An investigation is underway after intruders cut through a wire fence at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Larkhill, stealing what officials described as a “large quantity” of fuel from a civilian contractor on site, according to LBC.
The break-in occurred on Saturday 4 October and led to the activation of “Operation Wideawake” after the rear gates of the garrison were found cut open, LBC reports. An anonymous source told the broadcaster there was concern the breach could have allowed intruders to “do anything” once inside the perimeter, describing frustration among personnel over what they viewed as long-standing vulnerabilities.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson confirmed to LBC that both the Royal Military Police and Wiltshire Police are investigating the incident. “The incident has not impacted the operational output of the base,” the MOD said, adding that it takes security “extremely seriously” and maintains a “multi-layered approach” including fencing, patrols and CCTV.
A source close to the department told LBC that the theft appeared limited to stolen fuel, with no further damage or losses discovered. Wiltshire Police confirmed that “damage had been caused to a fence and fuel stolen from a tanker at Larkhill Barracks” and said inquiries remain ongoing.
The security breach follows a similar incident at RAF Brize Norton earlier this year, where activists gained access to a restricted area. In light of both events, Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson James MacCleary told LBC that the government “doesn’t appear to have learnt any lessons from recent security breaches at other military locations” and called for “a comprehensive review across all UK military bases and assets.”
Danny Kruger, Reform UK MP for East Wiltshire, also described the incident as “extremely concerning” and said “swift action must now be taken to establish how this new security breach was allowed to happen,” according to LBC’s report.
Larkhill remains a key Royal Artillery garrison and training hub on Salisbury Plain, with this latest incident once again raising questions about base security nationwide.
Larkhill eh, well at least we havn’t got any artillery pieces to nick.
What’s going on come on now do camps not have patrols at night anymore and my god maybe even cctv and a QRF or do soldiers not do guard duty anymore ?
The perimeters were only patrolled in states of high alert in 1980’s, doubt its changed. At Topcliffe in Yorkshire the only fence was at the front, you could walk in the back along farm tracks.
Don’t agree. We always had a 2 man patrol checking the perimeter when on guard duty. In quiet times they had pick axe handles and armed when on high alert.
In 1982 there was a waist high fence with some barbed wire at the rear of Theipval Barracks in Lisburn.
Armed guards at the gates only.
Northern Ireland, no perimeter guard.
In the 80s’ we had a perimeter patrol in every unit I was in. That was in the UK, Germany and Armagh NI. Admittedly in NI it was done by the UDR. Maybe not School of Signals though, that place was huge. I vaguely remember a mobile patrol though.
I was at 233.
I did guard commander more than enough.
Can’t say that was the case when I was in in the early to mid 90s to the 2000s if we manned the gate we also patrolled if the camp had MPGS they obviously did it but we definitely did perimeter patrols
It gets cold at night ! Have you not heard of “health and safety” ? 😜
I bet the warm kit now is better than a shirt Wooley pulley and a Chinese fighter jacket
Fences, Patrols and CCTV and they failed to spot people cutting open tge gat and running off with fuel! Wow we are wide open to anyone with some clippers…
Whatever happened to sentry duty?
It’s a military base, whether it has personnel or equipment, surely it needs to be guarded.
I always thought as soon as an intruder was on site, the sentry/military police etc could shoot whoever they wanted too without any comeback.
Maybe these days, even the military has gone too woke.
Take a look on Google Maps.
You’ll probably be able to answer that question.
Lucky no one has yet gone in and done something terrible, imagine if this country was actively engaged in action that some of our communities are not happy about, a base here could get attacked, we have seen the future with what Palestine Action did, they broke in with migrants on bikes who sabotaged engines. What I don’t understand is that these bases are full of military men who don’t do much in the evenings, why can’t we simply enlarge guard duty to show physical presence as accept that as a new normal?
It was worse than that. I don’t think they were migrants, but Brits, utterly brainwashed by whoever and whatever teaching to defy their own nation and sabotage its assets on behalf of a foreign cause.
