"warfighters first"

[scope-eeee]

Hi there, I was wondering if some of you could help?

I've been asked a question for a presentation at my base - "We should be warriors first, tradesmen second"

Anyone have any thoughts - sorry it's a little bit cryptic!

[VigilantPilot]

You hear this all the time..soldier first, blah second.

I agree with the sentiment. In times of crisis you should have the skills and be prepared to defend yourself, use a personal weapon etc. Hopefully it should never come to that.

In reality though, most personnel do not specialise in soldiering. Annual CCS does not ground people well enough to be a professional soldier, however professional training allows them to carry out their specialisation with the required skill. I mean, in reality, I reckon a fair few paper pushers would be more of a hindrance in a field type environment than a help.

[Wyler]

When you are giving your presentation ask the following 2 questions:

1. Is leadership best done by example?

2. In that case, why are Wing Commanders and above allowed to ditch CCS?

I asked this very question in the RAF news and the answer was that, by the time you get to Wg Cdr, you are an 'expert' in such matters.

Whilst I agree that the majority are experts within their specialisation I disagree that they are naturally savvy about more general gung ho stuff. In fact, a fair proportion of them are a damned liability out of the office!

For your presentation, look at the deployed Force trg thats being brought in. Look at the reasoning behind that and you will be well prepared to deliver death by Power Point. (The SFC will point you in the right direction).

[airborne_artist]

1. Is leadership best done by example?

2. In that case, why are Wing Commanders and above allowed to ditch CCS?


My dad was a Captain RN. His penultimate appointment was as Captain of HMS Excellent, a shore base that parented a number of small training units, including the RN School of PT. The RN introduced a new fitness test during his command, so he decided he should take the test. Without any preparation, and aged 51, he passed within limits for a 30-35 year old. Despite being over the age limit, he continued to take it (and pass) until he retired 2 years later.


Senior officers - take up your trainers and rebel - take the fitness tests despite your rank!

[Pontius Navigator]

Same at a fighter base (pre-F3) in Lincolnshire. The staish waived the right for the execs to be exempt.

Back to the question. Try Churchill for it was he who said the RAF should defend itself and not expect the army to do it for them. However we are going the same, right, way enlarging the professional corps as a skilled tradesman cannot be afforded to waste his time doing extramural duties. Fight or defend the base and his unit but not be diverted to doing another professionals job.

[Jobza Guddun]

Quite right PN.

It's ax admirable notion, but even with the best will in the world, people like us are not going to be useful for much more than maintaining security in the immediate workspace. Unless of course, we all go through the basic Gunner course and the various specialist ones!

How could I be an effective soldier when I get to live shoot every couple of years, and then it's only about 30 rounds! Mind you, a few sharpened death spanners and poison-tipped screwdrivers could be handy...

[soddim]

I have faced this dilemma on exercises in the cold war days - do we ask our tradesmen to guard and accept no serviceable aircraft in the morning - or do we work on the aircraft and let the intruders in because the reinforcements for guarding did not arrive?

No point working on aircraft if they are unguarded and no point having military tradesmen (and women) unless they can fight. Civilians can specialise, military are fighting men (and women).

[claude liardet]

'Warfighter first, specialist second' does not mean the same as 'soldier first, specialist second'. It just means that you should expect to do your job in austere operational conditions, exposed to a level of danger that requires a greater degree of self protection skills and flexibility than the hotels-on-detachment element of the RAF has typically needed in the past. Although some extra training will be required the most important thing is the change of mindset to accept this.

No one with any brain cells is seriously suggesting that anyone in the RAF (exempt Regiment obviously) is ever going to be a soldier and still perform their primary duty.

[scope-eeee]

Thanks, I'm getting some really good stuff here, loads I can use in my presentation.

One thing though, does anyone here know who made the original statement, and what were his reasons for saying it? One source tells me it was ACM Stirrup, others tell me it was ACM Burridge.

All your opinions are greatly appreciated on this subject, it's a bit of a tricky one, other people got lucky and get to do GBAD or Close Air Support!

[Brit55]

I'd hazard a guess that you are on No1 ACC?

Well, if so, you've done a fair bit of working away from home this year and probably had to look at the FP side of things before setting out the rest of your stall.

That said, could you operate as an air defence unit whilst running around in the grass with a rifle or, is it one or the other?

I agree with an earlier statement which suggested that 'warrior first, tradesman second' is not the same as 'soldier first...' In the RAF, we often have to operate as individual specialists under the protective umbrella of the professional soldier. I'm not too sure that it is possible to operate out there on our own in todays shrinking RAF.

I think the CINC's statement (I think it was Burridge that said this) points towards us being willing to operate in austere environments and still perform our tasks to the best of our ability.

How many of your Fighter Controllers are warriors first?

