Sunak promises to introduce mandatory national service for 18 year olds

[WouldBe]

Carers surely qualify by just doing what they do...would hope they'd throw some extra people in that direction.

Just swap who your caring for.

Doing National Sevice alongside any travel ....

I was wondering that. Where else in the world will they find the NHS?

And arrange your travels to avoid countries where the army have bases.

 

[gosub]

Just swap who your caring for.

Can be easier apparently

 

[T & P]

I'm guessing you were doing military service in the early 90s in Spain. I don't know, but I'm guessing there were still some echoes of the military's 'dark past' still around then?

Yes, I did mine in 92, changed to an all-professional army around 98.

Politics were never discussed by the officers, not once. Plenty of photographs of the King everywhere, but basically because he was the commander in chief of the Spanish Armed Forces. This is pretty much the reason the heir to the throne in most monarchies joins the military and gets granted high ranking officer status when they ascend to the throne. Ultimately the military will obey the commands of their head honcho even if he/she were to order them to overthrow the government. When the attempted coup took place in 1981 and a couple of generals ordered their regiments out to the streets, the rest of the commanding officers basically turned to Juan Carlos and said ‘your call, boss’ rather than outright declaring the coup illegal.

The only openly fascist sentiment expressed was by the civilian who ran the barracks barber shop, where I was assigned to serve my time after the basic training. Most regiments had military-run barber shops but for whatever reason the paras in Spain had a a civvie, and you needed to pay for your haircut as well, also highly unusual. He was an outspoken Franco megafan who also described the 1981 coup participants as patriots. And needless to say a cunt of the highest order.

 

[Monte]

Fair few conscripts ended up fighting the Commie insurgents in Malaysia, and rounding the villagers up into camps.

My father did his NS as active service in Malaya (Malaysia came later when Singapore and Malaya unified).
He was REME though so no rounding up villagers, to deprive insurgents of resources, for him.

 

[bellaozzydog]

Fuck all that shit. If a country is suddenly fighting for its freedom against an invading enemy, you can train civilians to the same level of combat readiness in two weeks as anyone who had served military service a few years earlier.

What ludicrous nonsense

 

[Elpenor]

The army wants economic conscription. The services recruit hard in low income areas.

I find the join the army / navy adverts (I was raised in Teeside but made in the Navy is one of them I think) really distasteful. Selling it as a long outward bound style pursuit as opposed to what being in the military is really about which is killing other people

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Fair few conscripts ended up fighting the Commie insurgents in Malaysia, and rounding the villagers up into camps.

my late father was based in (West) Germany after his basic training. This would have been early to mid 1950s. i'm not sure that anybody gained from the whole experience.

 

[T & P]

At a personal level, it was an unpleasant experience and whereas I wasn’t personally bullied to excess, I was still subject to the well ingrained culture of the newest arrivals being treated like shit by their peers who had arrived in the previous quarter. Officers were fully aware but didn’t give a shit so long as things didn’t get out of hand, and of course, it’s such a toxic environment that even everyone in your year complains about the bullying and says ‘I’m going to be a better person than that lot and when the next batch arrives in three months I’m not going to be that guy to them’ everyone is.

Target shooting fun though.

 

[T & P]

What ludicrous nonsense

I am talking about basic conscription military service, not processional soldiers. Certainly as cannon fodder infantry is concerned, which is where the great majority non-professional soldiers end up in.

 

[Wilf]

Yes, I did mine in 92, changed to an all-professional army around 98.

Politics were never discussed by the officers, not once. Plenty of photographs of the King everywhere, but basically because he was the commander in chief of the Spanish Armed Forces. This is pretty much the reason the heir to the throne in most monarchies joins the military and gets granted high ranking officer status when they ascend to the throne. Ultimately the military will obey the commands of their head honcho even if he/she were to order them to overthrow the government. When the attempted coup took place in 1981 and a couple of generals ordered their regiments out to the streets, the rest of the commanding officers basically turned to Juan Carlos and said ‘your call, boss’ rather than outright declaring the coup illegal.

The only openly fascist sentiment expressed was by the civilian who ran the barracks barber shop, where I was assigned to serve my time after the basic training. Most regiments had military-run barber shops but for whatever reason the paras in Spain had a a civvie, and you needed to pay for your haircut as well, also highly unusual. He was an outspoken Franco megafan who also described the 1981 coup participants as patriots. And needless to say a cunt of the highest order.

Ta.

 

[Wilf]

I find the join the army / navy adverts (I was raised in Teeside but made in the Navy is one of them I think) really distasteful. Selling it as a long outward bound style pursuit as opposed to what being in the military is really about which is killing other people

Yeah, I fucking HATE those adverts. Pretty much saying all your life before, your community, your family means nothing when compared to the military.

 

[Kaka Tim]

After 48 hours trying to work out what the fuck they were thinking with this im only getting more gobsmacked at the sheer incompetant batshittery of this. There is no plan or strategy is there?

 

[Wilf]

After 48 hours trying to work out what the fuck they were thinking with this im only getting more gobsmacked at the sheer incompetant batshittery of this. There is no plan or strategy is there?

There will also be carnage around this and a few other issues in the party in 6 weeks

 

[kebabking]

I am talking about basic conscription military service, not processional soldiers. Certainly as cannon fodder infantry is concerned, which is where the great majority non-professional soldiers end up in.

I think that's a false/poor conclusion based on looking at Ukraine and thinking that what's happened there is the inevitable, or the desired military doctrine.

