Missing Defence Assets (merged)
Have you a link? Wouldn't be surprised if some of them were BOWMAN radios. It is well known many units got replacements/upgrades before the BOWMAN contract was let, so chucked BOWMAN in a corner when it arrived 4 or 5 years later.
Going further back, Director Internal Audit crucified AMSO/AML in the mid-90s for disposing of brand new kit, including radios, which was waiting to be installed in aircraft mid-life upgrades. AML responded by promptly scrapping more, just as contracts were being let to replace the first lot. When the investigation started what few records that existed were conveniently lost.
Going further back, Director Internal Audit crucified AMSO/AML in the mid-90s for disposing of brand new kit, including radios, which was waiting to be installed in aircraft mid-life upgrades. AML responded by promptly scrapping more, just as contracts were being let to replace the first lot. When the investigation started what few records that existed were conveniently lost.
Avoid imitations
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Most of it's probably been seen off on Ebay with a "buy it now" sticker.
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Is it any surprise when we have had 20 years of cuts in personnel, both military and civil servants. Reorganised headquarters and organisations on a biannual basis, converted paper files to electronic ones and contracted so many core elements out to the cheapest bidders. How many people have just given up and don't care any more? How many people who are about to be compulsary redundant are going to leave under a cloud of bitterness.
Interesting story a few years ago with huge cuts taking place 'in the city'. In some companies, employees being made redundant were getting calls to the HR department to be told their services were no longer required at the same time as staff from the IT department were removing computers from their desk spaces and closing down all electronic access to business systems. They were given immediate notice to leave, had to hand over access cards and were escorted by security to clear out desks before being shown the door. Grossly unpleasant and not what you would like to see in Defence but the whole idea was to prevent bitter and twisted employees causing any possible chance of financial damage before leaving the office.
Could we see the same over the next few years?
Interesting story a few years ago with huge cuts taking place 'in the city'. In some companies, employees being made redundant were getting calls to the HR department to be told their services were no longer required at the same time as staff from the IT department were removing computers from their desk spaces and closing down all electronic access to business systems. They were given immediate notice to leave, had to hand over access cards and were escorted by security to clear out desks before being shown the door. Grossly unpleasant and not what you would like to see in Defence but the whole idea was to prevent bitter and twisted employees causing any possible chance of financial damage before leaving the office.
Could we see the same over the next few years?
So bad was the situation that one day an employee noticed someone putting stickers on the ground equipment and enquired what he was doing..... turned out he was from another company and was there to put bids in on the ground equipment as the company was closing down the facility and it was the first the workforce heard of it!!!!
I seem to remember most Jags that went in would never get off the ground with the amount of stores that were written off on them.
E-Bay for `best-buys`....
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airpolice Maybe this explains why the Nimrod R1 is not required for elint any more.
Terry is now using the radios from stores / Ebay so we no longer need soophisticated equipment to overcome the freqency hopping ICOMS or Cellular services. Just select a chan on the Bowman and here what's on your local net.
Simples.
Terry is now using the radios from stores / Ebay so we no longer need soophisticated equipment to overcome the freqency hopping ICOMS or Cellular services. Just select a chan on the Bowman and here what's on your local net.
Simples.
No no no the Nimrods have gone because MoD found these to be cheaper
Uniden UBC-3500XLT Scanner at Radioscan - With Close Call!
Read in an aviation magazine many years ago. that the R.1s were mostly equipped with AOR scanning equipment.
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Which brings us round again neatly to the number of Officers who had left their swords in the office the night of the Brampton fire
And God awful too..... Would look good on parade though with a lit candle in it
WW2 British RAF airforce ceremonial sword candle stick on eBay (end time 27-Jul-11 19:20:45 BST)
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Quote:
airpolice Maybe this explains why the Nimrod R1 is not required for elint any more.
Terry is now using the radios from stores / Ebay so we no longer need soophisticated equipment to overcome the freqency hopping ICOMS or Cellular services. Just select a chan on the Bowman and here what's on your local net.