[Climebear]

I think it is even simpler than that, after all the reach of airpower means that we can - sometimes - stay at home and still provide effect to a joint commander (obviously not to the same scale as the B2 force though).

Warfighter first is a mindset. It means that we are primarily airmen and RAF officers; therefore, our profession should be the employment of air power. We should all have a level of understanding of what this entails which is, in its simplest form, warfighting from the air (and space for any FASOC junkies). Being an infantry soldier is a specialism, as is being a techie, chef, mover, air traffic controller or even a Harrier pilot. So a gunner (like any specialist) needs to appreciate both that he is primarily involved in the prosecution of air power and what that entails and that he uses both his basic Service skills as an AIRman and his specialist skills as a gunner to achieve it.

This is the same as the Army's 'soldier first' given that that organization's purpose is Land combat (with a little bit of air) - or 'soldiering'.

[VigilantPilot]

I am positive that I have had the phrase "soldier first, tradesman second" said to me by a superior whilst in training, and they meant it just as I quoted it in my first post. I didn't know the phrases origin - does this mean it has been misquoted to me, and there was originally never any intent for it to mean we are all meant to be 'soldiers'?

[claude liardet]

'Soldier first, tradesman second' is the Army's mantra, and is oft quoted. They can apply it to a reasonable degree too, although some of the more technical trades probably struggle - particularly if the Apaches aren't going to fall out of the sky!

[Brit55]

Climebear,

'Warfighter first is a mindset.'

Excellent point. Being ready and prepared to fight is perhaps half of the battle.

[Captain Kirk]

Climebear - tut, tut! Providing 'effect' and specialisms ??!! Wash your mouth out man!

At risk of stooping so low, you cannot 'provide' effect - you may well provide a service, conduct an activity or in some other respect 'do something' that may, or may not, create an effect. This may seem somewhat pedantic but it is rather tedious having to endure the 'effect' word banded about meaninglessly.

As for 'specialism'....!!*@*!

[Rant off]

Otherwise, good point!

[Always a Sapper]

guys 'n' gals

Do what you'r good at... in some cases thats breaking airplanes and others its fixing the broken airplanes....

leave the war fighting bit to the squaddies... thats what we do... but that is not to say you shouldnt be able to pick a weapon up and be able to use it to the detriment of those in front of it, rather than those stood next to you or come to that sat in the cookhouse!!!! Every one in the services should be able to carry out effective local defence.

As already mentioned 30 rounds a year is no good to man nor beast and only has a training value to the arms storeman demanding the stuff!!! 3000 rnds maybe :E :E :E

And as for Guard Duty!!! dont make me laugh.... some are very good, but others? well ok........ dont give up the day job though and what with the current availability states wouldnt it be better to use the Rocks on the gates and the Techs in the hangers?

Talkin about the gate... the next 'cover' that tracks me in with his finger ON the trigger..... :mad:

[Climebear]

Captain Kirk

You have missed my point. Read the sentence again. The 'we' is collective and refers to the RAF. Of course we (the RAF) can provide effect - and do it from home base; Bruggen based Tornados delivered kinetic effects accross Serbia and early UK based Bomber Command produced both kenetic and non-kinetic effects across a significant proportion of the European mainland.

Always a Spapper

You are confusing war fighting with soldiering. You do land combat (with some arms doing close combat); however, that is not the totallity of war fighting. In happens on a far wider scale than the one that exists within the significant geographical constraints of the LAND component.

[Mr C Hinecap]

It is far more than doing a bit of 'local defence' Sapper. Telic 1 saw the real change in location, situation and operational deployment of RAF forces. TSW, TCW, 2 MT, 85 ELW, JHC all saw RAF going far forward and working off base. The poor guys on 2 MT were regularly bumped whilst trucking as far forward as most anything from the Army and TSW saw some nasty places.

The RAF no longer fights from 'under concrete' and has to go to the same crappy places as the Army. We need to have far more basic military skills, such as patrolling, convoy procedures and contact drills. To me, that is the 'warfighter first' part of the equation.

[Cambridge Crash]

During my IOT in the predictable days of the Cold War, most aircrew OCDTs saw this as a step towards a lucrative career in the airlines. One of the DS reminded us on Day One: 'Your job is to bomb the Queen's enemies'. Slightly sobering but, at the time, remakably remote...

[FrogPrince]

A few years ago, whilst on a trip to Fort Bragg, a grizzled CWO from 7th SFG told me that USMC pilots are considered the best at CAS by US Special Forces. He attributed their reputation for dependability to the fact that once a year every USMC pilot, wso etc. gets out their BDU's and re-aquaints themselves with basic infantry tactics attached to a 'grunt' unit.

[ChrisMcQuaker]

ACM Burridge has made this statement. Is he saying this is how the RAF is or did he say it to try and change us to being more like that?

