back to article Q: How many guns to arm nine coachloads of terrorists?

The BBC has made an audacious if flawed bid to establish the "coachload of terrorists" as a standard for quantifying arms caches. Back in 2014, Suffolk police found an impressive 177 rifles, 136 handguns, 88 shotguns and 38 machine guns, plus 200,000 rounds of ammunition at the home of James Arnold. So impressive was the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice catch Damian!

    Everyone should know to consult The Register for such calculations.

  2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    Well if they share all the guns out 1 weapon per man you can arm 439 Terrorists , so your 9 coaches will have to have 48.7 seats.

    If they each get a big gun , and then share the handguns out on a first come basis , then you will only need to get 33.6 seater coaches.

    1. Swarthy

      439 Terrorists, or about 20-50 "Preppers"; although the ammo count is a bit low for the the post-Apocalypse crowd.

      I leave which would be scarier (400+ Terr'ists, or 20-50 paranoid Yanks) as an exercise for the reader.

      1. Keith Glass

        20-50 Preppers ?

        Hell, that many guns would be my block in my neighborhood alone.

        Although, I do admit, we have over half the houses on the block with multiple hunters who hunt year-round and everything from squirrels to Elk and Moose. Yes. . .they hunt Moose and Squirrel. . . .

        (Note: I've NEVER been to a neighborhood potluck without at LEAST three game dishes. )

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Happy

          Re: 20-50 Preppers ?

          So do you use the small bullets as bait to catch the squirrels, then the squirells as bait to catch the mooses?

          Or have I got confused...

          1. Keith Glass

            Re: 20-50 Preppers ?

            Squirrels always fly away. To get Moose. . . you need a top hat, and often a cane. . .

        2. nsld
          Pint

          Re: 20-50 Preppers ?

          we've all hunted a few moose in our time.........

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 20-50 Preppers ? @nsld

            "we've all hunted a few moose in our time........."

            Well, no, but I've had one or two encounters with camel toes!!!

    2. John Savard

      Precisely

      Presumably, they were aiming at a high figure, so with 439 weapons, if "enough" is defined as one weapon per terrorist, ten coachloads must hold 440 or more people, but nine coachloads 439 or fewer. So a coach can have no less than 44 seats, and no more than 48 seats.

      However, looking this up, it seems that there were 56 seats on a British Railways Mark I carriage.

      So those weapons would only be enough to arm every terrorist in seven coachloads!

      1. Loud Speaker

        Re: Precisely

        Coaches in the UK have 52 passenger seats unless otherwise stated. If there is accommodation for a wheelchair user, the number will be closer to 48. One or two seats may be reserved for tour guides. (consult anyone with a PSV licence).

        I am not sure if terrorists need tour guides and I presume the BBC does not know either.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Precisely

          @Loud Speaker

          >I am not sure if terrorists need tour guides and I presume the BBC does not know either.

          The BBC were merely reporting what a police officer said. The Reg has got it wrong, but hasn't published a correction yet.

      2. Tom 13

        Re: Precisely

        And that's assuming you don't double up on rifle/pistol which is a really silly assumption. I'll grant the machine guns are the tough part of the calculation as they vary in size. I'm assuming they're using the military LMG as opposed to a decent HMG or what passes for a machine gun in Hollywood flick these days.

    3. GitMeMyShootinIrons

      So we have the value in Terrorists, but...

      There is an alternative measure for this magnitude of weaponry - the number of Arnold Schwarzenegger action characters. For 500 or so guns and a quarter of a million rounds of ammo, the value in Arnies would be around 1.

      I was going to suggest using Chuck Norris - but there aren't that many guns in the world.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: So we have the value in Terrorists, but...

        "I was going to suggest using Chuck Norris - but there aren't that many guns in the world."

        well we just use millichucks then

        1. Tom 13

          Re: well we just use millichucks then

          Still not enough guns in the world.

          And remember, Chuck uses TOWs instead of derringers.

  3. lawndart

    says:

    I always thought the doormats analogy was floored.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: says:

      Now now. Say what you mean. Don't be coir.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just don't take any fake cigs...

  5. Alister

    A fairly standard coach seating capacity is 53 seats, so 9 of those gives you 477 terrorists.

    177 + 136 + 88 + 38 comes to 439, so there will be 38 unarmed terrorists available to carry the ammo.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      so there will be 38 unarmed terrorists available to carry the ammo.

      Not much of a terrorist if they're just carrying the bags of real terrorists. Absent any better explosives, maybe they could try igniting their own farts. Would that qualify them?

