Footser
Good post.
You say “looking at the overall situation from the outside looking in the RAF seems to have taken the brunt of the cutbacks”.
When this subject comes up, especially in the air domain (with apologies to the sailing Navy and ground Navy/Army/RAF), I immediately think of the Halifax savings of 1987. The RN (FAA) took a cut in support funding (and this is what people are actually complaining about here) of a whopping 33%. Permanently. This is huge by anyone’s standards. While the Chief of Fleet Support did not share his thoughts with me (!) it was my opinion this cut was to facilitate the 103 Merlins planned at the time.
However, a few years later, when the FAA’s support and, importantly, their support funding, was under RAF stewardship at Wyton/Brampton, and the RAF were being pressurised into accepting a similar cut, guess who took a double whammy? The FAA. The RAF didn’t take a fair share of the cut and what funding remained was first come, first served – and when it resides at an RAF station where the senior RN rank was a CPO……… You get the picture.
Same old problem. Two year tours, no-one even remembered “Halifax” and when they were told no-one would challenge the airships. Lesson? Continuity is important. If anyone says “It’s water under the bridge”, take a look downstream. There’s a ******* great dam and it’s about to burst.