Who said anything about shooting? He’s the Captain, he let his men get captured. End of story.
Well, it’s a hijack, but what exactly do you think the captain should have done? Fired on the Iranians? Great plan, that?
Or are you just of the school that if something bad happens, somebody has to be blamed, and in this case it’s the captain? If you have evidence that the captain wasn’t following SOP when the Iranians captured his patrol, trot it out. Otherwise, on what basis does the captain get court martialed? His men got captured, so he’s responsible, so he needs to have “done something”?
Given the ROE he was under, he did the exact correct thing. I think the RN’s ROE should have allowed for the defense of his ship…but that wasn’t the fault of the captain.
I believe thats the point you were trying to make…if so, then I agree (obviously). Had the captain fired he then SHOULD have been court martialed, regardless of if it was or was not the ‘right’ thing to do.
-XT
Recently I read something
In WWI David Windsor (later Edward VIII) wanted to serve on the front line and was arguing with a general.
The general said ‘I don’t care if you are killed, what I don’t want is you taken prisoner’
This Harry stuff is a problem, perhaps the answer is to use him as a ‘lure’
- ambush the ambushers
You could refine yourself to relevant questions instead, and then the dilemma you’re in is gone completely.
Harry is not personally a billionaire. Nor is Harry’s father, and only arguably is the Queen (her personal fortune is usually estimated in the hundreds of millions; if you want to count certain Crown properties and the Crown jewels then she’d be worth multiple billions–but she can’t exactly sell or profit from those Crown properties so it’s not really meaningful to say they are hers.)
Not only is Harry not a billionaire, he’s also not “just another rich white kid.” In the United Kingdom the monarchy has a very long tradition of sending younger sons off to fight; and prior to the mid 1750s, of monarchs themselves leading troops in battle. The Royal Family may only be a symbol, but that doesn’t mean their traditions don’t exist. Like it or not the UK isn’t like the United States, the UK has a royal family that sets the members of said family on different grounds than regular citizens. In their family, it’s recognized they have certain responsibilities, and as symbols of the State it’d be a bit ludicrous in fact for the able bodied males to not participate in one of the most significant acts the State can undertake.
Of course the men (& women) they’re sending now are volunteers, not conscripts. If they were drafting men (& women) against their will to fight you’d have a point.
Also a quick FYI; the way modern soldiers are equipped in the field good luck recognizing one white member of the Royal Army out of thousands. They’re all pretty much dressed the same and wear head gear when out and about.
You’d honestly need inside info (which some insurgent groups claim they have, via spies inserted into the British government) to actually know where he was, and you’d need serious intel to actually know when and where he was out on patrol or et cetera.
The latest twist: he’s not going after all. Prince Harry will not go to Iraq - CNN.com
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were just a cover story, and that he went to Iraq but kept a low profile. I doubt that Fleet Street could keep the secret, though.
A very quick (and therefore probably inaccurate) search shows that The Blues and Royals regiment is one of five regiments which uses the Scimitar (or variant) light tank, each with twelve plus a few other vehicles. Work out which of the five regiments are in Iraq and the total number of targets would quickly drop from (a not unmanageable) 60 to many fewer. I’m not sure anyone else uses the Scimitar in Iraq, but I don’t think so in and around Basra. Hit one/two/three with IEDs and your chances get pretty good of getting HRH. Of course that’s not the same as taking him hostage, but it suggests that he’d only be making his troop a greater target IMO.
Tanks are pretty durable. An IED isn’t even likely to take out a tank, IEDs tend to kill people in Strykers and Humvees and other vehicles. Tanks typically roll over land mines without any trouble. During World War II they had to make specific mines specifically to take out tanks.
The very fact that he’s in a tank would make him a lot safer than most everyone else who isn’t. Tanks are very very difficult to take out with small arms fire and without explosives designed specifically to take out very heavily armored vehicles. In World War II for example a single tank could roll 100 infantrymen and they’d have a hard time doing anything about it. Some of Germany’s best tanks (Tigers and Panthers) could take multiple hits from an infantryman’s bazooka without even slowing down. The Soviet’s T-34 would also shrug off a blast from a bazooka.
The Germans had a better anti-tank weapon in the Panzershreck, and we modified the bazooka adopting many of the Panzershreck’s features during the Korean war in order to make it viable against T-34s.
