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129-423: The CDS allowed operators to assign objects on the radar display different IDs and combined them together onto a single display which allowed intercept officers to have a unified display of location, raid size, and altitude. The CDS made it easy for operators to vector friendly fighters onto intercept courses with unknown targets and later versions could automatically calculate the interception points. The basic idea of

258-402: A joystick . The joystick's internal potentiometers produced a changing voltage in X and Y as the stick moved. These signals were sent to the deflection plates of a separate channel in the cathode ray tube display, overlaying a dot on the existing radar imagery to provide a cursor . Along the side of the display was a series of buttons that allowed the operator to indicate that they had placed

387-452: A magnetic drum . The system could supply data for 64 targets with a resolution of 40 by 40 yards over an 80 by 80 nautical mile grid. In a production setting, only one ship in a task force would carry the DATAR computer. The rest of the ships had computer terminals that allowed the operators to use a trackball based on a Canadian five-pin bowling ball and trigger to send position info over

516-414: A memory refresh system to keep it accurate. This greatly improved the availability of the system. The production version used a simplified display system that removed the symbols. In their place, the original radar blip was displayed, but surrounded by additional data in the form of two-digit numbers. The track number remained in the upper left, but the altitude moved to the lower right. In the upper right

645-494: A "conference display", a 24 inches (610 mm) Photographic Display Unit that updated once every 15 seconds and was large enough to allow multiple operators to view the same imagery. Initially, the system considered using a multi-coloured disk that was spun in front of the PPI display, timed so symbols would be drawn while a particular colour was over the display. This concept, which was common in early mechanical television systems of

774-779: A 21-year engagement, following which (should he survive so long) he was discharged as a Pensioner. Pensioners were sometimes still employed on garrison duties, as were younger soldiers no longer deemed fit for expeditionary service who were generally organised in invalid units or returned to the regimental depot for home service. The cost of paying pensioners, and the obligation the government was under to continue to employ invalids as well as soldiers deemed by their commanding officers as detriments to their units were motivations to change this system. The long period of engagement also discouraged many potential recruits. The long service enlistments were consequently replaced with short service enlistments, with undesirable soldiers not permitted to re-engage on

903-562: A Catholic) during his brief controversial reign, off the throne and into exile. England then involved itself in the War of the Grand Alliance on the Continent, primarily to prevent a possible French Catholic monarch organizing invasion restoring the exiled James II (Queen Mary's father and still a Roman Catholic ). Later in 1689, William III to solidify his and Mary's hold on the monarchy, expanded

1032-569: A Parliamentary-funded army, commanded by Lord General Thomas Fairfax , which became known as the New Model Army (originally phrased "new-modelled Army"). While this proved to be a war-winning formula, the New Model Army, being organised and politically active, went on to dominate the politics of the Interregnum and by 1660 was widely disliked. The New Model Army was paid off and disbanded at

1161-733: A city-wide area. This presented the same sort of problem that the Navy faced with its dispersed destroyers; the AA guns had small radars on-site, but these did not provide a long-range picture of the battle as a whole. They learned of the CDS and became interested in adapting it for the new radar. During development, in 1953 the role of air defence over the UK passed from the Army to the Royal Air Force , who took up development and renamed

1290-679: A deployment in Afghanistan as part of Operation Toral . Following an announcement by the US Government of the end of their operations in the Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced in April 2021 that British forces would withdraw from the country by 11 September 2021. It was later reported that all UK troops would be out by early July. Following the collapse of the Afghan Army, and the completion of

1419-474: A large portion of the fleet. They also found it to be sensitive to changes in temperature, lacking precision, and given its large number of moving parts, difficult to maintain. A final problem was that they desired a system capable of tracking hundreds of objects, not dozens, and adding the additional channels to the CDS would be expensive. This led to their own version, the Electronic Data System. This

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1548-585: A large reserve of recently discharged soldiers, ready to be recalled on the outbreak of war to immediately bring the small peacetime regular army up to strength), the Regular Reserve of the British Army was originally created in 1859 by Secretary of State for War Sidney Herbert , and re-organised under the Reserve Force Act 1867 . Prior to this, a soldier was generally enlisted into the British Army for

1677-572: A member of parliament and future Lord Protector) from serving as officers in the Parliamentary armies. This created a distinction between the civilians in Parliament, who tended to be Presbyterian and conciliatory to the Royalists ("Cavaliers") in nature, and a corps of professional officers, who tended to be Independent ( Congregational ) in theology. The second action was legislation for the creation of

1806-565: A multinational armoured battlegroup in Estonia under Operation Cabrit and contributes troops to another military battle group in Poland . As part of the NATO plans, Britain has committed a full mechanized infantry brigade to be on a high state of readiness to defend Estonia. Between 2015 and 2022, the British Army deployed Short Term Training Teams (STTTs) to Ukraine under Operation Orbital to help train

1935-526: A new display system that overlaid symbols on a large-format plan-position indicator (PPI) radar display. Elliott received a patent for this "Peevish" system in 1947. Although the initial concept was to net ASDIC data, in 1947 attention turned to the aircraft plotting problem; toward the end of the Second World War , Allied non-automated fighter direction experienced saturation and degraded performance when subjected to Kamikaze attacks. The key development

2064-552: A number of conflict zones, often as part of an expeditionary force , a coalition force or part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation. Until the Wars of the Three Kingdoms , neither England or Scotland had had a standing army with professional officers and career corporals and sergeants. England relied on militia organised by local officials or private forces mobilised by the nobility, or on hired mercenaries from Europe. From

