Sir Giles

Tu-chet Giles.

I know of what your saying the Brittish have had an involvment with the Nepalese and Indian Gurkha's for over a hundred years. Their recruitment is based on an agreement with the Indian government,this agreement is why the Gurkha's are so low paid reason being the Indian government will cry foul when alot of their allocation of Gurkhas all try to be Brittish soldiers to be paid in brittish pounds and not join the ranks of the Indian Gurkha regiments.

I don't give an e-mail address as I don't want my inbox full of people with room temperature I.Q's sending me abusive diatribe about this site. I would like to use this forum for this forum My alias: I was nicknamed Tango. I was so named after a drunken and debortuary session with fellow soldiers in Thailand. From what I was told, I was that drunk I couldn't walk straight and it looked like I was Tangoing down Pappong Road Bangkok at 2a.m. Plus my side slip on the rugby field was pure ballet.

I do see your point with the Brittish officer I do know that the Brittish Rarj is still alive and well and this is not applicable to me, or us ANZACS (I'm retired now) Your point on the Exocet was right on, this weapon was used to it's full potential with deadly results, The HMS Shefield bears testimony to that.How ever most ground forces died from gun shot wounds,hypothermia,Aircraft crashes, the usual suspects.

I do recall the SAS raid on the Pucara's and they as I recall carried mortar's in to the airfield area. Each trooper carried 2 mortar rounds each and delivered them to the mortar crew's on their positions around the airfield. If you've ever carried 81 mm mortar's they can be cumbersome. The SAS moved on into the airfield and planted explosives on the aircraft,when the mortars opened up the SAS shot the crap out of what ever and on thier departure from the airfield the timed charges went off allowing their escape. Note a seaking helicopter crashed on this mission taking the lives of 12 SAS troopers with it.

Friendly fire incidents are in excusable I didn't ever 
accept the excuse of We wern't sure or oh I didn't know that.It's individual responsibility to avoid
 such matters and part of the code of practise
 for professional soldiers and those in Command.
 The Americans did acknowledge their culpability 
in the Gulf
 War when they destroyed the Brittish armoured vehicle with 
the large Brittish flag on top for all to see, again the pilot responsible didn't do his job and note from his briefing the
 positions of the allied forces and their identifications or distinctive markings.

As for 2 Para B and C company sure the weather was shite, how ever their positions were marked on the main map in the Command Post.It was a colour sargent from 2 Para who put two and two together when the arty fire missions came in he checked the map co-ordinates from the afore mentioned map but by the time he figured it out it was too late.

The involvement of Aussies and Kiwi's in the SAS, is they go over do the selection and get picked for the cycle and after that they're SAS.Same as most Poms who want to be SAS,there's also Fijians and other nationalities in there a sort of mini elite United Nations.

One of my old mates went into the SAS in England and came back wrote a book about his exploits and basically showed the Brittish hierachy for what is ,incomtetant.The Brittish Hierachy opposed the books publishing our Courts and Lost, and here's the funny thing. The Brittish were not familiar with their law of non disclosure agreements etc. Because of their boffinry they were made a laughing stock. Lost the court case and book was published. And no it wasn't Andy Mcnab.

So we both chewd some of the same gravel Sir Giles

Best Regards Tango (Retired)