It’s said that the rank of lance corporal in a British Army infantry unit, denoted by a single inverted chevron, is the hardest one to earn and the easiest to lose.
Whereas the U.S. Marines run a two-week corporal’s course for what is a step higher rank (E-4), the British Army puts the screws to privates looking to earn their stripe.
For reference, the British Army’s lance corporal’s course, run by 1 Rifles on Cyprus, takes seven weeks.
In a recent course that saw 68 privates start and 47 complete, they conducted:
In a move to outfit assorted crew-served weapons, the British armed forces will be using a variety of SIG Sauer full-size red dots and magnifiers.
The Support Weapons Systems Sighting Program aims to provide better sights to a wide range of platforms in British service such as the SA80 A2 Light Support Weapon in 5.56 NATO and the L7A2 General Purpose Machine Gun– a version of the famed FN MAG 58/M240– in 7.62 NATO.
Equipping these will be the SIG Sauer Electro-Optics Romeo 8T red dot and the company’s Juliet 3 and Juliet 4 magnifiers.
Footage from “somewhere in Ukraine” shows an improvised drone-buster made from six Kalashnikovs.
The system, first seen in early July, is made from a half-dozen AK74s assembled in a rough circle along a hexagonal brace with the tops of the receivers facing inward. It includes a central charging handle and trigger solenoid as well as a simple circle-T anti-aircraft style iron reticle fitted to the top centerline.
The initial design included guns still with their canvas slings.
Another short clip, posted last week, shows the gun in action against two low-flying target drones alongside a WWII-vintage DP28.
The testing prototype was a little better arranged
The Armorer’s Bench, calling the device the “Ukrainian Minigun,” dives more into it in the below video, including some video of the mount being constructed in a shop.
The primary source of counter-drone, counter-missile, and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine since 2021 has been the U.S. In addition to undefined “Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities” as well as “Anti-aircraft guns and ammunition,” the $41.3 billion in counter-air weapons transferred from Pentagon stockpiles to the country include:
One Patriot air defense battery and munitions
Eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions
HAWK air defense systems and munitions
RIM-7 missiles for air defense
20 Avenger air defense systems
Nine c-UAS gun trucks and ammunition
10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems
Over 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
Plus, NATO allies have given the Ukrainians Cold War-era RBS-70s, Mistrals, Gephards, Orelikons, et. al. by the trainloads.
However, it should be noted that in 2023 with Iranian-made Shahed 136 “kamikaze drones” only costing the Russians about $20K a pop, systems like the “Ukrainian Minigun” may be a low-cost solution.
This dovetails with reports that Ukraine is running short of AAA ammo and SAMs:
I’d recommend bringing back the old M45 Maxson “Meat Chopper,” which used a four-pack of M2 .50-cals on a battery-powered chassis.
We checked out one back in 2020 and such a concept, updated with better mechanics and the addition of an EW jammer for countering small drones (CUAS) should be something that could be CAD’ed up overnight and built from off-the-shelf components.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the Army just took possession of the first of a planned 225 Smartshooter SMASH fire control systems, an add-on see-through optics with a lock and track system that can recognize a target and maintain a lock even if it or the user moves. It has a dedicated “drone hard kill mode” and will be employed in such a role.
If spread across the 33 active duty combat battalions of the Regular army, this gives about six SMASH-equipped rifles per battalion, or two per company, which seems about right, and could point towards Designated C-sUAS Marksmen being a thing. (Photo: British Army)
It is no wonder that companies such as Rheinmetall are now marketing SPAAGs like the Oerlikon Skyranger 30, platforms that look very 1980s but with a new twist.
“This highly mobile air defence system with integrated active and passive search and tracking sensors is a powerful, autonomous shooter with both gun and missiles. It is capable of engaging modern battlefield threats with a special focus on small unmanned aerial targets. It combines superior firepower with the dynamics and elevation needed to successfully engage highly agile single or swarming targets performing loiter, pop up or dive attacks.”
In what is being billed as “the largest UK military ceremonial operation for 70 years,” even more sweeping in scope than the late Queen’s funeral, King Charlie was installed over the weekend.
While I have no love for the shitshow that is the British Royal family, you have to admit the pageantry was splendid, including the Guards doing what they are known for as well as marching units from the Army Air Corps, Paras, RMs, and the like.
If you are a fan of military uniforms and units, it was a treat.