2193-526: A replacement, and the project ended. The circuitry design used in the system would be applied to several other Ferranti machines over the next few years. At the Atlantic Convoy Conference of 1943, Canada was given shared control of all convoys running between the British Isles and North America. At the time, it was a role of unprecedented importance because it gave Canada a key command role over

2322-785: A safe distance by aiding the Ottoman Empire ). Like the English Army , the British Army fought the kingdoms of Spain, France (including the First French Empire ) and the Netherlands ( Dutch Republic ) for supremacy in North America and the West Indies . With native and provincial and colonial assistance, the Army conquered New France in the French and Indian War (North American theatre) of

2451-614: A series of events that led to the introduction of CDS some years later. Seaslug required the long-range and height-finding of the Type 984 but the County-class destroyers , the only ships armed with Seaslug, were too small to carry the large radar. The solution was to add a digital data link to CDS, called Digital Picture Transmission (DPT) or Link I; the use of a digital link may have been inspired by DATAR's digital link. The aircraft carrier transmitted radar contact data from its Type 984 over DPT to

2580-505: A target strength of 82,000, and just over 30,000 Army Reservists , with a target strength of 30,000. All former Regular Army personnel may also be recalled to duty in exceptional circumstances during the 6-year period following completion of their Regular service, which creates an additional force known as the Regular Reserve . The table below illustrates British Army personnel figures from 1710 to 2024. The British Army's basic weapon

2709-641: A volunteer army and threatened to emulate the American colonists if their conditions were not met. Learning from their experience in America, the British government sought a political solution. The British Army fought Irish rebels—Protestant and Catholic—primarily in Ulster and Leinster ( Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen ) in the 1798 rebellion . In addition to battling the armies of other European empires (and its former colonies,

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2838-793: A war against the Prussian -led German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire ). When the First World War broke out in August 1914 the British Army sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), consisting mainly of regular army troops, to France and Belgium . The fighting bogged down into static trench warfare for the remainder of the war. In 1915 the army created the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to invade

2967-541: A working pulse-code modulation (PCM) radio system that was able to transmit digitized radar data over long distances. The opening of the Korean War dramatically shifted the government's spending priorities, and 100 new ships were ordered in 1951. Along with this came renewed interest in DATAR, and over the next two years they spent $ 1.9 million ($ 22 million in 2024) developing a prototype. The prototype machine used 3,800 vacuum tubes and stored data for up to 500 objects on

3096-625: Is based on that of the earlier English army. Although technically the Scots Royal Regiment of Foot was raised in 1633 and is the oldest Regiment of the Line, Scottish and Irish regiments were only allowed to take a rank in the English army on the date of their arrival in England (or the date when they were first placed on the English establishment). In 1694, a board of general officers was convened to decide

3225-692: Is provided by L16 81mm mortars . Sniper rifles include the L118A1  7.62 mm, L115A3 and the AW50F , all manufactured by Accuracy International . The British Army utilises the Glock 17 as its side arm. Anti tank guided weapons include the Javelin , the medium range anti-tank guided weapon replacement for Milan , with overfly and direct attack modes of operation, and the NLAW . The Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon ( NLAW )

3354-505: Is the 5.56 mm L85A2 or L85A3 assault rifle, with some specialist personnel using the L22A2 carbine variant (pilots and some tank crew). The weapon was traditionally equipped with either iron sights or an optical SUSAT , although other optical sights have been subsequently purchased to supplement these. The weapon can be enhanced further utilising the Picatinny rail with attachments such as

3483-576: Is the first, non-expert, short-range, anti-tank missile that rapidly knocks out any main battle tank in just one shot by striking it from above. The army's main battle tank is the Challenger 2 , which is being upgraded to Challenger 3 . It is supported by the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle as the primary infantry fighting vehicle , (which will soon be replaced by the Boxer 8x8 armoured fighting vehicle ) and

3612-643: Is the official list of which bodies of the British Military (not to be confused with naval ) Forces were to be considered Corps of the British Army for the purposes of the Army Act , the Reserve Forces Act, 1882, and the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, had not been updated since 1926 (Army Order 49 of 1926), although amendments had been made up to and including Army Order 67 of 1950. A new Corps Warrant

3741-698: The Americas , Africa , Asia , India and Australasia . British soldiers captured strategically important sites and territories, with the army involved in wars to secure the empire's borders, internal safety and support friendly governments and princes. Among these actions were the French and Indian War / Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War , the Napoleonic Wars , the First and Second Opium Wars ,

3870-656: The Anglo-Irish War . The increasing demands of imperial expansion and the inadequacy and inefficiency of the underfunded British Army, Militia , Ordnance Military Corps, Yeomanry and Volunteer Force after the Napoleonic Wars led to series of reforms following the failures of the Crimean War . Inspired by the successes of the Prussian Army (which relied on short-term conscription of all eligible young men to maintain

3999-668: The Armed Forces of Ukraine against further Russian aggression. This operation was succeeded by Operation Interflex in July 2022. The British Army has been a volunteer force since national service ended during the 1960s. Since the creation of the part-time, reserve Territorial Force in 1908 (renamed the Army Reserve in 2014), the full-time British Army has been known as the Regular Army. In July 2020 there were just over 78,800 Regulars, with

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4128-951: The Boxer Rebellion , the New Zealand Wars , the Australian frontier wars , the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 , the first and second Boer Wars , the Fenian raids , the Irish War of Independence , interventions in Afghanistan (intended to maintain a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire ) and the Crimean War (to keep the Russian Empire to the north on the Black Sea at

