New Command?

[SaddamsLoveChild]

Have heard a rumour that there is to be no more PTC/HQ STC from 1 Apr 07 but a new 'Air Command' with a newly created 3* appt within it. Is this jobs for the senior boys and a waste of hard pressed funding creating new letterheads, business cards and repainting parking places and signs etc etc.

Has there been a formal announcement that I have missed or a statement of the need to change what isnt broken, hasnt the Co-located HQ only just been formed? I must admit I would much rather seebenefit from some more FP/Armour/AT DAS in theatre where it counts rather than a shiney new badge and an extra seat at the Top Table in the Bucks HQ.:ugh:

[spectre150]

1 Apr 07 is a long way off (at least 2 weeks), so there is loads of time to get the message out and get everyone informed of the new arrangements. Whats the rush? ;) I work at the site in question so no doubt I will be the last to know. :*

[Wader2]

Who knows? Looks like the Strike pages on the Intranet are moribund. Clicking on 'latest' Cinc's bulletin pulls up one for 2005. Clicking on the bottom of the 2006 list brings up September's.

Like many internet sites it is personality driven and usually run by an enthusiastic amateur. The manager goes, the site map was not documented, and the whole thing dies.

Interesting to see if we get a new Mission Directive in the next 2 weeks. Odds anyone?

edited to add that the latest bulletin is actually Jan 07 but it depends on the route taken to find it. This is just as wonderful as it means we have at least two different hymn sheets in circulation.

[spectre150]

Cr*p isnt it? Wader you are absolutely right about the enthusiastic amateur web master, IMO. I think it goes something like this - an organisation has a 'good idea' such as 'we need a web site'. 'Bloggs, go and make one'. Luckily Bloggs finds the enthusiastic amatuer who produces an interesting and, at that moment in time, up to date portal into the organisations activities. Enthusiastic amateur then realises he does not get the resources to maintain the website and loses interest and eventually moves on. In the end the organisation is made to look foolish and the message it sends out is that it cannot be bothered and/or doesnt care (at least that is how it will appear to the internet generation).

only my 2p worth :oh:

[Wader2]

Spectre, I forget the actual numbers but we are to get a 'new' website with some 'funky' name and a budget in something like 5-figures. At the same symposium we were told that the Daily Telegraph was putting something like £5m into its website.

Trouble is we see these flashy website and try and emulate them on a shoestring.

Maybe if we went properly commercial and used, for instance, BFBS professionals, to run our corporate comms properly.

In my case the man who prepared my site was not even an enthusiastic amateur. When told to fix it or pull it he confessed that he no longer had access and could not do it.:bored:

[spectre150]

I couldn't agree more.:ugh:

[Mr C Hinecap]

Is the 3* appointment not to oversee the new Cafe One? They can't have taken some 6 months to re-fit the damned hovel to make it anything less than worthy of 3* command! Anything that will improve the conjoined HQs will be a good thing - but I could care less.

[SaddamsLoveChild]

Cafe One? will the incumbent be CinC C1 or just 'Il Numero Uno', I can imagine the banter now............

CAS " what do you think numero uno?"
Il numero Uno " Harumph, Harumph.".............;)

[Wader2]

And they don't give receipts either. I prefered the portakabin by the main gate: better doughnuts too.

[dallas]

Have heard a rumour that there is to be no more PTC/HQ STC from 1 Apr 07 but a new 'Air Command' with a newly created 3* appt within it. Is this jobs for the senior boys and a waste of hard pressed funding creating new letterheads, business cards and repainting parking places and signs etc etc.

Has there been a formal announcement that I have missed or a statement of the need to change what isnt broken, hasnt the Co-located HQ only just been formed? I must admit I would much rather seebenefit from some more FP/Armour/AT DAS in theatre where it counts rather than a shiney new badge and an extra seat at the Top Table in the Bucks HQ.
I think you're being unfair, SLC, we haven't had a new command in months now. I also think we're missing a trick by not having a Change Command who you can CC: (get it?) all your proposed essential new renames and abbreviations. (I thought the addition of the colon in the logo would be particularly corporate and nineties).

On the up side, I am now dealing with Leaving Command, so don't have to put up with this squandering of resources much longer.

[SaddamsLoveChild]

Dallas - Isn't a Colon also the last part of the bowel and hence full of !!!!!e; maybe appropriate mon brave.

[Wader2]

SLC/Dallas, have you seen this? http://f2.org/humour/songs/crs.html

[edwardspannerhands]

Yep - it's official. The IBN has just hit the streets here.:ok:

[TheHogwartsBEngO]

any chance of finding a public version of this BN?

