Originally Posted by
Melchett01
About 5 years back when I was in the middle of my Sqn Ldr command tour, we were hosting Commandant Cadets (IIRC) and we were talking over dinner about our time in the RAF, how we had both spent most of it in the Joint environment and had come through IOT when it was the 'bad old days', but how it had since changed for the better. He turned and asked what had I learned from my time at IOT. Peering into my wine glass for some inspiration as to how best to say what I was about to, I turned to him and said 'well based on what we've just been discussing, I have to say it showed me the sort of officer I didn't want to be once I'd graduated.' He thought about it, clearly not the expected answer and then said 'well at least you got something from it'.
As much as I hated my time at IOT, they really are missing a trick with not doing more academics - international relations, military theory and history etc, which invariably means a longer not shorter course. And I don't mean just more Operational Studies, or whatever it was called, where we all trooped into a warm room to fall asleep between PT sessions. I mean proper, intellectually rigorous stuff, that makes cadets it not fit for a complex environment, at least aware that they are going into a complex environment and gives them a foundation for where to take their conceptual development. Call me odd if you like, whilst leveling entire grid squares is fun, there's undeniably a degree of satisfaction in out-thinking the enemy - whether that be Russia, Da'esh, your Flt Cdr or your wife.
I spent a number of years at Cranwell, leaving in 2012 and can only describe what I saw - It was like 30 weeks of It's A Knockout. Very little exposure to intellectual thought and genuine leadership issues, a holier than thou attitude to almost everything and an end product barely fit to lead themselves from the Mess to the workplace.