4257-711: The Bulldog armoured personnel carrier . Light armoured units often utilise the Supacat "Jackal" MWMIK and Coyote tactical support vehicle for reconnaissance and fire support. The army has three main artillery systems: the M270 multiple launch rocket system (MLRS), the AS-90 and the L118 light gun . The MLRS, first used in Operation Granby , has an 85-kilometre (53 mi) standard range, or with

4386-441: The Chief of the General Staff . At its inception, being composed primarily of cavalry and infantry, the British Army was one of two Regular Forces (there were also separate Reserve Forces ) within the British military (those parts of the British Armed Forces tasked with land warfare, as opposed to the naval forces), with the other having been the Ordnance Military Corps (made up of the Royal Artillery , Royal Engineers , and

4515-418: The Eastern Association ), often commanded by local members of Parliament (both from the House of Commons and the House of Lords), while more than able to hold their own in the regions which Parliamentarians ('Roundheads") controlled, were unlikely to win the war. So Parliament initiated two actions. The Self-denying Ordinance forbade members of Parliament (with the notable exception of Oliver Cromwell , then

4644-410: The English Army and the Scots Army as the British Army . Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief , since both the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and Scottish Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army . The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by

4773-477: The Far East , the British Army rallied against the Japanese in the Burma Campaign and regained the British Far Eastern colonial possessions. After the Second World War the British Army was significantly reduced in size, although National Service continued until 1960. This period saw decolonisation begin with the partition and independence of India and Pakistan, followed by the independence of British colonies in Africa and Asia. The Corps Warrant , which

4902-442: The Islamic State (ISIL). The British Army maintains a standing liability to support the civil authorities in certain circumstances, usually in either niche capabilities (e.g. explosive ordnance removal) or in general support of the civil authorities when their capacity is exceeded. In recent years this has been seen as army personnel supporting the civil authorities in the face of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak ,

5031-445: The L17A2 under-barrel grenade launcher. In 2023, the Army Special Operations Brigade , which includes the Ranger Regiment , began using the L403A1 , an AR-pattern rifle also used by the Royal Marines . Some soldiers are equipped with the 7.62mm L129A1 sharpshooter rifle , which in 2018 formally replaced the L86A2 Light Support Weapon. Support fire is provided by the L7 general-purpose machine gun (GPMG), and indirect fire

5160-437: The Netherlands for the War of the Spanish Succession . Although all the regiments were now part of the new British military establishment, they remained under the old operational-command structure and retained much of the institutional ethos, customs and traditions of the standing armies created shortly after the Restoration of the Monarchy 47 years earlier. The order of seniority of the most-senior British Army line regiments

5289-424: The Ottoman Empire via Gallipoli , an unsuccessful attempt to capture Constantinople and secure a sea route to Russia . The First World War was the most devastating in British military history , with nearly 800,000 men killed and over two million wounded. Early in the war, the BEF was virtually destroyed and was replaced first by volunteers and then by a conscript force. Major battles included those at

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5418-441: The PrSM , up to 500 km. The AS-90 is a 155 mm self-propelled armoured gun with a 24-kilometre (15 mi) range. The L118 light gun is a 105 mm towed gun, which is typically towed by a Pinzgauer all-terrain vehicle. To identify artillery targets, the army operates the TAIPAN artillery detection radar and utilises artillery sound ranging . For air defence it uses the new Sky Sabre system, which in 2021 replaced

5547-418: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement , there was a gradual reduction in the number of soldiers deployed. In 2005, after the PIRA declared a ceasefire, the British Army dismantled posts, withdrew many troops and restored troop levels to those of a peacetime garrison. Operation Banner ended at midnight on 31 July 2007 after about 38 years of continuous deployment,

5676-422: The Rapier . It also deploys the Very Short-Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) Starstreak HVM (high-velocity missile) launched by a single soldier or from a Stormer HVM vehicle-mounted launcher. Where armour is not required or mobility and speed are favoured the British Army utilises protected patrol vehicles, such as the Panther variant of the Iveco LMV , the Foxhound , and variants of the Cougar family (such as

5805-422: The Royal Air Force . As of 1 July 2024, the British Army comprises 74,296 regular full-time personnel, 4,244 Gurkhas , 25,934 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,612 "other personnel", for a total of 109,086. The British Army traces back to 1707 and the formation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain which joined the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into a single state and, with that, united

5934-432: The Royal Sappers and Miners ) of the Board of Ordnance , which along with the originally civilian Commissariat Department , stores and supply departments, as well as barracks and other departments, were absorbed into the British Army when the Board of Ordnance was abolished in 1855. Various other civilian departments of the board were absorbed into the War Office . The British Army has seen action in major wars between

6063-437: The Territorial Force as the army's volunteer reserve component, merging and reorganising the Volunteer Force, Militia and Yeomanry. Great Britain was challenged by other powers, primarily the German Empire and Nazi Germany , during the 20th century. A century earlier it vied with Napoleonic France for global pre-eminence, and Hanoverian Britain's natural allies were the kingdoms and principalities of northern Germany . By

6192-439: The aircraft carriers and missile cruisers , allowing the intercept officers to choose what weapons to assign to a given target. This information was passed from ship to ship using a new data link known as the Digital Plot Transmission (DPT) system that could also share the tracks. Production models varied in size and capacity. The unit fit to the Victorious held 48 tracks, the Hermes had less room so its system held 32, and

6321-408: The computer mouse . Production units used a joystick in place of the trackball. In the post-war era, Elliott Brothers began concentrating on automation solutions for fire control , and on 1 December 1946 they began work on what would develop into the CDS. The initial idea was to collect ASDIC data on various targets from different ships in a task group and then produce a single unified view using

6450-468: The later Middle Ages until the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, when a foreign expeditionary force was needed, such as the one that Henry V of England took to France and that fought at the Battle of Agincourt (1415), the army, a professional one, was raised for the duration of the expedition. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the members of the English Long Parliament realised that the use of county militia organised into regional associations (such as

6579-418: The 1980s. The US Navy was "wowed" by the demonstration CDS when they visited Borehamwood in 1950. This led to the construction of the X2 model, which arrived at the Naval Research Center in 1952. X2 "did much to sell the concept" of the CDS, but they found many details that concerned them. Foremost was its size, which would limit it to larger ships. They were more interested in a system that could be used on

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6708-453: The 2002 firefighters strike, widespread flooding in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2014, Operation Temperer following the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 and, most recently, Operation Rescript during the COVID-19 pandemic . Since 2016, the British Army has maintained a presence in the Baltic States in support of the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence strategy which responded to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea . The British Army leads

6837-608: The 2014 West African Ebola virus epidemic . In November 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom with the United States, the United Kingdom deployed forces in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban in Operation Herrick . The 3rd Division were sent to Kabul to assist in the liberation of the capital and defeat Taliban forces in the mountains. In 2006 the British Army began concentrating on fighting Taliban forces and bringing security to Helmand Province , with about 9,500 British troops (including marines, airmen and sailors) deployed at its peak —the second-largest force after that of

6966-420: The American colonial rebels early in the war). Halifax, Nova Scotia and Bermuda were to become Imperial fortresses (although Bermuda, being safer from attack over water and impervious to attack overland, quickly became the most important in British North America), along with Malta and Gibraltar , providing bases in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea for Royal Navy squadrons to control

7095-408: The British Army was deployed as a peacekeeping force from 1969 to 2007 in Operation Banner . Initially, this was (in the wake of unionist attacks on nationalist communities in Derry and Belfast ) to prevent further loyalist attacks on Catholic communities; it developed into support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and its successor, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) against

7224-486: The British and the First French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte stretched around the world; at its peak in 1813, the regular army contained over 250,000 men. A coalition of Anglo-Dutch and Prussian armies under the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal von Blücher finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The English were involved politically and militarily in Ireland. The campaign of English republican Protector Oliver Cromwell involved uncompromising treatment of

7353-439: The British military, mostly civilians. An estimated 100 soldiers committed suicide during Operation Banner or soon afterwards and a similar number died in accidents. A total of 6,116 were wounded. Sierra Leone The British Army deployed to Sierra Leone for Operation Palliser in 1999, under United Nations resolutions, to aid the government in quelling violent uprisings by militiamen. British troops also provided support during

7482-420: The CDE also contained a series of ten-position uniselector switches that were used to encode additional numerical information for each input. These included a two-digit track number, a single digit indicating high, medium or low altitude, a digit indicating whether it was friendly, hostile or unidentified and another indicating whether it was a single aircraft, a small group or a large formation. The output from

7611-420: The CDE was sent to a separate large-format plan-position indicator (PPI) display. By rapidly cycling through the potentiometers, the beam in the display caused a series of spots to appear on the screen, representing the location of the (up to) 96 targets. The operator could select different sets of targets to display, only the high altitude ones for instance, or only friendly aircraft. The prototypes also included

7740-420: The CDE, and then prioritize which ones they wanted to update. In the prototype versions, there were only three input stations allowing a total of 24 targets to be tracked, but they could also read up to eight more inputs from external sources, nominally data from other ships. A production version would have more input stations to fully expand the capabilities of the CDE. In addition to the encoding potentiometers,

7869-430: The CDS was extremely influential in military circles and led to computerized versions in the form of DATAR , Naval Tactical Data System , and SAGE . The trackball (known as "ball tracker" at the time) was invented by Ralph Benjamin as part of his work for the CDS in 1946. The prototype, named roller ball , was patented in 1947, but kept as a secret inside the military. It laid the foundation to input devices such as

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7998-437: The DATAR system was spurred by the Royal Navy 's work on the Comprehensive Display System (CDS), which Canadian engineers were familiar with. The project was started by the Royal Canadian Navy in partnership with Ferranti Canada (later known as Ferranti-Packard) in 1949. They were aware of CDS and a US Navy project along similar lines but believed their solution was so superior that they would eventually be able to develop

8127-404: The Germans and Italians at the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa in 1942–1943 and helped drive them from Africa. It then fought through Italy and, with the help of American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and Free French forces, was the principal organiser and participant in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944; nearly half the Allied soldiers were British. In

8256-494: The Irish towns (most notably Drogheda and Wexford ) which supported the Royalists during the English Civil War . The English Army (and the subsequent British Army) remained in Ireland primarily to suppress Irish revolts or disorder. In addition to its conflict with Irish nationalists, it was faced with the prospect of battling Anglo-Irish and Ulster Scots in Ireland who were angered by unfavourable taxation of Irish produce imported into Britain. With other Irish groups, they raised

