Originally Posted by
PDR1
Huh? The Harrier deployment to Afghanistan was 8 aircraft (a mission requirement for six plus two attrition spares). Eight aircraft from a total of four front-line squadrons. How could that lead to a "loss of marritime currency"?
There were in reality only three frontline Squadrons (1,4 and NSW) with a nominal complement of (I think) 10 airframes per squadron, plus the OCU. So those 8 airframes were immediately almost a third of your frontline strength. Add in the manpower requirements for Herrick, which saw a constant cycle of training and preparation for deployment, deployment and leave and recuperation/ training periods after deployment, and there was no room to fit in anything other than occasional carrier deployments of small numbers of aircraft in that period.
To quote Lt Cmdr James Blackmore , just a few days before the axe fell:
OVER THE PAST 12 months we have started a period of regeneration where the force focuses on regaining many of the skills that were put on the backburner. For example, Night Low Level Flying, consolidated periods on board the CVS and Operational Low Level Flying at 100ft to name but a few.
https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=67373
When searching for the above, I also found this, which gives a good outline of the situation - the part on the comments on the resources needed to sustain an 8 aircraft deployment for a year
https://thinpinstripedline.********....rawing+harrier
Missing part is pprune's refusal to link to blog s p o t
In an ideal world we would have kept both Harrier and Tornado, especially after the GR9 update, as they offered different capabilities,
Storm Shadow as a Harrier capability had been cancelled aorund 2003/4 if my memory is bearing up. Something to do with weight constraints on VL on carriers. Torndado could use it for Land ops.