Ok, I decided I needed to poke around...
http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/7843/gurka.html
'Of the total 110 Victoria Cross, the highest military honor provided by the
British Empire to all its soldiers until now, Gurkha soldiers have won 13
medals.'
'According to the reporter of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) "The
Argentines dropped their rifles and abandoned mortars and machine guns" as
soon as the Gurkha soldiers marched forward. The Argentine soldiers were
mainly afraid of the famous Gurkha knives called "Khukuri" because they had
chopped the heads off many Germans and Japanese in hand to hand combat during
the world wars.'
And...
http://www.ukdf.org.uk/gr14.htm
'Reputation. The Gurkhas have an international renown for their bravery, and a
mysticism surrounds their use of the Kukri. Legend has it that rumours were
spread amongst the Argentine conscripts on the Falklands of tales of
cannibalism by the Gurkhas, if this were true it would be a force multiplier
due to the psychological effect on the enemy. '
All of this brings a question. Does the ESU have access to Gurkha troops since
they hold India? Would the ESU take Gurkhas? Would Gurkhas serve in the ESU
under "Indian" service? Would Nepal be a smoking ruin where the ESU tried to
invade and failed or is Nepal still thorny as ever to invaders and independent
in 2183 (and apparently still supplying troops to the crown and the NAC)?
> At 01:59 29/06/01 -0400, Ryan Gill wrote:
> ESU tried to invade and failed or is Nepal still thorny as ever to
Possibly, but they wouldn't be the Gurkhas of popular ledgend. I saw a report
a show called 'Foreign Correspondent' on the National Boardcaster
(ABC) which was about peacekeeping in the west coast of Africa, forget exactly
where though. The reporter and his film crew went out on patrol with a unit of
Indian army Gurkhas through a highly dangerous area (so the reporter claimed)
and frankly these guys weren't a patch on the British army Gurkhas.
> At 4:48 PM +1000 6/29/01, Derek Fulton wrote:
At least at current, the British get the best of the best from those that
volunteer for service. The pay in Britian is better, the time of service is
around 15 years and as such they have really good troops. That second web site
that I posted explains quite a bit.
> At 11:48 29/06/01 -0400, you wrote:
> report a show called 'Foreign Correspondent' on the National
> exactly where though. The reporter and his film crew went out on
> the reporter claimed) and frankly these guys weren't a patch on the
Sorry missed the url, but the Gurkhas are definately a product of their
enviroments, before and after enlisting. But this all could be a moot point
sometime last year Beth caught a news story saying that the British were
either stopping recruitment or cutting back, keeping a small core and sending
the rest ( and their families) back to Nepal. Can anyone shed light on this?
> At 9:32 AM +1000 6/30/01, Derek Fulton wrote:
Wow, first amalgamation, now this.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 9:32 AM +1000 6/30/01, Derek Fulton wrote:
As far as I know this happens every time labour gets into power - until
they realise there's no way Britain can meet it's obligations without these
little guys.
Cheers,
[quoted original message omitted]
> As far as I know this happens every time labour gets into power -
> At 9:34 AM +0200 6/30/01, Derk Groeneveld wrote:
You'd think Labour would have learned their lessons after the Falklands...
G'day,
> I thought that due to defence cutbacks,
IF I remember the doco correctly (and it was last year some time so this
could be a little dodgy), it wasn't just the Gurkhas themselves but their
families (who after x years of service could join them in the UK/Hong
Kong etc). When they handed back Hong Kong and amalgamated the army they could
no longer justify having such a large force with all their families
(especially if they all ended up in the UK). Thus they chopped back and sent
them back to Nepal. However, some of this could be doco sensationalism as at
that point of the doco they went through a phase of strongly stressing these
people were going from one of the richest nations in the
world to the poorest in a very short period of time with no compensation or
manner of redress, regardless of how long they'd been serving.
Now if this is a fair representation of their treatment and if bureaucracy
remains the one constant of human civilisation then I serious doubt the NAC
would support a resettlement of the Nepalese to another planet, though it is a
nice sentiment and as plausible as many other minor nations created
for the GZGverse;)
Cheers
> G'day,
Well, the Britsih Army Gurkhas are very much still here (or some of them,
at least) - they're barracked just down the road from here in
Colchester, and every time I go over there to see friends there's lots of them
walking
round the town centre - there's even a specialist Gurkha restaurant in
town, apparently run by a retired Gurkha NCO and his British wife (it's said
to be very good, though haven't tried it myself yet). I think the strength of
the regiment(s?) may have been scaled down, along with a lot of the rest of
the army, but they haven't been disbanded.
Jon (GZG)
> Now if this is a fair representation of their treatment and if
Actually its more complicated that all that all the Ghurka infantry are now in
1 regiment "The Royal Gurkha Rifles"
(http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/gurkha/index.html) there is 1 battalion
in Brunei and the other seems to be broken up into reinforcement companies for
other units that are having trouble recruiting, but there is actually a new
regiment forming "The Queen's Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment"
(http://www.army.mod.uk/presscentre/releases/aprjun01/550.html-ssi)
So if the trend continues the Gurkas will end up providing round out units to
other regiments, there is at least 1 Gurkha in the Army Air Corps. Which means
you can add a Gurkha unit to any other and justify it.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Derk Groeneveld
http://derk.op.het.net/
PGP-public key: finger derk@cistron.nl
> On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, Chris Downes-Ward wrote:
> Actually its more complicated that all that all the Ghurka infantry
Which
> means you can add a Gurkha unit to any other and justify it.
You mean there's justification for my Ghurka reconnaissance company attached
to my royal amrine light infantry battaljon? Cool!:)
Cheers,
> You mean there's justification for my Ghurka reconnaissance company
Chris.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Derk Groeneveld
http://derk.op.het.net/
PGP-public key: finger derk@cistron.nl
> On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, Chris Downes-Ward wrote:
> >
Although I am sure the royal marines prefer the original spelling to my
'amrines'. Once again I typed too quickly.
Thanks for the info.
Cheers,