The Story So far…
Contents
Guests and Commenters
My first post had a grand total of zero commenters but as the readership has grown some of the posts have approached truly monstrous commenting proportions, one might expect a Telegraph or Guido piece to get over a thousand comments but not some obscure defence blog which demonstrates the interest in the subject matter out there. It is great to see that people want to take the time to comment and engage with a conversation, which can only be a good thing, especially given that the vast majority of those comments are insightful and relevant, from a broad range of very knowledgeable people.
Some commenters are regulars, some pop in from time to time and some only once but the variety and quality of commenters is the jewel in the TD crown, cheers everyone.
There have also been guest commenters who have presented differing views than my own, great stuff, let’s have more of the same.
There are also a range of guest authors that add real value and depth to the site, again, a big Thank You is due.
There is always room for more though.
Highlights;
- Same Difference, The 66 Is Back
- A Tale of Two Chinooks
- Future Lynx, Wild Cat or Fat Cat
- Operational Utility Vehicle System
- Osprey, Capability v Cost
- The Nimrod Saga
- TSR2 A Step Back in Time
- Why FRES UV Still Matters
- Falkland Islands Demining
- Battlefield Medicine, Afghanistan
- Forward Presence and Littoral Operations
- WWII Defences in Suffolk and Inter War Field Defences
- Hovercraft
- RAF Squadron Manning and A Case Study on the Danish Army
- The Changing Fortunes of Field Defences
- The Future of Libya and The Pocket Division
Balance, Accuracy and Going Against the Prevailing Narrative
I started Think Defence as a reaction to some of the shockingly poor defence reporting in the mainstream media, especially with regards to major programmes, the shiny arse civil servant theme and off the shelf equipment costs. I will probably do a bit less on the more lurid civil service related stuff now that the Pinstriped Line has started blogging, he does it much better than me anyway but this is subject area in general I am going to stick with.
Highlights;
- My first post; Are We The Only People That Like The A400 and a later prediction
- UK Cuts Exercises, An Alternative View
- Buying off the shelf is not a silver bullet; The Dangers Of Someone Else’s Shelf, An Off The Shelf Lesson and another
- Right in the middle of the 2009 Afghanistan helicopter controversy, On The Subject Of Helicopters
- When Super Tucano’s were all the rage, Cheap CAS Is An Illusion and Is The Super Tucano A Practical Option
- Shiny Arse Civil Servants
- Poppy Nazis and Supporting Our Boys
- Rank Inflation and again
- The Cost of a Blackhawk Helicopter
- Iraqi WMD’s Found
- Testing the veracity of the FRES British to Its Bootstraps Claim
- MoD Spin
- Cold War Relics,
- Thoughts on why the F35B was always the best choice for the UK, mid 2010, later, here and here
- The Falkland Islands And Our Pants
- The Pro and 7 Cons of An RAF Voyager
- Warfighting, a Plea
- The Post They Tried to Kill
- Springer, When UOR’s Go Bad
A Broad Outlook
I try and maintain a broad outlook rather than specialising so I might publish a post on a charity, a handful of pictures or videos, comment on a news story, an in depth look at issue or even a few thoughts on the future the variety will continue.
As much as it is possible, I also try and maintain a non service centric bias. If ones position is to be biased then anyone disagreeing could be construed as being equally biased but I don’t see it like that. I might slip off the middle line from time to time so apologies for that.
Highlights;
- A spot of D Day history; before, during and after
- Unmanned logistics UAV’s, here and here
- The Light Protected Patrol Vehicle,
- Actions on IED, The Hurt Locker UK Edition and If WWI Was a Pub Fight
- Riverine and Littoral Concepts
- Is Talisman Too Little Too Late, On the Subject of IED’s, Flails and the Pookie
- FRES, here, here
- The Men in Scarlet
- Another Look at Towers and Blimps
- Energy Security and Defence,
- Royal Marine CB90’s
- Defence Diplomacy Done Right
- Infantry Close Combat and Small Arms Calibres
- Counter Port Denial in Libya and Naval Mine Countermeasures
- Is It Time to Bring Back the Medium Bomber
- What Can You Do With 50 Bits Per Second
- On The Subject of Strategy and UK Energy, Food and Trade
- Future UK Maritime Patrol
- The Type 26
- Multi Role Brigades
- Watchkeeper Then and Now
- Vehicle Mobility and Protection Considerations
A Path Less Trodden
If Think Defence does have a USP it is that I like to cover subjects that no one else does, combat engineering, containers, water supply, logistics and other suitably obscure areas.
