Rick Brindle

  Operation Mikado gets my vote. This was a plan for the SAS to crash land two Hercules on to a mainland Argentinian airbase during the Falklands War. The planes would then disgorge their load of SAS troops who would run around the base with the intention of destroying any Exocet missiles the found, before then walking overland to Chile. This whole crack-brained idea was only dreamed up in the first place because the British military finally wised up to the threat of the Exocets to the task force. It was a threat they they didn’t really have an effective counter to, and it was really, seriously, only blind luck that the Atlantic Conveyor took one for the team instead of one of the two carriers. If the Hermes or Invincible had been hit, it would have been game over. Thankfully, France was pulling every dirty trick in the book not to deliver more missiles to Argentina, missiles that had already been bought and paid for. France also strong-armed Peru not to hand any of theirs over. Bu...

  Well, usually the singer  is  the front man. And then there’s AC/DC. And that’s taking nothing away from Bon Scott or Brian Johnson, but let’s face it, Angus Young is soooo their front man! Cold Steel on the Rocks We Are Cold Steel Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard It's Not For Everyone

C old Steel and the Underground Boneyard,  the third novel in the Cold Steel series, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now! Cold Steel are back! Their new album has just been released. Their previously cancelled Spanish tour dates have been rearranged, with the female trio and Spain’s biggest metal band, Damas Infernales, supporting. Cold Steel’s biggest asset though, is Johnny Faslane, their brutally talented manager. But even Johnny can’t fully eliminate Cold Steel’s innate ability to spectacularly destroy their prospects, and even before their second concert ends, the tour is scrapped after an ill-advised trip back to the eighties, and the band are put into creative deep freeze by their record company. Only an unprecedented event and a lot of money can possibly turn their fortunes around. Like a five hundred year old treasure hoard that a long dead pirate once offered in return for his life, treasure that has never been found. Cold Steel find...

So, you're in the British armed forces and you lose your weapon. What happens to you?  That depends entirely on your rank. I served in the RAF Regiment for just over three years, and in that time, my flight commander lost his rifle. And not just once, but twice! The first time was on battlecamp in a godforsaken part of Wales called Sennybridge, where I swear it rains every day. Anyway, this guy left his rifle on top of a pile of webbing and just walked away. As soon as he was out of sight, his rifle was picked up and chucked in the back of a 4 tonner, and then covered over with a pile of Bergens. When he came back a few minute later and asked if anyone had seen his rifle, the whole flight denied any knowledge of it. Six months later, on the rifle range in Cyprus, he left his rifle lying around again. This time, one of the flight’s gunners trashed the sight’s zeroing, so that when he came back and started firing, all he did was plant holes in the ground fifty meters from his positio...