8385-438: The Navy itself. As Belyea was a lieutenant, he only had authority to approve contracts up to CAN$ 5,000. As a cunning solution, Belyea put out several contracts under different names all to Ferranti. This solution pleased everyone and the DATAR project was born in 1949, Ferranti setting up a new shop under the direction of Kenyon Taylor in Malton near the Avro Canada plants. By 1950 the small team at Ferranti Canada had built

8514-415: The PCM links to the DATAR. DATAR then processed the locations, translated everything into the various ship's local view, and sent the data back to them over the same PCM links. Here it was displayed on another console originally adapted from a radar unit. In contrast with the United States Air Force 's Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system, DATAR did not develop tracks automatically, relying on

8643-411: The RCAF decided that commonality with that force was more important than commonality with their own Navy. The Royal Navy computerized their CDS in the new Action Data Automation system, and the US Navy decided on a somewhat simpler system, the Naval Tactical Data System . No orders for DATAR were forthcoming. When one of the two computers was destroyed by fire, the company was unable to raise funds for

8772-458: The Ridgeback, Husky and Mastiff). For day-to-day utility work the army commonly uses the Land Rover Wolf , which is based on the Land Rover Defender . Specialist engineering vehicles include bomb-disposal robots such as the T7 Multi-Mission Robotic System and the modern variants of the Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers , including the Titan bridge-layer, Trojan armoured engineer vehicle, Terrier armoured digger . Day-to-day utility work uses

8901-454: The SSA-21 at ranges up to 400 miles (640 km). Most of these units remained in use through the 1960s, finally being replaced in 1968 by the Navy Tactical Data System . The prototype CDS was also viewed by the US Air Force , who were at that time exploring their needs for air plotting. They were already involved in the project that would ultimately emerge as the all-digital SAGE system but were exploring alternatives as well. One of these

9030-416: The Scots Greys was reassessed and based on their June 1685 entry into England. At that time there was only one English regiment of dragoons, and the Scots Greys eventually received the British Army rank of 2nd Dragoons. After 1700, British continental policy was to contain expansion by competing powers such as France and Spain. Although Spain was the dominant global power during the previous two centuries and

9159-473: The Somme and Passchendaele . Advances in technology saw the advent of the tank (and the creation of the Royal Tank Regiment ) and advances in aircraft design (and the creation of the Royal Flying Corps ) which would be decisive in future battles. Trench warfare dominated Western Front strategy for most of the war, and the use of chemical weapons (disabling and poison gases) added to the devastation. The Second World War broke out in September 1939 with

9288-716: The Soviet and German Army 's invasion of Poland . British assurances to the Poles led the British Empire to declare war on Germany . As in the First World War, a relatively small BEF was sent to France but then hastily evacuated from Dunkirk as the German forces swept through the Low Countries and across France in May 1940. After the British Army recovered from its earlier defeats, it defeated

9417-556: The Troubles . Following the 1994–1996 IRA ceasefires and since 1997, demilitarisation has been part of the peace process and the military presence has been reduced. On 25 June 2007 the 2nd Battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment left the army complex in Bessbrook , County Armagh , ending the longest operation in British Army history. The British Army contributed 50,000 troops to

9546-579: The US. In December 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the combat mission would end in 2014, and troop numbers gradually fell as the Afghan National Army took over the brunt of the fighting. Between 2001 and 26 April 2014 a total of 453 British military personnel died in Afghan operations. Operation Herrick ended with the handover of Camp Bastion on 26 October 2014, but the British Army maintained

9675-808: The United States, in the American War of 1812 ), the British Army fought the Chinese in the First and Second Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion , Māori tribes in the first of the New Zealand Wars, Nawab Shiraj-ud-Daula's forces and British East India Company mutineers in the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 , the Boers in the first and second Boer Wars, Irish Fenians in Canada during the Fenian raids and Irish separatists in

9804-585: The United States. After the war, Canada sought to protect its role as the Western Alliance's anti-submarine and escort navy. In order to do so, they would need to invest in an ambitious naval research agenda. In 1948, the Canadian Defence Research Board sent a letter to various Canadian electronics firms informing them of their intention to start a number of projects that would partner the military, academia and private companies. A copy of

9933-559: The army saw the introduction of new weapons systems. Despite the decline of the British Empire, the army was engaged in Aden , Indonesia , Cyprus , Kenya and Malaya . In 1982, the British Army and the Royal Marines helped liberate the Falkland Islands during the conflict with Argentina after that country's invasion of the British territory. In the three decades following 1969,

10062-664: The army was heavily deployed in Northern Ireland 's Operation Banner to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (later the Police Service of Northern Ireland ) in their conflict with republican paramilitary groups. The locally recruited Ulster Defence Regiment was formed, becoming home-service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1992 before it was disbanded in 2006. Over 700 soldiers were killed during

10191-641: The basic DATAR design on a number of projects, transistorizing it in the process. The system eventually led to both ReserVec and the Ferranti-Packard 6000 mainframe . British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom , British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies , a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Naval Service and

10320-642: The chief threat to England's early trans-Atlantic colonial ambitions, its influence was now waning. The territorial ambitions of the French, however, led to the War of the Spanish Succession and the later Napoleonic Wars . Although the Royal Navy is widely regarded as vital to the rise of the British Empire , the British Army played an important role in the formation of colonies, protectorates and dominions in

10449-745: The coalition which fought Iraq in the Persian Gulf War , and British forces controlled Kuwait after its liberation. Forty-seven British military personnel died during the war. The army was deployed to former Yugoslavia in 1992. Initially part of the United Nations Protection Force , in 1995 its command was transferred to the Implementation Force (IFOR) and then to the Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR);