[Toddington Ted]

Yes, we have just received our briefing notes here too. One of the key messages is that the new Command will "remove barriers", so no more queueing at the main gate for us then!:ok:

[dallas]

Removal of Barriers Command? How odd. Or are they saying their job is to replace the other 3,726 other commands, sub-sommands and new HQs that have sprung-up in alleged support of a dwindling number of aircraft?

We must have enough commands for one per aircraft now.

[sedburgh]

It's announced on the public web site now: http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/index.cfm?storyid=54D3E759-1143-EC82-2E084B5D334DC7B7

[TheHogwartsBEngO]

most importantly: will there be a new crest/badge? :eek:

[An Teallach]

I had a flick around the site linked above and fell upon 121 EAW (http://www.raf.mod.uk/structure/eaw.cfm).

Apparently, the objectives of re-brigading our forces into EAWs are fourfold:

To achieve greater operational synergy, delivering focused operational effects from the outset of a deployment.
To generate a more cohesive trained audience.
To engender more widely a greater understanding of the capability of air power.
To achieve a more inclusive formation identity.

Apart from the fact most of it is in mangled 'management-speak', can anyone explain to this simple soul what "To generate a more cohesive trained audience" means?

[Mr C Hinecap]

the EAW concept is a bunch of cake and aerse - and there is very little cake in there. It is not linked properly with anything else and is therefore a method of giving people another badge - and not much more at all. I can't believe alleged 'grown ups' put this yard-and-a-half of contrived poop out without even trying to mask the bus-size holes in it!

Still - if we're getting over the 'conjoined HQ' thing, then it is all rosy.

I don't know anyone at STC who has recourse to speak to anyone on the PTC side of the fence - so making us one big happy family to remove barriers is pretty pointless. Still - Cafe Uno will be AWESOME when it re-opens. :D

[Gainesy]

A quick glance at the bull makes me think Hot Air Command is more like it.

[BEagle]

"A force for good in the world"

What world-policeman evangelical tosh. "Interfering in other people's business because Mad George tells Tony to do so" would be more accurate.

BlAir Command?

Whatever happened to defending the realm?

[spectre150]

Two weeks to go and I finally see some literature on this - through Pprune. Thanks for the info and links guys! It is rather disappointing that I find out about this major change in command structure through the rumour network, particularly as I work at Buckinghamshire Bunker. Well, now I know - time to go and tell my light blue colleagues (because sure as sugar they wont know either) before our NATO colleagues start asking us about Air Command - we would look pretty stupid answering them with blank stares in the 'I havent got a scooby' line.

[top_cover]

Are you trying to tell me that Strike command, Support command and RAFG no longer exist?????? I heard about these expeditionary air wings, where do they expedite to????

[Pontius Navigator]

There is an exped centre at Grantown, or there was, and I believe there was an exped to the South Pole recently.

[spectre150]

Are the other Services going the same way - is FLEET and 2SL combining also?

[Roland Pulfrew]

Are Fleet and 2SL going through this?

Apparently they started it. According to an RN colleague they are currently going through "Transformation" now.:ugh:

[An Teallach]

Apparently, the objectives of re-brigading our forces into EAWs are fourfold:

To achieve greater operational synergy, delivering focused operational effects from the outset of a deployment.
To generate a more cohesive trained audience.
To engender more widely a greater understanding of the capability of air power.
To achieve a more inclusive formation identity.



It's just dawned on me where I've seen such mangled English before. It's Birtspeak! "To generate a more cohesive trained audience" must just be a straight lift from some 90's BBC management paper. For the life of me, I can think of no other explanation as to why the RAF would want a trained or cohesive audience.

[Pontius Navigator]

Roland, there is a certain synergy with LAND with the Navy having been SEA for much of the previous century and before?

SEA will continue to LORD is over air and land.

[nigegilb]

To engender more widely a greater understanding of the capability of air power.

Shouldn't it be ..."to engender a greater understanding......"

rather than...."to engender more widely a greater understanding.......".

Because that implies there is already a greater understanding but it just needs to be engendered more widely, whereas if "more widely" is taken out then the new command will simply engender an understanding of air power.

Err, if you see what I mean.........

[Pontius Navigator]

To widely engender where no engender has been widely understood a greater understanding of the capability of air power

[Strictly Jungly]

I know where this is heading.................................we will have the R.F.C. back by Christmas!!!!!!

