The Sunday "toy"

Believe it or not, I stumbled on this pic while doing a routine search for RG-31 pics, picking it up off a Japanese (I think) sex site, of all places. Why this should be displayed amongst the tits and bums defies explanation, and I can no longer even find the link to let readers see it in context.

Anyhow, this is a high-definition pic (reduced here to 800 pixels – if you click to enlarge) of one of the ex-British Mambas, sold to the Estonian Army and now deployed in Afghanistan alongside unarmoured British Land Rovers - yet again underlining the lack of medium armoured vehicles in the British inventory.

Astute readers will notice a subtle difference in this machine – it has side windows to the rear compartment – an apparent modification to the vehicle when it was in British hands (pictured). We explored the relevance of this in another post. What this picture also shows is the relative size of the vehicle, by comparison with the Spartan APC following it. This is no Dinky Toy.

Cheaper than the Pinzgauer Vector, with far more protection, the modern equivalent of this machine, the RG-31, gives much better value than these dangerous machines, illustrating a flaw at the heart of the MoD procurement process.

The only trouble is that, opening it out to more scrutiny and giving – say – the Defence Committee a stronger role does not seem to be an option, given their inability to understand what is going on.

I am not sure I know the answer here, although we are at least aware of the nature of the problem, and beginning to understand it – which is more than can be said of the either the bulk of the politicos or the MSM.

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