Soldiers vs Armed Police

[MKnight702]

There's only one way to find out........
My money is on the military by the way, or have I misunderstood the question?

[Echo66]

MKnight702 said:

There's only one way to find out........
My money is on the military by the way, or have I misunderstood the question?

Only if the RAF Regt aren't involved!

[Osinjak]

Echo66 said:

Only if the RAF Regt aren't involved!

[Poshbury]

SiH said:

There was some footage on the BBC of a group of soldiers walking along Downing Street and they certainly didn't look like battle hardened infantrymen. In he group of about 8 or so there can't have been a single one that looked older than 21 or so but in the grand scheme of things if they provide some sort of visual deterrent or alternatively some form of reassurance for the general public then so be it. People need to feel safe and if this is a way of doing it, despite the practical challenges, then so be it.

Age isn't important. I joined up at 17 and by the age of 21 had been to NI and lots of other far flung places, mainly dealing with explosives.
The important thing is the training.
I don't envy the guys in this situation though. It's a sad state of affairs for sure.

[BossHogg]

Echo66 said:

Osinjak said:

Funnily enough I had this exact conversation with a copper from SO1 Specialist Protection about six months ago and having routinely armed soldiers on the streets. His response was that the police and the military are trained for very different reasons and that soldier skills are not transferable to the civilian world without retraining and even then they wouldn't normally be on their own. As someone who has undertaken some specialist military firearms training this squares with what I've been taught in that the training I received was all about unfettered violence whilst trying to get yourself away to a safe place and out of trouble. Easy to see how this won't transfer to the policing world. Some of it also capbadge specific, gunners won't normally have the same training as infantry bods whose mindset and training is one of aggressive firepower and less emphasis on the legal/law aspect compared to the police (not withstanding the Law of Armed Conflict and Rules of Engagement). Comparing the two is quite difficult and not really a fair comparison but the basic skillset of weapons handling will be similar.

Fair bit of cobblers in that to be fair. Inf training packages are the same across cap badges & have been for ages. The days of teeth arms/support arms are pretty much a thing of the past & have been since we toottled into AFG. Each cap badge goes through the same pre-deployment package generally 12 months prior with their particular skills/role training embedded within that. They would be & are expected to take on inf roles by rote as demands dictate. While they may not full warry shootie shootie hard case infantry troops they will be out on foot patrols if needed so the standard soldering skill set is there. That applies to gunners, scaleys, tankies, drivers etc. Different question if you're taking about the AGC or ACC. Seen the likes of RLC, RA on patrols many times. Lets not forget that the gunners lost the most of a single cap badge during Banner.

Gong back to the army role with plod, the skills are entirely transferable to a police/peace keeping/ deterrent scenario. The 35yr plus deployment on Banner a case in point. The mindset is not on permanent brass every fooker up mode, its controlled aggression. Also why we've been pretty good on a fair number of peace keeping Ops.

If you get into a convo with a plod with a gun V a squaddie with a gun you're on a hiding to nothing as both give it the billy big boll0cks! ;-)
The ability to put rounds on target is pretty much the same standard, training varies obviously. The more recent creation of more specialist AT police firearms has removed a lot of the ROE restrictions in light of recent attacks.

Speaking as a former RMP NCO, I was used to carrying weapons on routine patrol not only in Northern Ireland, but also on foot/mobile patrol in Germany. We had strict ROE on a par with civilian police. I only had to draw my pistol once, it was a civilian attempting to climb the fence into barracks, the sound of a car screeching to a halt, the night lit up by blue lights, the sound of my pistol getting cocked and me shouting in my best German, "British Military Police, stop or I shoot!" had the bloke on his knees, hands in the air, blubbering like a big baby! Turned out he was a local lad who after a bit of how's yer father with his girlfriend who was a serving soldier. I bet you he wasn't in the mood after I finished with him!

Edited by BossHogg on Tuesday 30th May 00:10

[majordad]

Soldier spends a lot more time on the firing range so IMHO soldier.

