PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Naval Scheming?
Thread: Naval Scheming?
View Single Post
Old 22nd Jun 2020, 21:11
  #71 (permalink)  
SLXOwft
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 1,285
Received 132 Likes on 86 Posts
I have refrained from sticking my oar in until now but here goes.

I have only skimmed the document linked by the OP, but it looks to me like there has been little revision since the previous iteration. I hope it will be just ignored and not used as a stick to beat either service.

I was taught at BRNC, as gospel truth, that the RAF lied and moved Australia 300 miles close to Asia to convince HMG to buy the F111K and can CVA-01 etc. This was I believe reflective of the views of a significant number of the generation to which Sharkey, Linley Middleton and others belong(ed). They had seen a promised bright future of four fully sized properly equipped carriers snatched from them. They resented seeing the aircraft they had been promised used by another service. The saw the RAF as the author of events not the real culprits HMG. Unfortunately some of them never seemed to properly get over it and it clouds/clouded their judgement.

My very limited experience of today's RN suggests such petty rivalries are long forgotten and the current generation want to make jointery work. To which I say, "Good on them!"

I have recently been clearing out my late mother's house and came across a copy of the RAF Yearbook 1977. The keynote article was "The Royal Air Force and the Defence Situation Today" by ACM Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris. Although its main focus was the severe cuts to the RAF, he did not fail to mention cuts to the other services; cuts to the RN in particular (coupled with the reduction in the Nimrod force) as rendering the UK as unable to meet its NATO commitments in the Atlantic and effectively pretending our Southern Flank obligations didn't exist. I mention this because IMHO the only way to preserve any effective defence capability from political opportunism is for the leaders of the three services to have the vision to present a united front. The RN and its supporters providing the politicians excuses to cut the RAF will do the RN no favours in the long run and vice versa. What Sir Christopher and the then CDS Field Marshal Carver (whom he quoted) would say about subsequent cuts, I hate to think.

Asturias - Sharkey wanted CATOBAR carriers and F-35Cs the capabilities of which he considered far more suited to the RN's needs. However, I don't suppose he or anyone with the UK's defence interests at heart would be happy with an F-35 buy that prevents either service from doing its job properly.
SLXOwft is offline