Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
United Kingdom Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Shooting on board HMS Astute
YelliChink    4/8/2011 10:53:49 AM
One officer is shot dead and the other is in critical condition. Southhampton police arrested a man and the crime is now under investigation. How this kind of thing can happen on a nuke submarine is beyond my comprehension. Weapons control should be very strict in these cases, and security is tight. Something very intriguing has happened.
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
nominoee       4/8/2011 2:22:56 PM
Sad and frightening. i'm very curious  to learn how this has happened.
 
Quote    Reply

Reactive       4/8/2011 10:53:04 PM
Turns out the guy was due shore leave but due to "manning problems" was given another tour underwater - went batshit and fired on two of his superiors.
 
Astute seems to have had some terrible luck, having run aground, suffered a serious fault and now a murder...
 
RIP to the deceased, hopefully if anything is to come out of this it might be the realisation that the defense cutbacks will lead to overstretched servicemen. I'm not suggesting by any means that the SDR is responsible for this, but generally speaking our front line personnel are being given more work and less rest, making the forces a less attractive career option, weakening the skills base, reducing morale and occasionally resulting in these sorts of events.
 
The cuts need to be higher up the chain, in the lumbering, overstaffed MOD civil service, not that there's a chance in hell of that happening.
 
R
 
Quote    Reply

JTR~~    agreed   4/9/2011 8:13:37 AM

Turns out the guy was due shore leave but due to "manning problems" was given another tour underwater - went batshit and fired on two of his superiors.

 

Astute seems to have had some terrible luck, having run aground, suffered a serious fault and now a murder...

 

RIP to the deceased, hopefully if anything is to come out of this it might be the realisation that the defense cutbacks will lead to overstretched servicemen. I'm not suggesting by any means that the SDR is responsible for this, but generally speaking our front line personnel are being given more work and less rest, making the forces a less attractive career option, weakening the skills base, reducing morale and occasionally resulting in these sorts of events.


 

The cuts need to be higher up the chain, in the lumbering, overstaffed MOD civil service, not that there's a chance in hell of that happening.


 

R



Insightful response. The phrase stretched to the limit i think is quite appropriate here. the cut backs from not only this recent SDR but of those carried out by prior governments are taking an unnecessary toll, and like you said, one should not attribute this fault directly to the SDR, but it cannot be denied that due to the ever shrinking size  of our military as a result of such reviews and somewhat unnecessary cutbacks, are  having adverse effects in more than one way, not just in terms  of less capability and fewer resources, but the over commitment of the resources and manpower  that we have left.

 
Quote    Reply

flamingknives       4/9/2011 1:19:58 PM
I don't think that any political decision can be used to justify any actions in this case.

Being overstretched is stressful but warfare is vastly more stressful. If the man with the gun flipped and shot someone due to peacetime stress then I really don't want to know what he'd have done in combat.
 
Quote    Reply

StobieWan       4/16/2011 1:14:41 PM
As far as I can tell, the shooter was part of the guard for the sub (armed guards are mandatory for all naval vessels in port I believe)

Very difficult to tell at this stage what might have happened in the chap's mind so we'll await some developments. He was very apparently meant to be carrying a loaded weapon so it's not a breach of procedure in that respect. Some investigation in the state of his mind will reveal if he was mentally unstable or if this is simply a criminal act.

Ian

 
One officer is shot dead and the other is in critical condition. Southhampton police arrested a man and the crime is now under investigation.

How this kind of thing can happen on a nuke submarine is beyond my comprehension. Weapons control should be very strict in these cases, and security is tight. Something very intriguing has happened.

 
Quote    Reply



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics