What does the UK use for an Early Warning System ?

Well one of my folks was talking about HANDEL was an Early Warning System operated by the UKWMO (UK Warning & Monitoring Organisation) which was for civil defence back in the 80's and 90's Cold war era

However it was phased out after the cold war in the 80's

So my question is what is the equivalent now to HANDEL.

en.wikipedia.org...

We got a bean tin and we bash it with a big spoon. Then we hide under the table.

reply to post by deviant300


This is what we use:-

en.wikipedia.org...

Sadly the Tory prat John Major dismantled the UK Early Warning systems because of the crew running it were a none paid team, they got petrol costs only, with it being a cheap system the Tories hated it, they prefer costly things for Tax payers not cheap teams.
Well today the only warning you may get is a TV or Radio news flash if your near home, I am a UK Emergency Planner and to be honest the UK public were taken out of the emergency plans altogether some years ago, we know longer would help the public, and if the public left home ot drive anywhere the Army have orders to get rid of them, I will say no more on that, but do NOT think you are protected because your not.

They got me. Underground. In an ROC post.

What does the UK use for an Early Warning System ?

reply to post by Alternative4u


The air raid system was disbanded because of a few inherent problems, really quite mundane but fundamental. The first was that double glazed windows meant that people simply couldn't hear the sirens. And the second was that when the sirens did sound, almost everyone did exactly what they shouldn't do ... they went to their windows, pulled back the curtains and looked out ... or they walked into the street with a puzzled look on their faces, scratching their heads ... what is that noise ? Not really what you want to do if an atom bomb explodes a few miles away.

I suspect UK relies only on warnings via TV & radio, BBC/IRN etc. Maybe a secret autodialler system which will call every phone simultaneously. But that's about it.

We can't afford one!

Don't we use America?

Originally posted by Alternative4u
, we know longer would help the public, and if the public left home ot drive anywhere the Army have orders to get rid of them, I will say no more on that, but do NOT think you are protected because your not.

Yep, I know this to be true also.

reply to post by Mister_Bit


well i do not know this to be true ,so please elaborate...

ADT,
when all the alarms start going off at the same time they no we have been hit.

Originally posted by khimbar
Don't we use America?

Yep if America gets nuked.. we know we are in trouble...

Originally posted by Mister_Bit

Originally posted by Alternative4u
, we know longer would help the public, and if the public left home ot drive anywhere the Army have orders to get rid of them, I will say no more on that, but do NOT think you are protected because your not.

Yep, I know this to be true also.

Well there's a bit more to it than that, in the event of a national emergency, the usual broadcast channels such as BBC Television and Radio would broadcast the,essentially,martial law dictat which would "discourage" mass panic flight by UK citizens,primarily to help prevent the major highways being flooded with traffic/pedestrians etc. Certain selected UK armed forces units would be tasked with preventing the citizenry from blocking/trying to gain access to military and government control centres and other sensitive areas, with the use of lethal force authorised.
Essentially though as you say, the vast majority of the UK population would be on their own, with no long term planning in place to ensure that assistance would be afforded them. In certain scenarios(nuclear war for example) there would be very little emergency care available due to the expected high numbers of casualties. In this case those who are killed outright by the initial blasts would be the lucky ones.
With regard to initial early warning systems, there are highly sophisticated systems in place, but only for alerting various government, military and intelligence agencies.