DESPATCHES, January 2025

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of what we hope will be a long running facet of the go army family. This is despatches, your weekly news letter keeping you abreast of whats going on in the business and the wider world.

As we stride into 2025 we here at go army have a lot of plans ahead, and some very exciting opportunities for the business to grow, develop and thrive. As I type this at present we are currently redesigning and renovating our warehouse and preparing for the brilliant opportunities that are well on their way.  In this coming year we are looking to expand our stock, increase our social media presence and to work more collaboratively with wonderful people like yourself. 

Goarmy is very much a family business that operates with a certain duty of care at its heart and wishes to treat each customer as if they were part of that very family. And it is our sincere hope that we can expand not only our offering but our family as well. 

Though as we reach out into 2025 it benefits us not to look only into the future but into the present and the past. As we know this year will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war.
And on this day jan 24 1945 the soviet union continued their ongoing  vistula-oder offensive. This large undertaking would see the soviet red army begin the gradual liberation of polish territory from wehrmacht and SS forces in the region. Warsaw, which had been under German occupation for an ironic total of 1936 days, had been liberated for the first time since October 30th 1939. But today is not about warsaw. Today marks the beginning of the battle of poznan. Part of the east prussian posen region the city of poznan became one of the key stumbling blocks between Warsaw and the red army’s final target of berlin. An old prussian fortress town from the 19th century, poznan quickly became a fortress once more defended by ardent believers in the final victory though relatively ill equipped their ranks were formed of volkssturm, luftwaffe ground troops, police units and young officer cadets. Facing them were men of the russian first guards tank army and 8th guards army headed up by marshalls chuikov and katukov they would push the city for a month capturing a total of 17,500 of the total 60,000 german combatants though it is unknown the total number killed in action at this time. The soviets plus a contingent of 5,000 poles gave a combined total of 105,000 men. Soviet losses incurred only around 6,700 total KIA at this time. Comparatively speaking, the Soviets got off lightly considering the well defended and dug in nature of the German defenses. Though the siege of Poznan would drag on for a month it did little overall to deter the momentum of Stalin's men and they would ultimately take Berlin within 4 months of poznan. Though an overlooked battle of the second world war it would leave an indelible mark upon poznan with approximately 90% of the city centre being severely damaged and half all of remaining buildings in the rest of the city being severely damaged. Today the citadel of this once heavily defended fortress stands as a testament to the battle containing a museum full of artefacts from the month-long siege. 

And while yes, while we can feel relief that eight decades have passed since the end of that long and destructive war there is apprehension in Europe and the wider world as war continues to rage on. The eyes of the world are once again fixed to the east as we observe what could very well be the beginning of another world war. As we know the ‘special military operation’ that was intended to be a 3 day venture of Russian expansionism has now become a 3 year meat grinder taking foreign volunteers on both sides. Now with the addition of troops from the democratic peoples republic of north Korea have joined the fight it begs the question, where will this all end? Well its quite hard to tell but we may well see in the coming months. With the increased NATO presence and trumps threats of additional sanctions should this war not come to an end soon we may see a victory through finance over a victory by aggression. Though one thing we can be sure of is that it will continually show that history may not repeat itself but it certainly does rhyme. For example i myself was born in 1997 and was quite understandably born too late to see the German army drawing on maps and theorizing tank strategy for the battle of Kursk, though as it would seem i was born just in time to see the German army drawing on maps and theorizing tank strategy for the battle of Kursk. The sheer notion that Germany get to roll into Ukraine and be the good guys never fails to garner a chuckle. We have also continually seen weapons and equipment from varying sides of history brought in to serve together. The juxtaposing pairings of FPV drone warfare of the future serving against the venerable yet antiquated maxim gun that is still in service at the ripe old age of 139. There was of course a time where the maxim sat astride the prestige of being the best of the best. 110 years ago on the fields of the first world war the cutting edge maxim was able to mow down ranks of obsolete and outdated cavalrymen. And with soldiers on both side of the current concflict living in trenches the same as their forebears more than a century ago, and often while in the process of digging said trenches, inadvertently exhuming the bones and bodies of the aforementioned forebears who fell in the same spot as they now lay it does beg the question, who will find them next and what will be to the drone what the maxim was to the horse. 

Hiram Maxim (inventor of the namesake machine gun) himself was quoted as saying-

‘Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility’ 

It is be to noted however that not long after saying this he did go on to design a ‘maxim’s flying machines’, a relatively innocuous and lighthearted fairground ride that has been operating in blackpool pleasure beach since 1904 and still runs to this day, so its not at least all doom and gloom.

Sleep well