Your weekly dose of defence news, biased opinions and poorly curated content. You’re welcome.
TOP STORY THIS WEEK
And then there were five…
Britain is down to just five frigates now, after HMS Iron Duke had her sensors and weapons removed - essentially rendering her a floating piece of metal.
Three years ago, £103 million was spent on her refit. Will anyone be held accountable for this monumental waste of money?
Nope.
IN OTHER NEWS
RAF robot jets inbound
Hope they look cooler than this
Apparently, the RAF is supercharging its shift towards an AI-first force.
Air Chief Sir Harv Smyth (honestly, just spell your name like a normal person), the head of the RAF, told The i Paper that shifting towards unmanned systems was “one of the most interesting and exciting changes for us” - which is lucky, because you’ve got about 20 people left to draw on.
Day 1 HMS Raleigh
In a cost saving measure more modern approach to training, the Royal Navy has kicked off its new integrated training model - where officers will be forced to work with peasants Ratings for the first 10 weeks of their military careers.
Watch out Sandhurst - you’ll be merged with Pirbright in no time.
IN THE MEDIA
BFBS: Nerd Alert
Apparently Ukraine is willing to share their mammoth dataset with UK to help train AI models in drone decision making.
Quite an interesting video - not enough explosions though.
THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Big events from the past, covered in brief and probably inaccurately.
8th May 1945: VE Day
Two pints please
Victory in Europe was announced following the eventual capitulation of Germany and its vast armies on Tuesday 8 May 1945.
A big ol’ piss-up ensued across Britain, and rightfully so - thousands dead, the economy in tatters, and an Empire on its knees.
Would an entire nation rise to the challenge in this day and age? I’ll leave that up to my savvy readers to decide.
JOB SPOTLIGHT
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.
People with oily hands…read on
HGV Technician jobs are still open across Plymouth, Leicester, Hampshire, Cardiff and Suffolk. Great pay, solid hours - if you know anyone with the relevant quals can you do us a solid and send them our way via our contact us form. If they namedrop your subscriber email and pass probation I will personally give you £500. Gen.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Get your mucker to sign up for this…
Bored of asking - they’ll love Despatches and we’ll love them.
Cheers,
Team Forces Assist