Simples.
No no no the Nimrods have gone because MoD found these to be cheaper
Uniden UBC-3500XLT Scanner at Radioscan - With Close Call!
Read in an aviation magazine many years ago. that the R.1s were mostly equipped with AOR scanning equipment.
airpolice Maybe this explains why the Nimrod R1 is not required for elint any more.
Terry is now using the radios from stores / Ebay so we no longer need soophisticated equipment to overcome the freqency hopping ICOMS or Cellular services. Just select a chan on the Bowman and here what's on your local net.
Simples.
No no no the Nimrods have gone because MoD found these to be cheaper
Uniden UBC-3500XLT Scanner at Radioscan - With Close Call!
Read in an aviation magazine many years ago. that the R.1s were mostly equipped with AOR scanning equipment.
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I no longer feel guilty for keeping my aircrew socks...
OB
OB
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Chances are that a lot of this kit isn't actually physically 'missing' but more likely badly accounted for. The problem is that there is still a mental mindset amongst a lot of service personnel that 'Stores' is a big Aladdin's cave that will keep spewing out the bits they need. Item's aren't tracked properly through the system, mis-identified on paperwork and left lying around in the corners of hangars, chief's desks until they just become part of the furniture and consistently ignored.
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Been there, done that. Everyone responsible for spares,tools etc. knows that he carries the can for any shortages, so acquires any freebies, liberated or lost items he can. When he moves on he may mention these to his successor, or may not. Or an audit might loom, and he may hurriedly 'lose' the excess, frequently to the scrap heap. I have known vehicles to be lost and turn up only when tax and MOT were out of date.
Any organisation that uses a stores system, such as MOD has to, is vulnerable to this. Big firms in the civilian sector, for instance, use budgets. Buy what you need or whatever you want, but when the cash has gone you will have to manage without, or explain why you need extra to some very unsympathetic people.
During WW2, when ball bearing factories were being bombed in Germany, and there was a threat that tank production would be reduced as a result, Albert Speer sent squads out round QM stores and liberated all the buckshee bearings that storemen were holding onto 'just in case' and they managed to actually increase production of tanks while the production of bearings was brought back normal.
I'll bet that a fair chunk of what's missing from the books is still out there somewhere. The rest has gone because the system punishes people who admit to or point out admin cock-ups so there is no incentive to find the missing bits.
TT
Any organisation that uses a stores system, such as MOD has to, is vulnerable to this. Big firms in the civilian sector, for instance, use budgets. Buy what you need or whatever you want, but when the cash has gone you will have to manage without, or explain why you need extra to some very unsympathetic people.
During WW2, when ball bearing factories were being bombed in Germany, and there was a threat that tank production would be reduced as a result, Albert Speer sent squads out round QM stores and liberated all the buckshee bearings that storemen were holding onto 'just in case' and they managed to actually increase production of tanks while the production of bearings was brought back normal.
I'll bet that a fair chunk of what's missing from the books is still out there somewhere. The rest has gone because the system punishes people who admit to or point out admin cock-ups so there is no incentive to find the missing bits.
TT
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just how old is this 'missing' equipment are we talking about all new shiny stuff or things as old as say propellers, wooden, sopwith camels for the use of, there was a couple of those laying about at Hornchurch 50 years or so ago
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where's it all gone then..............
How about checking out the ex Trade Assistant General who sold a crashed Puma for scrap to the local pikies who was later employed in Odiham stores several years' ago, as a civvy and then decided to start his own 'retail flying clothing business'...............(can't remember his name though..)
Knowing MoD they probably just don't understand.....
Well, those LGBs were under the Tornado wings when it left for Libya, but when it came back they'd gone.
Doc C
Well, those LGBs were under the Tornado wings when it left for Libya, but when it came back they'd gone.
Doc C
Last edited by Doctor Cruces; 7th Jul 2011 at 17:55.