Hambo

I was thinking more of air launched weapons, if the CVA01 had an in service date of 1972/1973 would KH-22 be in use by then? How close would a 350kt plus warhead need to detonate to cause significant damage to a carrier?

Kh-22 in reasonable numbers would be later 70’s, maybe 77ish, with Backfire and not really in the Atlantic basin. As you say above though when CVA-01 heads north it steps into the sights of the high volume air-launched missile threat. CVA-01 is not going after the Kola on its own hook though. Any practical Cold War scenario that puts CVA-01 in Bucc range of northern AV-MF airstrips has a USN carrier or two on SIOP tasking close at hand.

In the Atlantic though its a different story….the threat is mostly subs up until the Kirovs and then Oscars start drifting in in the 80’s. Seeing the active element of Legenda was coming unglued by the mid 80’s CVA-01 could have had a useful life, in an RN-only context, challenging Gorshkovs forward dominance concept in the Atlantic.

350kt’s warhead would need to be in about a half-mile from the ship with an airburst at optimum height to really screw up the ship. At twice that range the ship is still in the 20psi zone so is unlikely to be in the aircraft-flying business post det.

There were 50 rounds of 338 Lapua in there though Snapper…you’d have to believe he was planning to smuggle out an L115 to go with the Glock if his little ammo horde was anything more than leftovers.

If this was a standard range situation in the UK his actions would be simply unfeasible…you just wouldnt. In an SF training camp in ’07 Iraq though I can imagine things being a touch less formal…certainly I’ve been told first hand stories of SF behaviour at Sennybridge that definitely come under the heading of ‘less formal’ that wont be recounted here!.

The mental issues detailed occurred following an accident in 09…by this time the Sgt’s ‘arsenal’ had already sat, ignored, at Hereford for more than a year!. He was declared fit for service again in ’10 (which seems to be the issue that is diluting the strength of his case for mental impairment) but was UK-based and didnt need to collect his desert kit for the task.

To be honest I think his defence team, from the court transcript, did a decent job. His lawyer was plainly working to point out that a sentence based on the mandatory civvy possession laws was not appropriate as this was not a civvy situation. He didnt want the judge thinking that his start point was 5yrs inside in the first place….in fact he tried very hard to make the sentence relevent to an earlier ruling that put another Sgt inside for 2yrs and he left a live bloody grenade sat on a shelf in his garage!. The lawyer said himself 1 year inside suspended for a couple would be balanced compared to that prior cases sentencing.

The judge just got it badly wrong on sentencing….as to whether there is ‘more to it’ the court transcript is available…its all there. Baz has even linked it on this thread. Read it and see what you think.

I’ve seen that an MP has managed to get this tabled for discussion in the Commons so hopefully we’ll see some action taken sooner rather than later on getting this sentence reduced to were it should be.

I’ve seen that opinion written in a few places Snapper and I am having trouble with it to be honest.

His last operational tasking in Iraq was as a training officer for their SF in 2007. So after a training serial or two he’s stowed the loose rounds with his kit, likely to use up on later serials or husbanded to give himself some practice ammo. As the transcript shows he was in the process of developing and refining his training material off his own hook. Legitimate reasons why an SF trooper on a training detail would have a modest amount of loose ammo to hand.

Its clear that he left Iraq at the rush and without his Operational kit as we can see from the transcript it followed him out and stayed in the lockup until 2010. If that ammo was in his kit just before he left and was inadvertently stowed and shipped back with it no blame can be attached to the Sgt for bringing in the ammo illegally.

As before it seems, from the transcript, that he’s only opened his Go’ box when he was short-notice deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 he’s found the ammo and weapon and, rather than p*** about with amnesty’s and deactivations he’s decided to stick it all out of sight and deal with it after his tour.

He’s guilty of prioritising his deployment order over sorting out his admin at the end of the day. With hindsight I’m sure he doesnt do it that way again, but, its easy enough to see how the situation could have occurred given the circumstances and, in no way, is 18mnths in Colchester appropriate punishment for an admin cockup.

