Are ex-Military Types better Skippers?

[Grumpybear]

''Do you know anyone on the front line who believes all his kit is A1?''

The non informed lower deck ratings were certainly led to believe so. As a Senior Mech I knew my system was a bag of s**te, but it was not the done thing to question it or say so.
Following my experiences Down South I had a bust up with a two n half ringer which eventually brought about a parting of the waves for me & the RN. He was the very type of person you refer to in your previous post. He later went on to work on a long term project which ended similar to those you mention.
Not going to say further as for certain you will know him or heard of him. Probably one of the worst person's ever to put on a Naval uniform.......................unfortunately for him his father agreed and he never got another ring.

''The people I know are pretty realistic''.

Sure but I doubt many of them are /were lower deck ?

''And the brass have an interest in suppressing dissent, to ensure their second careers with BAeS etc. the real problem is that the defence procurement budget exists to preserve civilian defence jobs, not to arm the Armed Forces. If it did the latter we could buy kit that worked from the USA, and much more of it, and have more men and women on the front line, and still save money''.

Indeed that is so, and has been for a long time. Should also consider the jobs of pen pushing jotter blotter civvis at the MoD.

''PS aren't the French lucky the A400m is so late? If it had been on time we wouldn't have had the .C17s!''

Exactly

I might know the two and a half of whom you speak, but my experience is mainly of marine engineers in submarines. The kit we played with tended to concentrate our minds, but apart from the nuclear bit the machinery was...... (censored).

On the subject of realism, I know one young man who carries a rifle for a living. He agrees it now works more or less, but not anywhere near as well as the US equivalent. And it was originally issued for service while he was still at primary school......

 

[wotayottie]

Oddly enough one of the things I still struggle with 25 years later is the way many managers simply cannot bear to have their "orders" questioned. I always found that there was a great willingness in the RAF at least to listen to any suggestions of a better way, provided you weren't pushing your luck.

Yes its always a difficult line to draw. Only a fool ignores real suggestions wherever they come from but a bad manager allows that discussion to carry on past the point when he needs to say " Thanks, you've all had your say. This is what we are going to do".

My ex police pal is very competent and a thoroughly nice chap, but he is convinced that he always knows the best way forward and does try to dominate. But then I suppose thats what plod has to do at times when dealing with a bolshy lot of drunken yobs. Becomes ingrained.

 

[wotayottie]

The late and greatly missed Superstrath was a MN navigation officer. He didn't want to be a RN officer, but they kept offering him a post. Eventually, he agreed to go out with them for three of four days on a minesweeper or destroyer just to see what they were like.

He said it was absolute chaos, and at point they were charging up the North Sea in pitch darkness with the bridge under the command of the chief steward (or whatever the RN equivalent is). He found the whole experience to be very unprofessional and quite scary at times. I suggested that perhaps he's just got them on a bad week; he looked at me as though I was bonkers.

I can understand that. I once had to teach the YM to a serving naval officer, ex Dartmouth and doing engineering on a nuke. I was astounded at his almost complete lack of knowledge of basic sea skills like nav, weather, colregs all of which I would have thought were basic training for an officer. In the end he sank his yacht by running it aground and left to move south.

 

[wotayottie]

Do you know anyone on the front line who believes all his kit is A1? The people I know are pretty realistic.

You never will. Thats what other ranks do - moan about their kit, their officers, their lives.. Always been so and always will be. And its the same in industry

If it did the latter we could buy kit that worked from the USA, and much more of it, and have more men and women on the front line, and still save money. !

No you wouldnt save money. You'd lose badly - shutting down what little is left of UK industry and losing the taxes it generates isnt the way to finance a defence force. And in any case is the procurement problem BAe or is it the forces?

 

[Sandyman]

I might know the two and a half of whom you speak, but my experience is mainly of marine engineers in submarines. The kit we played with tended to concentrate our minds, but apart from the nuclear bit the machinery was...... (censored).

On the subject of realism, I know one young man who carries a rifle for a living. He agrees it now works more or less, but not anywhere near as well as the US equivalent. And it was originally issued for service while he was still at primary school......

The SLR was issued when I was just a nipper, but it still worked when I used it 20 years or so later.

