22
NAVY NEWS, DECEMBER 1996
At Your Leisure
Options
Long division over decisive war weapons 'HE BOOK of the BBC TV series Decisive Weapons (BBC Books, £14.99) starts
T
with the longbow and ends with the Sea Harrier. Both were naval weapons, the latter recognised as the essential arm of the Falklands War ("without the Harrier there could have been no Task Force", the then First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Henry Leach comments) while the maritime role of the former is largely ignored. • UP YOURS: the traditional two-fingered gesture of defiance dates back to the English archers of the 15th century, who heard a rumour that the French planned to cut three fingers from the right hand of every bowman they captured so that they would never shoot again. Henry V may have spread it around deliberately.
We're at the Boat Show FOLLOWING its spectacular success at the Royal Tournament, the Navy News roadshow will be joining the RN stand at the London International Boat Show at Earls Court from January 3-12. Awarded pride of place among the exhibitors, the Navy volunteer-manned tableau features a Royal Marine Rigid Raider on a shingle beach reflecting the RN's 1997 amphibious warfare theme.
There will also be a 16-screen video wall, an interactive Frigate Operations Room and a 20mm gun, plus a selection of ship models. Other attractions at the first big show of the year include a Mediterranean-style marina with more yachts on the water - and around it - than ever before, while much of the second floor is turned into the world's biggest chandlery store. It promises a fun, affordable
holiday day out for all the family - two children (under 16) admitted free for every adult.Tel 01784 473377 for further details. See ad on page 35. • First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jock Slater at the Navy News stand at the start of this year's Royal Tournament.
Some Silk In Her Stocking Cength pure silk. Wrap
* * * dragons, Embroidered with birds or flowers in red, gold or salmon pink (hand washable) Send cheque/po for £18.50 One P&P) To: Simply Silk. 64 Fulmer Road, West Beckton, London E16 3TF
Convert your experience into qualifications.. vocational Education Training Programme The following NCs / NDS / HNCs / HNDs are available under the above programme Business Administration Plant Engineering Mechanical Engineering Legal Studies Electrical Engineering Motor Vehicle Electronics Building Services Computing Telecommunications Building Studies The programme is an initiative by Blackburn College to assist members of HM Forces to attain recognised qualifications using the Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) process for a portion of the award. interested ? Then contact Barbara Clarkson, Faculty of Technology, Blackburn College, Feilden Street, Blackburn, Lancashire BB2 1LH. Telephone : 01254 292357 Fax: 01254 681755
BIACKDURN COLLG3E
An Associate College of Lancaster University
INVKSTOR IN PEOPU:
MANAGEMENT {CHARTER INITIATIVE
Feilden Street, Blackburn, Lanes BB2 1LH. Telephone (Student Services) 01254 292929 Fax: 01254 678903 • BS EN ISO 9002 Registered Blackburn College exists to serve the educational and cultural needs of the local community
Yet it was for long the main item of naval artillery. When Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose was raised from the protective silt of the Solent she yielded up 138 bows and 2,000 arrows - all embarked for a sea fight. The accuracy of the archers who used them is legendary. A pair of English bowmen at Calais are said to have cut the anchor rope of a captured vessel with four shots at 200 paces - real Robin Hood stuff. The early muskets of the 16th century took ages to load and were nowhere near as accurate or as reliable. Indeed, nearly 400 years after Agincourt Lt Col Lee of the 44th Regiment could repeat the charge in reference to his own weapon. Also, the muskets used in the Napoleonic wars threw out a dense screen of smoke which often totally obscured the target while a barrage of arrows was clearly visible and all the more terrifying to an enemy. Effective range of the weapon used at Waterloo was a mere 100150 yards - half that of the longbow. And an arrow sticking in any part of a man was more disabling than a bullet wound. The loss of the longbow and the surprisingly fast switch to firearms is the original defence procurement scandal - and it was the nature of the bowman rather than the bow that was the deciding factor. It took years of practice to make an archer, but you could train a musketeer in a few weeks. So it was that an incomparable national asset was allowed to wither and die - to the consternation of contemporary conservative military thinkers. In 1590 Sir John Smyth wrote a book condemning the musket. It was quickly and firmly suppressed.
Confidence Verdict on the Harrier, by way of contrast, is that its virtues remained theoretical for 20 years until finally it was given the chance to prove itself in the South Atlantic in 1982. "It's future is safe". Yet it was "the product of a unique moment in British military history, borne on a wave of post-war technological inventiveness, but suffering in an era of shrinking British technological confidence and confusions about military priorities." British Aerospace continue to develop new models in conjunction with McDonnell Douglas. There are plans, finally, to take Vertical Take-off and Landing supersonic and even to equip larger aircraft with VTL capacity - but it has taken a long time to persuade everyone of its virtues. Irresistible is the quote from Thomas Edison, who spelled out the winning formula long before the dawn of the jet age: "The Airframe will not amount to a damn until they get a machine that will act like a humming-bird; go
straight up, go forward, come straight down and alight like a humming-bird. It isn't easy but somebody's going to do it." Well, we did. -JFA Q Fascinating statistics abound in another BBC book. 1914-18: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (BBC Books £25). Long before Jurassic Park or Independence Day, in 1916 the first war documentary film The Battle of the Somme was seen by a staggering 20 million people in Britain (sec Newsview, page 18).
Book to benefit LEPs THE ROYAL Naval presence in Hong Kong, lasting more than 150 years, will come to an end when HMS Tamar decommissions in April next year. To mark the final chapter in this long association RN personnel have produced a book chronicling the history of the RN in the Crown Colony to raise money for the Locally Engaged Personnel (LEP) Trust. The Trust is a charitable foundation set up by the British Garrison to provide funds for Hong Kong Chinese ex-British servicemen who find themselves in need of aid after 1997. 'History of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong 18411997', edited by Chief of Staff and Senior Naval Officer Commodore Peter Melson, will be available from Maritime Books, Lodge Hill, Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 4EL - and from all good bookshops - from 31 March 1997 at E19.95.
Verse and terse . . . THE FABER Book of War Poetry (Faber £20) as edited by Kenneth Baker is oddly short on naval engagements. Only four examples are given and two, by Andrew Marvell and John Dryden describe actions from the same conflict, the war between England and Spain in 1657. The others are from Michael Thwaites' The Jervis Bay and John Donne's A Burnt Ship.