[dallas]

To engender more widely a greater understanding of the capability of air power.
I think the implication is they already think some people know (or care) what they're on about and I'm sure those who want to get on reinforce this by nodding intelligently in briefings. Unfortunately for normal people day-to-day problems managing that capability normally keep us busy enough: we do it, not write drivel about it.

If we stopped trying to be so smug we would do a lot better. :hmm:

[nigegilb]

Gotcha, it's just that engender means to bring into existence, so I was trying to figure out how you bring something into existence more widely. Hate to think that the trained audience might be confused by the new mission aims, or that they just sit there nodding.

[An Teallach]

I have visions of a team of RAF Regt Drill Pigs being sent out to sandy places, drilling the natives and forming them up in 3 ranks and standing them to attention so that they may provide a more cohesive trained audience while they watch their houses being bombed back into the stone age.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

So the single remaining Command in the Air Force will have the title "Air". So it has come to Air Command, Royal Air Force; and what else could it be but Air. Genius.

For some time, C in C Fleet's Organisation has been referred to as Fleet Command. Similarly, since the late '90s, the Army became a single Arm known as Land Command. So is Air Command the last piece in the British Armed Forces jigsaw puzzle? Perhaps we will all be wearing DPM as normal working rig next. If only the Canadians had done that, the experiment would have worked.

[Wader2]

Down the local market yesterday they were selling a comprehnsive and natty line in DPMs etc. I rather fancied the English Oak Woodland patter meself.

Teamed up with a pair of desert boots, I was torn between US and British they would look good although the German Army black boots would look good too.

Would anyone from Land, Sea or Air even notice?

'course the next step will be to merge all 3 commands into one. Now what shall we call such an organisation?





How about SEALS?

[Flame Out]

it's consultants speak of the highest order. Bullsh** to you and me. if anyone out there was involved in the sessions to craft such words could you let us know what manner and rank was involved and how long it actually took.

i hang my head in shame, as in a previous life i was the person leading such sessions.

I'm in the corner, over there if anyone wants me.:sad:

[An Teallach]

re-brigading achieve synergy delivering focused generate cohesive audience engender inclusive identity

I don't know what the current rate is, but I imagine that little lot made someone a handsome little wad in "Bulls*t Bingo"

However, our bul!!!!!ting toerag can't be a real master of the art. Otherwise he would have opened with the masterful line:

"The overarching objectives of re-brigading our forces into EAWs are fourfold:"

[Wader2]

every time I heard the phrase 'business case' I shudder. I am not in business. I am in the position of operational training to kill people. I can make a training case, an operational case, but not a business case.

I hate 'line management', I am not running a production line. I am trying to lead people to the results I require.

And the latest? Apparently business leaders are adopting the tenets of Sun Tzu - more agressive.

[Wader2]

Still nothing on the Strike web about the change although the home page is now titled AirHQ Home Page.

[Wyler]

I have just seen the e-mail with attached Power Point presentation. This consists of 2 slides, the first is the organisational chart and the second has the title 'Cultural Web'. This slide is a series of interwoven circles, each with their own title and list. Three that stand out are 'Rituals & Myths', Paradigm' and 'Symbols'. The whole slant seems to be on service ethos and having appropriate badges.

I have read through the associated supporting paperwork and have reached the following conclusion.

BOLLOCKS.

So glad I am out of it. If this is what the airships are wasting their time with then they should be sacked, the lot of them.

I say again

BOLLOCKS.

This is only surpassed by the glossy brochure that I saw last week in which there were pages and pages of managementspeak talking about how many deployable assets we had. Also covered future 'high end warfare'.

Is anybody at the MOD/Air Command actually busying themselves with the TWO wars CURRENTLY being fought?

All together now.....BOL..............

[dallas]

Gotcha, it's just that engender means to bring into existence, so I was trying to figure out how you bring something into existence more widely. Hate to think that the trained audience might be confused by the new mission aims, or that they just sit there nodding.
Maybe they've brought it into existence already and realised only 11 people understood the last version?

I notice another definition of engender is to procreate:

en·gen·der http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnghttp://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Fengender) /ɛnˈdʒɛnhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngdər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[en-jen-der] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object) 1.to produce, cause, or give rise to: Hatred engenders violence. 2.to beget; procreate. –verb (used without object) 3.to be produced or caused; come into existence: Conditions for a war were engendering in Europe.
So perhaps we're going to procreate more widely?