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        So you're saying that a terrorist can't have a PA? That's discrimination, that is!

    2. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      38 unarmed terrorists available to carry the ammo.

      You're presuming every seat is occupied. Following British traditions, the back seats are for the booze, or sherbets in the case of jihadis.

    3. Wensleydale Cheese

      Here's your 400+

      From the Beeb article:

      "Arnold was a popular figure in the village of Wyverstone, Suffolk, where a friend said he was "at the heart" of the 400-strong community.""

      So one apiece and a few spares?

  6. 45RPM Silver badge

    Surely it isn't only necessary to define the coach load, it is also necessary to define the standard unit terr'ist. I believe this should be defined as equivalent to two pistols, one semi automatic and a vest / rucksack. Half a terr'ist is equal to one shoe.

    On this basis, I'd argue that there's only one busload in this stash.

  7. Brian Miller

    Math time!

    Let's see, at 54 passengers per coach, one weapon apiece, that's 8 coaches, as the ninth coach really would only have a few terrorists on it, so never mind it, really. But really, you'd have 303 armed terrorists, because you'd have a primary and a secondary weapon. So that's six coaches, with some room to spare.

    But of course the real terrorists don't have weapons. They pass laws...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't get the hang of these new-fanged measurements.

    What's that in Toyota pickups full of terrorists?

    What about Libraries of congress full of terrorists?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      What about a Mini full of barmaids?

      (Nominally 5, though the record is 23 in 2012. Technically, whilst all adult human females, they weren't all barmaids, but as a child of the eighties - when such attempts were more common - that's how I want to imagine it.)

      1. x 7

        "What about a Mini full of barmaids?"

        never saw that, but somewhere on the interwebs theres a film of a barmaid full of Midgets (and dwarves)

    2. Loud Speaker

      Libraries of congress full of terrorists

      My mind is still boggling!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But what is the equivalent in mars bars ?

    Or blue whales for that matter ?

    I won't be able to sleep now, this has just ruined my weekend.

    Ruined !

    Happy now ?

    My nightmare of a blue whale full of terrorists armed with thousands of mars bars is coming true and all you can do is laugh and point!

  10. Cynical Observer
    Stop

    Bridge of Death....

    - What is the max capacity of a previously unladen terrorist?

    - What do you mean? African or European Terrorist?

    - I Don't know that.

    ... with apologies to Monty Python

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      new

      moniter too please

  11. Mystic Megabyte

    Nah!

    nine coach-loads = one Cairo bus.

    Passengers were climbing in and out through the broken rear window when I used one.

    http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/outriders-cling-to-a-bus-in-cairos-rush-hour-traffic-cairo-news-photo/80171180

    1. Stoneshop

      Re: Nah!

      That's actually pretty civilised.

      Try riding a bus in the backwoods of Mexico or Colombia (would probably apply to all of Middle and South America, but these I know from experience). But then you need to add a conversion factor from pigs, chickens and other livestock to passengers annex terrrrists..

  12. Nameless Dread
    Stop

    Some other perp!

    "Suffolk Police said had the weapons fallen into the wrong hands, there would have been enough to arm nine coach-loads of terrorists."

    Let's hear it for Suffolk Police!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Some other perp!

      Ah well, that explains it. If it was Suffolk. Then obviously all the terrorists would need to bring their wives and mothers. That's one woman per terrorist...

      Actually, being Suffolk, there's bound to be several per woman, so that's why all the calcs come out with 6 coaches worth of armed nutters. The other 3 coaches are for their womenfolk.

      Now we just have to work out how to apportion the number of fingers to a coach...

      Plus, shouldn't it be number of tractor loads of terrorists anyway?

  13. GBE

    What's all this I hear about arming coachloads of tourists?

    [in my best Emily Latella voice]

    What's all this I hear about arming coachloads of tourists? It's discgracful. That sounds like something that you'd hear about in Texas, not the UK! Sign up now for the 7-day fall coach tour sponsored by the local senior center -- every ticket includes meals, nightly lodging, a semi-automatic assault rifle, two sidearms, and 3500 rounds of ammunition!

    What? Terrorists?

    Oh.

    That's different.

    Never mind....

    [Hostly, I mis-read "terrorist" as "tourist" multiple times while trying to figure out in what context outside of Texas coachloads of armed tourists made sense.]

  14. John H Woods Silver badge

    Isn't it more worrying ...

    ... that the BBC should be using this measurement when the arms cache in question was absolutely nothing to do with terrorism?

    1. Michael B.

      Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

      The BBC just quoted the Detective in charge who made that comparison with coach loads of terrorists.

