jindabyne, point taken that "Senior Serving Officers" were mentioned. I'd missed that rather than the more restrictive term "Service Chiefs". So it seems that I am in violent agreement with the author after all!
It is not only the "Chiefs", ie the Chiefs of Staff, or even their immediate subordinates that are at fault here but rather the CoC down to at least 2* level. When they initiate or pass on illegal orders that result in death as well as financial waste they have committed offences against Military Law IMHO and should be so charged, providing that sufficient evidence exists of course. The latter is I admit a stumbling block, but by no means the only one I fear.
WUH:
The Service Chiefs are not solely responsible for terrain blanking of comms kit.
A very MOD response if you don't mind me saying so. The whole point about military tactical radio systems is that they should be able to circumvent "terrain blanking" in the 21st Century! There again I believe it is said that BOWMAN stands for "Better Off With Map And Nokia", and perhaps the Army should ensure that their operations are conducted in future only in areas that do not feature "terrain".