10578-531: The colours and the remainder in the Regular Reserve, remaining liable for recall to the colours if required. Among the other benefits, this thereby enabled the British Army to have a ready pool of recently trained men to draw upon in an emergency. The name of the Regular Reserve (which for a time was divided into a First Class and a Second Class ) has resulted in confusion with the Reserve Forces , which were

10707-462: The commitment rose to over 10,000 troops. In 1999, British forces under SFOR command were sent to Kosovo and the contingent increased to 19,000 troops. Between early 1993 and June 2010, 72 British military personnel died during operations in the former Yugoslavian countries of Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. Although there have been permanent garrisons in Northern Ireland throughout its history,

10836-438: The completion of their first engagement. The size of the army also fluctuated greatly, increasing in war time, and drastically shrinking with peace. Battalions posted on garrison duty overseas were allowed an increase on their normal peacetime establishment, which resulted in their having surplus men on their return to a Home station. Consequently, soldiers engaging on short term enlistments were enabled to serve several years with

10965-554: The cursor on one of up to eight targets. Data was collected by the Coordinated Display Equipment (CDE). Inside the CDE, a telephone stepper switch was used to periodically connect to each of the operator's displays in turn. Depending on which button was being held down on the input console at that time, the switch connected the operator's joystick to one of 96 pairs of servomotors connected to potentiometers. The voltage from

11094-478: The data in order to present a unified view of the battlefield relative to any particular ship's current heading and location. Belyea had experience with naval training simulators, and thus knew that conventional electrical analogue computation and display would not be sufficient for DATAR. Belyea's basic idea of sharing precise real time radar and sonar data between all ships in a convoy, compensating for ship movement and distinguishing between friendly and enemy ships

11223-576: The direction of Elliot Brothers , and the US Navy's Naval Tactical Data System in 1956. The DATAR project thus ended on a somewhat sour note. The system had gone from concept to working prototype in less than four years, and was by any measure a complete success. Yet the cost of deployment was simply too much for the Royal Canadian Navy to bear alone, and they decided to do without. The DATAR work did not go completely to waste. Ferranti Canada used

11352-496: The disbanded New Model Army , were formed between November 1660 and January 1661 and became a standing military force for England (financed by Parliament ). The Royal Scots and Irish Armies were financed by the parliaments of Scotland and Ireland . Parliamentary control was established by the Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 , although the monarch continued to influence aspects of army administration until at least

11481-456: The display, the values of these two measurements were rapidly cycled, causing the dots to elongate into short dashes, directly indicating the direction and speed of travel. Finally, they added the AN/SSA-21 unit, which read out the values and sent them as teletype signals to other ships, where they could be converted back to analog signals for display there. Many of these changes also appeared in

11610-465: The effectiveness of the system; CDS provided a "decisive advantage" that allowed inferior RN fighters to "grossly outperform" USN fighters. The USN was unable to saturate RN fighter direction. This was followed with the CDS being fitted to the new HMS  Hermes and the first batch of four of the eight County-class destroyers. Unknown to the developers of the original CDS, another division within Elliott

11739-505: The end of the 19th century. After the Restoration, King Charles II pulled together four regiments of infantry and cavalry, calling them his guards, at a cost of £122,000 from his general budget. This became the foundation of the permanent English Army. By 1685, it had grown to number 7,500 soldiers in marching regiments, and 1,400 men permanently stationed in garrisons. A Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 allowed successor King James II to raise

11868-414: The era, would allow different symbols to have different colours. When this method was found to be impractical, the concept changed to use different symbols instead. This used a series of ten symbols to represent a different group number. The number of aircraft was indicated by increasingly filling in the symbol, and the altitude by placing a line to the right of the symbol that was a dot for low altitude, half

11997-537: The escorting County destroyers, which used the data to locate targets with their smaller radars for Seaslug. Pye Ltd. was given the production contract. The CDS/Type 984 combination entered service with HMS  Victorious in 1958, having been fitted during the ship's extensive post-war refit. On 15-20 July 1959, the ship participated in the Riptide military exercise with the United States Navy and demonstrated

12126-464: The forces to 20,000 men. There were 37,000 in 1678, when England played a role in the closing stage of the cross-channel Franco-Dutch War . After Protestant dual Monarchs William III , formerly William of the Dutch House of Orange , and his wife Mary II's joint accession to the throne after a short constitutional crisis with Parliament sending Mary's father, predecessor King James II, (who remained

12255-407: The height of the symbol for medium, and the entire height for high. For instance, if track 41, which puts it in group 4, was a small group of aircraft flying at medium altitude, it would appear as a triangle (the symbol for group 4) with the right half filled in to indicate a small group, and a medium-height bar to the right of it indicating medium altitude. The track number and altitude in " angels "

12384-410: The joystick drove the servomotor to rotate the CDE's internal potentiometer to match the value of the one in the joystick, thereby copying its value. The value of those internal potentiometers was also sent back to the input consoles, creating a "blip" on the screen that matched the underlying radar data, but did not move. The operators could then see how much the target had moved since they last updated

12513-557: The later Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 with the accession of King Charles II . For many decades the alleged excesses of the New Model Army under the Protectorate / Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell were used as propaganda (and still feature in Irish folklore) and the Whig Party element recoiled from allowing a standing army to continue with the agreed-upon rights and privileges under

12642-502: The letter was sent to Ferranti Canada, then a small distributor of Ferranti 's United Kingdom electrical equipment. The letter was forwarded to the then- CEO of Ferranti in the UK, Vincent Ziani de Ferranti, who became excited at the prospect of enlarging their Canadian operations largely funded by the government. At a meeting in October 1948 de Ferranti was disappointed to learn that while the DRB