Indeed, and to clarify I said ‘broke in with migrants’, rather than just ‘migrants’ and was referring to Muhammad Umer Khalid, who is one or is the son of one. It’s a dangerous combination of well meaning enablers and potential extremists.
Agree. I’d noted that Spock had missed the 5th perpetrator out!
They weren’t migrants, that’s just another far-right xenophobic conspiracy theory.
If you’d bothered to do a quick Google you’d know that those arrested for the incident are Amy Gardiner-Gibson, Jony Cink, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie and Lewie Chiaramello. Do they sound like migrants from the middle-east???
Says Spock from Vulcan !!!
sorry, I just saw the funny side of your comment.😁🖖🖖🖖
No they are posh middle class saddo kids whose lives are not impacted by any sort of immigration, and who generally have no clue about the situation in Gaza etc as they are quite simply brainwashed! The brainwashed left make the brainwashed right look like absolute beginners!
Have to disagree.
My experience is you get far more and more extreme brainwashed conspiracy fantasists on the far-right: from anti-vax and climate-change denial through to flat-earth and gravity-denial 🤦🏻♂️
Well I will also disagree, extreme left, extreme right, cheeks of the same arse! The main difference is that the left normally grow out of it as they grow older and realise their version of life does not correlate to reality, and the right tend to grow into it as they get older, after realising that no Government gives a shit and your average Joe doesn’t matter.
Then let me correct you further.
The extreme left are young idealists who haven’t yet experienced the harsh-realities of the real world and think even bad guys can be reasoned with if you first learn to understand them.
The extreme right are the bitter middle-agers onwards who realise that they’ve wasted their lives, not achieving anything noteworthy whatsoever. Consequently they have to invent a conspiracy to explain their failure (bankers, migrants, government, deep-state, illuminati, reptilian aliens, whatever) rather than man-up and accept personal responsibility for their own failure.
Thanks but no correction was needed, as there was no error.
There was with particular regard to the losers who make up far-right extremists. Blaming the government for “not giving a shit” is just another deflection from taking responsibility for their own failures.
As a side note, governments do not have the powers of the gods. We deliberately limit their powers through their separation between executive, legislature, and judiciary to prevent all-powerful dictatorships- though that’s currently being tested in the USA. But even without these, there are limits to what a government can do, as demonstrated by King Canute.
Wow I see you don’t like being challenged on your own opinion, opinion being the terminology here not facts. It as ever, your left credentials are shining through as if someone does not agree with you they are therefore wrong. I bet your gutted your online and alone, as if you were with your rabid socialist pals I would be shouted down and hounded away from any conversation, being called all sorts of names. Thanks for your input, it’s not correct in my opinion.
Yes there’s huge numbers of us ‘rabid socialists’ that supported Thatcher during the miners strike, believe in privatisation and not nationalisation, support free markets, capitalism, etc, etc.
As is usual with extremists, you jump to the erroneous assumption that everyone who doesn’t occupy your extreme position must occupy the diametrically opposite extreme position. When the reality is, most of us are located in the moderate, common sense, middle ground.
Your previous rather excitable reply does seem to presume I am an extremist, is that for having an opinion and voting Lib Dem? well that’s a new one! Anyway your response changes nothing regarding the rabid left, who are the biggest fascists currently operating in this country.
If you believe that was an “excitable reply” you obviously lead a dull and boring life that has occasional interruptions with racy ‘ watching paint dry’ events.
LibDems… the party that wanted the Brexit referendum result to be ignored…
So much for the ‘democrat’ part of their name, but then many Warsaw pact nations ironically used “democratic” in their names, such as the GDR.
Rabid left, rabid right, both equally rabid.
Wrong the biggest fascists are on the right, supporting the machine-gunning of illegals immigrants as they cross the channel and the lynching of those involved in the vaccine programme.