      1. John H Woods Silver badge

        Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

        "The BBC just quoted the Detective in charge who made that comparison with coach loads of terrorists." -- Michael B.

        If only journalists had some other function than simply repeating what they were told! But the most one appears to be able to hope for these days is that they will try to achieve "balance" by repeating what they are told from people with alternative viewpoints. The idea of actually trying to find out which viewpoint might be closer to the objective truth now appears a quaint notion fading rapidly into the mist of the past.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

          > The idea of actually trying to find out which viewpoint might be closer to the objective truth now appears a quaint notion fading rapidly into the mist of the past.

          The objective truth is the number of weapons of different types that were recovered, as given in all coverage of the story. Reports also published pictures of the weapons that were recovered.

          That the policeman said "nine coachloads", is also a fact.

          What is just plain false is that "nine coachloads" was concocted by the BBC.

          Whilst John H Woods' point that they [journalists] will try to achieve "balance" by repeating what they are told from people with alternative viewpoints. is an important point in general, I fail to see its relevance in this case.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. John H Woods Silver badge

            Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

            Dave 126 you are correct that my point about balance is not relevant here but only because you have shorn it of its context, as an adjoinder to a point that was (the complaint that journalism is increasingly uncritical repetition devoid of analysis).

            It is ironic that you have done so because the essence of my original point was the importance of context. It may be perfectly correct to report that "100kg of lead was stolen from the roof of St Mary's, which the vicar noted was enough to poison the local reservoir." It's factually accurate, and amusingly the danger is actually more real: the lead is still at large! But, reported like this, it is just alarmist nonsense.

          3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

            "That the policeman said "nine coachloads", is also a fact."

            True. But what the policeman said wasn't a fact even the fact he said it is a fact. Unless they only have very small coaches in Suffolk. I believe the US term is a "short bus"?

            1. Tom 13

              @John Brown (no body)

              For the context of comments above, it seems that in the UK coach refers to a small train car as opposed to a decent bus. Here in the US, assuming you can find a a passenger car, it would likewise be insufficient for more than two cars and that's assuming the absurdity of one weapon per terrorist.

        2. Loud Speaker

          Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

          Surely the BBC charter states that a balanced view requires they quote a policeman and a terrorist?

      2. P. Lee

        Re: Isn't it more worrying ...

        >The BBC just quoted the Detective in charge who made that comparison with coach loads of terrorists.

        And the Suffolk police would know, the area being a terrorist hotbed.

      3. Tom 13

        Re: The BBC just quoted the Detective

        Isn't it even worrying that a BBC reporter mindlessly repeated what the government plod said?

        They do have the option to NOT quote him.

  15. codejunky Silver badge

    Ha

    The BBC writing an article on guns abandons sense, next you will tell me a tale of what bears do in woods. I am amused that nothing bad happened nor seemed destined to so the hypothetical 'what if the terrorists got em' must have been written to pretend there was much going on. It is interesting that some pieces will be kept for historical value for museums.

    Sounds like he got to enjoy his hobby up until the last 3 months of his life where he was arrested for it.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Ha

      @codejunky

      The "nine coachloads" phrase was used by a policeman investigating the case, not by the BBC.

      The Reg article has got this very wrong, so I'm not blaming you for writing a comment based upon the misinformation you have received.

      Kind regards

  16. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Weight ?

    Surely all that hardware weighs something ? So you need to factor that into your calculations ?

    What is the maximum plated weight on a 53 seater coach ?

    Also, it might be an idea to spread the ammo out over several coaches ?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Standard measure

    Isn't the standard unit of measure for a terrorist a rubber dingy of?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Standard measure

      Rubberdingyrapids, bruv!

    2. hplasm
      Coat

      Re: Standard measure

      Rubberdinghy Sithole, the founder of ZANU in Rhodesia?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So,

    that's roughly the same number of guns as the average American gun nut?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So,

      Oh, don't I wish. While I've got an SKS for general plinking and a Makarov for HD, in addition to the bog-standard bolt-action .22, a lever-action .357 that I hunted deer with when I was a kid, and a break-action single-shot 20-gauge, my dream gun list is massive.

      I want a Mateba, and failing that, a Rhino - because both have some fascinating design principles, the Mateba especially. An AK variant, mostly just because. An FN FAL, because I don't have anything high-calibre. An SVD, because it's a gorgeous firearm (but sadly, impossible to import), a semi-auto shotgun because those are a joy at the range (a Saiga would be perfect), and a Calico, because it looks like a space gun and the sheer existence of a firearm with a minimum capacity of 50 rounds is a wonderful thought.

