This is very strange - the missus and I binge watched the latest series of Trigger Point over the weekend. Finished it last night and then wake up to this news today.
Spoiler warning - removed. I've not watched it yet and I'm sure others haven't. Sounds ike you may have spoiled it for at least one person then
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 27 Sep 26 at 18:26
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Who ever it is, they were pretty rubbish at it. Their vans parked in a nearby village
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>> Who ever it is, they were pretty rubbish at it. Their vans parked in a
>> nearby village
>>
Satnav issues, the Merkins are using GPS jamming..... ;-)
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The alarm was raised by a farmer going home.
The road was blocked by 2 vans.
She also saw hooded men running to get cover in woods!
999 call and a quick police response.
30+ minutes later the police had rounded up the suspected terrorists.
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Alternatively, Donald Trump had been watching them for weeks, and had flown over in Air Force One to personally apprehend them!
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Seems the police were aware something was happening but not the exact detail. Looks like it was several vehicle borne ied looking to ram into buildings and aircraft.
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>> Seems the police were aware something was happening but not the exact detail. Looks like
>> it was several vehicle borne ied looking to ram into buildings and aircraft.
Their stupidity level increases.
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www.reuters.com/world/uk/security-increased-us-fairford-air-base-england-2026-09-27/
Seems a farmer spotted them and gave the heads up to the police, "I saw a group of Middle Eastern-looking young guys running off through the trees. Some of them had masks or balaclavas on, and they all scattered ahead of us as we drove back past," she told the paper.
"Some of them ran into the fields, and some of them turned to run towards the air base ... I mean, you don’t see masked men running around at half one in the morning in the countryside near a secure air base and not have concerns."
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They are British, from London. Bet theywere hare coursing.
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Perhaps nicking red diesel.
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Times says they're being released on bail.
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Sounds like they don't have much evidence to detain at all.
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The heinous criminals are being released on bail.
1. What's the betting that it has been a cock-up by the authorities?
2. The "terrorists" were actually fuel thieves?
3. The five men with their shirts off are hardened terrorists?
My money is on 1 and 2.
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>> The heinous criminals are being released on bail.
>>
>> 1. What's the betting that it has been a cock-up by the authorities?
>> 2. The "terrorists" were actually fuel thieves?
>> 3. The five men with their shirts off are hardened terrorists?
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>>
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How were the police top know that until after the men had been arrested and interviewed? Being in the vicinity of a military airbase they had to assume the worst.
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But Donald said that the US has been watching them for a long time. Surely he wouldn’t lie?
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No doubt the heightened security around the airfield contributed to the response but I bet anywhere else the local coppers would just be saying right let’s see what you’ve got in the back of the van!
As opposed to robot bomb disposal (why are there never robots on Trigger Point??)
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Rustling up a small platoon of armed police in the middle of the night in Gloucestershire takes some doing so I suspect they had some idea that something was afoot. Also seemed that the perimeters had been "fortified" somewhat over the previous week or so.
OTOH a mate's daughter was the shortest armed police officer at one time, and worked for the nuclear constabulary in Oxfordshire. They didn't usually have much to do and so could be called on to attend local "shouts" if they could get there before the local plod. Apparently robocops turning up armed to the teeth tended to take the heat out of domestics quite quickly!!
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Perhaps the whole thing was an exercise to test the emergency response plan works as intended.
No different to fire alarm and evacuation procedure testing etc.
Trouble is no one thought to let local plod know (or they forgot). Plod responded to a 999 from a local farmer, assumed the worst, and initiated a response. Everything then worked entirely as it should.
Complete speculation on my part of course!!!
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Given the badging on all the vans, I reckon Sooty's remark about (red) diesel could be close to the mark.
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It's entirely possible, nay probable, that intelligence exists of a credible plot, whether by Iranian proxies or others, against US forces in the UK.
The guys in vans on Sunday were on some other nefarious activity, probably theft of fuel or other stuff from farms etc, and triggered a terror response by mischance.
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>> The guys in vans on Sunday were on some other nefarious activity, probably theft of fuel or other stuff from farms etc, and triggered a terror response by mischance. <<
Not very clever to do it just outside an air base !
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The Independent is suggesting that the plot was so cack-handed it must have been deliberately designed to fail and that the question we should ask is, who stands to gain from that?
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/raf-fairford-iran-russia-plot-b3057513.html
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In that case it may have been a dummy run, to test what could be got away with ?
