MoD admits rocket launchers and machine guns are among arsenal of missing weapons
Britain’s Armed Forces appear to have lost a small arsenal of weapons that includes machine guns, assault rifles, rocket launchers and thousands of rounds of ammunition, official records show.
The lost or stolen arms include two general purpose machine guns (GPMG), one of which was lost by the Royal Navy at sea. The GPMG, which can fire up to 750 rounds per minute and has a range of up to 1,800 metres, is an important weapon for infantry battalions.
Other losses include a deactivated Russian rocket launcher, up to eight SA-80 rifles and several Glock pistols.
Last year, thieves stole a decommissioned First World War Lewis machine gun from the regimental headquarters of the Queen’s Royal Hussars, and a .50-calibre heavy machine gun went missing from an Army headquarters in Wiltshire.
In total, at least 30 weapons have been either lost or stolen from military bases since 2018.
Freedom of information (FoI) requests obtained by The Sunday Telegraph and NationalSecurityNews.com show that other weapons losses have included a deactivated Soviet-made AK47 assault rifle, Army cadet rifles, a deactivated Second World War Luger pistol, First and Second World War automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
All of the losses have been investigated by military police but no items have been found.
Additionally, 1,800 computers, laptops and memory sticks have been lost by defence chiefs in the past four years.
The government figures reveal that between 2018 and 2023, at least 1,400 MoD laptops, 100 computers and up to 300 USB sticks, which could hold sensitive data, also went missing.
The latest MoD figures released to MPs show that in the past two years, 361 laptops were either lost or stolen, along with 98 mobile phones, 70 computer hard drives and 50 memory sticks.
In August, 51 laptops disappeared from the MoD’s inventory and a further 50 were either lost or stolen in the first three months of last year.
Hundreds of items are reported as either being lost or stolen every year by the MoD. In 2022, a Land Rover was stolen in Kenya, along with four vehicle batteries and wheels worth some £16,000.
Night vision equipment, worth more than £2,000, was stolen, along with more than £30,000 of silverware, from Cottesmore military base.
Huge security risk
The huge number of computer and memory stick losses will have posed a potentially huge security risk to the Armed Forces, one military expert has claimed, and investigators had to launch dozens of enquiries to establish whether the equipment contained secret or sensitive information potentially of use to foreign powers.
The FOIs also reveal that hundreds of other pieces of equipment, such as helmets, body armour, boots, respirators and diving knives and a generator were stolen from military warehouses.
Some of the details were published by Dr Andrew Murrison, the undersecretary of state at the MoD, in response to a parliamentary written question submitted by Sarah Olney MP, who described the findings as “astonishing”.
Ms Olney, the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, also called for an inquiry into what went wrong and the potential risks posed by the thefts.
‘Government has a duty to keep people safe’
She said: “The Government has a duty to keep people safe, yet this revelation from the MoD should be ringing alarm bells for our national and personal security.”
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We take security of defence very seriously and have robust policies and procedures to prevent losses and thefts. Encryption on devices ensures any data is safeguarded and prevents access to our network.
“Where there is suspected criminal activity, we will take the necessary steps to investigate and prosecute.”
