Page 162 - RSDG Year of 2023

160 EAGLE AND CARBINE
SO2 TRAINING TRANSFORMATION LAND
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratories provides cutting-edge science and technology expertise to UK Defence. This island in an archipelago of overlapping organisations is formed of a unique combination of scientists, engineers, and Military advisors, all focussed on providing resilience to the UK. That ranges from responding to the Salisbury poisoning and assessing the threat, through quantifying the noise and vibration issues with AJAX in order to field the future Armoured Fighting Vehicle fleet. One might be forgiven for thinking that the 64 Military Advisors are there to backfill the subjects for animal testing, particularly given the plethora of human and social scientists on the staff.
Up until now, my experience has been predominantly in the Field Army; leaving operations and training to jump into the world of Research & Development has been eye opening. That particularly applies when considering the variety of well publicised House of Commons reviews and media articles which provide painful insights into the Defence procurement cycle. But my experience has provided the opportunity to explore the vast number of organisations attempting to provide Defence with what it needs for today, while balancing this with developing the battle winning capability for tomorrow. In my own work, I have been able to help support the testing of the 8x8 mobility test rig in order to explore opportunities for
Land mobility in the future through the Dorset Battle Lab. This felt hugely rewarding for a number of reasons, but not least because when reviewing the feedback provided by end users following the trial, I was proud to see a large number of RAC names behind most of the best feedback.
My experience of DSTL has been varied, and working in a mostly civilian environment clearly comes with its own challenges. Our job as Military Advisors is to help inform opinions and provide the interface between the super-technical language of the DSTL team and the super-practical experience of the soldiers. This is not all lab work as there is a fast growing capability of support to operations, where deployed Scientific Advisors and Operational Analysist are trained and managed as they deploy with the front line commands. These deployed individuals are true force multipliers bringing a reach back capability linking Operations into the full DSTL portfolio. It has been a fascinating place to work, with exposure to concepts that never would have crossed my mind when I was in the Field Army. For anyone who wants to work in a very different part of Defence, a job here provides a distinct experience which I don’t think can be replicated in any other part of the Department.
Maj W Brazier