Oh dear your excitement levels are increasing. Thanks for the concern but I’ve had, and still having a very fun filled and exciting lifestyle, all starting at 16 when joining the mob. And I see you don’t like dissent, my opinion is the biggest fascists are on the hard left/antifa/socialist workers etc! Sorry you can’t shout me down, I bet your gutted once again we are online and your rabid clowns on the left can’t cancel me. I await a more calm and measured response, good lad.
Wow you really do lead an utterly miserably boring life when you insist on seeing excitement in the stating of cold-hard facts. You must have been gutted when they stopped printing your favourite reading material, the phone directory.
As a moderate, as previously pointed out, I have no issue with dissent. Where there is dissent, there is debate, and possibility of the acquisition of new facts. Facts that might change an opinion, or at least allow you to understand those you disagree with.
But extremists (feel free to self-identify) dislike debate and instead prefer to have an enemy to hate.
Do calm yourself, it’s unbecoming. Maybe some retail therapy will help, pop onto Amazon and treat yourself to another face mask all ready for your next lefty gathering with those frothy fascist antifa/PA/socialist (not working) pals you have. Cheers!
It was initially hilarious, but now I see I’m making fun of a retard who can’t comprehend that there are other views other than the binary of his far-right views and far-left views. Clearly care in the community has failed as a policy.
Boom! And there you go, name calling, using terminology that’s not acceptable as it’s a genuine medical condition for some! I knew you would fall into the abuse trap as you are not happy you cannot crowd me, froth at me and make threats on the street with your antifa chums. This was predicted due to your own perceived superiority 🤣🤣🤣🤣
It’s not name calling, it’s a diagnosis of your condition.
And boom again, a very weak effort at justifying your child like response.
Yes, boom once again I achieved more in a single sentence than you managed in your long unhinged ramblings.
Now go take your meds.
Oh dear, your childlike response continue to embarrass you!
Funny you mention children, as I doubt even a child would make your grammatical errors .
🤣😷🤡
Given your past grammatical failures, I guessed you’d switch to emojis rather than embarrass yourself further. Seems you can’t even use them coherently.
👏🏽🤣😷🤡
🥱
💤
Climate change denial does not exist. It is not a thing. ‘As any fule kno’ the climate is constantly changing, has always been constantly changing. You have no idea about ‘Climate science’. You have read nothing, have done no research, have no evidence….which makes you an ignorant bigot and a fool.
There’s always some retard that’s prepared to open their ignorant mouth and claim that the entire scientific community, Nobel Prize winners, etc are all wrong about man-made climate change. All they achieve is demonstrating to the world how utterly stupid they are.
Yet another hopelessly ignorant comment. The U.S. Department of Energy study on greenhouse gas emissions, July 2025, specifically acknowledges the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels in a changing climate. But you don’t know that because you haven’t read it, have you? You haven’t read anything on the entire subject, know nothing evidenced regarding the world’s changing climate whatsoever, the very definition of an uninformed bigot.
So you’re relying upon a single document produced by the US Dept of Energy, not peer-reviewed, and under the direction of the climate-change denying Trump administration. A document that reversed the position the Dept of Energy has held for decades and disingenuously downplays the impact of manmade climate-change.
Instead I prefer reading unbiased and peer-reviewed work such as that by Syukuro Manabe (Princeton University) and Klaus Hasselmann
(Max Planck Institute for Meteorology) which won the Noble Prize for Physics in 2021.
But like most bigoted, stupid, parochial Americans, I doubt if you’ve ever read a single scientific or academic journal. It’s not your fault really, it’s what happens when your parents are siblings…
Silly little insults simply draw attention to the weakness of your argument.
You haven’t read anything written by those individuals you mention. That’s why you don’t provide any quotes or references. You wouldn’t know where to start. And if you had read anything that they had written, you would have had no clue what they were talking about. You are making it up as you go along; a bluffer and a poseur.
