@Digital_Sapper
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32yrs reservist. Innovations & Digital SME. Urban, SubT, Digital & CNI. from RSWO to SO3. living the green dream.
South of England
Joined January 2012
- Tweets19.6K
- Following2.8K
- Followers4.1K
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A 3D complex environment covering multiple levels, directions, materials & light conditions. #Subt is the #rubixcube of tactical spaces.
Living the #sapper dream 👍 @Proud_Sappers
A delicate blend from China today to go with this spoon. Both gifted from a very wonderful friend a few years back.
The tea was bespoke picked and prepared just for me ☺️
Which regiment? Go on. Guess!
Digital Sapper retweeted
A huge congratulations to Colonel Jamie McMeechan on completing the Copenhagen Ironman and raising an incredible £6,500 in support of the Army Benevolent Fund.
🏊 2.4-mile swim
🚴 112-mile bike ride
🏃 26.2-mile marathon
Reflecting on the challenge, Jamie said "It was brutal at times, but the atmosphere was incredible and the support from everyone kept me moving when my body wanted to stop. I'm genuinely humbled by the generosity shown and the incredible amount raised. Every donation helps the ABF continue standing beside our military family through injury, bereavement, hardship and crisis."
We are incredibly grateful for Jamie's commitment, determination and continued support. The funds raised will help us continue supporting soldiers, veterans and their families when they need us most.
#ForSoldiersForLife
We all struggle at some point, & the culture around us heavily impacts how we deal with it & how we recover.
Sometimes, we’re terrified that the very thing making life bearable will reject us if we seek official help.
Kettle is always on.
Break away, Brew Up & Breathe
Digital Sapper retweeted
Why do I constantly stress this?
Why do I constantly stress Mission Command?
Because I care, because I want our military to be the Absolute most capable force that will succeed in the New Battlefield Geometry!
I care because I have fought this from the Enemy Point of view for over 2 years, and within hours of the start of each rotation we pinpointed every Command Post and had means to strike them.
That is why we must acknowledge this and have leaders that support bold change! And yes we might not get it right the first time but if we never start, we will never adapt. This Battlefield demands adaptation!
Digital Sapper retweeted
That’s a good question. From what I’ve seen here in Ukraine, brigade command posts are generally operating a lot deeper than what we traditionally practiced in the U.S. Army. In some cases, I’d say probably two or even three times deeper, depending on the situation and what the brigade is doing.
But I think the bigger issue isn’t necessarily how many kilometers behind the line you are. It’s survivability.
A lot of what I’ve seen here is much more decentralized. You’re not necessarily putting the entire brigade command post in one location. Different functions can be spread across multiple locations and tied together through communications. They’re also using hardened positions whenever they can, including underground locations and existing infrastructure.
Camouflage and concealment are huge, and I’m not just talking about throwing a camouflage net over something. You have to think about your entire signature. Visual, thermal, electronic, communications, vehicle movement, antennas, generators, everything. If you’re putting out a signature, somebody is eventually going to start looking at it.
That’s something I used to talk about when I was an OCT at NTC. I never liked the idea of these huge tent city command posts with vehicles everywhere and antennas sticking up all over the place. Against somebody who doesn’t have the ability to reach you, maybe you can get away with that. Against a peer enemy with persistent ISR and long range fires, that can become a one hit wonder really fast.
That’s really what Ukraine has reinforced for me. Your command post has to be mobile. It has to be dispersed. It needs redundancy. It needs protection, and it needs to be able to pick up and move when required.
You also have to assume that if the enemy identifies you as a high value target, they’re going to try to put something on that location. It might be drones, artillery, missiles, or glide bombs depending on where you are and what they have available.
The other thing is redundancy. If somebody hits one part of your command and control architecture, the brigade still has to be able to fight. You can’t have everything dependent on one location or one communications node.
So when somebody asks me where the brigade command post should be located, my answer is that distance matters, but there isn’t some magic number. Terrain matters. The threat matters. Your communications matter. What the brigade is doing matters.
For me, the bigger question is whether that command post can survive being continuously hunted while still allowing the commander and staff to command the fight. That’s probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away from watching how these guys operate over here.
youtube.com/watch?v=8gsLJ1Rc…
Digital Sapper retweeted
One for the Royal Engineers…,
A largely forgotten hero of Rorke's Drift, Sergeant (later Garrison Sergeant Major) Henry Gallagher.
Unfortunately, he is completely absent in the film, as is Sergeant George Smith.
The role of the section leaders is also seriously underrepresented. It was they who directly led their men and gave all fire commands, not Lieutenants Chard or Bromhead, who were overseeing the entire battle and would have delegated. (NOTE: Ian Knight has said there were plans to include Gallagher in the film, but his role was cut during script revisions)
At twenty-three, Gallagher was the youngest of the four section leaders in in B Company, 24th at the time of the battle. However, he also held date-of-rank on all his peers, making him the second highest NCO behind Colour Sergeant Bourne, who was just a year older. Gallagher commanded the south rampart of the defence and was the first to engage the Zulus.