It's not. The Somme 2.0 isn't the way Ukraine wants to fight, it's simply what it's got left given it's lack of other options. It's also a way of fighting that suits Russia, given that Russia has a much larger manpower pool, and very much not Ukraine.

The Ukrainians have found that the rushed 'it'll do...' training simply hasn't worked for the much more complex Manoeuvre warfare - it can cope with the sitting in a trench and advancing to the next hedge line, but anything above that and it's just not enough - their planned offensives start to fall apart when it's larger numbers of troops trying to move in coordination and with other arms like armour and artillery.

In short, bodging it has both not worked, and has trapped them in a losing game.

I'm not particularly sold on the idea of conscription, but I think that if you are going to do it, you should do it properly, rather than sending half trained kids into situations and tasks that aren't trained for - better (morally) to force them to do 18/24 months (?) and be properly trained, than to 'be nice', limit it to 3 months or whatever and, then, if it happens, they simply don't have the skills and experience to cope and they die in larger numbers than they otherwise would.

An extrapolation of the Finnish numbers is interesting - population of just short of 6 million, they conscript between 25 and 30k 18yo men each year. for me, I don't think that you can morally conscript men and not women, so in the UK's case - population of 60 million - you could (theoretically) be looking at a figure of 500,000 men and women every year. Even if you ended their reserve liability at 35, you'd be looking at a reserve pool of people who'd done their basic training, their trade training, and had gone to an operational unit for a year, of more than 5 million.

Quite how you'd equip such a force makes the mind boggle...

I think voluntary reservists are the answer to 'how to do I massively, and quickly, increase military capacity?', but it needs a very different approach and deal than the current setup.

 

[Oriole]

Today in, this was well thought out and people who might be asked questions about it have been briefed in how to answer and avoid pitfalls :

 

[brogdale]

It's all just a stream of gammon unconsciousness

 

[SpookyFrank]

What ludicrous nonsense

Yeah, it took me over 500 hours playing Drone Attack on my xbox before I could get to the army's required standard of hitting someone who was probably an insurgent 51% of the time.

 

[gosub]

Today in, this was well thought out and people who might be asked questions about it have been briefed in how to answer and avoid pitfalls :
View attachment 426253

So...they'd be old enough to do military service but not old enough to bare legal responsibility for their actions...

 

[Silas Loom]

Today in, this was well thought out and people who might be asked questions about it have been briefed in how to answer and avoid pitfalls :
View attachment 426253

This was yesterday, I think. She’d probably just been told not to rule anything in or out and to say that all details would be left to the Royal Commission, so got tripped up by an obvious gotcha on parental liability.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So...they'd be old enough to do military service but not old enough to bare legal responsibility for their actions...

Perfect for the UK army then.

 

[kebabking]

The performative nature of this is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that Sunak claims it's about increasing the Army's pool of manpower by about 30,000 a year.

Would you like to take a stab at what, roughly, is the number of people who apply to join the Army Reserve each year?

I'll give you three guesses, but you'll only need one...

 

[likesfish]

Yeah, it took me over 500 hours playing Drone Attack on my xbox before I could get to the army's required standard of hitting someone who was probably an insurgent 51% of the time.

look forward to the brown envelope in the post
As kebab king says a 5million strong potential pool of reservists could be done would need to bring trident to cover the cost reactive or build new barracks and armoury's all over the UK. fundementally change UK Society you've decided 5 million people have to serve so that's a year to 3 out of their lives and a few weekends and a fortnight a year of refresher training to remain even theoretically useful.
They aren't going to settle for zero hour contracts and shitty private landlords and Rich unelected cunts getting mates rate deals.
last time we mobilished the entire nation we got the welfare state council housing and the NHS because being hung from the nearest lamppost by an angry mob of armed proles didn't appeal to the elite.
do it rishi radicalise the nation's youth teach them the value of team work and comradeship what could possibly go wrong?

 

[two sheds]

Yeah, it took me over 500 hours playing Drone Attack on my xbox before I could get to the army's required standard of hitting someone who was probably an insurgent 51% of the time.

There you go we should just get kids to play loads of games instead of this national service nonsense.

 

[Saul Goodman]

There you go we should just get kids to play loads of games instead of this national service nonsense.

Or just pick the ones who are shit hot at Call of Duty.

 

[The39thStep]

Probably too niche for some but here goes

 

[PR1Berske]

Yeah, it took me over 500 hours playing Drone Attack on my xbox before I could get to the army's required standard of hitting someone who was probably an insurgent 51% of the time.

What if just showing how good you are on Call of Duty forms part of the conscription training?

 

[PR1Berske]

Or just pick the ones who are shit hot at Call of Duty.

Well I hadn't seen this response before typing mine and lol at thinking the same thing.

 

[likesfish]

because pushing Sprint on the Xbox is totally the same as running 500m with body armour a helmet rifle etc

 

[SpookyFrank]

because pushing Sprint on the Xbox is totally the same as running 500m with body armour a helmet rifle etc

If they're running at full tilt with a full set of kit just to get to the portakabin they fly their drones from that's their own stupid fault.

 

[Oriole]

This was yesterday, I think. She’d probably just been told not to rule anything in or out and to say that all details would be left to the Royal Commission, so got tripped up by an obvious gotcha on parental liability.

it's still yesterday if I haven't had my morning coffee yet

Sometimes I think "OMG do they have to be this incompetent? It's embarrassing" and then I remember that nefarious intent + competent + power is probably not a great combo in the grand scheme of things.