In fact Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann produced some of the early climate models. The problem, though, with their climate models and others is that these models are not able to correctly reproduce the real temperature development of the past decades. They simulate a warming that is much stronger than the real data show. So there can be no confidence in these models to correctly predict future warming.
The world’s several dozen global climate models offer little guidance on how much the climate responds to elevated CO2, their estimates of the average surface warming under a doubling of the CO2 concentration ranging from 1.8°C to 5.7°C.
Data-driven methods yield a lower and narrower range.
Global climate models generally run “hot” in their description of the climate of the past few decades− too much warming at the surface and too much amplification of warming in the lower- and mid-troposphere. The combination of overly sensitive models and implausible extreme scenarios for future emissions yields exaggerated projections of future warming.
And so lead uninformed bigots like you to shriek, like Chicken Little, that ‘The sky is falling!’
It isn’t. However much you may wish it to be so to suit your political agenda, it really isn’t…….
“You haven’t read anything written by those individuals you mention. That’s why you don’t provide any quotes or references. You wouldn’t know where to start. And if you had read anything that they had written, you would have had no clue what they were talking about. You are making it up as you go along; a bluffer and a poseur.”
Yes, that’s completely true about you. 🤷🏻♂️
Well done! Give yourself a big pat on the back! No arguments, no evidence; a parrot.
Stand by for some reading so you can do better next time.
Here you go…so much for ‘The science is settled’. Science is never settled (and the climate is always changing, has always changed):
‘Australian Institute of Marine Science. (2022). Continued coral recovery leads to 36-year highs across two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef’
‘Judd, E. J., Scotese, C. R., Young, S. A., et al. (2024). A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature. Science, 385(6715).’
‘Angert, A., S. Biraud, Bonfils, C., Buermann, W. and I. Fung (2004). CO2 seasonality indicates origins of post-Pinatubo sink. Geophysical Research 31.’
‘Hausfather et al. (2019) “Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections” Geophysical Research 47(1).’
‘Wickham C, R Rohde , RA Muller, J Wurtele, J Curry, et al. (2013) Influence of Urban Heating on the Global Temperature Land Average using Rural Sites Identified from MODIS Classifications. Geoinformatics and Geostatistics: An Overview 1:2.’
‘Lan, X., Tans, P., & Thoning, K. W. (2025). Trends in globally-averaged CO₂ determined from NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory measurements. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory.’
‘Scafetta, N. (2021). Testing the CMIP6 GCM simulations versus surface temperature records from 1980–1990 to 2011–2021: High ECS is not supported. Climate, 9(11), 161.’
To summarize:
• Climate models show warming biases in many aspects of their reproduction of the past few decades.
• They produce too much warming at the surface (except in the models with lowest ECS), too much warming in the lower-and mid-troposphere and too much amplification of warming aloft.
The IPCC has acknowledged some of these issues but not others.
Come back once you know what you are talking about.
Before you get all puffed up, I’m referring to Muhammad Umer Khalid who did the break in and had no fixed abode at the time, as far as I know he’s in Wormwood scrubs after being denied bail. Does that sound Middle Eastern? I’m not referring to the middle class twerps. I’ve no idea if he was born here or not, when I say migrant, I don’t just mean those who arrived this year, im referring to those who come from migration in the last generation. This guy was in the RAF base and was enabled by the middle class idiots. I was there going into Kings Cross when the 7/7 bombings occurred, I know what is real or conspiracy.
So you admit you lied about “migrants”.
You think one British national, with middle-eastern ancestry, allows you to categorise them as “migrants”.
Oh and you have your very own definition of who is and who isn’t British… stop beating around the bush, it’s obvious you only think white people are ‘real Brits’.
