Warminster honours soldiers killed in Afghanistan
As the town of Warminster pays its respects to the six British soldiers killed last week, Carl Dinnen assesses why the Warrior vehicle failed to protect them.
Hundreds of people lined the streets of Warminster today as 400 soldiers from the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment marched through the Wiltshire town.
The Duke of York, colonel-in-chief of the Yorkshire Regiment, took the salute and then joined the soldiers and local dignitaries for a service at the Minster Church of St Denys. The names of the six dead soldiers were read out, and the Last Post was played.
The march has been planned for months now because it was going to be a send off and wishing them all the best of luck, and of course it is tinged now with tremendous sadness because of the six deaths last week. Nick Pitcher
Six red roses were thrown into the road through Warminster ahead of the marching soldiers today. An army spokeswoman said that the families of the men killed last week did not attend the service.
The men were killed in the deadliest single enemy attack on UK forces in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001, around 25 miles north of the capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah.
Corporal Jake Hartley, 20, Private Anthony Frampton, 20, Private Christopher Kershaw, 19, Private Daniel Wade, 20, and Private Daniel Wilford, 21, all of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, died alongside Sergeant Nigel Coupe, 33, of 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment when a Taliban roadside bomb destroyed their Warrior armoured vehicle in Helmand province on 6 March.
Carl Dinnen reports:
“The initial assessment of the blast which destroyed the Warrior indicates it was one of the biggest bombs – if not the biggest – ever to hit a British vehicle in Afghanistan.
“Several military sources have told me the estimated size of the explosive charge but asked for it not to be made public. The immense blast blew the vehicle over and started a fierce fire which took hours to extinguish. The Warrior in question was actually one of a newly upgraded batch with improved armour. Until the explosion last week it had a pretty good record in Afghanistan. Only three out of nearly 400 fatalities had been in the vehicle.
“But the Warrior is not designed to withstand mines as well as some of the newer vehicles like the Mastiff. The difference is in the shape of the vehicles underside. The Mastiff, and others, have a V-shaped hull which deflects the blast to the sides. The Mastiff offers much greater ‘survivability’; the MOD has spent millions on them and they’re now thought to outnumber the Warrior by at least five-to-one.
“Whether the men killed last week would have been travelling over that bit of ground in a Mastiff is another question though. The Warrior is a much better offroad vehicle, say the MOD – it does a different job.
“So would the six soldiers killed last week have survived in a Mastiff? No-one is willing to say for sure. But they would certainly have stood a much better chance. However even the latest V-shaped hulls offer only a degree of protection. In the end a big enough charge can defeat any amount of armour.”
A ‘poignant’ parade
The soldiers taking part in Friday’s parade will soon be flying out to Helmand Province to join 12th Mechanized Brigade on Operation Herrick 16.
Brian Darvill, vice-chairman of the Warminster branch of the Royal British Legion, said: “We would have been here today anyway to see them march off and go to the church service before their tour of Afghanistan but obviously now it is more poignant because of the deaths last week in Afghanistan, so there is even more support being shown today.
“I think the town, (and) ex-service community as well will be turning out in great strength today to see these chaps off.”
People who could not fit into the church listened to the service on a loudspeaker in the grounds, with many joining in with the prayers and hymns. During the service, the Duke read a passage from the Gospel of St Matthew.
Nick Pitcher, a Warminster resident, attended the parade with his mother Jean. “The march has been planned for months now because it was going to be a send off and wishing them all the best of luck, and of course it is tinged now with tremendous sadness because of the six deaths last week. So it would have been emotional but it is going to be even more emotional now,” he said.
“They are very much part of the community, you see them everywhere, we all just mix in. So it has all just brought a cloud over the whole town, it is awful.”