Despite the occasional miscellany which surfaces on this site and the complete unashamedly parochial nature of a post turning up in the next two-or-three, TheEye (who is missing St Crispin’s wise council as he is busy teaching ex-colonials how to shoot at things from the comfort of a subsidised wardroom in Singapore – pool attached) returns to the serious military, political and current affairs issues.

The Army has abandoned plans for a new training camp that was meant to cope with the record number of applicants.

It decided that the £8.5 million cost of building a new centre at an army cadet establishment at Barry Buddon, near Dundee, could not be justified because it would turn out only 200 extra soldiers a year.

Army recruitment has risen by 14 per cent in the six months to March 31 compared with the same period last year as a result of the poor job prospects elsewhere in Britain (the One Eyed Son Of The Manse will of course tell you that it all started in America and the fact that he is a snot-gobbling man-fondling wanker happens to be a coincidence).

That presented the Army with the problem of finding enough training places to keep up with the rising demand and Operation Solomon — to build the new training centre — was begun to ensure that the teenage recruits were fed into the Army’s training programme as quickly as possible before they changed their minds about becoming soldiers.

Despite the prospect of having a fully manned Army for the first time for many years, army chiefs decided that the costs of the camp were too high. A Ministry of Defence official said: “It just wasn’t value for money.”

The Army has had to try to fit the new recruits into the existing training system. The MoD said that the infantry training centre at Catterick, in North Yorkshire, was planning to run two additional combat infantryman courses to start in June/July, each with 144 recruits. An additional four courses would be created at the Army’s initial training regiment at Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire.

With the Barry Buddon proposal scrapped, it will take longer to get the new recruits through training and into the field.

“The new recruits will be blended into the normal training pipeline — they will still be able to join the Army,” the MoD spokesweasel droned. Still able to join the Army? Eh? On the Richter Scale that scores 8.5 on Statin’ T’e Bleedin’ Obvious, Sunshine.

At any given time there are 3,000 people waiting in the recruiting pipeline. The MoD said that the Army’s training facilities were approaching “full capacity” but insisted that the system could deal with it. The MoD is also looking at out-sourcing training, using the private sector to share “the burden of coping” with the rise in recruits.Those two completely contradictory statements basically say “It’s all marvellous, just trust us” and “Oooops we appear to be drowning in our own bullshit”.

Two infantry battalions that had been training with 12th Mechanised Brigade, first for Iraq, and then for Afghanistan, had been earmarked to take over the instruction of the young recruits once the new centre was built but that plan is obviously now a spectacular train-crash (sorry – the system, apparently, can deal with it…or we’ll privatise you).

Now for the 250th post on this blog my co-conspirator the G.O.T. prepared a video with a skill that TheEye can only envy and a talent for catching the mood of the day that TheEye can only admire. It is with pure admiration that it is reposted for your viewing pleasure.


.