Every MAN Truck is Down

Your weekly dose of defence news, biased opinions and poorly curated content. You’re welcome.

Yep that’s right - all 6,000 MAN trucks are in the workshop this week after someone flagged a “safety issue with the bolts holding them together”.

Rheinmetall MAN (who makes the MAN truck, duh) basically said the Army had bogged it and was just fitting their parts wrong…this came as a shock to absolutely no one.

The MOD are footing the bill. Competence at its best.

Off the back of the AJAX comedy show last week and now MAN-gate, ol’ Luke Pollard - the military procurement minister - is having a helluva month. When hauled in front of the Defence Committee this week, he washed his hands of the situation, saying military top brass assured him the AJAX was safe and that was that.

I’m sure General Roly Poly loved that.

As we went to print rumours were emerging in The Times (who gen quoted Fill Your Boots as a source) and Telegraph - saying the government might consider scrapping AJAX all together…urgh this is painful.

Strap in - these stats are wild.

The MOD released figures last week that were technically positive (although you’d hardly know it): 14,100 joined the regulars last year, while 13,860 left…meaning a net increase of 240 personnel. That’s right - across all three services, we are up by 240 people.

For context - if we keep up this same rate of growth it will take us only 1,333 years to hit the 500,000 personnel figure Germany is aiming for by 2035. Pretty good right boss?

Big events from the past, covered in brief and probably inaccurately.

On 2 December 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor in Paris, literally - he took the crown from the Pope and stuck it on his head. It marked the peak of his transformation from artillery officer to ruler of half of Europe.

The ending was far less ballsy. After defeat at Waterloo, the Brits exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he spent his final years dictating memoirs and slowly fading into obscurity.

Changing things up? This is where we briefly look at career options from across the civvy world - everything goes here so expect some absolute drivel. Sometimes Forces Assist can help place you, sometimes we can’t. Either way we can offer advice.

Joke. Loads of great jobs in the renewable sector that are a good fit for vets.

We talk about this more on our insta:

Over at Forces Assist we’re always looking for qualled up drivers nationally. If you have driving qualifications and are looking for work then head to forcesassist.com to start conversations.

Cheers,

Team Forces Assist