What a calm account by the leader of Southampton City Council. Sounds as if he deals with armed gun men every day of the week. Remarkable man.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-13022096
|
How did he know it had a 30 round magazine?
He either knows his Service Pistols (possibly if he was in the airforce) or has been well briefed before his statement.
|
From www.southampton.gov.uk/moderngov/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=145
Royston’s background is rooted in aeronautical engineering; he spent 10 years in the Royal Air Force flying as ground engineer with the Nimrod maritime reconnaissance fleet before taking up a position with British Airways in 1990.
|
These people like 'moondog' as he was known need to be weeded out IMO, like the Dunblane massacre etc.,
they don't just *crack*, the signs are there beforehand for all to see!
Scary to think he was on-board the world's most advanced submarine costing £1.2b.
|
>> How did he know it had a 30 round magazine?
>>
>> He either knows his Service Pistols (possibly if he was in the airforce) or has
>> been well briefed before his statement.
>>
The weapon used would have been a SA80 rifle, submarine sentries only used 9mm automatic pistols for a short time as a "longer" weapon is safer in a confined space when loading and unloading. This is the most likely time for an accidental discharge, although this was obviously not accidental. Do not doubt that all military sentries have loaded weapons.
I was involved with the introduction of armed sentries in submarines, the activities of ban the bomb, peace activists, and all manner of do gooders, stopped almost immediately when armed sentries were introduced. No more ban the bomb signs painted on submarines!
|
You are right, the grauniad reports it "It is understood that the two victims were male officers and that the weapon used was an SA80 rifle"
The dead man was a Lt Cmdr, the weapons engineer.
Astute does not seem to be a lucky boat.
|
|
According to the Times the gunman was unhappy over the restricted toilet facilities for the crew during the visit. A bit worrying that someone so volatile was carrying a gun.
|
>> According to the Times the gunman was unhappy over the restricted toilet facilities for the
>> crew during the visit. A bit worrying that someone so volatile was carrying a gun.
>>
The armed forces will reflect society, they will have their share of good, bad, drunks, the violent, and drug abusers. Just like all other organisations. They are humans with all their frailtys.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 9 Apr 11 at 15:49
|
'they will have their share of good, bad, drunks, the violent, and drug abusers. Just like all other organisations.'
But down at Tescos or the local council they don't give them automatic weapons. Surely they screen for potentially unstable types?
|
>> Surely
>> they screen for potentially unstable types?
>>
Indeed they should. and I thought they HAD.
Watch Operation Disaster with John Mills amd Dickie Attenborough.
|
You mean "Morning Departure"?
Ah, Operation Disaster was the US title for that release.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 9 Apr 11 at 16:58
|
Sorry - but yes, that's the one.
Was on a Daphne (NO sniggering!) a few weeks back, static in Simonstown.
If you are prepared to do that for a living: You are a better man than I am, Gunga Din, etc etc etc
|
>> Was on a Daphne (NO sniggering!) a few weeks back, >>
There is a vast difference in living conditions between a small diesel submarine and a nuclear one.
I read that Astute only has 5 Heads, (toilets), The last submarine I was crew in had ten, for a similar sized crew, some progress.
|
quote:
The sanitary fittings comprise five showers, five toilets, two urinals and eight hand basins for a crew of 98 (the Commanding Officer has his own hand basin).
|
Better man than etc etc etc, oldNavy.
daphne class:
Length: 57.8 metres (190 ft)
Beam: 6.75 metres (22.1 ft)
Draught: 5.23 metres (17.2 ft)
6 Officers and 45 Ratings, and 6 to 10 trainees
astute:
Length: 97 m (323 ft)
Beam: 11.3 m (37 ft)
Draught: 10 m (33 ft)
98 officers and enlisted, capacity of 109 (All male)
|
> Surely they screen for potentially unstable types?
Given the number of service men who have access to weaponry, and the number who don't go mad and shoot others for no good reason, it seems they do a pretty good job of it.
|
|
I appreciate that but nevertheless it is alarming that a a man so near to breaking point that he flips over the lack of toilet facilities is in possession of a gun and that nobody had spotted his instability, or at least done anything about it.
|
|
Old Navy, as an aside, when did you start on subs? My dad is an ex-submariner hence the question, but he was in 50's/60's.
|
>> Old Navy, as an aside, when did you start on subs? My dad is an
>> ex-submariner hence the question, but he was in 50's/60's.
>>
I started my submarine training in 1964, served in diesels until '69 when I joined a Polaris submarine in build. I have been at sea in all classes of submarine in service between '64 and the '90s except the Vanguard class, although I have been on board the V class many times. Astute is too new for me, but I have a good idea how it works.
Ian (CT),
I assure you there is a vast difference in the living conditions between diesel and nuclear submarines. No comparison.
I knew I got my preference for diesel cars from somewhere!
