearly 20 years, the MOD retired five warships totalling over 100,000 tonnes, 32 helicopters and dozens of drones - and this long thread explained why it wasn't as bad as some feared.
3 Oct	BIOT Thoughts	Countering misinformation around the Chagos deal by noting that the nearest island to Diego Garcia is roughly 100 miles away, has no harbour, and that Chinese spy ships could already legally sit 12nm offshore.
21 Sep	Watching Argentina	From 1983 onwards the Royal Navy conducted covert submarine intelligence and coastal surveillance patrols off Argentina, tracking warships and monitoring aircraft within sight of the Argentine coast.
11 Sep	Support to Ukraine Report	As media focused narrowly on the NAO report into MOD support to Ukraine, this thread drew out the wider picture: billions in assistance, over 670 RAF cargo flights, 3,000 deliveries and 42,000 troops trained in barely 2.5 years.
8 Sep	Bridges Too Far	In 1971 the British Army considered TOP SECRET plans to deploy the Parachute Regiment to hold the bridges over the River Weser in wartime, illustrating the opportunities and challenges of large-scale military parachuting in WW3.
1 Aug	Op WILMOT - Protecting the QE2	In 1973 Royal Marines of the SBS embarked on the QE2, posing as 'travel agents' and carrying an arsenal of weaponry, to keep her passengers safe from terrorism on a high-risk charter cruise to Israel.
28 Jul	The THROSK Incident	In 1971 the Royal Navy genuinely believed it had lost a nuclear warhead at sea - the untold story of the THROSK, nuclear weapon convoys, the Royal Marines, MI5 and Soviet spies.
16 Jul	The CIA and Soviet Anti-Polaris Plans	In 1973 the CIA circulated a highly sensitive HUMINT memo on Soviet submarine commanders' 1968 proposals to detect and destroy Polaris submarines in wartime, exposing how little the Soviets knew of Western SSBN operations.
15 Jul	OP SCOOP	In August 1968 HMS OCELOT conducted the first ever RN mission in the Mediterranean to covertly sail beneath anchored Soviet warships, photographing them from within 100 feet in close coordination with the RAF.
7 Jul	Letters of Last Resort	As the media covered the new Prime Minister writing 'letters of last resort', this thread explained the Cold War history of how the UK ensured nuclear retaliation could always be authorised.
24 May	The Future of Pinstripedline	After 12.5 years, 673 articles, 4.5 million hits and roughly 1.5 million words, this thread set out the future direction of the blog and the changes ahead.
11 May	HMS CHALLENGER's Secret Roles	Publicly designed for 'research', HMS CHALLENGER was intended for a range of highly secret Cold War seabed operations, from protecting the SSBN force and supporting SOSUS to recovering nuclear weapons from the seabed.
5 May	130 Classified Submarine Missions	Between 1980 and 1994 the Royal Navy submarine service conducted over 130 highly classified intelligence-gathering and covert missions, and even with the files still closed, the archives allow significant conclusions to be drawn.
27 Apr	The 1984 Barents Sea Mission	In July 1984 the Royal Navy, RFA and RAF Nimrods conducted a TOP SECRET month-long UK/US intelligence gathering mission in the Barents Sea to acquire intelligence on Soviet Navy operations and obtain military hardware where possible.