In this Brief we are going to have to say how it is now and where we are heading in the future.

If anyone can help us; me and scope-eee on this it will be very much appreciated.

[Gainesy]

A piccy for your presentation. Glenn Torpy, Flaklands last week.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/Gainesy/9b6acf9f.jpg

[scope-eeee]

I am indeed on 1 ACC!

A lot depends on your definition of warfighter. Is it the same as soldier?

Our recent exercise showed us how difficult it is to operate in a hostile environment. But the RAF needs to be able operate to do its job, and therefore win the war. For that, we need to be able to keep ourselves alive in the field, therefore we need to know our CCS etc. But what use are we if we spend so much time fighting on the ground that we cant get the aircraft in the air and win the war? Isn't that the RAF definition of warfighting?

Or maybe ACM Burridge meant that we should all be prepared to down tools, get down and dirty and fight?

[CashMachine]

Pontius Navigator
Try Churchill for it was he who said the RAF should defend itself and not expect the army to do it for them.

This is the speech (well, part of it) you see prominatly displayed in most station rock sections as a justification for doing CCS.
Whats convieniently forgotten is that when Churchil made this speech he was talking about setting up the RAF Regiment.

There is an interesting comment on the "B line" forum on Odihams intranet site to do with Guard (room) manning. In this day and age of "Lean" should the Air Force not be using the regiment it employs to defend it's airfields to actually defend it's airfields!

30 rounds a year? I only get to "fire" 30 shots a year on a video game, unless your on guard of course!!

Lets face it, if this country had to rely on a group of techies, suppliers, MT drivers and (god help us) aircrew to attack anything with rifles and bayonets fixed, I think it would be pretty obvious that we'd lost the war!!

I've always said, techies should be armed with pistols and maybe combat shotguns. After all, I doubt whether I could really hit anything far away and running - could you??

[Washington_Irving]

A few years ago, whilst on a trip to Fort Bragg, a grizzled CWO from 7th SFG told me that USMC pilots are considered the best at CAS by US Special Forces. He attributed their reputation for dependability to the fact that once a year every USMC pilot, wso etc. gets out their BDU's and re-aquaints themselves with basic infantry tactics attached to a 'grunt' unit.

That and the fact that CAS is their raison d'etre and they train more for that mission than any other. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children have had a long tradition of using air power vice heavy arty, especially when it comes to amphibious ops.

Their DPM helmet covers are 'cute' though.:D

[Jobza Guddun]

Seeing as we are "Warfighters" then, can we at least start acting like it by getting rid of those who are physically or mentally prevented from being deployed, and also those who can't or won't pass their fitness tests. While we're at it, we could also weed out those who are simply not cut out for the military rather than carrying them and mollycoddling them.

Make the statement, then follow it with action; or don't bother making it at all.

[glum]

Hear hear. However...

Do we sling out the ones who were injured loyally carrying out their duties, and can no longer be deployed, yet provide years of experience and wisdom and can certainly do things like Shift Chief, instructor or perhaps Chief Clark?

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Reckon we should hang on to those injured doing their duties. Our old billy mate McNab, whilst perhaps misguided, gave a lot of Kudos to the boys from hereford for looking after their own when they should have been invalided. As one who has looked down the wrong end of a medical discharge (albeit briefly) I would have felt an awful lot more comfortable knowing my skills could have been re-used in a (non-deployable) job, rather than just binning me entirely. Would have boosted morale no end! Fortunately I had an excellent physio and RI behind me who dragged my arse out the other end....

[CashMachine]

How about binning those who have injuries from sport!
I know plenty of people who have carried on playing football etc. against their doctors advice because their ankles or knees have gone.
Isn't there a charge for self inflicted injuries???
:ouch:

[Washington_Irving]

Agree with the comments about injuries, however the fat b@stards (and for some reason they are almost always stackers- no offence intended to the "duvet consultants" out there, but empirical evidence speaks for itself) who have to go to the tailors to have extra panels sewn into their shirts need to either find the salad bar or a new line of work. Some of them are great chaps, but they just make the place look untidy and make a loadies calculations a nightmare.

Actually, come to think of it, let's get shot of the gingers too. The colour-clash with the blue-grey is unbearable.

[The Helpful Stacker]

however the fat b@stards (and for some reason they are almost always stackers- no offence intended to the "duvet consultants" out there, but empirical evidence speaks for itself)

Offence taken!!

As a 'stacker' who has recently been posted to a major noise making facility in the south I was appalled the other week when doing my AFT by how many folk (mainly techies) on these fast paced, JHC squadrons struggled or just plain failed this very simple test.

Yes there are some 'larger' Suppliers around (my previous boss needed special measure body armour ordered for Op Telic) but to suggest that Supply has the lions share of the RAF's fat and unfit is in my opinion a little naive.