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 9 Apr 11 at 18:43
|
|
I know my dad was on several T-Class subs, Totem springs to mind as I have a pic of him standing on it in some far away land. Just rang to check, he left in '66, last served on Talant.
|
|
Good job he left Totem before it was sold, it was lost in the Mediteranian in transit from the UK to Israel. I was in Tabard based in Sydney about that time.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sat 9 Apr 11 at 18:59
|
One of our Jowett Car Club members was LtCmdr Jackie Northwood...now long gone.
He served in the Thunderbolt which had sunk on trials in Liverpool Bay when it was the Thetis.
Told of the ring of rust round the inside where the water had reached and how they could never get rid of it.
Ted
|
>> I assure you there is a vast difference in the living conditions between diesel and nuclear submarines. No comparison.
>> I knew I got my preference for diesel cars from somewhere!
Seriously ON, do you mean that the living conditions on diesel submarines were actually better than those on a huge, fast, roomy nuclear-powered one? One would think in principle that the modern, bigger boat would be more comfortable.
Of course that doesn't take into account the need for the diesel to be on the surface perhaps most of the time, while those nuclear fish circle the globe under water recycling and manufacturing water, air and so on. At 40 knots too I understand, when they want to, powerful things they are.
Please tell more. I thought submarines in the world wars were a byword for cramped, smelly, health threatening discomfort. I would have thought today's matelots would expect, and get, better.
As for the OP and the mad-rating story: Some people are mad and go berserk. Military sentries are armed with modern infantry weapons, loaded because they are sentries and may have to defend something. The very occasional berserker sentry is a statistical certainty.
|
Some people are mad and go berserk.
Agreed
Military sentries are armed with modern infantry weapons, loaded because they are sentries and may have to defend something.
Agreed
Vital thererfore that we don't have mad military sentries
|
>> Vital thererfore
Really? just playing devil's advocate but if everyone was of the sterile type, would there be anything other than slow evolution in everything?
You need the occasional head banger to shake things up.
Plus it gives the worriers something to worry about, they're torture when they're idle.
|
|
I guess you're right - the world surely needs more deranged people with guns. Whatever you're drinking you probably have had enough. :-)
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sun 10 Apr 11 at 00:15
|
>>
>>
>> Vital thererfore that we don't have mad military sentries
>>
The difference between seeming a little stressed and tetchy to an outsider and tipping over the edge into an act of insanity is probably very small if someone is heading in that direction anyway. I've no doubt we have all seen someone flip without warning at some time or other.
|
>> I knew I got my preference for diesel cars from somewhere!
It is slowly dawning on me that this may be an ironic comment. Doh, as they say.
|
>> >> I knew I got my preference for diesel cars from somewhere!
>>
>> It is slowly dawning on me that this may be an ironic comment. Doh, as
>> they say.
>>
Sorry AC, You picked up the wrong end of that one. :-)
Not many nuclear powered cars yet.
A diesel submarine in the tropics with limited fresh water and no aircon is not fun, the other extreme is running the diesels in harbour in winter to charge the battery and pulling falling snow through the submarine.
A nuclear boat is a floating hotel in comparison.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 10 Apr 11 at 14:59
|
>> A nuclear boat is a floating hotel in comparison.
Thanks ON, just as I would have thought.
Goodness, confined diesel-and-humanity-smelling space in the tropics with no air conditioning... I hadn't thought of that. Of course the human nose soon adapts to anything short of the genuinely toxic, but heat and humidity are unavoidable.
It must be a great relief to be allowed out of the hatches for some fresh air. I suppose how often or regularly this happened would depend on the operation being carried out. Even on the surface, submarines don't look all that well-adapted to lazy Sunday afternoons on deck retying and retarring each other's pigtails, carving whales' teeth and so on. I suppose the crew is only allowed on top of the boat in calm weather when there's nothing happening for miles around.
Chapeau, ON. Don't think I'd have fancied submarines even when young.
|
After spending a couple of months underwater fresh air smells "strange", you get used to the recycled, cleaned air with home made oxygen quickly without realising it is not fresh.
In the tropic scenario, if it is calm you can open a hatch near the front of the submarine and the diesels will draw their air through the length of the boat. As near to aircon as you get.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 10 Apr 11 at 16:05
|
"A nuclear boat is a floating hotel in comparison."
Some interesting pictures of the inside of HMS Trident.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/uk_on_board_hms_trident_/html/1.stm
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 11 Apr 11 at 00:05
|
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14971198
The gunman sentanced min 25 years. Seems to be drunk whilst on armed guard and had a greivance about a posting that was cancelled.
|
|
snip
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 19:13
|
|
Seems to be running despute on board, and why he was put on guard duty after being on the lash for two days is mystery. Wouldn't surprise me if a courts martial came out of it.
|
Gunman on submarine - Zero
