It's interesting to note that with all this kit that the mod spends copius amounts of our money on, the end user never gets a say!
SA80 ££££££'s spent developing a weapon just to keep Royal Ordinance involved, developing a rifle that cannot share a 5.56 round from erm...our largest battle field ally the yanks armalite's 5.56, the lsw was that a bite? every marine and his dog dropped it for minimi or gpmg, sa89- heavy, loads of working parts and drill looks crap....all this when the weapon of choice was on the shelf, tried tested and proven, our old mate Mr Armalite, as used to this day by SBS, SAS, Brigade Patrol Troop, Pathfinders etc (personally I find Mr AK takes a lot of beating)
Ditto various airframes that are perfectly serviceable straight from the production line, but oh no, some twat has to have modifications that only the British Empire needs (hangars full of new chinooks that don't work 'cos we had to have a digital electronic package installed- not compatible with anything! -ditto problems with LongBow-can't fly/fight in the dark or rain or something, leaves on the line, you know the type of thing)
All that money/time spent on Tornado, just so we have a "euro fighter", it's bloody lunacy when our american cousins have state of the art fighters that $$$'s have been spent on honing to near bloody perfection,available off the shelf.
MIB rubber boats that cox'ns said were an absolute piece of crap from day one, all developed, trialled and bought by the mod when the zodiac was being used by USMC, SEAL, cloggie marines, in fact anyone that knew about amphib ops-hey guess what! after over 10 years struggling with the avon pile of shit the Corps recently binned it in favour of the zodiac the mod could have bought "of the shelf "10 years ago (had they listened to the end users)
Uniforms made in China that fell apart, ships cannibalised to keep sister ships operational, christ if it weren't so tragic it would be Monty Python, the only continuity is the bloody minded singleminded persuit of throwing our money at the pet projects of morons!
The list could easily be added to, it's just a farce, speak to the old and bold from past conflicts, poor old Tommy same shite kit/support and uncle Sam all the gear and....
It's just a damn good job that our unsupported, underpaid and under valued soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines can still pull out the stops and deliver the goods whilst that shower in the big gothic building by the Thames plots to pull the rug from under them. (death by a thousand cuts)