12771-488: The longest in British Army history. According to an internal document released in 2007, the British Army had failed to defeat the IRA but made it impossible for them to win by violence. Operation Helvetic replaced Operation Banner in 2007, maintaining fewer service personnel in a more-benign environment. Of the 300,000 troops who served in Northern Ireland since 1969, there were 763 British military personnel killed and 306 killed by

12900-583: The middle of the 19th century, Britain and France were allies in preventing Russia's appropriation of the Ottoman Empire , although the fear of French invasion led shortly afterwards to the creation of the Volunteer Force. By the first decade of the 20th century, the United Kingdom was allied with France (by the Entente Cordiale ) and Russia (which had a secret agreement with France for mutual support in

13029-496: The new English army to 74,000, and then a few years later to 94,000 in 1694. Parliament was very nervous and reduced the cadre to 70,000 in 1697. Scotland and Ireland had theoretically separate military establishments, but they were unofficially merged with the English Crown force. By the time of the 1707 Acts of Union , many regiments of the English and Scottish armies were combined under one operational command and stationed in

13158-614: The oceans and trade routes, and heavily garrisoned by the British Army both for defence of the bases and to provide mobile military forces to work with the Navy in amphibious operations throughout their regions. The British Army was heavily involved in the Napoleonic Wars , participating in a number of campaigns in Europe (including continuous deployment in the Peninsular War ), the Caribbean , North Africa and North America . The war between

13287-475: The operators to continue feeding new data into the system by hand. The system was first tested in late 1953 on Lake Ontario . A simulated convoy was set up, consisting of a shore station on the Scarborough Bluffs and two Bangor -class minesweepers , HMCS  Digby and HMCS  Granby . DATAR performed well, everyone being sent proper displays of the radar and simulated sonar "blips". The test

13416-707: The original prototype was delivered as "X1" to the Admiralty Research Establishment in Witley in 1951, and a second newly built model, "X2", which was paid for by the US Navy 's Bureau of Ships but officially on permanent loan to the US Naval Research Laboratory . At first, there was no pressing need for the CDS, and production was not undertaken. However, the development of the Seaslug missile set off

13545-592: The overall cost, the Navy wanted to spread the development costs across a larger production line, and invited representatives of the Royal Navy and US Navy to view the system. They proved to be equally impressed; one US officer was too impressed and looked under the display console, believing the display was being faked. But no matter how impressed they were, it appears they felt they could do better on their own, and declined to get involved. The Royal Navy would start work on their Comprehensive Display System that year under

13674-708: The parallel Seven Years' War and suppressed a Native / Indian North Americans uprising in Pontiac's War around the Great Lakes . The British Army was defeated in the American Revolutionary War , losing the Thirteen Colonies but retaining The Canadas and The Maritimes as in British North America , including Bermuda (originally part of the Colony of Virginia , and which had been originally strongly sympathetic to

13803-531: The pre-existing part-time, local-service home-defence forces that were auxiliary to the British Army (or Regular Force ), but not originally part of it: the Yeomanry , Militia (or Constitutional Force ) and Volunteer Force . These were consequently also referred to as Auxiliary Forces or Local Forces . The late-19th-century Cardwell and Childers Reforms gave the army its modern shape and redefined its regimental system . The 1907 Haldane Reforms created

13932-561: The production versions of the CDS, which differed primarily in the input method. DATAR DATAR , short for Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving , was a pioneering computerized battlefield information system . DATAR combined the data from all of the sensors in a naval task force into a single "overall view" that was then transmitted back to all of the ships and displayed on plan-position indicators similar to radar displays. Commanders could then see information from everywhere, not just their own ship's sensors. Development of

14061-521: The radar the AMES Type 82 . In this role, the renamed Data Handling System (DHS) was somewhat more complex, consisting of separate operators to handle initial detection and picking out tracks that were interesting, then handing off those tracks to detail trackers who continued fine-tracking of the targets. A third set of operators handed separate height-finding radars (if used) and the identification friend-or-foe interrogators, feeding that information into

14190-517: The rank of English, Irish and Scots regiments serving in the Netherlands; the regiment which became known as the Scots Greys were designated the 4th Dragoons because there were three English regiments raised prior to 1688 when the Scots Greys were first placed in the English establishment. In 1713, when a new board of general officers was convened to decide the rank of several regiments, the seniority of

14319-491: The return of a king. The militia acts of 1661 and 1662 prevented local authorities from calling up militia and oppressing their own local opponents. Calling up the militia was possible only if the king and local elites agreed to do so. King Charles II and his " Cavalier " / Royalist supporters favoured a new army under royal control, and immediately after the Restoration of 1660 to 1661 began working on its establishment. The first English Army regiments, including elements of

14448-423: The slow speeds and short submerged range of the typical U-boat allowed the defenders to deal with them one-by-one, but as the capabilities of the newer Soviet designs improved it appeared that a coordinated all-underwater attack was a real possibility, one for which he felt an effective defence would require much faster reaction times. Belyea's idea was to share radar and sonar data between ships, processing

14577-511: The system on a less frequent basis. Those detailed tracks could then be sent to the AA sites, where the data could automatically cue, or "lay-on", their local radars. The Type 82 was used in its intended military role for only a short period, before being passed off to mixed military/civilian air traffic control role in the midlands. In this role, the DHS proved invaluable in handling large numbers of aircraft movements. The system remained in service into

