I remember a brief at Marham, sometime in late '02 (I think) where the plans for providing accomodation for extended periods deployed were discussed. I forget exactly who the briefing team were (it may have been STC or perhaps AFBLT) but it was made very clear that the management had decided that 'austere' was the way ahead - despite many vocal, informal and formal protestations from those of us who had conducted & supported ops over Afghanistan from Seeb, Thumrait etc under the deliberately austere Ex Saif Sarreea conditions.
The accom plan as it was laid out to us at the time was that for the first 6-8 months of a UK-only deployment's lifespan, we could expect to be kept in the standard 18' x 18' tents, camp beds, sleeping bags (all of course designed for European ops), washing in a plastic basin, water from stand-pipes etc. After this period, the loggies would be in a position to locally hire/ship in portacabin-type accomodation and the US-style 'cadillac' ablution blocks. From 8 months to 2 years the focus would switch to finding/building permanant accomodation blocks.
Anyone who has deployed with or alongside the US forces knows how easy it is to build a Harvest Falcon tent city, with decent sleeping, eating and ablution facilities, allowing aircrew and ground personnel to get a decent night's sleep and not feel that you are part of some third-world refugee camp.
Clearly, this plan has either been thrown out of the window, or some bright spark decided that to keep people in tents would be cheaper in the long run.
I'm not saying that there aren't personnel for worse off than us, it's more that just because we can live and operate in sh***y conditions, doesn't mean that we should.
And before the response comes that the accom has not been improved due to the high risk and local threat, personnel from my unit regularly deploy to a predominantly US-operated base in a severely high-risk area much further north, and they live in 2-4 person cabins!
We can do much better than we are doing, and with the amount of time we are all spending deployed, investment in decent accomodation is a must.
Rant off//
SBG