"In my (albeit brief) acquaintance with the RN and RAF the gaping divide seemed to be between the RN's pragmatic and 'operational' approach to events compared to the RAF's obsession with bureaucracy and procedure". Hmm, I picked up my Frag Sheet from Lower Air Ops on Ark in Feb 2003, for one of our first sorties over Northern Kuwait (which meant flying through the highly alert SAM defences, both afloat and onshore…) and I noted that some of the CSAR/SPINS information seemed a bit 'Off' for CAOC generated procedures (they were
very RN colloquial…). When I challenged the staff they admitted that they were used to 'making it up' as they were normally part of a self-licking lollipop of a Naval Task Group, and this 'Littoral Stuff' where they needed to operate under an ACC was all a bit 'different'. All the time we were 'working up' off Cyprus and even in Oman, this really didn't matter, but the fact they hadn't mentally clicked over to the 'real deal' was a little concerning, to say the least. A short 'rebrief' later, the appropriate CAOC issued details were retrieved and provided, and the Ops Team provided a stellar service, 24/7, henceforth. On this occasion, I was pleased to be the 'bureaucracy and procedure' obsessed RAF aircrew….
Oh, and
'I shan't go into the Junglies sleeping under their cabs in the desert in Iraq while the Chinook pilots wouldn't deploy anywhere without air-con portacabins' is total and utter b*llocks. I checked into the 'Boeing Hilton' for several nights in the desert in 2003, and slept in nothing else but a non-air conditioned tent until the end of the war (complete with being flooded out of one at Al Amarah during a thunderstorm). In fact, the only reason we had to sleep in the cabs and/or crap tents prior to the start of the campaign was that the RN
PR machine needed the Junglies to be involved on the first night and their asthmatic Sea Kings lacked the ability to move 6 troops the 30-odd miles from the ship to the objective and back because the ship drivers (understandably) wanted to keep their ships outside SSM range. It was the RN hierarchy that pushed us into the desert, and under SCUD attack (including a few hours in CBRN kit), rather than apply the pragmatic military solution of using the additional Chinooks at AAS and disembarking the Sea Kings….who, likely, would have joined the battle at first light with the rest of the SHF after the USMC insert was abruptly terminated after the tragic loss of the CH-46.
Sorry, didn't mean to enter a rant…Spent a lot of time with the RN over the years and always enjoyed my time on Ops with the Junglies (and even WAFUs…), several of whom became good friends.