Highlights;
- Voluntary group focus; Holidays4Heroes, BLESMA, Gardening Leave and
- The beginning of an obsession with the humble Mexeflote, here and here
- Ship to Shore Logistics
- Pallets and Containers, again, again, again, and again
- The End of the Mashy Wagon
- Logistics Software
- Airdrop logistics
- Block Paving
- A Floating Container Port
- On Soft Ground
- Pallets East
- Whatever Happened to Multidrive
- Can We Have Our Bridge Back Now Please
- Military Water Supply
- The Atlantic Conveyor and Port San Carlos FOB
- A Ship that is Not a Frigate, 4 part series, start here
- My huge piece of work in 20 parts on the history and application of UK Military Bridging, start with Part 1 (am particularly proud of this series)
Stats
From a standing start with zero marketing funds the site so far this year has had just under 300,000 visitors and 750,000 page views.
We have also been through multiple design changes and hosting locations as the site grows.
Hope you enjoyed that romp through the back catalogue?
The fact that Think Defence is on the Defence IQ Blogging Award Shortlist has of course, nothing whatsoever to do with this post.
Just sayin 
excellent work as always admin, thank you.
Cheers for the summary and highlights. Like I wrote elsewhere, for the last six months or so my computer totally crashed every time I clicked on TD, so I’m gradually working my way through what I missed – some of those headlines look intriguing and good fun! There’ll be a load of good readin’ there.
Thanks TD for providing us enthusiasts with a place where we can look learn and share our views.
Keep it up!
I just checked the short list. How exactly did an only two months old mediocre blog such as “Land Warfare Blog” make it on a list next to Danger Room, SWJ Blog and Information Dissemination ?!?
Ah – blasts from the past…. and some posts I must have missed. All very interesting.
Keep up the good work TD!
Good stuff, TD.
hope the funding’s OK, or if not, how can we help?
Great stuff,
part of the daily diet.
Page views are bound to go up with the new structure as the links from the last 25 comments only take you to the thread, not that particular comment. Then one still has to click to the latest page, or if the comment is new enough, on the comment in the side panel (from where the links work as they used to, before pagination)
RE “so far this year has had just under 300,000 visitors and 750,000 page views.”
RE “so far this year has had just under 300,000 visitors and 750,000 page views.”
Amazing figures TD well done.
I do not think there is another site on the web that offers such a wide variety of commentators from all colours of the forces which often makes for thrilling arguments.
One of the great things about this process is it has truly helped to change my view’s on many aspects of defence and I feel far more informed than I was a few years ago.
I would echo James comments if any help is required with funding please let us know.
Absolutely agree – great work TD!
Thanks all, on the funding side, clicking the odd advert would help!
Only if you want to go there though, as always, if you something you want to know more about, click the link
At the nursing home, they wont even let me use a pencil because they say I’m dangerous. Here I can write articles
Seriously though, well done Boss. The breadth of the article coverage and the knowledge base of the commentors seem to be the two strengths that really seperate this blog from many others I’ve seen.
TD I would add my appreciation – the breadth is staggering – and the well informed comments fascinating
TD, re clicking adverts,
can you get a more attractive sort of advert? At the moment, I’m presented with an advert for a robotic vacuum cleaner – a sort of “Unwomaned Automatic System”. Tell me, is this thing better value than Gena, who for £20 a week will clean the whole house, iron and starch shirts, sort out the cobwebs in various corners, make the children’s beds, and is prepared to pick up the youngest darling from school, take him to her house and make him beans on toast when my conference over-runs? That’s quite some robot vacuum cleaner if it can.
TD,
Your combination of unique topics; and balanced, well-reasoned analysis make Think Defence one of my favorite mil blogs. Keep up the great work.
I always enjoy reading this blog. It presents the issues of defence in a balanced manner and is my first port of call of issues related to defence. So thanks and keep up the good work. This summary is great particularly to people who have not started with you but found you after you started.
If it’s Google adsense then you don’t have to buy anything, just click the advert. But careful, too much activity in a compressed time span can be seen as manipulating the system. Google are notorious for finding excuses not to pay people.
Cheers TD,
I’ll keep the PSL updated on the way things are looking with the MOD CS. I’ve got a few ideas on what to write next, and am looking forward to getting my next TD piece up here too (just say the word boss!).
We lost by the way
http://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and-sea-defence-services/articles/and-the-winner-is-defence-iq-blogging-awards-2012/
Congrats to the winners, bastards the lot of them