RAF Mountain Rescue not using Landies anymore

In message , Dave Healey writes

Well the military as a whole are moving away from LR. I think they are just pissed off with reliability issues.

No - Ford have made it clear that they are not prepared to adapt vehicles to military requirements for the volumes involved (I'm told), and the military are not prepared to buy enough to make it worthwhile for them to do so. Catch 22.

Still, never mind, we'll be able to ask the Japs for a loan when the country goes bust (again) ;-)

Richard

On or around Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:54:57 +0000, hugh enlightened us thusly:

I bet they'll get just the same problems with anything else...

had occasion to look at the front suspension on one of the japanese 4x4 trucks, the front damper mount was a joke.

There's a bit of a fuss going on in Austrailia at the moment about front suspension collapses. The manufacturer is saying nothing is wrong.

Todays quiz - which make and model?

||||| VVVVV

Toyota Land Cruiser. Must be wrong though, they are perfect!

Richard

In message , beamendsltd writes

I believe they're going German.

Should be interesting to see what quantity, if any, of LR's are bought by the MOD in the future. The first of these is supposed to go into service this month with a possible total buy of 800+:-

On or around Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:55:58 +0000, Rob enlightened us thusly:

Looks like a baby humvee

Glad you've gone back to your old moniker Austin, I was beginning to have doubts. :-)

Martin

On or around Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:25:26 -0000, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

There was a silly website that made fake titled names, it was amusing for a while.

Remind me again why we have an army? To protect our interests, or every other buggers interests except ours? Why don't we just save a hell of a lot of money and buy the troops as well when needed!

What a stupid country we live in! God I wish I could get out..... I'm increasingly growing to admire the French - they make everthing themesleves and look after their own.

Richard

Now now Richard, haven't I put you off yet? They might make everything themselves here (except a decent 4x4. Or a motorbike), but the tax and officialdom is horrendous. (personal tax rate is in the 40-50% bracket, but it is transferable as it used to be in the UK, so blokes with wife at home and lots of children pay nowt - and the child benefit is better. And they give you rail reduction cards of up to 75% for big families. And the trains are better, and cheaper than UK, and first class is affordable and therefore used... er, I'm trying to put you off!) Mind you, the officialdom IS horrible, and relies on getting to know people, rather than doing stuff right. Most of the regulations contradict each other, it is all about knowing which you can ignore and which you can't.

And the weather here is crap (soaking wet in winter, achingly dry and hot in the summer - West France)

Stuart

I wonder sometimes if we maintain a big enough army to justify the sort of equipment we still produce. And, with all the expectation of the total replacement of the Defender design, the last vestige of the true Land Rover, I'm not so sure that Ford aren't right to hold off on small military contracts.

If they get the basic design right, and keep the options open for such things as 24v electrics, they'll be starting from scratch, but it could be worth the effort.

Back in the Fifties, the British Army was a huge market, and they didn't want something so dramatically different from civilian production. Even the Lightweight is mostly bog-standard Series III parts.

But defence procurement seems to have gotten bogged down. We're ready to fight the Cold War, because it takes such a long time to decide on new equipment. The Land Rover, or something very like it, was a flexible base vehicle that could be used straight out of the dealer's yard, if need be, or modified into a Pink Panther, an ambulance, or a command vehicle.

The whole system of procurement seems to have lost the idea of being flexible. If they didn't think of it, tough.

I've a friend who used to work in MoD Procurement. Some of the quagmire is down to past suppliers who tried to pull a fast one. That's why there are insane levels of detail in contracts, and endless aeons of testing. But, at the end of the day, despite all the military officers involved, trained to take immediate life-or-death decisions under great stress, it's the civil servants who run the business. Civil servants who seem unable to take a decision without tea and biscuits, and whose idea of stress is having to eat a bourbon instead of a custard cream.

And, whatever label Bush and Blair choose, our troops are fighting in a war.

Now, whatever Ford are going to call the new Defender, whatever market they want to sell it to, I can see them not wanting to go for contracts which will involve supplying the current model at some indeterminate future date, after the production line closes.

