SAM Missiles Purchase.

This is a slightly weird story in the Telegraph:

Britain has secretly bought dozens of sophisticated Russian surface-to-air missiles, some of which are believed to have fallen into terrorist hands, to develop counter measures against them.

This is entirely normal practice. People always buy the arms likely to be used by potential enemies to work out how to defend against them. One buddy actually makes his living buying (and then repairing) Russian/CIS arms for the US Govt. Tanks and so on so they can play Red Vs. Blue games etc etc. RPGs so that armour can be developed to protect against them. All standard stuff that every military does all the time.

The Daily Telegraph knows the exact make of the missile but has withheld the information on the advice of the D-Notice committee.

That’s odd though. Why on earth would the D-Notice committee give a damn who knew the exact name of the missile? Any terrorist out shopping for such would already know the name. Perhaps my contacts are a little odd so it would take me about 5 minutes to find out but I can’t imagine that it would take anyone at all more than 10 minutes with Google.

Britain used arms dealers experienced in the Russian market to approach a state-owned arms manufacturer to purchase the system. The missiles and launchers were imported into Britain in an estimated £2.8 million deal.

No, this wasn’t my buddy but I’d give damn good odds that I know who this is.

Ah well, the only bit of it that surprises me is the involvement of the D-Notice committee. Why?