Carefull, your Veil’s slipping. 👀😁
Here we go, no! I work and know all sorts of people who are not white, whom I consider English including my brother in law. I said Palestine Action did this working ‘with migrants’, which is a fact as Palestine Action attract many people whose parents are not from Britain. I was brought up in Holland as a kid until 10 and 2 of my brothers were born there, I know what it’s like to be considered a migrant even though I was brought up there and fluent and integrated, I was still not Flemish. Now if I stayed and married a Flemish girl and had kids, then it’s different for the kids. But if both your parents are transplanted here then of course your identity or your kids identity may not have a deep anchor and aligned to the host country and diverge- not a question of skin colour but of identity. Even the middle class people, if indeed that’s what they are, arrested have Italian or Eastern European surnames , white but are their parent(s) migrants? The deep anchor isn’t there for many so why should they feel bad about breaking into a British military base? Fine but some are extemists and that’s a problem. Simply put, get lost and bother those who destroyed your Vulcan home world, Spock.
Blah, blah, blah I’m really not a racist, honest… 🥱
Blah blah my chair is a Nazi because it made me sit on it. Any argument you may have had is now out of the window with that comment, you are no better than the real bonehead racist who presume also. Oh no, just realised, I have a German shepherd dog so I must be.
It’s funny you mention Nazis because, according to your definition of who qualifies as British… the greatest ever Briton, who lead this country through its darkest hour and on to victory over the Nazis, namely Sir Winston Churchill, doesn’t qualify as being British due to his mother being a migrant.
Read my post, I said if both parents are foreign not one, and I’m not referring to citizenship either which is a right once gained. Churchills father was English aristocracy, his mother was American, hardly foreign is it. Being foreign is not a problem, it’s only a problem if you break into RAF bases or hate your adopted nation, most are not this. Foreigners have made immense contributions to this nation, be it Sikhs with their valour and sacrifice or Irish navvies, so why pick out Churchill, whom I don’t particularly rate anyhow.
The last time I heard of authorities determining whether someone was really a citizen based on if one or both parents had foreign blood it was the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935.
Which is ironic given you were the first to use the “N” word. Unless of course you already know that your viewpoints align…
No.
‘Several Arab states determine citizenship based on ethnicity.
In Kuwait, ethnicity is a factor in determining who has citizenship.’
‘How do muslim states treat their outsiders? Rhadika Kanchana 2019’
My two pennies worth.
“The deep anchor isn’t there for many so why should they feel bad ”
I for one understand exactly what you mean, as will countless others.
Most Reform I know are Cultural Nationalists, and I’d happily agree to being the same.
Not race, the issue is not skin colour, but integration.
If migrants in sufficient number move here at pace in a short period of time and enough do not integrate ( look at the population at around 56 million for many years and compare to now, much fueled by immigration as well as an ageing population ) then THAT is the lack of deep anchor that you reference. They have built up no loyalty to the country, its values, or culture, and their loyalties too often I feel remain with what they were happy to leave.
Multi culturalism could work if said migrants integrate and respect the historical in place people. If they do not, and many do not, then we have a problem.
A nation that is effectively becoming a HOTEL for economic migrants claiming to be refugees with no loyalty to it or its values does NOT bode well for any nation, anywhere.
That the left then confuse that with racism or white supremacist scumbags and scream as such I find sad. It is not intended that way no matter what they believe or say.
To quote from Google, for right or wrong.
“Cultural nationalism is an ideology that defines the nation by a shared culture, emphasizing common traditions, language, arts, history, and values to foster unity and identity among a group of people. This form of nationalism focuses on cultivating and preserving a distinct national character, often in response to external cultural influences or oppression, rather than on political structures or ETHNICITY.
I care not what colour you are, you are loyal to MY Country, and I’m proud of you.
OPPRESSION, Such as, the nonsense that you cannot fly our own flipping flag incase someone takes offense? And the left then say it is being “divisive.” No, it is being oppressed and it is resisting that. This government, as Labour, are seen as being typical of it, be it Gordon Brown calling a lady “bigoted” for being concerned by immigration to the awful Emily Thornberry slating a chap for flying the Flag of St George on his home.
