No a reliable system nowadays, in event of emergency Cell coverage will be the first to go.
You need a cadre of Ham Radio operators!

As witness the comms in Independence Day which resorted to Morse Code!

Not a cell phone.

The BID/470 Brahms was a briefcase "with not much room for your sandwiches" that you plugged into a standard BT landline wall socket converting it into a secure speech device. State of the art back in the 1980s !

If they got rid of the damm cars parked all over Wyton they could use that as well!

I recall some barking mad exercise we had at Brize once. The idea was that we would deploy to Fairford as a DOB.....until the cost of such an idea became apparent. So instead we stayed at Brize and worked from a squalid group of huts down by JATE. Which was OK, except that the engineers insisted on full MOB turnrounds rather than the QTRs we normally enjoyed on detached ops. That put the kybosh on the flying programme and the whole thing turned to rats....

Our boss when told to put up blackouts at Brize had a wonderful tropical beach scene picture that fitted the window perfectly, the makes you feel good factor was lost on the Distaff.

Bruggen when modernising the HAS painted Has size squares on the apron for us to operated from.

Re secure comms , you won’t need to worry about classified info getting out while you have muppets like this in the forces.

https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/w...ssified-specs/

So come the moment of crisis:

How many jets?
How many dispersal locations?
Assessment of likely size of Russian first wave strike?

I had to write a paper on the V-Force whilst at Staff College, turned up some interesting research that suggested even dispersed 80% of the V-Force could be destroyed in a Soviet first strike.

So my question to CAS is what’s changed since then to make that possibility any less likely? Simple to use robust aircraft might be able to go from motorways; I can’t see an F35 managing it given the technical requirements just to start the dammed engine. And it sure as hell won’t be operating out of hide sites. And I don’t see Typhoon being much better. So that narrows it down to fixed sites. Oh erm, we’ve sold our airfields? Hmmm right then, civilian airfields it is ala Battle of Britain. Let’s hope they hide the signatures.

Sounds like a good idea but rather impractical given the corner we’ve painted ourselves into. It also works on the assumption that the aircraft and airfields are likely to be the main targets. With so few pilots these days, it wouldn’t take much effort to thin those numbers down even further before they even got anywhere close to a jet.

I suppose UK PLC will be buying back all those now not so Secret Nuclear Bunkers, and removing the Secret Nuclear Bunker road signage dotted around the Country?

And bring back the ROC!

I blame the Romans…..


p.s. The bore of the HS2 tunnels varies between 7.55m to 8.8m.

https://assets.publishing.service.go...ction_v1.3.pdf

I believe that the standard gauge for our railways was taken from the width of the cart-wheel tracks at Pompeii.

its supposed to be Housesteads on the Roman Wall

Bit of an urban myth if you google it - probably more to do with designing a cart around the width of a single horse

So what was the Great Western track based on? Brunel's favoured 7' 0¼" gauge.

As a side note, the Romans invented cats eyes as well in a circumspect route, they used to scatter marble waste chippings along the roads in cities which would reflect in the light of the burning torches on chariots.

That would require geo-stationary satellites and I believe surveillance ones are orbiting.

I would be double-hatted, then :)

My old post still exists, but the old Group HQ has been flattened and tarmac'd as a car park...