      All of this is also assuming that the NFA is here to stay; the list will grow significantly if some of the more idiotic restrictions are repealed.

      t. American

      1. Wommit

        Re: So,

        My preference has always been for the UK SLR (AKA The Widow Maker.)

        1. Charles Manning

          Mine too....

          I was a guard commander one night in Pretoria, South Africa, when there was some gunfire outside that I needed to investigate.

          As commander I did not have a weapon assigned to me, so I took one off the rack. I had a choice of an R1/FAL (pretty much == SLR) in 7.62x51, an R4 (South African copy of a Galil in 5.56) or an Uzi 9mm.

          I grabbed the R1.

          Since then my centrefire rifle of choice has been .308.

  19. chivo243 Silver badge

    Love the El Reg Standards Department

    doormats = measurement of area

    Bulgarian Airbags = Cup sizes

    now a coachload... Although I was thinking along the lines of Speed or The Gauntlet, with only one terrorista per bus/coach per story So, coachload = 1 terrorista

  20. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Happy

    E for Effort

    Can Vulture Central please organise a course for teaching various police forces and media organisations the correct way to quantify such things as weapons, terrorists and coaches

  21. Chris G

    Poorly equipped

    These tourists, sorry, terrists will get nowhere just lugging a load of guns and ammo around!

    Where are the deadly, fully encrypted smart phones and laptops that our governments are warning us about nowadays?

    Afterall the nine coaches will have to be able to communicate securely to choreograph their attacks properly.

    Beware of charabancs full of men singing 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside with strong accents.

  22. x 7

    as far as I'm aware, maximum capacity for a twin axle single decker - with all sitting - is 55, so you have a bit of spare capacity available

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you have 400+ terrorists traveling somewhere on 9 coaches

    You are going to have one hell of a big problem whether they have guns or not. Or maybe they just got a group discount on a nice vacation before dying a glorious death in the name of Allah.

    1. Jediben

      Re: If you have 400+ terrorists traveling somewhere on 9 coaches

      You've never heard of Mecca? And no, I don't mean the Bingo halls.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does this mean there would also be 72 coachloads of virgins?

    1. x 7

      "Does this mean there would also be 72 coachloads of virgins?"

      you'd be hard pushed to find that many virgins nowadays........especially given the state of the nations roads and how rough buses and coaches ride. Teen girls no longer need ponies

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      "Does this mean there would also be 72 coachloads of virgins?"

      648 by my reckoning.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Coat

        @ John H Woods

        648 by my reckoning

        Only 2 off the number of (Dis?)Honourable Members of Parliament at Westminster.

        I'm sure there must be a few ex terrorists, fraudsters, bigamists etcetera amongst that lot Though in the case of fraud, one cannot be so sure if the practice has stopped when one considers their expense claims.

    3. hplasm
      Happy

      Re:Does this mean there would also be 72 coachloads of virgins?

      Only when the first eight sets of 9 coaches arrive at the destination...

    4. Tom 13

      No, you'd need 574 coaches of virgins* based on the numbers provided in this article.

      Now, I expect even the Suffolk police would quickly spot a convoy of 583 coaches, so the risk here is minimal.

      *As others have pointed out, this assumes you could find that many. Although I understand terrorists accept virgins down to age 8 or so, so they might have a loophole there.

      1. x 7

        There were 574 coaches of virgins coming down from Inverness

        574 coaches of virgins coming down from Inverness

        and when the bomb was over it left a bloody mess

        No longer any virgins left in Inverness

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So why ...

    ... do the travellers have to be specifically terrorists? Why not hunters, territorial army, weapons collectors, shooting range enthusiasts, or armed police? I mean, the days of the PIRA are sort of gone, why should they still get all this free publicity?

    1. Vincent Ballard
      Flame

      Re: So why ...

      Armed police have too much variability for the comparison to work. Enough firepower to equip 200 British firearms officers is one APC short of being enough to equip 5 coppers in certain parts of the US.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: So why ...

        >So why ... ... do the travellers have to be specifically terrorists? Why not hunters,

        Hunters? Given the nature of some the weapons, (an anti-tank missile, and an uzi with a bayonette) that concept brings the Monty Python sketch Mosquito Hunting to mind:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZvT3MHpffk

        1. Loud Speaker

          Re: So why ...

          an uzi with a bayonette

          I think a pickle fork might be more effective! Make mine a genuine Turkish Kebab knife!

        2. hplasm
          Coat

          Re: So why ...