The establishment, and the left, Just. Do. Not. Get. It. Or the anger building in this country. And thus, people like Farage are fueled. Where else do people go?
Labour??! The Conservatives? The Lib Dems!! Greens??!
In my case, in case anyone wonders by my name and in reference to your single or two parents comment earlier, my father was an immigrant coming here in 1962.
He had to have a job IN PLACE before being allowed in, and obviously, being European, integrated at once. He opposed the mass immigration we see now till the day he died, despite being an immigrant himself.
My mother was English, and I was born here. And my British side there goes back to primarily Welsh and Scots!
So go ahead and shoot me down, I care not, for I know what I am and what I believe.
Faceless accusers on an internet defence site do not.
Interesting and very well articulated. Agree with every line you wrote and thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Interesting.
Larkhill is a big site, I wonder where exactly, as the “rear gate” for me implies backing onto SPTA, which is already closed to the public.
I don’t think the MDP cover Larkhill either, at least, not based on site. There may be a UBO – Uniformed Base Officer who liaises with the garrison SFA, unless they were cut too in the last reorg ( cuts.)
Last time I drove past when visiting the area there were 2 Gurkha on the front gate, which is pretty standard I believe.
Does QRF exist these days? No idea. Larkhill also has MPGS on site.
Larkhill is Vast, It’s a huge sprawling complex of military storage and living accomodation set out over a large area with many miles of perimiter. Truth be know, there would not be enough people within now to completely man it.
One possible “entry point” worth mention is “Dildo Corner”. (that’s what it’s called, honestly) but that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Happy Wednesday DM !
Concerned about searching said corner on Google, Try just Google Maps, you will find it to the top left of the camp heading towards Rollestone Camp.
The whole area is covered by Camps and Dumps so not as easy to patrol as some seem to think.
Morning mate.
Yep, I’m very aware. Effectively merges into SPTA, so depends what they mean by the “back gate.”
Is said back gate on the garrison camp proper or or a satellite site nearby out on the plain?
It is not difficult to access SPTA off the A360 either, and it is not fenced from what I recall beyond a wire cattle fence.
Still not great, but not so clear cut either.
Not been there for many years but interesting to see a huge, what looks like, Vehicle parking area being built (Google Maps) are we talking Ajax and Boxer ? Looks to be a large area.
On a different note, I used to use this route whilst heading South as It bypassed the terible Bottleneck A303 at Stonehenge. Most of it was Roman and It’s a very fast road so you didn’t lose any time.
I know that bottleneck well, single lane through Stonehenge area. I use the 303 often enough en route to family in Devon.
I saw that new site, I’ve no idea what it is going to be.
Turn right at the Countess Roundabout, head up past “Woodhenge”, turn left at the top and keep heading west through Chitterne, and the Deverills untill Mere, that’s a great detour around all the single carriage bottlenecks. It’s all very scenic and you get to see lots of Army places !
Watch out for Tanks !!!
Not carried on that far west, I usually rejoin the 303 sooner, but, yes, aware of that route.
When I visited the Army Firepower demo at Larkhill way back in the 90s idiot anti defence demonstrators were out on that roundabout with their placards.
Amesbury has grown too much, I remember it as it always was when I’d visit Boscombe Down and Porton, before that Solstice Park park appeared.
Have you spotted that odd structure on the left westbound on the 303 coming down the hill at the park? It looks like an upside down Gazelle to me.
The Helicopter….not the animal!
The last bit is a great twisty road so i like the thrills it gives on two wheels (and four) Plus you get a fantastic view of a great chunk of Somerset and Dorset from the hill above Mere. Solstice park has been there a few decades now, not sure I can remember what it was like before, the Upside down chopper is a decoy to stop drivers from spotting the “Speed” camera’s !
Lot’s of amazing History in them there parts !
Don’t think I’ve been to Mere. If I have, I didn’t note it. I like views and so does the Mrs will have a look one day soon.