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From the Independant:
"Barrels of what might have been homemade explosive were reported to have been found. The vans were disguised as vehicles used by a farm fuel supplier – but the logos were the wrong colour".
Looks like diesel thieves, who were after anything else on farms they could obtain, hence being bailed. The local farmers would be well aware of theft from farms and would be alert for suspicious activity.
I suspect a gang of 'peripatetic driveway tarmaccers', who have now alerted themselves to BIBs and, hopefully have had the bejesus scared out of them by armed BIBs.
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It gets weirder every day. Now, apparently (Mail), the men in the woods who were spotted were police, responding to a call by one of the 'bombers'. Tomorrow,,it will turn out to be a training excecise.
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>>Tomorrow,,it will turn out to be a training excecise
Or the resurrection of Monty Python's ministry of silly walks.
:-D
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>> >>Tomorrow,,it will turn out to be a training excecise
May I refer you to my post of the 28th inst. @ 16.56.
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Either way, Trump has golden egg on his face
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Burnham now saying that the UK Govt. believe Iran to have been involved. Really? Or was this just a sop to try and stay onside with Trump? I look forward to the FACTS in due course.
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How will you tell which are the TRUE facts (if any) ? :-)
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Oh that one's easy, its the opposite of whatever Trump says.
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The United States has rushed to withdraw all 12 of its B-1B Lancer strategic bomber jets from RAF Fairford over the weekend, sending them back to their home stations in the United States.
Iran issue or moving far away from the Ukraine/Russian border?
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>> The United States has rushed to withdraw all 12 of its B-1B Lancer strategic bomber
>> jets from RAF Fairford over the weekend, sending them back to their home stations in
>> the United States.
I am informed that the removal of the aircraft is for routine maintenance of the airframe.
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>>I am informed that the removal of the aircraft is for routine maintenance of the
>> airframe.
All 12 at the same time?
Are there still B52s at Fairford?
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My informant may be wrong - of course.
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>> I am informed that the removal of the aircraft is for routine maintenance of the airframe. >>
Well, they would say that ....
And I would have thought that 'routine maintenance' might be done at any respectable air base ?
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More likely they've come to the end of their deployment, there's only so long you can keep a large % of a small force deployed, you run out of people eventually to keep deploying.
Deployments come to end all the time, the B1s been there since the beginning of the year i think.
It might well link in with some maintenance requirements, particularly things like major, minor servicing of the airframe. They'll go to a specialised maintenance facility carrying out tasks that can't be done 1st line by the flying sqn.
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>> I am informed that the removal of the aircraft is for routine maintenance of the
>> airframe.
>>
Sounds like BS to me. Were it the case I would expect them to cycle (pehaps) 3 at a time for maintenance to maintain the capability at Fairford.
Perhaps they are worried about the threat from a few blokes in Transits with a couple of cans of petrol.
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>> Perhaps they are worried about the threat from a few blokes in Transits with a
>> couple of cans of petrol.
I read somewhere that the vulnerability is to drones.
Was surprised there are only approx 45 in service with a few more in 'storage' at one or another US boneyard.
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>> I read somewhere that the vulnerability is to drones.
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>> Was surprised there are only approx 45 in service with a few more in 'storage'
>> at one or another US boneyard.
Drone risk is far more plausible!!
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>Perhaps they are worried about the threat from a few blokes in Transits with a couple of cans of petrol.
No.
They're worried that UK security services are incapable of defending a major military facility from a few blokes in transits.
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Shouldn't they be defending their own facilities?
I agree that if it was a maintenance issue then they should be withdrawn in small chunks.
I don't know if its still the case but the Police had mixed fleets so that if ever there was an issue where one particular make was 'grounded' then the whole fleet was not grounded.
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They've gone back in preparation for invading Canada.
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>Shouldn't they be defending their own facilities?
Anything outside the perimeter fence is our responsibility.
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>> Shouldn't they be defending their own facilities?
start wandering around on the wrong side of the fence, and you are going to get yourself shot.
The other side you get bail.
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>> >Perhaps they are worried about the threat from a few blokes in Transits with a
>> couple of cans of petrol.
>>
>> No.
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>> They're worried that UK security services are incapable of defending a major military facility from
>> a few blokes in transits.
>>
If that's true, I'd expect the remaining USAF to be withdrawn.
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>If that's true, I'd expect the remaining USAF to be withdrawn.
I'd expect it to depend on the situation and risk at each individual facility.