As for the trained audience being confused with the new mission aims, it might help to begin with if they used English. I often wonder how much of this colourful, yet pointless, use of English has to do with appearing to be more erudite than the next man. Yet I think it achieves the opposite and alienates people on the shop floor, who give up with the smart a$$ new initiatives that change nothing.

[nigegilb]

Meanwhile in the real world, I along with many other civilians continue to fight for more protection for RAF aircraft. What the f**k are all the top brass doing? Do they think we do this for fun? Why don't they get off their a***s and do something about it?

[claude liardet]

I'm rather a long way away at the moment and so I don't have access to any of the official info (although it sounds like I haven't missed much). Can someone confirm something for me:

Old system:
C-in-C STC: 4*
C-in-C PTC: 3*

New system:
C-in-C Air Comd: 4*
C-in-C STC: 3*
C-in-C PTC: 3*

Gaining 3 stars was an unintended consequence I'm sure!

[An Teallach]

Is anybody at the MOD/Air Command actually busying themselves with the TWO wars CURRENTLY being fought?


As those wars are are highly likely to go down in the annals as clusterf*cks, I imagine the more political animals among their airships are busying themselves with anything but the 2 wars currently being fought.

After all, even paper success has many parents but failure is an orphan.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Having observed an increase in AMs, how about this from the latest MoD JOBs;

Job Posting: SO1 Co-ord
Job Title: Business Management
Salary Administration Plan: Royal Air Force
Location: RAF Cranwell
Reference: 331764
Salary Grade: Air Commodore
Posting Type: External

The successful applicant will be expected to wear the uniform of a Wg Cdr. You will note that he will be paid as an Air Cmdr.

Totally an aside to the Thread but interesting, I thought. This is UNCLAS, before anyone starts.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Nope. Sorry Clude but you have missed one out:
Old system:

CinC STC 4*
DCinC STC 3*
CinC PTC 3*

New system:

CinC Air 4*
DCinC Ops 3*
DCinC Support 3*
= No change.

Now who will give me odds on how long it takes for someone to come up with 2 commands: Ops Command (actually let's call it Strike Command - punchy that) and, I don't know, Support Command? :E :E

[Melchett01]

Don't be too hard on them - transformation and constant change in the HQ should be encouraged - it's a good substitute for the high paid help actually achieving anything.

Wonder if they'll get any new office furniture for the new HQ?

I believe the MOD furniture catalogue has 2 sorts of office chair for the 2 sorts of senior officer found to flourish under Noo Labour. One is a bit like a broken deckchair which folds at the first sign of pressure whilst the other just goes round and round in circles :E

[Pontius Navigator]

It cannot be named STRIKE command. It was changed from Bomber Command, in anticipation of replacement of bombers with ounchy new jets like TSR2 or F111 or AFVG or . . .

No longer bomber but nuclear weapons carriers. The term Strike applied to nuclear missions and Attack to conventional missions. Ever since the RAF lost its nuclear strike mission the Command name was obsolete. It should have become Operations or Attack Command years ago.

Can't be Operations Command however in case it got confused with Operations Group that a Commonwealth Country used to have - an then calls for it to be commanded by a GROUP Captain :}

[LFFC]

Why not just call it "RAF HQ"?

I can see where this wider transition of the armed forces is rapidly leading. Naming the new RAF organisation "Air Command" falls into line with the changes to "HQ Fleet" and "Land Command". Those names clearly signify that they will be just 3 Commands within a single entity known as the British Armed Forces - or should we call it the British Defence Force?

I think the real losers here will be the Chiefs of Staff. All the time they had multiple TLB holders working for them, they seemed to have a reason for their existence. However, if they each have only one TLB holder in future, and at the same rank as well, their reason for existence seems a bit dubious.

CDS - 4*
CAS - 4*
C-in-C Air - 4*

All we now need to do is change the colour of our uniforms so that they all match, and we really will have a single defence force. However, I'm sure we won't actually do that as it would cost too much money, but it would certainly stop all the stupid bit(hing about absorbing one Service into another. :E

[ZH875]

The big boys will have an answer - Bring back the 5* rank. Jobs for the boys you know.:ok:

[ZOFO]

I Know how about "Fighter Command" and then "Bomber Command" all under the "Command" or "Air Command" who would then deal with "Logistics" Command and "Personnel" Command, Brilliant saved an absolute packet on the Defence Budget!!


Oh Been there done that!!:ugh:

[Sgt Bilko]

http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2001/dscf0413.jpg (http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/expo2001/dscf0413.jpg)

[Wader2]

most importantly: will there be a new crest/badge? :eek:

Eagle with sword up its b*m and lightning flashes from its feet?

