Territorial Army

[SteveT]

Most of the deaths seem to happen from carrying out foot patrols, is there any good reason to jeopardise your force by insisting they walk into the enemies backyard?

[david_carnell]

Villagers tend to object to tanks driving through their market squares.

[KateW]

Steve T is right, many of the guys do have to buy their own kit as the standard issue stuff is such poor quality. For example, my husband is issued with boots that retail at around ?15. Bearing in mind they spend 99% of their time in these boots, tabbing, on exercise etc. If he wore what was issued he'd have endless foot, ankle, problems etc which would require costly medical treatment and physio.

Rather than cut TA spending, in my view the MOD should slash the amount of civil service staff they employ, many of whom can't do the job they were employed to do. A few weeks ago I found myself whole heartedly agreeing with Liam Fox who said that we have an army of around 99,000 who are 'supported' by approx 85,000 civil servants. In Nelson's day, he had an army of far greater numbers, with a handful of staff at Horseguards.

[SeanMacGabhann]

And those numbers are genuine are they? 85000 civil servants just for the army? You don't smell something fishy there?

[KateW]

Believe me, there is a lot of dead wood floating around.

[SteveT]

David Carnell wrote:- Villagers tend to object to tanks driving through their market squares.

Is that the only option, a foot patrol or a tank?

Perhaps an investment into armoured cars ...........covered in Disney characters,

just for the sensitivities of some poor old villagers.

I don't think I would be greatly influenced by village life if I were in charge, my men and their safety would be my soul concern.

[david_carnell]

I think my wider point referred to hearts and minds, Steve. Are you trying to be obtuse?

If you rampaging through towns/villages in armour clad tanks or APVs or even a Land Rover what happens is you fail to engage with the local populace. Through them you can gain valuable HUMINT and build bonds with the communities we are meant to be helping. Hide behind 6-inch steel plate, talk to no-one and shoot anything that moves and you'll soon find the local population turns against you.

And then things are a whole lot worse than they were before....

[Huguenot]

Well there's two ways to explore that safety issue I guess. Yours, SteveT is an escalation in weaponry, but the guys on the ground clearly feel that reducing the local's inclination to attack could also contribute.

History would have it that conciliation is usually the most successful path. But hey, some people just like to shoot guns and be threatening.

[Santerme]

The safety and security of your men and women is the paramount concern of any commander.

However, the need to keep onside the local static population is essential so you do all possible to lower the impact of operations on them

Human Terrain Mapping is how it is achieved and HTT's are deployed with frontline troops.

Tactical patience is also being used...this reduces the impact of local actions at the strategic level.