I liked the movie. But I would have expected a more robust response from the British Army to having a soldier executed and another missing. I know Captain Browning was being cagey. But he couldn't have been the Regiment's ranking officer. I would have expected like 200 soldiers in full kit kicking down doors and cracking skulls within a couple of hours, instead of cowering back at camp wondering what to do.
shareI have no idea from where you write but I am a Brit who lived through these Troubles. Let me reassure you our Army was as robust as we could be, day in day out. Remember this was civil unrest and an enemy within not easily identifiable by any means. "Cracking skulls"? Maybe innocent people too? Oh yeah, sure, that would have really helped the Army and the cause of Unionism!
shareThe RUC portrayed in the movie didn't seem above getting rough. But that did lead to the riot, so fair enough about the skull cracking. But it appeared the army just meakly picked up the dead soldier and then hung back on base hoping to hear word about the missing one.
I don't know a lot about The Troubles, but my impression is Belfast at this time would be liberally patrolled and check pointed by the RUC and the army. I'm just surprised there didn't appear to be any patrolling, setting up checkpoints or even asking the locals, nicely and politely, who murdered their soldier and where is the missing one. My point is there is a difference between actively on the streets looking and passively hoping to hear word. You would think murder and potential kidnapping would get them off-base and out on the streets. Even the Boyle character in the movie expressed concern that there would be a lot of British soldiers kicking down doors with one of theirs missing. Apparently he and I were both wrong.
And in the movie, the MRF seemed actively planning to set a bomb off in a Republican bar. I interpreted that scene as the bomb went off accidently before they planted it. MRF is British Army as I understand (undercover Military Reaction Force, I had to look it up), not a Unionist paramilitary. Yes they were working with a Unionist para, but the MRF seemed to be taking the lead. That seems skull cracky. Are you contending the movie is wrong and the British Army was never involved with things like that?
I don't know a lot about The Troubles, but my impression is Belfast at this time would be liberally patrolled and check pointed by the RUC and the army.
Yes they were working with a Unionist para, but the MRF seemed to be taking the lead. That seems skull cracky. Are you contending the movie is wrong and the British Army was never involved with things like that?
I'll walk back the cracking skulls thing. But my contention that the British Army would have actively looked for a missing soldier, especially after another had been murdered, doesn't seem far fetched. Would they seriously just have hidden on base and hoped he'd show up?
shareBut my contention that the British Army would have actively looked for a missing soldier, especially after another had been murdered, doesn't seem far fetched. Would they seriously just have hidden on base and hoped he'd show up?
Come on now. You can covertly gain Intel and go physically look for him at the same time. Not mutually exclusive. Plus, you know, it's an actual murder scene. Might want evidence, talk to witnesses, police-y kinda stuff.
I guarantee the British Army garrison in Belfast at the time was bigger than a squad. Between them and the RUC they should be able find enough guys to block off the area and both look for the guy and ask the locals if they know anything. Maybe you get nothing. Or maybe the guy is hiding in an outdoor toilet a block away. Don't know unless you look.
Also I imagine you didn't want to give the locals the impression it's open season on the British Army. That soldiers could be killed and potentially kidnapped and the army would run away and hide on base. It would embolden the guys who hate you and make the ones who like you less inclined to help.
Alright, one last thing and I'll stop...
If the Army and RUC had sent out guys to look for him, not only would it send a message that there are consequences to attacking a British Army unit with deadly force, they would have actually found the soldier hiding. While it was possible he'd been whisked away somewhere across the city, he hadn't been. He was a block or two away and would have answered any British soldiers calling for him. It would have made the movie shorter though.
If your contention is the British Army didn't have the capacity or inclination to launch any kind of search, then my respect for the British Army, which is quite high, would drop some.
Come on now. You can covertly gain Intel and go physically look for him at the same time. Not mutually exclusive.
Plus, you know, it's an actual murder scene. Might want evidence, talk to witnesses, police-y kinda stuff.
I guarantee the British Army garrison in Belfast at the time was bigger than a squad.
Between them and the RUC they should be able find enough guys to block off the area and both look for the guy and ask the locals if they know anything.
Maybe you get nothing. Or maybe the guy is hiding in an outdoor toilet a block away. Don't know unless you look.