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>> >If that's true, I'd expect the remaining USAF to be withdrawn.
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>> I'd expect it to depend on the situation and risk at each individual facility.
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The risk won't be any different in Suffolk to Gloucestershire. Why would they. They've gone home at the end of a long deployment.
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>The risk won't be any different in Suffolk to Gloucestershire. Why would they.
Balderdash.
The immediate risk will be different at every facility depending on how attractive it is as a target and how difficult it would be to attack it.
Of course we could do a Brize Norton and give all RAF bases a rainbow pedestrian crossing. That should do the trick.
>They've gone home at the end of a long deployment.
Yeah. Right.
They've either gone home because there was a new threat or someone in the US Administration is seriously P'd off with us.
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I think both of those are very unlikely to be reasons why.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 7 Oct 26 at 10:45
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Story is they fear a drone attack that could take out all the planes in one go.
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>> Story is they fear a drone attack that could take out all the planes in
>> one go.
That's modern warfare for us.
Should we still be thinking in terms of fighters and tanks?
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>>Should we still be thinking in terms of fighters and tanks?
Absolutely not! But in this green and eco and zero emissions targets etc I assume that all these drones are powered by batteries that will of course all be recycled.......from their million pieces
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>> I assume that all these drones are powered by batteries that will of course all be recycled.......from their million pieces >>
I doubt that any drone could achieve the speed we see on video powered purely by batteries - tho of course batteries will do all the controlling.
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>> Should we still be thinking in terms of fighters and tanks?
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Not exclusively no, but they certainly shouldn't be removed from any future plans.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 7 Oct 26 at 10:45
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>> Should we still be thinking in terms of fighters and tanks?
Fighters, probably should, most employed now in stand off mode with fire and guide munitions, need to be Hardened aircraft shelters when not flying tho, Ruskies thought distance from action was enough - it wasnt.
Tanks? fared and performed very badly in the Ukraine conflict. probably need to rethink them
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>> Tanks? fared and performed very badly in the Ukraine conflict. probably need to rethink them
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Tanks were designed about 110 years ago to protect human occupants so they could do the fighting. If there aren't any, that protection is less necessary ?
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Warfare has changed beyond all recognition over the last 5 years. Conventional weapons may now be almost entirely obsolete.
US attacks on Iran using $bns of equipment and munitions have not succeeded - they will not risk 100,000++ boots on the ground likely incurring substantial losses. Iran now know they have a hold over western economies through closure of Hormuz using cheap drones.
The same is largely true in Ukraine. Russia expected victory in a couple of weeks. In contrast to the US, Russia put boots on the ground and casualties have been horrendous. Advance is largely stalled. Ukraine uses drones to attack targets 100's of miles behind the border in Russia.
Ballistic missiles cost £10m++ each. Cruie missiles £2-5m each. Smaller drones cost less than £1000. Longer range with larger warheads £5-15k. They are manufactured in the 1000's.
Interception by current air defence systems using missiles costing £100k+, or fighter jets costing £10-100m is unsustainable, altough It is likely cheaper interceptors will be developed.
Even if Fairford had the defences to combat a drone attack, a mass assault involving 50+ are unlikely all to be intercepted. One or two will get through - hitting a $300m aircreaft will likely write it off or put it out of action for months or years.
To launch 50+ drones would of course require a terrorist operation of some size - but possibly no more than the 3 transit vans and 6 blokes parked up within a few miles of the airfield.
To substantially secure an airfield from drone attack requires a surrounding high security exclusion zone extending toossibly) 10-30 miles enabling detection and reaction to offensive activity.
This may be possible in the US - greater land area, law enforcement etc etc. Fairford has numerous major roads within 20 miles (M4 etc) + large towns in the vicinity - Oxford, Swindon, Gloucester. A committed drone attack is a real risk.
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>> Tanks were designed about 110 years ago to protect human occupants so they could do
>> the fighting. If there aren't any, that protection is less necessary ?
Kind of, First tanks were designed to take down barbed wire, drive over trenches and lay down some covering fire while the boots followed behind.
They were used for this going forwards, but morphed into mobile artilery, and became a way of projecting ground power and raiding at great speed - over open flat ground. Russians built a gazzilion to push west across the german border
Not to be found on the roads to Kiev. wrong war wrong tool
And now, drones and other tank destroying munitions has made them innefective, worse cluttering up and blocking the assault following behind
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RAF Fairford incident - Bobby
