Originally Posted by
pr00ne
Finningley Boy,
Not sure where you got your ORBAT figures from but they underplay a lot of the fleets of the time in terms of total numbers;
There were 24 Victor K2 tankers.
360 Sqn alone had more than 10 Canberra T17's. It was one of the first of the Thatcher cuts that trimmed it down to 12.
There were 12 Shackleton AEW2's and 2 MR2(T)'s. Again it was John Nott who cut the fleet in half to 6.
115 Sqn alone had 9 Andover E3's and E3A's. More were elsewhere.
I personally saw the Ops board in the COC at Gutersloh in 1980 that showed a squadron strength of 24 each, 21 GR3's and 3 T4's per squadron and 2 newly delivered T4's in Engineering Wing awaiting allocation. They all had where they were currently parked marked alongside the serial number and code.
I could go on but I won't. Your list does not reflect the strength of the RAF in 1979, more like a list of what happened to be serviceable and available on the line at a particular point in time.
Hi pr00ne, I'm sure that if you added up every single airframe which was available as a reserve already in location or in store at Shawbury or St Athan, or wherever you would arrive at a far healthier figure. But the Harrier UE for Gutersloh in 1979 and on until passed 1983 remained 36. Now I'm not sure if this figure included the two-seaters or not, I suspect not. However, when the RAFG Harrier force was made of three Squadrons, the total UE was the same as for when they became just two Squadrons. Meanwhile aircraft were lost, yet UE's everywhere remained unchanged somehow. According to HQ AAFCE, I was one of the Ops Assistants there 1980 to 1983, evidently 19 and 92 never had more than 10 aircraft a piece. Yet I obtained from another source it was more like 15. It's always struck me that stated UE's even under a classified heading never reflected fully everything that was comprehensively available. Indeed, John Nott went about shredding stuff like HM Forces were having a Fire Sale and was then caught out on 2 April 1982. I'm not sure of your politics sir, but did you ever read 'Sense about Defence' authored by the Labour Party Defence Study Group in 1977. The Group were headed by Ian Mikardo MP. You should read that and see just how bad things could have gotten for the long term UK Defence posture.
Best regards,
FB
PS a crusty old AEO from the Vulcan Force, John Pearson, was one of the Ops Officer's at HQ AAFCE (CRAOC) when I mentioned my understanding that the Vulcan Sqns were issued with about 8 jets each, he thought this an over stated number and said it was more like 5 per unit. Again, I think he was thinking more of what was usually available routinely.