          "Hunters? Given the nature of some the weapons, (an anti-tank missile, and an uzi with a bayonette) that concept brings the Monty Python sketch Mosquito Hunting to mind:"

          American squirrel hunters, then.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So why ...

        Based on their record for shooting the wrong people I have a suspicion that 9 coachloads of Met police firearm officers would be *more* dangerous than the equivalent number of terrorists.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: So why ...

      "... do the travellers have to be specifically terrorists? Why not hunters, territorial army, weapons collectors, shooting range enthusiasts, or armed police?"

      Likewise, it's interesting that almost all of the jokes/comments relating to terrorists assume they are Muslims. It seems the work of various western government spin doctors is done.

  26. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Okay, tonight's movie will be Hot Fuzz.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      By the power of greyskull!

    2. hplasm

      "Okay, tonight's movie will be Hot Fuzz."

      Oo- I'll have a cornetto, then.

    3. Tom 13
      Paris Hilton

      So, not the one starting Paris? Damn.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Coachload of terrorists and tooth brushes

    "back in 2011 was able to magnificently inform us that Blighty's 244,820km2 area is the equivalent of 1,000,000,000,000 doormats."

    Or the equivalent of twenty two toothbrushes laid end to end.

  28. TRT Silver badge

    Surely...

    it's truckloads?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How much is 463 terrorists in freedom fighters?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > How much is 463 terrorists in freedom fighters?

      There was an interesting feature on last month's Le Monde Diplomatique titled something along the lines of "When the Taliban were our friends", consisting mostly of newspaper excerpts from the eighties exalting the bravery of those noble young men and their faithful and obedient wives in the face of a foreign enemy (and their local supporters). :-)

  30. sysconfig

    No more olympic swimming pools?

    That used to be the measurement du jour on the beeb for quite some time. But I guess nine coaches works better in the scaremongering department than a fraction of a swimming pool.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    but would they all fit

    into the 32.4 olympic-sized swimming pools?

    alternatively, if you stack up those buses, nose to toe, they'd reach 0,0056 mount everests....

  32. eldakka
    Coat

    What? So preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse is now illegal?

  33. Dinfrance

    As with most TV media, the BBC has no idea what it is talking about. Neither has the local police force that were pictured with 'The Cache' The policewoman was hold in an M72 LAW which is a 66mm anti tank weapon. it is empty and she is holding it wrongly.

    As for arming X number of terrorists - rubbish......the most damage they could do with that lot would be to throw the weapons at you!

    Criminals and terrorists have unfettered access to much more modern weaponry in the UK than that collection.

    1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

      Actually they don't - that cache is about as up to date as it gets in terms of UK armed criminality.

      We have a real and ongoing problem with (believe it or not) the lack of illegally held firearms. For donkeys' years police PR had us all worrying about a country awash with armed gangs in inner-city areas and the like, and even though the problem is relatively tiny nowadays there's too much public funding and easy PR to be had from maintaining that we're all going to die unless Something Is Constantly Done.

      The truth is there's only a thousand or so illegally held guns in active criminals' hands (i.e. excluding these Hot Fuzz-style scenarios) in the whole country. Hence police wet themselves with excitement whenever they actually find any and blow it completely out of proportion – aided by the slack-jawed idiots of the generalist media who just repeat what they're told.

      Much like dogs in relation to your dinner and their Pedigree Chum, British police really struggle to tell the difference between guns held by gangs and guns whose owners realistically pose little danger to the public.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Joke

      "The policewoman was hold in an M72 LAW which is a 66mm anti tank weapon. it is empty and she is holding it wrongly."

      To be fair, she's not actually planning to use it so being empty is reasonable and I'm not sure you can be accused of holding a weapon "wrongly" when it's just for display purposes.

      Holding it "correctly" and loaded while posing for a publicly disseminated photo op might fall foul of the laws against possessing information useful to a terrorist by demonstrating how to use a weapon "correctly". (icon for this bit)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > I'm not sure you can be accused of holding a weapon "wrongly" when it's just for display purposes.

        What I think the other poster implied is that when you are trained in a weapon, or class of weapons, holding it the wrong way is not just unnatural but down right unsettling.

        By it being empty (and I am a) making assumptions and b) unfamiliar with this particular weapon) I assume he referred to this weapon coming pre-loaded with one round of ammunition. If the holder was not in possession of the latter, the launcher is essentially a bit of pipe and as he says, it'll hurt if they bonk you in the head with but there's little more anyone can do with it.

  34. MichaelZWilliamson

    I don't have the machine guns, but I do have more than the rest of his "cache." Only here, it's called an "Historical collection."

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