One thing I will say about my 'beloved' trade though is we do seem to have a hell of a lot of twisted sock types in the SNCO ranks. 57% of Sgts in the Supply trade are non-deployable, mainly through downgrading. Some may argue that a lifetime of lifting heavy stacks of blankets onto shelves takes its toll on a man but personally I think its something else. As someone touched upon earlier, you see plenty of downgraded folk still doing sports and Adv Trg.

[glum]

Part of the problem there is the fact they make it almost impossible to get upgraded!

There is also no sliding scale of down grading for groundcrew like aircrew have.

If they were able to grade people properly then perhaps more would be able to deploy.

The other thing stopping them deploying people is the duty of care stuff. If you choose to do active stuff whilst injured, it's up to you. If they deploy you injured, and you get worse (or injure someone else because of it) they get sued!

I'm sure there is a better way of dealing with injured people, but no doubt it's more difficult to administer than the one we have now...

[Washington_Irving]

THS,
Sorry about that, on reflection your branch might not be the worst culprits. I recall in particular one middle-aged Cpl P&A clerk that had to stitch two stable belts together to get around his gut.

[Doctor Cruces]

Warrior! Me? Never!!

If I'd wanted to do that sort of wet, muddy, noisy, hairy ar**d stuff I'd have become a pongo.

The old saying does it for me,: -

The Army walk into battle with their officers, the Navy ride into battle with their officers, we pat ours on the helmet and say "Get one for me Sir!"

Long may it continue

Doc C

[diginagain]

The Army walk into battle with their officers,

But only out of curiosity to see what they'll get up to next.

[SSSETOWTF]

As someone who's spent some time with a USMC CAS sqn, there are definitely a couple of things we could learn from those guys.

First, though, let's dispel the myth of the USMC Harrier pilot running around with a grunt unit every year. From what I've seen, that's absolute rubbish. But a significant number of them will spend a year or so working as a ground FAC at the end of their first tour. (Don't the French do that too?)

But what they do is take their CCS a whole lot more seriously than the joke/waste of everybody's time that is RAF CCS. They do a week on the rifle range with the M-16, a week on the pistol range with the 9mm, a week of 'Semper Fu' = unarmed combat/hand-hand fighting + assorted days of first aid training / NBC etc etc. My unit also used to form up as a unit and go for a squadron run every couple of weeks with the CO and the Sgt Major out front, and the officers all running in with the troops. And if you fail the annual fitness test 3 times in a row, you get kicked out - how about that for an idea.

What's the point? I don't think they expect their engineers or admin staff to be defending the wire with their M-16 (but if they did, they'd probably do a more than reasonable job). But the net effect of all this is that every single person on the squadron, and base in fact, is totally focused on the mindset of killing bad guys / defending the Land of the Free etc. So when the squadron gets sent on back-to-back six month deployments to the sand pit, they have no shortage of volunteers to go. With very few exceptions, they want to go. They can't wait to go. They'd feel insulted if some other unit that wasn't half as good at turning out serviceable airplanes as theirs is was sent in their place.

Maybe I've been over here too long, but I'm a huge advocate of the 'warfighter first' mentality.

[Jobza Guddun]

A week of Semper Fu? Good god man, can you imagine how long we'd have to spend on risk assessment, health and safety, duty of care, investors in people, NVQ level blah, to be allowed to do that? It'd take years for the fluffy police to pass it!

For what it's worth, I feel the warfighter sentiment has some merit, it's just the way we go about things that makes it a joke.

[The Helpful Stacker]

For what it's worth, I feel the warfighter sentiment has some merit, it's just the way we go about things that makes it a joke.

You mean like,

"We want a fit and healthy RAF on par with the Army, but unlike the Army you can't have any time off in which to get fit or even have official sports afternoons".

"The OFT is a great idea and will help to make sure folk are 'fit to fight'. But once again, we can't (won't) give you any time off in which to train so as a result we can't impose a pass/fail point, just best effort. Go on troops, fill that mock sandbag for your country".

Cynical? Moi?

There are far too many bloaters and twisted socks in the RAF, its about time we took a real leaf out of the Army way of doing things and jettisoned some of this dead wood.

[BEagle]

"If I'd wanted to do that sort of wet, muddy, noisy, hairy ar**d stuff I'd have become a pongo."

Hear hear.

Watched an old documentary on the V-force on TV the other week - an interesting comparison to the way it is today.

3 or 4 times as many people, dozens more aerodromes, dozens more aircraft. That's just for starters. Only rock apes played pongoes, everyone else was either in a blue suit or a green growbag. No RAFFT, a simple 1 day GDT......

I recall the comment made by a Harrier mate on an exchange tour with the hoo-ah Mreenkaw in the 1980s. When invited to join in some jolly jockstrapping session, he retorted "Run? Good heavens no. British officers don't run - it would panic the troops!"