The rifle you refer to is little better than a kids pop-gun.

 

[Grumpybear]

The SLR was issued when I was just a nipper, but it still worked when I used it 20 years or so later.

The rifle you refer to is little better than a kids pop-gun.

The difference between the SLR and the SA80 is that the former worked from the start.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I can understand that. I once had to teach the YM to a serving naval officer, ex Dartmouth and doing engineering on a nuke. I was astounded at his almost complete lack of knowledge of basic sea skills like nav, weather, colregs all of which I would have thought were basic training for an officer. In the end he sank his yacht by running it aground and left to move south.

Sorry but the point you are making is completely misinformed.

All Royal Naval officers go to Dartmouth. They all do some (very) basic seamanship and learn IRPCS. Most promptly forget most of it as they don't need it or use it when they then go off to do their specialist jobs. The man you were with was a Nuclear Engineer. If he had passed his charge qualifications to run the reactor on a Nuclear Powered submarine he was almost certainly a graduate and a highly trained and qualified engineer at that. He runs a world class bit of engineering, the exact design of which is classified, and he is an expert in his field - and then you criticise him for not knowing about meteorology and seamanship. There is NO REASON for him to no about met' and seamanship in what he does. He doesn't have to know rule of the road and he certainly doesn't have to know anything about navigation. The warfare officers do those things and they would be as out of their depth trying to sort out the reactor as he would be in trying to drive the submarine.

Sorry - but I hope you understand that your criticism is silly. It tries to make a general point about something that you can't generalise about.

Let me put it another way. the Navy has officers serving as lawyers and barristers. Are they open to criticism for not knowing about weather systems and seamanship in the way the Commanding Officer of a warship ought to know about these things? (Actually the CO is not a good comparison as they are supposed to know about man management and international diplomacy and the role his or her ship has within the battle space. He or she will have cut their teeth navigating etc but once you get to command you have minions to do the donkey work and you take overall charge.) However I hope you get my point.

 

[Grumpybear]

You never will. Thats what other ranks do - moan about their kit, their officers, their lives.. Always been so and always will be. And its the same in industry



No you wouldnt save money. You'd lose badly - shutting down what little is left of UK industry and losing the taxes it generates isnt the way to finance a defence force. And in any case is the procurement problem BAe or is it the forces?

I have to disagree. Keeping an industry going just to supply overpriced, late, substandard kit, whether to the forces or anyone else, is just repeating all the mistakes that have been made since GB began to lose its industrial edge in the late Victorian era. It is very true that the MOD has an unparalleled ability to specify equipment just when it will no longer meet the nation's needs but will support the agendas of the service leaders, and then fiddle about with the specification with o heed to the terms of the contract to build it, to say nothing of having knowingly understated the expected cost in order to get Treasury approval in the first place, but then BAeS is very happy to exploit these weaknesses to maximise its revenue - and even with an open cheque book it can't make money. Many of its flagship projects actually lose money. And they can't sell its products overseas without political support or bribery; I believe at times the British services have had to take carp kit to create the illusion in the minds of overseas customers that it works.

I don't actually advocate shutting down the British defence industry. I just wish it would start to walk its own talk and deliver the goods; then it would actually prosper.

 

[AMCD300]

Sorry- didn't mean to be offensive.

I know bu**er-all about the military and that was just a comment picked up from another ex-officer.

Would consider my career to have ended in failure -got stuck firmly in the 'marzipan layer' ie above the cake but below the icing.

None taken, David (after a good night's sleep ). I love marzipan, incidentally.....

Andy

 

[WestWittering]

FWIW my instructors were ex-army & ex-navy. Both were passionate about sailing, both had different ways of getting a point across & the ex-navy chap was more 'regimental'. Great blokes, no shouting - well only the once & not directed at me

Di

 

[chinita]

So that means that in your chosen career you either made it to the very top or consider yourself a failure. Eager to know what it was you did before retirement...I had to check your profile to make sure we didn't have Sir Richard Branson in the house...

..........We are still waiting.

Cancel - just read Post # 34.

 

[OGITD]

Awww man! .... give us a break!

I have a story to tell ... but that will definitely involve Curry & Malt .... with a song or two.

