Major Sebastian Morley the SAS commander in Afghanistan - resigns

[TykeMerc]

Ordinarily you wouldn't get away with writing Vixen and Snatch in such close proximity, but this is a serious issue. Despite the extra power available, I imagine they'd still need to pussy foot around anti-tank mines.

Well yes since anti-tank mines are designed to kill tanks which are a tad more sturdy than any other vehicle.

There's no such thing as impenetrable armour and the blast doesn't do the occupants of any vehicle much good. That said the soldiers had expressed grave concerns over the Snatch landrover before they were deployed so the MoD can't claim surprise or ignorance.

Didn't we discuss this issue a few days ago on another thread?

[voodooflux]

Ordinarily you wouldn't get away with writing Vixen and Snatch in such close proximity, but this is a serious issue.

Indeed, "Snatch Vixen" is quite possibly a Google search to be classified as NSFW

[TimberWolf]

I think the new Vixen variant of the Snatch is being deployed out there now, with more armour. They've also had to significantly boost the power of the vehicle to carry the extra plate around.

Ordinarily you wouldn't get away with writing Vixen and Snatch in such close proximity, but this is a serious issue. Despite the extra power available, I imagine they'd still need to pussy foot around anti-tank mines.

[voodooflux]

Haven't the army got engineers any more that can cobble something together with for example thick steel plate welded under the occupants arses?

I think the new Vixen variant of the Snatch is being deployed out there now, with more armour. They've also had to significantly boost the power of the vehicle to carry the extra plate around.

[crimdon]

I'm not sure him resigning has done any good.

Typical rupert

[Moscow Mule]

I'm not sure him resigning has done any good.

[Ruprect]

Soldiers are understood to refer to the Snatch as a "mobile coffin".

[TimberWolf]

Haven't the army got engineers any more that can cobble something together with for example thick steel plate welded under the occupants arses?

[DimPrawn]

Priorities.

1. MP's expenses must be paid for
2. Civil servants final-salary pension pots must be filled to the brim.
3. Bankers must be bailed out to ensure their huge bonuses are paid
4. New asylum centres must be built to cope with the influx.
5. We need new nukes.
6. Soldiers get equipment to save their live.

It's all in the plan.

[AlfredJPruffock]

What a disgrace - how can we afford the Trident upgrade but not basic equipment for our troops ?



The SAS reservist commander in Afghanistan has resigned amid fresh controversy over the equipment available to British troops fighting the Taliban, it was revealed today.

Major Sebastian Morley is quitting after four his soldiers were killed when their lightly armoured Snatch Land Rover hit a landmine in Helmand province earlier this year.

Morley, the commander of D Squadron, 23 SAS, blamed "chronic under investment" in equipment by the Ministry of Defence for their deaths, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The paper said he believed the MoD was guilty of "gross negligence" and that its failure to supply better equipment was "cavalier at best, criminal at worst".

Corporal Sarah Bryant - the first female soldier to be killed in Afghanistan - and three SAS officers, Corporal Sean Reeve, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin and Paul Stout, all died needlessly, he said.

The Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army officer, accused the government of failing to respond with sufficient urgency to the need to protect troops.

"I think the government is guilty of a lack of urgency and a lack of empathy with the men and women they place in harm's way," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It is not as if there are not better vehicles out there which can be bought and deployed relatively quickly. In fairness, that is starting, but by golly it has taken a long time.

"Men and women have been dying for three or four years now and will continue to as long as these unsuitable vehicles are deployed for unsuitable duties."

Soldiers are understood to refer to the Snatch as a "mobile coffin".

"You drive over a landmine in a very-lightly armoured Land-Rover Snatch - it's not much different from driving over it in a Ford Escort," a former member of the Royal Green Jackets who served in Iraq, Steve McLoughlin, told BBC Radio Five Live.

"At the very least you're going to lose limbs - horrific injuries if you survive - you're probably going to get killed outright."