Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs

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1. secfirstmdMar 2018
   Hahahaha Bowman...my god do British soldiers get lumped with totally shit, overly expensive equipment - often made by a British government jobs scheme (sorry I mean defence contractor). The amount of times I've politely smiled when getting a demo of kit like the Bowman, SA80, various rubbish body armour and webbing designs, Snatch Landrovers, etc etc

   This is a very good book on the topic: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions,_Donkeys_and_Dinosaurs

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2. secfirstmdMay 2017
   Part of the problem is that genuinely innovative ideas from small businesses find it impossible to navigate the mess that is EU related funding. Meaning only the big players can access them. Also, the amount of unnecessary duplication and crap sold in the security industry is unbelievable.

   If you go to the Counter Terrorism Expo in London, you can see this. Dozens of organisations selling effectively the same stuff.

   Much of which is actually pure crap from a security/defence standpoint. How do they actually manage to sell it? Connections...hiring people who previously where in side the military/intelligence/Defence Departments etc. The same process as in the US no doubt. The worse thing is that some of the stuff is both expensive, useless and occasionally dangerous for the people who require it.

   BAE Systems is the perfect example of this. They are effectively a hidden British government job scheme. They make crap equipment, overly costly and rarely on time. There are many cases where UK tax payer would actually save money by firing the people in the jobs, giving them golden payoffs and buying more effective equipment elsewhere. Meanwhile their troops would be safer. For example the SA80, Westland Apache helicopters costing 50% more than their US-made Longbow equivalents - the list is endless.

   I highly recommend the book "Lions, Donkeys And Dinosaurs: Waste and Blundering in the Military" for a quick overview of that.

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3. arethuzaMar 2017
   ARRSE sums it up nicely:

   https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/British_Military_Procurement_Su...

   [Probably not wise to click around much on that site as a lot of content is NSFW]

   Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs is also quite good:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions,_Donkeys_and_Dinosaurs

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4. rurounijonesSep 2013
   If you can get your hands on it

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions,_Donkeys_and_Dinosaurs

   written by Lewis Page (Of theregister.co.uk fame) has more stories related to the MoD

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