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British Army Begins Deliveries To Ease Fuel Crisis

October 4, 2021

British Army Begins Deliveries To Ease Fuel Crisis

Last week, British Army personnel were on standby as service station pumps ran dry across the country, forcing vendors to ration sales as a shortage of truck drivers strained supply chains of major oil and gas suppliers. AFP reports Monday that as many as 200 military tanker personnel have been deployed to alleviate the energy crisis.

Troops in military fatigue were spotted across London and southeast England, delivering various fuel grades to gas stations to alleviate fuel shortages.

“More than half of those who have completed training to make fuel deliveries are being deployed to terminals serving London and the south east of England, demonstrating that the sector is allocating drivers to areas most affected in this first phase from Monday,” a UK government spokesperson said.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the fuel crisis is abating, and signs of stabilization were materializing.

“While the situation is stabilizing, our Armed Forces are there to fill in any critical vacancies and help keep the country on the move by supporting the industry to deliver fuel to forecourts,” Wallace said. 

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), representing 65% of the country’s independent service stations, welcomed the news of military supporting efforts to resupply service stations but warned the soldiers were likely to have minimal effect.

PRA chairman Brian Madderson said 20% of the fueling stations in London and southeast England were out of fuel, and the rest of the country had adequate supply.

For two weeks, long queues of motorists at gas stations extended into city streets as people panic hoarded fuel due to the uncertainties of shortages.

Inside the British Army’s secret information warfare machine

November 23, 2018

Inside the British Army’s secret information warfare machine

They are soldiers, but the 77th Brigade edit videos, record podcasts and write viral posts. Welcome to the age of information warfare.

Future Publishing/Getty Images/WIRED

Abarbed-wire fence stretched off far to either side. A Union flag twisted in a gust of wind, and soldiers strode in and out of a squat guard’s hut in the middle of the road. Through the hut, and under a row of floodlights, I walked towards a long line of drab, low-rise brick buildings. It was the summer of 2017, and on this military base nestled among the hills of Berkshire, I was visiting a part of the British Army unlike any other. They call it the 77th Brigade. They are the troops fighting Britain’s information wars.

“If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking,” was written in foot-high letters across a whiteboard in one of the main atriums of the base. Over to one side, there was a suite full of large, electronic sketch pads and multi-screened desktops loaded with digital editing software. The men and women of the 77th knew how to set up cameras, record sound, edit videos. Plucked from across the military, they were proficient in graphic design, social media advertising, and data analytics. Some may have taken the army’s course in Defence Media Operations, and almost half were reservists from civvy street, with full time jobs in marketing or consumer research.

From office to office, I found a different part of the Brigade busy at work. One room was focussed on understanding audiences: the makeup, demographics and habits of the people they wanted to reach. Another was more analytical, focussing on creating “attitude and sentiment awareness” from large sets of social media data. Another was full of officers producing video and audio content.

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“God Help Us” – British Army Readied In Case Of Hard Brexit

July 30, 2018

“God Help Us” – British Army Readied In Case Of Hard Brexit

Just as was extremely evident prior to the actual vote in 2016, scaremongering around Brexit (deal or no deal) is escalating among the cognoscenti or desperate Remain ‘told you so’-ers.

Britain’s Sunday Times reports that UK ministers have drawn up plans to send in the army to deliver food, medicines and fuel in the event of shortages if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal.

Blueprints for the armed forces to assist the civilian authorities, usually used only in civil emergencies, have been dusted down as part of the “no deal” planning, with helicopters and army trucks used to ferry supplies to vulnerable people outside the southeast who were struggling to obtain the medicines they needed.

However, as ominous as this sounds, The Sunday Times admits – a number of paragraphs into their “Army on standby for no-deal Brexit emergency” story – that a source inside the Ministry of Defense said they have not yet received “a formal request” to assist the civilian authorities.

And while desperate not to have this positioned as the work of “Project Fear’, pro-EU opposition MP David Lammy took aim at the news on Twitter saying: “God, help us. This is not coming from Remainers. This is not project fear. Pro-Brexit Ministers are drawing up blueprints for the army to deliver food, fuel and medicine if we leave the EU with no deal,” adding his own touch of hysteria… “We have a duty to prevent this self-immolation.”

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God, help us. This is not coming from Remainers. This is not project fear. Pro-Brexit Ministers are drawing up blueprints for the army to deliver food, fuel and medicine if we leave the EU with no deal. We have a duty to prevent this self-immolation.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/army-on-standby-for-no-deal-brexit-emergency-dz3359lrf …

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

British army creates team of Facebook warriors

January 31, 2015

British army creates team of Facebook warriors

Soldiers familiar with social media sought for 77th Brigade, which will be responsible for ‘non-lethal warfare’

The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age.

The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong and formed of units drawn from across the army. It will formally come into being in April.

The brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare. Both the Israeli and US army already engage heavily in psychological operations.

Against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative.

The 77th will include regulars and reservists and recruitment will begin in the spring. Soldiers with journalism skills and familiarity with social media are among those being sought.

An army spokesman said: “77th Brigade is being created to draw together a host of existing and developing capabilities essential to meet the challenges of modern conflict and warfare. It recognises that the actions of others in a modern battlefield can be affected in ways that are not necessarily violent.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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