Anyway, I digress, my point is most IEDs probably can’t take out a modern tank. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a tank that was hit with an IED, as one could certainly kill the crew, but realistically unless insurgents are using extremely powerful charges universally most IEDs encountered in Iraq are probably not going to be a serious danger to a modern British tank (I don’t know the specs on the tank in question.) I’m aware of a few incidents where Abrams have been taken out in Iraq, although usually not by IEDs.
Cite? If the US military is to believed, IED complexity and lethality has increased drastically (with help from Iran).
Yes, but I believe the Scimitar, though often called a “light tank” is rather more like what the Americans would call a CFV/IFV. Much more vulnerable to IED and light man-portable anti-armor weapons.
In any case, it seems that the brass has done the calculation: If his deployment would mean that every Tarik, Ali and Hassan in Southern Iraq would be aggressively gunning for Harry, that could create the uncomfortable situation of the Blues and Royals, and the Brit contingent in general, taking casualties at a significantly higher rate than other units at other times. And though Cornet Wales and his fellow troop leaders may be willing to face that, it would seem rather unfair to Pvt. Thomas Tomkins’s family to know that not only is he in the War Zone, but he’s been getting fired at way more often than would be normal just because the insurgents are gambling that HRH may be somethere around.
Note the words “most and probably” in my post. My contention isn’t that Abrams can’t be hurt by IEDs. But rather that most IEDs are made to take out Stryker and Humvee vehicles and thus cannot seriously harm an Abrams tank which is a much heavier vehicle.
I’ve even seen a video (I’ll google for it later) filmed by an insurgent group filming it for propaganda purposes of an Abrams rolling over an IED, being lifted off the ground and then continuing to roll on after the blast. Afterwards one of the wheels rolled off so the tank came to a stop and the crew got out to join up with another tank in the convoy. In general a bomb with enough force to lift a 122,000 pound tank would absolutely liquefy anyone inside a more conventional vehicle.
I’m only aware of a few incidents of Abrams being taken out in Iraq.
One, an anti-tank mine (which by its nature isn’t improvised, an anti-tank mine is specifically designed to take out tanks) took out an Abrams.
Another involved a recoilless rifle hitting the engine block, none of the crew were injured but the tank was unable to move. To prevent it from falling into enemy hands the tank was destroyed by the United States (both of the above incidents happened during the fight with the Iraqi Army, pre-fall of Baghdad.)
The Iraqi Army had some other successes in disabling tanks by hitting the tracks and making them immobile, but in most cases the tank crew were unharmed by these attacks.
The only three incidents after the end of the fighting with the conventional Iraqi military was Nov. 27, 2004 when a 34.5 kg IED (way larger than your normal home made bomb) took out an Abrams. In that case, the driver was injured and the rest of the crew escaped unharmed–to compare a bomb that size hitting a Humvee or a Stryker and I’d be very surprised if anyone came out alive.
On 12/25/05 an IED took out an Abrams and killed one of the crew members.
On 6/4/06 an IED killed two take crew members.
My point was not that Abrams were invulnerable versus IED. But that Harry would be pretty safe inside a tank if the tank were anything like the American equivalents (I put in the disclaimer that I’m not familiar with the specs of the British tank in question.)
Tank crews are by no means invulnerable, but they take hits that a Humvee or Stryker could never take without killing most or all of the crew.
Anyway this is all now academic as the powers that be have decided that Harry will not be going to Iraq.
“For you Harry ze war is over”
Apparently a paintakingly forensic six month investigation by The Ministry of Defence has uncovered the fact that things are somewhat dangerous in Iraq, with people shooting at each other and everything. :eek:
“I have a cunning plan my Lord…”
-Baldrick
What, will HRH be going under the nom de guerre “Cornet Blackadder”?
Yes but surely those nasty people are only shooting at the commoners.
I mean they wouldn’t dare shoot at a member of British Royalty would they?
Huh? Huh?
Harry being killed isn’t the MoD’s biggest fear. It’s Harry being captured and used for propoganda. The future Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor ran into the same problem during WWI when he wanted to go the front lines.
The moment the news appeared that he was not going, I pictured something like this taking place earlier:
-
I know my lord! we’ll say that you going in will endanger the soldiers in your future brigade by making them a bigger target! That way all the blokes will think you not going to war was really to help all of them!
-
Baldrick… that may just work…