And Sgt Bilko's captionless photo?

"CinC watches his command fight it out in the new Total Air Force simulator"

[Pontius Navigator]

Still nothing on the Intranet website about this momentous change. Wonder if the CinC knows?

[side salad]

Reorganisation has always been used as an illusion of progress.

[ZOFO]

I was wondering in Sgt Bilko's Photo of the New "Air Command" CinC's simulator photo, whether the big flashing red light was to show that a Typhoon was ready for service.....in "Fighter" Command:} or is it a light that flashes to show the latest PVR to hit the desk.

[ProfessionalStudent]

Due to cutbacks, the light is no longer funded...

[Top Right]

It's in the latest RAF News, 30 March - page 3

[Climebear]

Due to cutbacks, the light is no longer funded...

Would that be the light that used to be at the end of the tunnel? ;)

[JessTheDog]

The Army has a Land Command and the Adjutant-General, the Navy has a Fleet with a CinC, now the RAF has an Air Command.

Will the personnel and training branches of all 3 Services be merged into a single tri-Service "Command" or - more likely - a lucrative private sector personnel management and training contract? :mad:

[Pontius Navigator]

Jess, if you trawl back :)

Now it has been announced in Parliament, cascaded down to the RAF News, I wonder when it will be mentioned on the Strike website. Well at least one of the website url does refer to AIR rather than STRIKE so someone knows.


PS, I wonder what abbreviation they will use?

HQ AC = Air Cadets
and no doubt others.

I also recall my primary school -
If Army is to Land and Air Force is to Air what is Navy?
And if Johny said Fleet he would have been classified as mentally subnormal.
I'll get me umbrella :)

[BluntedAtBirth]

I also recall my primary school -
If Army is to Land and Air Force is to Air what is Navy?


Why Water Command, naturally. To align with the RAF's EAW concept, the deployable Fleet Support Groups (is that the right name?) that stand up at foreign ports to support RN deployments will become Expeditionary Water Wings...

[Green Flash]

Blunted

Naughty:D

[merlinxx]

Should that not be "Extended Bladder (Allied Colostomy Command) Expeditionary Force Air"

[Pontius Navigator]

Little bird told me they haven't decided on a name yet. AHQ is one possibility although HQ AIR has some consonance with HQ LAND.

Same bird told me that their airships didn't want it to happen this soon. They wanted 1 Apr 08. Maybe it would have given some an extra 12 months employment. OTOH they may have been worried that they had too much CHQ headed paper in the store.:}

[BEagle]

"They wanted 1 Apr 08."

Presumably because, by its 90th anniversary, the RAF will have become small enough to revert to the title of Royal Flying Corps? Although with rather less aircraft and rather more brass hats?

[spectre150]

Can we last another 11 years to see Trenchard's 100 year experiment through to its conclusion............

[Data-Lynx]

While some of us watch in amazement as paperwork bickers about CinC Air Command or AIR Command, a quick Google on the short-form "CAC" offered a nugget from the USMC (https://portal.navfac.navy.mil/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/NAVFAC/NAVFAC_WW_PP/NAVFAC_HQ_PP/NAVFAC_PW_PP/LANT_PW/LANT_BE_FSC/TAB58475/1503030%2BUG%2BREFUSE%2BCOLLECTION%2BAND%2BRECYCLING%2BV1.2. PDF). Para 1.1.4 defines a CAC and notes:
Since CACs change periodically, refer to the IMAP website for the latest. The Refuse Collection and Recycling Template may accommodate different cost models such as the Installation Process Model (IPM) used by the Marine Corps.
It includes the cost of collection of refuse and garbage including vehicle operators salaries and operation of central can-washing plants, the cost of operation of refuse and garbage incinerators, sanitary fill, burning pits, grinders and the cost of maintenance of refuse and garbage containers. It also includes the cost of services purchased from others including private companies, other Government agencies and other naval installations. It excludes the maintenance and operating costs (including fuel) of vehicular transportation equipment whether Government or Contractor owned except where such costs cannot be separately identified. Family housing costs will be charged to CAC.

Is this what PMA did?

[Gainesy]

Isn't the unofficial motto of the USMC "Taking Out the Trash"?:)

[Wader2]

Now there's a funny thing.

Air Command was established on 1 Apr. On 3 Apr an Organisation Memeo was issued. CinC STC would become CinC Air Command and would have 2 3* deputy.

And the funny thing?

The memo has just been withdrawn!