Re that new site.
As Larkhill Garrison is RA, I’d be very surprised if that was for Boxer or Ajax, as they’d not use them in great numbers.
For those, look further east at Bulford, Tidworth, or further west at Warminster, that’s where you’ll find those parked up for access to SPTA.
Oh, didn’t really know what those places all did other than Army stuff. Maybe It’ll be an Overspill for all the many thousands of new Vehicles about to be ordered !
Or how about a vast new Immigrant Hotel Complex ? There’s plenty of money being thrown at that.
Hi Daniele, the UBO’s (Unit Beat Officers) were rebranded about 15 years ago as Defence Community Police Officers and several years later they were cut. Lark Hill did have a CID office but that has also been cut. Then there was the Divisional Support Group but, yes you guessed correctly, cut. More recently a SPTA team numbering a massive 4 officers and a skipper did try and patrol the area but have now also been cut. MDP has pretty much been cut and realigned to armed policing only. community policing, most of CID and most of the support group activities went out the window 10+years ago. Since 2013 MDP numbers have fallen by about 700 officers with numerous sites having had their officers removed.
Hi MT.
Not spoken before, but you clearly know your stuff.
Thank you for these details.
I try and follow the MDP area but in some areas, i’m clearly well out of date!!!
Are the North and South tactical support units ( or whatever they’re called now ) still around? I think Bicester and Aldershot had Dets and in the north, Topcliffe and Menwith.
Or is that the DSG thats gone. Really? Totally?
It’s worse than I thought….
From my understanding, MDP now concentrate on the nuclear side, the MUs at HMNBs, and DM and MoD storage sites.
The military sites seem to be MPGS.
CID I assume has merged into the DSCU.
Great to chat, thank you.
Drones with AI seem like an obvious and cost effective method of policing this sort of thing. It would also develop vital skill sets…
If a base commander is unhappy with the security of his command they should raise the issue as a high risk to senior command and let them own the responsibility for consequences of that risk. Let’s see if we can energise some actions of of Army Command to find the necessary resources to protect their careers from an unfortunate end.
What we don’t need is low energy leaders shrugging their shoulders about known risks and accepting them “because that’s what always do”.
The game has changed. We face increased risk from an increasingly desperate Russia and from a myriad of internal subversive actors like Palestine Action or Extinction Rebellion. We need to step up the game. I would advise a series of penetration tests on major military sites to discover weaknesses and wake up the base commanders. I’m sure this will cost money but your only discovering the true cost of defence. Spaffing money on the latest expensive, shiny military equipment is pointless if you can’t protect them after 5pm. The Brize Norton incident could have been much worse resulting in a strategic impact to the UK’s ability to deploy and service it’s armed forces worldwide.
SPTA is huge and a lot of locations leading onto or actually on the area. Depending where this has taken place it’s quite feasible that there was no one stagging on or patrolling, as its way to big with too many ingress and egress points. However, we all know that our main base security fences are quite shit on most camps and this needs to be addressed very quickly.
Any time I was in any Camp in the UK, we always had guards on the gates 24/7. Those same ‘guards’, carried out regular perimeter checks. This was in the 1980’s.
What goes on now regarding camp/base security, I have little idea of One thing I would however mention, I would not completely rule out an ‘inside job’.
As others including myself have said, this area is huge, It’s spread out over a considerable area with many other satalite sites, It would take a massive amount of boots and eyes to secure the whole area.
On this occasion, Civilian Contractors were the target, mainly their Diesel.
…Unless this tanker was left in a very desirable place, literally any other Diesel theft wouldn’t have the MOD chasing after you… I know criminals are stupid, but they can’t be this stupid, yeah, let’s not steal fuel from a building site, let’s steal it from a Military Base.
Feels akin to breaking into Buckingham Palace to go have a piss instead of pissing on a wall, or using a shop’s without buying something.