But please can we not look-down upon the ‘Minions’ from the ‘shabby-underclass’ in our society.

As I could develop a complex & go off for a sulk at this rate.

 

[capnsensible]

They dont make em like this anymore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHPRTDyNdMc

 

[rosewood]

he sounds like an arse.

He most certainly was. His missus was really nice too.

 

[chinita]

Sorry but the point you are making is completely misinformed.

All Royal Naval officers go to Dartmouth. They all do some (very) basic seamanship and learn IRPCS. Most prompty forget most of it as they don't need it or use it when they then go off to do their specialist jobs. The man you were with was a Nuclear Engineer. If he had passed his charge qualifications to run the reactor on a Nuclear Powered submarine he was almost certainly a graduate and a highly trained and qualified engineer at that. He runs a world class bit of engineering, the exact design of which is classified, and he is an expert in his field - and then you criticise him for not knowing about meteorology and seamanship. There is NO REASON for him to no about met' and seamanship in what he does. He doesn't have to know rule of the road and he certainly doesn't have to know anything about navigation. The warfare officers do those things and they would be as out of their depth trying to sort out the reactor as he would be in trying to drive the submarine.

Sorry - but I hope you understand that your criticism is silly. It tries to make a general point about something that you can't generalise about.

Let me put it another way. the Navy has officers serving as lawyers and barristers. Are they open to criticism for not knowing about weather systems and seamanship in the way the Commanding Officer of a warship ought to know about these things? (Actually the CO is not a good comparison as they are supposed to know about man management and international diplomacy and the role his or her ship has within the battle space. He or she will have cut their teeth navigating etc but once you get to command you have minions to do the donkey work and you take overall charge.) However I hope you get my point.

Well said.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I have a story to tell ... but that will definitely involve Curry & Malt .... with a song or two.

But please can we not look-down upon the ‘Minions’ from the ‘shabby-underclass’ in our society.

As I could develop a complex & go off for a sulk at this rate.

There's no sense of 'looking down' intended, but you can hardly argue with the fact that the CO of a ship or boat has better and more important things to do than constantly breathe down the neck of his Navigator. The CO might take a very keen interest in what the Navigator is doing and what the officer of the watch is doing (after all the buck stops with the CO) but in the end he has to trust his team (or recruit a team he can trust) so that he as CO can get on with taking important decisions about things. Its not a question of 'looking down on the minions' - I was trying to explain pragmatically how it works.

Furthermore my remarks about the Army recruiting from a certain class of society for much of the infantry is entirely true... No need to get upset by that either. Its just a fact of life in recruiting and the armies needs. There's no equivalent of the infantry on a submarine; nearly everyone is a specialist and is a highly trained part of a team.

 

[epervier]

There's no equivalent of the infantry on a submarine; nearly everyone is a specialist and is a highly trained part of a team.

Dolphin codes 48 + 22

 

[grumpy_o_g]

The difference between the SLR and the SA80 is that the former worked from the start.

The other difference was that the SLR was a design (by FN) proven in service around before the UK bought the SLR variant. I think the SA80 was developed from scratch despite there being excellent and cheaper proven alternatives available.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Dolphin codes 48 + 22

Well as I was speaking as one who as served on submarines but is not officially a submariner I am not sure how to take that!

 

[prv]

I think the SA80 was developed from scratch

My understanding is that it was developed from an earlier Enfield weapon which had never been adopted for service. This fired its own special calibre of round (4.85mm rings a bell) which was always going to be a problem with NATO standardisation. The SA80 series was essentially a modified version for 5.56mm. Personally I rather like the overall design - the only inherent fault is the inability to fire it from the left shoulder. Other problems either small, fixable design faults (eg the original cocking handle bouncing empty cases back into the works), or down to cheap manufacture. Plus a hefty dose of media seeking a story. It's worth noting that US soldiers didn't like the M16 when that first came out either.

Not to say that buying an off the shelf design wouldn't have been better value overall, of course, but the comments about defence procurement being forced to support UK industry are not wrong. That's the reason we ended up with EH101s for land-based transport, for example, instead of more Chinooks which would be cheaper and more capable.

Pete