Hi Baz

Yeah quite a few more will be coming back over the next few years as we drop the ball in Afghan. I didn’t like the default position as the civvy possesion reg to start sentencing from. This lad wasn’t a civvy and did have a reason for having a firearm in his possession that a civvy would not.

My suspicion is that this is a warning to all the lads coming back from Afghan to be mindful of what they bring back. If that is the case then its bang out of order.

Sounds like a lot of ammo that doesnt it…til you remember he was a training officer and it came back in his kit. It amounts to little more than four full mags for an MP5 in 9 milly, two full mags and a bit of 556 and a little more than a single mag of 7.62 assuming its the Russian short round. Thats leftover hand-back rounds from a couple of squads range sessions at most!. To me the diversity in ammo types tells the story more clearly than anything else.

Then there is actual confirmation, and report to the court, from the RMP armourer that this Glock had not been fired recently. So you have a gun shipped back by someone else in the Sgts outfit that sits with his kit in lockup at Hereford for 3 years. Out of sight and out of mind, even without the medical unpleasantness, and when he does need to deploy on ops again and empties his go’ box he commits, as his only crime, the act of stuffing the pistol out of the way in a locked heavy-duty box at the top of a wardrobe when he called on to short notice deploy to Afghanistan.

18 months in Colchester for being thoughtless about an item he clearly hadnt thought about very much for 4 years (as it’d been locked away and ignored for 3 of them!) is indefensible surely?

Is continuous patrol doable with 3 SSBM, with the fourth being
loaded with cruise missiles but with the option to reload with nuke BM
in an unforeseen advent ?

Provided you dont have to actually send out the cruise-missile carrier, or we only want to TLAM Iceland, France, Holland, Denmark etc so we can nip out, fire, then nip back in again then yes its viable.

Otherwise you’re left with one on station, one in transit to/from and one in post-patrol or workups. If the 4th boat is hovering 3000nm away, waiting to see if its going to be showering TLAMs on some unfriendly regime, its best part of a weeks steaming, with discretion, to get back to start to re-role should an emergency arise.

The opportunity to gain at least a basic command of the Welsh language should be available to anyone in these islands…especially if you intend visiting the place. Why?. Simply because the natives arent always friendly and letting them blat away amongst themselves in the native tongue unmonitored is bloody dangerous.

True story: a friend of mine is an outdoor pursuits instructor and spends much of his time hoofing it along ridges and other geographical features in darkest Snowdonia.

Several summers ago he is in charge of a group of Eton-type townie kids 13-16ish who, in his words, thought that sitting though three episodes of Coastwatch and mummy driving a Defender made them rural and outdoorsy. They are being tramped round the hills, getting more miserable, gobby and unruly, until one little voice pops up asking questions about all the signs they are seeing on the tracks saying ‘Perygl Danger’ or just ‘Perygl’.

My friend explains that a Perygl is like a badger, slightly bigger and fiercer, but with stronger hind-legs and strong claws that allow it to leap on prey from behind rocks or climb trees and drop on their prey from above. The signs being to warn tourists that they are in areas that Perygls hunt in. The behaviour of his class improved markedly over the next 4 or 5 seconds.

Perygl is, of course, the Welsh for ‘danger’. Salutory lesson.

Thanks lads. As you say Al its the harshness I find difficult to square off here – especially from a court-martial. It seems incomprehensibly easier for the MOD Police to get the pistol checked forensically for GSR to prove its not been fired – clearly supporting the contention this was a gift tucked away and not an active weapon.

If it was so proved the pistol is sent to the RMP Armoury for deactivation and then returned to the Sergeant with an invoice for work undertaken ‘on his behalf’. Shortly after he gets a letter in the post for his court-martial bollocking and slap-on-the wrist fine. He keeps his job, his family dont stand to lose their home and the taxpayer doesnt have to pick up the bill supporting the prison stay of a man who represents no threat to our society to require him be segregated from it.