14706-523: The system on behalf of all three forces. They also believed sales were possible to the Royal Canadian Air Force and US Air Force for continental air control. A demonstration carried out in the fall of 1953 was by most measures an unqualified success, to the point where some observers thought it was being faked. By this time the US Air Force was well into development of their SAGE system and

14835-579: The systems in the County Class held 24. To address the mechanical reliability issues seen in the X2, in 1953 the NRL adapted their CDS to store data using capacitors instead of the potentiometers, a change that would later be copied by the production CDS. This left the input consoles as the only major moving parts. They further modified their units by replacing the trackball with an electrically conductive sheet of glass which

14964-440: The targets, a concept taken from the US work on their X2 model. This used an integrating circuit to measure the difference in position between subsequent measurements of any given track. This information was also fed to a separate analog computer that automatically calculated intercept locations, making the plotting of multiple intercepts much easier. This version also added additional inputs that transmitted readiness information from

15093-414: The user pressed on with a metal probe. The assembly was then placed on top of the otherwise unchanged input station display. An additional change to the central unit added a second set of capacitors for each channel. With each sampling of the channels in the input units, the values were read into the alternating set of capacitors in the CDE. This caused the change in position between scans to be recorded. On

15222-706: The withdrawal of civilians, all British troops had left by the end of August 2021. In 2003, the United Kingdom was a major contributor to the invasion of Iraq , sending a force of over 46,000 military personnel. The British Army controlled southern Iraq, and maintained a peace-keeping presence in Basra . All British troops were withdrawn from Iraq by 30 April 2009, after the Iraqi government refused to extend their mandate. One hundred and seventy-nine British military personnel died in Iraqi operations. The British Armed Forces returned to Iraq in 2014 as part of Operation Shader to counter

15351-526: The world's great powers , including the Seven Years' War , the American Revolutionary War , the Napoleonic Wars , the Crimean War and the First and Second World Wars . Britain's victories in most of these decisive wars allowed it to influence world events and establish itself as one of the world's leading military and economic powers. Since the end of the Cold War , the British Army has been deployed to

15480-461: Was a complete success, and the Navy was apparently extremely pleased. The only serious concern was the failure rate of the tubes, which meant that the machine was non-operational for a considerable amount of time. Ferranti was extremely interested in adapting the DATAR system to a transistor -based design, which they believed would solve this issue. However, equipping the entire Royal Canadian Navy's fleet would be extremely expensive. In order to lower

15609-514: Was a new effort to develop a powerful 3D radar system to replace previous designs. Eventually known as the Type 984 radar , it would so greatly increase the amount of data available that plotting it all was seen as a serious concern. The first complete system for the aircraft role was demonstrated at Elliott's Borehamwood research center in June 1950. This eventually led to a contract for two prototype versions;

15738-565: Was declared in 1951. Although the British Army was a major participant in Korea in the early 1950s and Suez in 1956, during this period Britain's role in world events was reduced and the army was downsized. The British Army of the Rhine , consisting of I (BR) Corps , remained in Germany as a bulwark against Soviet invasion. The Cold War continued, with significant technological advances in warfare, and

15867-548: Was developing a purely electronic version of the same basic concept, the Action Data Automation , and a developed version of this system would ultimately replace the original model on most RN ships. Starting in 1949, the British Army began development of a new tactical control radar that would provide early warning and putting-on information for up to sixteen dispersed batteries of anti-aircraft artillery spread over

15996-414: Was displayed to the upper and lower left of the symbol. The original CDS concept used a complex set of motors and potentiometers to encode data, which was difficult to keep running properly. Pye's solution for the production version was to replace these with capacitors that stored a voltage corresponding to the position of the joystick. Since the voltage slowly leaked out of the capacitors, the system used

16125-403: Was equally excited, the amount of money they had to offer was basically zero. Word of the meeting reached Jim Belyea, a researcher at the Navy's electrical laboratories outside Ottawa . Belyea had been developing the idea of an automated battlefield control system for some time, after having studied the problem of dealing with a coordinated attack by submarines on convoys . During World War II

16254-441: Was proposed by the University of Michigan 's Willow Run Research Center , who suggested adding a data transmission system to CDS. Ultimately the Air Force continued with the original SAGE development, whose AN/FSQ-7 computers were the largest ever built. The CDS system had several layers of input that constructed the overall air picture. This started with operators sitting at conventional radar displays that had been equipped with

16383-403: Was the store number , the local set of registers storing this track. This allowed the system to have a global track number across the task force while each receiving CDS could assign it to a different local ID. In the lower right was the category in the first digit and the size (single, small group, large formation; 1, 2, 3) in the second. A later addition was the ability to track the velocity of

16512-424: Was very similar to the original CDS but included a number of detail changes. Happy with the results, in 1955 the Bureau of Ships sent a contract to Motorola to build 20 EDS systems. The first was installed on USS  Willis A. Lee in 1956, then on the four ships of Destroyer Division 262, and as well as a selection of guided missile cruisers. During tests in 1959, the ships of 262 were able to exchange data using

16641-443: Was years ahead of its time. Indeed, it was a quantum jump into the future and although I am by no means up to date at the time of writing (September, 2002) I am virtually certain that all modern naval task forces basically incorporate the Belyea concepts. However he had no good idea how to accomplish this, so he approached Ferranti, who had recently met with the DRB. Instead of the cash-strapped DRB, Belyea offered funding directly from

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