Also I imagine you didn't want to give the locals the impression it's open season on the British Army.
It would embolden the guys who hate you and make the ones who like you less inclined to help.
If the Army and RUC had sent out guys to look for him, not only would it send a message that there are consequences to attacking a British Army unit with deadly force, they would have actually found the soldier hiding.
While it was possible he'd been whisked away somewhere across the city, he hadn't been.
He was a block or two away and would have answered any British soldiers calling for him. It would have made the movie shorter though.
If your contention is the British Army didn't have the capacity or inclination to launch any kind of search, then my respect for the British Army, which is quite high, would drop some.
Honestly, unless someone comes on this thread and says "I was in the British Army in '71, and that's exactly what we would have done.", we're going to just have agree to disagree.
shareI was in the British Army in 1996 when we were still being deployed to Ireland (I joined at 16 so was not old enough to be sent frontline at the time) and was still party to a lot of the training concerning when you may and may not use force, which applies equally to most peacekeeping operations.
Disagree all you like. But you can NOT go tearing up half a city looking for one bloke without expecting the locals to get very hostile. I guarantee you that!
It's a good thing they showed such restraint then. Imagine how bad it would have gotten if they'd done something like fire into a crowd of unarmed civilians and killed 14 or so.
shareIt's one of the hardest things, to be stood there with a full magazine (we also had automatic weapons by the time I joined up) and not do a thing, while an angry crowd lobs bricks and petrol bombs at you.
For the riot training, this is exactly what happens and on more than one occasion someone lifted their shield too high during the advance - Instructors watch for this and purposely try to smash the bottles at the feet of anyone who does this. The burns aren't bad, as there's a medic right on hand and the training is loosely choreographed, but a few guys got quite toasted!
But civvies did die during riot control operations and not always from their opposition. Same for cordons, house searches and the like. There was a particular incident when some Paras opened fire on a vehicle full of joyriders that failed to stop (as was required) at the checkpoint they were manning and instead sped at them. A couple of passengers were killed and one soldier was convicted of murder, but later released when new evidence came to light - That release alone sparked riots!
There are very specific rules over what you can and cannot do as a soldier, even when you're not armed.
Yes, our Army is renowned for showing professionalism and supreme restraint under pressure. The restraint shown in NI was laudable, believe me. What these guys faced from the Republican side was naked hatred, and as ttaskmaster pointed out, we faced an evil mainland indiscriminate bombing campaign over years because the Army was even present, and that in an integral part of our own country.
shareNorthern Ireland should be port of Ireland, not Britain!
shareIt's not part of either Britain or Great Britain anyway. It's only part of the United Kingdom.
shareOnly with consent of a clear majority of the electorate of the Province of NI. That is a triple red line.
shareAgreed!
shareSomewhat ironically, the partition of Ireland in the first place was based largely on the various "majorities of the electorate" within Ulster. The 1918 Parliamentary elections (which, at the time, included all of Ireland--not just the North) saw Sinn Féin winning the overwhelming majority of seats in districts that would eventually become the Irish Free State (then Republic of Ireland). In the region of Ulster that would eventually become Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin won a couple of districts in the western part of historical County Tyrone. northern Fermanagh and most of the city of Derry/Londonderry. Most of the province of Ulster voted for the Irish Unionists (which would later become the foundation of the Ulster Unionist Party); the IUs also picked up a couple of seats in Dublin. A couple of seats went to the Irish Parliamentary Party (which, in 1910, controlled most of the Irish seats in Westminster) as well as a few other parties.
In the final partition, however, a few Sinn Féin districts plus most of the IPP districts were incorporated into the new Northern Ireland, otherwise, the British territory would've been basically the northeastern coast plus a skinny "finger" starting below Lough Neagh and going westward towards Ballyshannon. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Irish_UK_election_1918.png )
The major problem today with any such decision is that the Unionist side is NEVER going to agree to unification with Ireland, even if that "clear majority" decides that way. And, if memory serves, it's largely been the Unionists who've been preventing any referendum on union with Ireland. At least in Northern Ireland. Majority opinion in the Republic has been leaning to acceptance of the status quo for the past couple of decades and there's not any real determination to hold any sort of plebiscite in the Republic on accepting the North as a part of the country. An election in the North is all well and good, but the South has a bit of a say in whether it wants the territory or not.