After the war, he spent most of 1880 in Gibraltar before returning to Home Service. The following year he was promoted to Colour Sergeant. Over the next fourteen years, he and his wife, Caroline, would have six children together.
In 1883, he and his family were sent with the 24th Regiment, now the South Wales Borderers to India and later Burma. In 1889, at just thirty-three years of age, he was promoted to Sergeant Major. This meant that for a short time he outranked his former colour sergeant, Frank Bourne (who at the time was serving as Quartermaster Sergeant), before the latter’s commissioning the following year.
While later posted to Egypt, Henry was promoted to Garrison Sergeant Major, the very pinnacle of the non-commissioned officer’s career path.
The Gallaghers finally returned home in 1897, where Henry retired after serving twenty-three years in the British Army. He spent the next fourteen years as Barrack Warden at Coleworth Barracks, Hilsea and Alexandria Hospital.
Following his permanent retirement, Henry and Caroline moved to Drayton near Portsmouth Harbour. He never lost touch with his Irish roots and each year around Saint Patrick’s Day his sons, and later grandsons, would send him a small box of clover from Ireland.
He maintained a lifelong friendship with Fred Hitch, VC, who would often come to visit around the anniversary of Rorke’s Drift. These were the few occasions when the otherwise jovial Irishman became sombre and withdrawn.
Garrison Sergeant Major Henry Gallagher died in December 1931 at the age of seventy-five. His beloved Caroline followed soon after. All three of his sons went on to have distinguished military careers of their own.
#britishhistory #BritishEmpire #britisharmy #southafrica #AngloZuluWar
For those who know my other account. @Skiimmod . Its been hacked and i have lost ownership 😞
1940, the threat of invasion looming, the Home Guard stood up to be counted. Armed initially with little more than pikes, shotguns, & courage. they answered the call to protect Britain with absolute faith in their country. #breakaway #Brewup #Breathe
Digital Sapper retweeted
FPV drones owning the battlefield.... the end of an era,
FPV drones owning the battlefield was always going to be a short-term situation. The reason is straightforward: armored vehicles moving forward now carry enough electrical power and mounting space to field automated, optically guided kinetic anti-drone systems directly on the vehicle. These systems can be cued by early warning, so vehicles and their automated defenses know where incoming FPV drones are before they arrive. The drones themselves can be tracked optically and acoustically, picked up by the sound of their engines and motors, and with enough of these systems fielded, Third Corps has effectively mastered how to clear the sky of FPV drones in the area it's operating in, specifically the ground north of Lyman.
The reason so few FPV drones are being encountered in that area comes down to a deliberate, layered air defense concept. A .50 caliber machine gun has an effective range of roughly a thousand meters, which means each air defense gun protects a radius of about two thousand meters around itself. These systems can be vehicle-mounted, trailer-mounted, or pallet-mounted, simply dropped off at the front and daisy-chained together. With four, six, or twelve of them working in concert, they move forward one piece at a time, like pieces on a chessboard, always keeping overlapping fire and mutual support between systems. Combined with electronic warfare vehicles and other anti-drone systems moving forward alongside them, this is exactly what has let Third Corps advance into a large area while encountering relatively few FPV drones, whether radio-guided or fiber-optic guided.
We always knew this was coming. When large formations move forward with heavy vehicle density, combining kinetic anti-drone systems with electronic warfare sweeps the FPVs from the sky, and that's exactly what's being seen now. We saw an earlier version of this at the Battle of Kursk, where wide-spectrum jamming alone worked well for the first couple of days, until fiber-optic drones showed up and jamming alone stopped being enough. What's happening now is the second phase of that same evolution: jammers combined with kinetic air defense actually sweeping the skies clear of FPVs, rather than jamming alone trying to hold the line.
FPV drones will always have a place on the battlefield going forward, but they've always been fragile, and as long as they can be seen, they can be dealt with. What's re-emerging now, as a direct result of clearing the skies, is conventional tube artillery, finally able to do what it does best at long range again, without nearly as much fear of the FPV threat hanging over it.
Todays brew is a reminder of the @RoyalTankRegt unstoppable spirit. Much needed to stir me into action.
No matter how heavy the mud or how dark the path, we don't leave anyone behind. This one is for you Major. Soon be seeing the fields beyond.
Breakaway Brewup Breathe
After some help!
Looking for a sheet of very thin metal that could be used to make a table top (over wood) for my dad’s potting table. Any thoughts and sources?
Digital Sapper retweeted
Australian Army generated a whole motorised Bde out of gap year students after agreeing to pay their uni fees as part of the terms and conditions. Full year of paid service initially then year paid reserve commitments in Uni holidays. Very capable Brigade. #ReadyReserve
A proposal for the Armed Forces to repay some or all of the student loans held by new recruits "may have merits", but would require detailed work say the Government. Click image for more.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk/?p=7…