[Osinjak]

majordad said:

Soldier spends a lot more time on the firing range so IMHO soldier.

Doubtful. Non-teeth once a year on an ACMT most likely so 50 rounds if you're lucky. I'd imagine coppers would do significantly more than that given their public-facing role.

[grumpy52]

A technical question with regards to actual type of rounds used by each force , police v Army etc .
Something that I have discussed in the past with my Uncle who is ex Marine ,England shooting team and was on the local police list to put down dangerous animals , and also my ex security co boss who was ex special branch and a keen small arms shooter .
Put simply is the difference between the forces and the rounds used the full load rounds or the stopper rounds .
I know some of the stuff will go through one body and a door and still kill the person on the other side . Some will stop a diesel engine dead and turn it to scrap .Older larger rounds even if hitting body extremities were often fatal due to the amount of trauma caused .
Are both forces using similar types of rounds .

[Loyly]

majordad said:

Soldier spends a lot more time on the firing range so IMHO soldier.

I very much doubt they do. That said, a soldier with combat experience will probably be more assured on fire, despite that being a terrifying ordeal by all accounts. That said, relatively few armed services personnel have that sort of experience.

[Echo66]

grumpy52 said:

A technical question with regards to actual type of rounds used by each force , police v Army etc .
Something that I have discussed in the past with my Uncle who is ex Marine ,England shooting team and was on the local police list to put down dangerous animals , and also my ex security co boss who was ex special branch and a keen small arms shooter .
Put simply is the difference between the forces and the rounds used the full load rounds or the stopper rounds .
I know some of the stuff will go through one body and a door and still kill the person on the other side . Some will stop a diesel engine dead and turn it to scrap .Older larger rounds even if hitting body extremities were often fatal due to the amount of trauma caused .
Are both forces using similar types of rounds .

To also respond to another question - squaddie versus plod range time will depend on cap badge for the squaddie obviously. Range time in the teeth arms units will be weekly especially when those units are on spearhead (or whatever its called these days). Any unit on pre-deployment training will be burning through small arms ammo at a tremendous rate compared to 20 yrs ago. You can include those units within the rapid redeployment force in that. I've for a mate who's son is RM responsible for asset protection up in scotland with the nukes & they are on the ranges on average twice a week. Those range packages also include the dismounted combat stuff using the very realistic CGI stuff. I've done a couple of them, they make COD & Battlefield look like something out of the 80s.

Ref small arms ammunition. Plod will be using a mix of ammo dependent on requirements & while its been a cpl of years since I spoke to a cousin of mine who is merseyside armed plod they were using sub-sonic ammo in the likes of G36's that they were equipped with at the time. I suspect that hasn't changed as plod do have to consider back stops if they engage a target. You want a round that will punch but not necessarily travel as far as it usually would with a factory standard load. Be interesting to see what is the case with 5.56milly stuff as in my experience with that the high velocity & related kinetic shock from a relatively 'small' round can be epic. I saw a bloke get shot in the shoulder at a range of about 80m. By the time we got to the scrote he'd croaked, not from the gunshot but from the shock. Pretty much tore his arm off at the shoulder however with only a modicum of blood loss. I doubt that plod would be using the same round - copper jacketted stuff was standard when i was still using 5.56 in 2005. High velocity rounds will smash through a body & if they hit bone they will ping off anywhere. Someone shot in the hip had the round ricochet through his abdomen & out of his shoulder at the neck.

[liner33]

Soldier less likely to shoot a collegue/himself ?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/blundering-a...

[ellroy]

liner33 said:

Soldier less likely to shoot a collegue/himself ?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/blundering-a...

I'd like to agree, but the number of NDs in the forces was certainly pretty bloody high when I was in.

[Pickled]

Echo66 said:

I've for a mate who's son is RM responsible for asset protection up in scotland with the nukes

Don't MOD Plod do that?

In fact wouldn't it have been better to reassign (whats left of) MOD Police alongside the regular Police, most are firearms trained, well versed in counter terrorism, and sworn constables.