Yes, there would have to be two referenda, one in NI and one in the Republic. Can't see it happening in the next 30-40 years. The referendum last year in Scotland was very clearly NO, although you wouldn't think it listening to the Nats!
shareThe army never should've been there in the first place. They aren't trained to fight insurgents dressed as civilians. It was a dirty war similar to the one in Afghanistan.
Local armed police should be "keeping the peace".
Local armed police should be "keeping the peace".
The army never should've been there in the first place. They aren't trained to fight insurgents dressed as civilians.
Not exactly the sort of thing any government could allow.There is always a case to be made for sending in troops, as the 20th century has proven many times, but it rarely improves the situation and never leads to a stable peace.
The job of government is not to meddle in the affairs of locals
Why do people always assume that not sending in troops EQUALS doing nothing?
Send the right people for the job. At the time the Regular Army was unprepared/untrained for such fighting. It was the wrong tool to use.
Admittedly, non-conventional forces were still in their infancy in the 70s but this conflict justified their necessity. Despite this, until recently the British Army has lacked a comprehensive Special Forces Support Group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Forces_Support_Group). The US Army have used the Rangers in such a role for decades. The Paras and RM were used extensively in N.I. because their rigorous selection and training to operate in hostile territory better prepared them for such a deployment.
This is a good read: http://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/people/accounts/lindsay.htm
Because as you say, at the time there was nothing else to do.
Send in the Army, leave the RUC to *beep* things up, or leave both sides to just kill each other and any who happened to be nearby.
This was probably true at the time the film was set. The situation in N.I. seemed to worsen rapidly during the early 70s and didn't improve until decades later, which may have caught the army by surprise.
Some of the accounts from the book extract I linked talk about how their first tour (in the late 60s) was relatively peaceful but later tours were marred by continual violence. I don't know enough about the conflict to understand why this happened but the 70s were also a particularly tough time for the UK overall.
However, I still don't feel the politicians (or the army leadership) learned quickly enough from these (inevitable) initial mistakes and adapted their strategy accordingly.
This pattern of (senior military officials) "over-promising" followed by "under-delivering" was later repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan but luckily the Americans were present to provide assistance. Thanks to the courage of the men on the ground the Falklands war was won before Argentina realised how over-stretched and under-prepared Britain was!
Re. Falklands, I remember that Conflict too well. We were only over-stretched because of the distance. Our lads showed their customary courage and exemplary conduct.
The majority of Argentinians were young conscripts and most more than ready to capitulate.
N.B. We would do it again - never underestimate the resolve and spirit of the Brits., especially if under attack or threat.
Lucky for US of A, we remain your strongest and most trusted ally.
Watch "Falklands the Untold Story".
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible to "do it again" today because the RN currently have no aircraft carrier (until QE comes into service next year) or planes to launch from it (until the F-35s arrive in 2018).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/the-reporters-30229988
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/24/prince-of-wales-aircraft-carrier-makes-little-sense-report
http://rt.com/uk/243513-prince-wales-aircraft-carrier/
Illustrious, Ark Royal, Invincible have all been withdrawn from service over the past few years resulting in a "gap" of several years without any carrier capability at all!
We would do it again but totally different tactics & strategy.
The military world has come a long way in 33 years!
O ye of little Faith!
What different strategy? Without a proper Navy the UK can't respond to another invasion and even if they did, without planes to provide air support there is no way to prevent ships from being sunk.
A Trident nuclear submarine and HMS Dauntless currently act as a partial deterrent but the real reason an invasion has not yet been attempted is because Argentina's own armed forces are in even worse shape!
The UK government can't keep cutting as it has been yet expect the Armed Forces to retain their current responsibilities...either spend more or ask them to do less!
The British Army was welcomed, yes welcomed, initially by both sides but especially by the RC population.
shareSo what? It's not how you start but how you finish that matters...
shareand they threatened to nuke Buenos Aries
What?
shareThere was not an intention at all to nuke B.A. That's totally ridiculous, and the poster knows it.
I did read in one newspaper soon after the successful ending of the Falklands Conflict that there was a contingency plan to send bombers against towns in Argentina. However, that was Press speculation only. I doubt that would have happened. (No doubt US "diplomacy" would have advised the move as unwise or some such).