ANOTHER SOLDIER DIES

[Kate1933]

Suff is right when it comes to the RAF as well.

The most senior ranks, Group Captain and up, must have completed pilot training, with all the physical and mental training that entailed, to take control of operational squadrons. Engineering and Medical officers etc. could reach high rank, but never take charge of squadrons or operational stations.

So, they might now have desk jobs, desk jockeys as we called them, but they did go through all the physical, mental and psychological training of the RAF's pilots.

We lower ranks never came near, our focus was on giving them the very best equipment for them to do their jobs. I cannot say for other countries, but in the UK the Top Brass have usually done the job.

Interesting Suff and Frank, by all accounts the equipment provided for our Troops who went into Iraq was worse than second rate. Mostly from China,

[Workingman]

Sorry, Kate.

The Chilcot report makes it clear that there were equipment shortages and that some of it supplied was not fit for purpose in the hot, dusty, dry, yet humid conditions in Iraq. I know, from having served in places north of the Arctic circle to the tropics, that most of the kit is bog-standard "European" wear and special issue kit for each type of theatre was hard to get hold of.

However, the "Made in China" claim is pure Daily Mail. And even if it were true, all kit, no matter where it is made, has to meet the standards set out by the MOD. Whether those standards are fit for purpose is another matter.

[Suff]

+1 on that Frank.

Yes we have problems with kit. Yes some of it has come from stupid places, vital bearings for our main battle tank engines sourced from Russia in the middle of the cold war for instance, but it is made to a standard and there is fairly rigorous testing. For instance it took years before the Magazine manufacturers produced one for the SA80 which did not get pounded into a mangled mess in the kit of the soldiers who tested it.

The main problem was lack of kit. I know of one wife who's husband paid for his own armour, only to have an officer demand he give it up to someone who "needed it", regardless of whether it was his own property or not. That husband was shot and killed.

That is where the problems in our military lie and Chilcot should have exposed it. Blair and Brown were a nightmare for committing our troops but not equiping them properly.