The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery performing a 6-gun salvo salute on Horse Guards Parade Ground as part of the Coronation of King Charles III
As noted by MoD:
More than 7,000 soldiers, sailors, and aviators from across the UK and Commonwealth participated in ceremonial activities across processions, flypasts, and gun salutes marking the historic event. With around 200 personnel providing a Guard of Honour at Buckingham Palace, together this made up the largest UK military ceremonial operation for 70 years. As well as marching detachments from across the Household Division, Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force, more than 400 troops from the Commonwealth nations and British Overseas Territories were on parade.
And three good (short) videos of the event, the sweeping gun salutes, and the behind the scenes:
One of the scariest sounds for any of the Kaiser’s foot soldiers in the Great War had to be that of the Vickers gun, ready to rattle away in .303 all day.
The below amazing eight-minute video is the sight and sound of 16 Vickers machine guns rocking and rolling at a recent event saluting the centenary of the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps. Held at the Century range at Bisley, Surrey, it was pulled off by the Vickers Machinegun Collection and Research Association. Set up as a machine gun company, the guns represented gunners from 1912 through 1968, including one team of female factory testers.
“The Kaiser’s necklace, compliments of Camp Lee, Va.” showing Doughboys training with a Vickers gun and holding up one of its 250-round cloth belts. Both the 80th “Blue Ridge” Division, drawn from volunteers from Virginia and western Pennsylvania, as well as the 37th “Buckeye” Division of the Ohio National Guard trained at Camp Lee. (Photo: The Library of Virginia)
Recruiting poster for British Army shows four Army units, Hussars, Highlanders, Infantry, and the Army Service Corps. Of note, the Highlanders are carrying the latest Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifles. Drawings of soldiers in uniform by Ernest Ibbetson and John McNeill. Published by Gale & Polden, Ltd, Printers, Aldershot, March 1914.
In 1999, there were six regiments in the “Scottish Division” — the Royal Scots, the Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF), the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), the Black Watch, The Highlanders, and the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. These were all amalgamated, reduced, blended with several Lowland units, and eventually labeled as the *seven-battalion (*five active, two reserve) Royal Regiment of Scotland by 2006. However, this has been whittled down over the years, but we’ll get to that.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace last week announced that The First Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, The Royal Scots Borderers (1 SCOTS), will be recast as the initial backbone of the British Army’s new Ranger Regiment, a force which will ultimately have four battalions when fleshed out. These will eventually be made up of the transferred 2nd Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (2 PWRR); the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment (2 LANCS); and the 4th Battalion, The Rifles (4 RIFLES).
The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (1 SCOTS) march down the Royal Mile after accepting the Freedom of the city of Edinburgh on behalf of the Regiment. Sadly, the unit will lose its “Scottishness” when it becomes a Ranger unit. Photo by Mark Owens/HQScot. MOD/Crown copyright
Two of the Royal Regiment of Scotland’s other roughly 500-man battalions will continue to be based in Scotland, for now at least, with 2 SCOTS staying in Edinburgh and 3 SCOTS staying in Inverness until 2029 before moving to Leuchars – forming an integral part of a new Security Force Assistance Brigade. The Highlanders (4 SCOTS) are based in England at Bourlon Barracks as part of Catterick Garrison. This means, instead of the seven Scottish battalions that the RRS was founded with, it will be down to just three active, plus an independent company branded as a battalion (the famed Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, 5 SCOTS, was long ago cut down to company strength – branded the Balaklava Company in recognition to its “Thin Red Line” days – used for ceremonial duties in Scotland.) 6 SCOTS and 7 SCOTS are reserve units. However, the regiment will still have at least 10 bands left over after 1 SCOTS converts to the Rangers.
Speaking of the Rangers, it is envisioned they would be a quick-deploying special operations-ish group, seemingly falling shy of SAS and about the same level as the Paras only without the chutes or the RM Commandos but without the amphibious skillset. Each battalion will consist of just 250 men– less than half the size of a U.S. Green Beret battalion/British Para battalion or a third the size of a battalion of the U.S. 75th Ranger Regiment. The smaller force will be chosen from the current soldiers after an eight-week, two-part assessment then undergoes a further eight months of additional training before the unit is rated ready.
The British Army has also in the past week unveiled the cap badge of The Ranger Regiment, a Peregrine Falcon clasping a Ranger scroll. The badge will be worn on a gun-metal beret, augmented by the shoulder flash of the old WWII Special Service Brigade, two Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knives:
The Ranger Regiment is very proud of its new cap badge which takes inspiration and spirit from the Peregrine Falcon; fast, agile and fiercely loyal to its partner, it operates around the world in all environments including deserts, mountains and cities. It has been designed to demonstrate a new capability for the Army.
