Amendment
Splash Cox'n
Thanks for proof reading my post, which I have now corrected! I couldn't agree with you more.
As I student I am researching a little-remembered campaign of over 50 years ago and I am constantly amazed by the many lessons learned during that campaign that have modern resonance, indeed modern applicability (integration of intelligence analsys and dissemination, development of joint military-civil doctrine, joint operational planning...).
I find it amazing that serving people in the RAF, such as ABIW (who claims to be serving), begrudge the expenditure of, say £50,000 (probably a lot less) so that younger people in the Service (ie those not too cynical) can contextualise their present - and equally vaild - experiences. In spite of what serving personnel may think, the RAF - the first properly consitituted air force in the world - is held in high esteem and regard globally. The RAF didn't magically appear on that pinnacle, it got there through the hard yakka of it's people. What harm is there in modern youth reading with spine-tingling respect the close-run events of 1940, or the round-the-clock effort (and sacrifice) to relieve Berlin - the heartland of Britain's former, and very recent, enemy - during the Berlin Airlift?
Moreover, Crab..., please correct me if I am wrong, but was there not air to air combat in the Falklands? Were there not many air-to-air confrontations (albeit without crews letting rip) between RAF AD and Soviet Strategic and Frontal Aviation assests up until the early 1990s? As a mere student, I would hate to think that I have got my facts wrong; similarly, how would allied ground forces have fared entering the Kosovo province without a considerable softening up air campaign beforehand? And yes, I know, what did the 78 day campaign achieve...well, my understanding is that it save a lot of allied - read British - lives because the VJ withdrew.
I also bet that ABIW is the sort of chap who would rip wooden sash windows out of a Georgian cottage and put some lovely uPVC ones in, on the grounds that they are modern. Completely out of context with the fabric of the building.
CC