Which is sad. But maybe the British Army will be better off being a bit more European, if the other armies in Europe can be a bit more British. There's a lot of emotional baggage in the business, but what's wrong with Poland replacing T-72s with Challenger, while our Army is running the same light trucks as the German army? Maybe we should be looking at being the core of the Future European Navy.

Here on this newsgroup, we're Land Rover fanatics. But lets not be so lost in our enthusiasms that we forget that soldiers lives will depend on the decisions made. If Ford don't think they can meet the requirement, let's hope the Army gets something that's as good as the Land Rover has been. And maybe Land Rover will be back.

I absolutely agree 100% with the above, but lets rememeber the RB44. Starting from scratch, as the 2 links above are, is not a good way to go. I'll bet Iveco are not doing the job as a favour! And I well remember the officer who, commenting on the Pinz's, stated that

50% more helicoper lifts are now needed to move a gun battery than before - he was not anmused, and requested more helicpoters. As for us using the same light trucks as the Germans - don't forget ours have a major advantage - they have been extensively combat tested - the Germans haven't.

Richard

Manufacturers over the years have also become complacent in the belief they will continue to get contracts even when their equipment is not up to the job. After all just think of all that extra income they can get from a large mod or upgrade programme.

As someone who spent a considerable amount of my working life with the MOD, both in service and as a civilian I am very cynical about a lot of contractors.

It doesn't always take a long time to decide what is wanted.The problem is getting someone to build what you want within a short timescale at a reasonable price. Aircraft are a prime example of this. The Eurofighter has taken years to get into production and apart from the possibility of it being used to shoot down a few passenger aircraft what use it. For ground support we are probably going to have to buy American

The Land Rover, or something very like it, was a flexible

The procurement people also had a habit of letting contractors get away it. For a long period of time people who were involved in procurement and ongoing contracts had very little idea of the legal aspects of the contracts and the outside suppliers could run rings round them. That's why there

In my day the "Leopard" could run rings round the "Chieftan" but we bought British.

Very true and a lot of people, including those who work in the MOD, forget that. If Ford don't think they can meet the

Painfully near the mark there ;-) I've sat in meetings with government departments in which 20 people are sat around a table, all part of making the decisions on quite minor matters. As a general rule, if there are more than about 4 people involved in making a decision then it's not likely to ever get made. I think we spent more time faffing around with tea, coffee and biscuits than we did getting anything done. In Northern Ireland it's not quite so bad but you don't seem to be able to go anywhere in government without someone offering you scones and coffee.

It seems that these days, armoured trucks with landmine protection are the priority, Defenders and even Pinzgauers aren't designed with that in mind, the new "Panther" is to a much larger degree if the blurb I've read about it is correct. The design of a vehicle made to blow up safely is quite different to that of a civilian 4x4 so it's no surprise that the end of the civilian vehicle on the battlefield is nigh, after all war has gotten a lot more specialised and technical.

I worked for one ages ago back when the gulf war was breaking out, I resigned from the company to go back to University, the company had to get an urgent shipment out to a ship that was to sail for the gulf and they didn't have time to do the mandatory calibration and tests on the gear, so they slapped my name down as the tester and packed all the gear off.. This was navigational gear for use on the bridge of battleships, fluxgate compasses, compass display repeaters etc, theoretically capable of pointing a ship in the wrong direction so you're right to be cynical.

For all her faults, one thing Maggie got right was this. One of my relatives had cause to attend a number of meetings about something quite important - and woe betied *anyone* who turned up with a report summary more than one page long. Her meetings were very efficient. The Sir Humphery's had a hard time actually making descisions and/or reaching conclusions!

Richard

I thought you were trying to put me off!! I'd much rather deal with officials you have to get to know than some idiot with a clip-board who can't acutally make a descision without consulting Chapter 3, Paragraph 4, Sub-section 9(a), Item 987/675.1(Ammended) that was written by someone living in Yuppie Towers N1 and has nevers seen a real cow except over the barbed wire at a Centre Park!

Richard

What you're missing is that you *still* have to deal with such people, but in France you have to pretend to like them and to meet them in social circles or know friends of theirs ;-) No thanks!