It follows a long history of birds being used as emblems and logos around the world. Peregrine derives from the medieval Latin word ‘peregrinus’ which means wanderer. It is the most geographically dispersed bird of prey and can be found on every continent, less Antarctica. The Peregrine Falcon is also the fastest bird on the planet, with a diving speed of over 200 miles per hour.
While many regiments have a cloth badge for officers and a metal badge for soldiers, everyone serving in the Ranger Regiment will wear a metal badge, irrespective of rank.
Of course, the badge is already drawing flak due to the fact that it looks a whole lot like the Osprey badge worn by the Rhodies of the old Selous Scouts, the controversial and oft-smeared Rhodesian Army irregulars that did all sorts of nastiness during the Bush Wars in the late 1970s.
A typical Tommy of the BEF’s original 1914, “The Old Contemptibles.” Not to be trifled with.
While slow, aimed, and deliberate fire was preferred– early SMLEs had magazine cut-off switches to leave the 10-rounds in the magazine as a sort of emergency reserve, forcing users to hand-feed single cartridges into the chamber as they went– the average “Tommy” was trained to deliver rapid-fire when needed, topped off by 5-shot charging clips.
As described in the British musketry regulations of the day, a trained rifleman should be able to lay down between 12 and 15 rounds in a minute, accurately.
In practice, the “Mad Minute” drill on the range became a standard of Commonwealth infantry for almost a half-century, with Australian troops still documented as carrying it out in the 1950s just before the Enfield was replaced with inch-pattern semi-auto FN FALs. Surpassing the 12-15 round minimum mark, some were able to squeeze in over 20 rounds in the same allotted time. One riflery instructor, Sergeant Alfred Snoxall, was credited with being able to deliver an amazing 38 hits on target with his Enfield in a one-minute period.
You see the Sergeant on the left, with an eye peeled for cockups? He will make sure your musketry is correct and by the book.
One of the key figures in the historically abhorrent but no less entertaining AMC series Turn, portrayed by Angus Macfadyen, was Robert Rogers, the famed irregular whose unit excelled in combat along the frontier during the French and Indian War.
Color mezzotint of a representation by Johann Martin Will of Robert Rogers, published by Thomas Hart Anne S K Brown Military Collection
Known as Wobomagonda (white devil) among the Abenakis, the frontierman gave birth to what was known then as “ranging” warfare, with his men being the Rangers, a scratch unit that had American Indians as well as freedmen in its ranks.
His men were no red-uniformed line infantry, ready for set-piece battle.
His most lasting piece of military guidance is, of course, his 28 Rules of Ranging also seen in as a more concise 19 Standing Orders.
A defacto loyalist, as in 1775 he still nominally held a British officer’s commission, Rogers tried to wrangle an appointment from Washington but was spurned, which led him to raise the Queen’s Rangers in 1776– a unit he was cashiered from the next year. The Queen’s Rangers, led at the time by the unremarkable Maj. James Wemyss was decimated at Brandywine when used as traditional infantry, leading the unit to be resurrected by John Graves Simcoe. After the war, the Rangers were sent to Canada and quietly disbanded.
As noted by the British Army today, “After the loss of the North American colonies, the British Army lacked a forested frontier where it could usefully employ a ranger unit and the capability ceased to exist in its pure form,” with later “Ranger” units such as the Central London Rangers, The Connaught Rangers, The Royal Irish Rangers, and The Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, holding the name as more of an honorific title than as descriptor for a force designed for a specialist ranger role, or that they used unconventional tactics.
Now, the newly formed Ranger Regiment in the British Army– to be stood up with volunteers drawn from across the infantry as well as from four battalions folded into its organization, 1 SCOTS, 2 PWRR, 2 LANCS, and 4 RIFLES — will officially carry the legacy of the American-born Robert Rogers.
True to form, it will be part of the Army Special Operations Brigade and will be tasked with “unconventional action.“
While the new Rangers might not have to abide by the original 28 Rules of Ranging – including turning up to evening parade with a ‘firelock, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and a hatchet,’ they will be self-sufficient and highly resourceful, just like the Rangers of the past.
Using the standard British Army pace stick–the 30-inch measure introduced by Sandhurst Sgt. Maj. Arthur Brand in 1928– WO2 Drill Sergeant Rae, 1/Scots Guards explains and demonstrates the correct distance individuals should keep apart, during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Scots Guards have been following such rules for PT, which, unlike many U.S. units and branches, still remains standard in the British Army, even in garrison.
Speaking of the Guards, the ceremonial changing of the guards at Buckingham and elsewhere this week changed to a more understated “Administrative Guard Mount” where the Old Guard hands over duties to the New Guard without music or ceremony. It is not a new drill as it is standard for situations, for instance, during heavy rainfall.