[Cfnteabag]

There is a lot of nonsense in this thread, one thing every squaddie can do is stand still with a gun, protecting something and ready to react to a threat appropriately, be that a suicide bomber, a nutter with a gun or a pissed up bloke with a grudge.

I know because until very recently I was a squaddie and I spent a lot of time guarding gates and patrolling fences. This is all that the soldiers deployed on Op Temperer are doing just instead of of guarding their own camp they are guarding the gates of the houses of Parliment etc. The rules of engagement will be the same, or very close I would expect, I didn't train for Temperer as I was injured and waiting to find out about discharge.

[ninja-lewis]

Pickled said:

Echo66 said:

I've for a mate who's son is RM responsible for asset protection up in scotland with the nukes

Don't MOD Plod do that?

In fact wouldn't it have been better to reassign (whats left of) MOD Police alongside the regular Police, most are firearms trained, well versed in counter terrorism, and sworn constables.

That's exactly what they did. The Army relieved MOD Police and CNC Police so the latter could provide mutual aid to other forces. The same principle was applied in London - the Armed Forces backfilled static guarding roles to allow the usual armed police officers to be deployed to other locations.

43 Commando Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines supports MOD Police at Faslane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43_Commando_Fleet_Pr...

[mel]

I recently had a good chat with a guy I know who is an ex infantryman amputee who lost both legs below the knee and a chunk of one arm in Afghanistan. His job now is as a semi-professional casualty, he spends his time covered in theatrical claret, rolling around on the floor screaming about the loss of his obviously missing limbs which appear to get blown off several times a week. The company he works for was set up by a group of ex military amputees and their little niche is to supply knowledgeable realistic casualties for dozens of training exercises being conducted by pretty much every organisation who may be likely to encounter such a situation. He lays around on the floor of trains, planes, car parks, warehouses, stadiums, & in some cases live firing ranges, and witnesses up close the tactics and practices of pretty much every armed body the UK and some of it's friends.

His most pointed words of advice were, if you ever find yourself caught up in anything similar just run away, climb over, steal, break, anything you have to, to put as much distance between you and the bad guys as quickly as you can, as no one is coming to help you quickly or any time soon. But on the subject of "who's best" he had good and bad things to say about pretty much everyone. Marauding Gunman in an open area? Soldiers would have it hands down as they're more comfortable and better trained to move forward quickly under fire without getting bogged down with ballistic shields and dynamic risk assessments, but complicate it and put that in a tube station and his money would be on the boys in blue, move it to a parked up jumbo jet and hostage central and then it would be the men from Hereford. It really was horses for courses but the biggest risk is the failure of those in command and their aversion to relinquish control quickly enough to those better suited, trained and equipped than their own guys who they know, trust and think are the best.

The truth is that as a self confessed "spaz" he is probably best placed to comment as he watches all of them playing war every week, it's actually a credit to some (but not all) of the organisations that employ his company that they actually ask for the "spazs" to attend the debriefs and feedback their observations, some are better at taking these comments onboard than others.

[Some Guy]

grumpy52 said:

A technical question with regards to actual type of rounds used by each force , police v Army etc .
Some will stop a diesel engine dead and turn it to scrap . .

I dont think either of them will be patrolling the streets with .50BMG. Nothing else is likely to scrap a diesel engine, other than a lucky hit to a fuel pump.

[PurpleAki]

Echo66 said:

MKnight702 said:

There's only one way to find out........
My money is on the military by the way, or have I misunderstood the question?

Only if the RAF Regt aren't involved!

The whole thing hinges on whether Ginetta G15 Girl is involved...

[Bluetoo]

steel Brenneke slug from a pump action shotgun is the weapon of choice for vehicle stopping, variety of weights/velocity and range options been available for over 100years

[Gargamel]

PurpleAki said:

The whole thing hinges on whether Ginetta G15 Girl is involved...

I think you love her a little bit.

Either way, probably time to wind it in.