Jacko,
I hate to sound disparaging, but do you really think we have the necessary funds/equipment/strat lift (sea or air) or personnel that aren't already deployed elsewhere to carry out an exercise in the South Atlantic?
Not one to preach, but don't the current commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq (N and S) Bosnia and Kosovo, Sierra Leone, the Falklands, NI etc etc take us beyond the remit of SDR? (One medium-scale warfighting plus one small scale peacekeeping operation as I recall.) SSII took years to plan - a criticism in itself - and stripped the RAF (can't speak for the Green/Dark Blue community) bare of most of its critical components.
Every single aircraft type in our inventory is commited to one operation or another - there is no more 'fat' in the system.
I know that this is slightly off topic but hear me out. Without significant extra funding for better/more equipment (tornado engines, anyone?) coupled with investment in people, welfare, support, retention issues and all the other subjects that come up on these boards so often, we will soon have no capability to back up El Presidente's greater schemes.
Investment in this case does not mean signing up to some meaningless paperwork exercise (IIP is a good case in point) but how about:
1. Remunerating properly those of us that spend so much time rushing from one detachment to another.
2. If our future is to deploy to austere bases, then commit money and effort into establishing those units properly - to wit the huge hit on morale at Seeb when the US tented city grew up in the period of a week...with better facilities than the UK had established over a period of months.
3. Properly fund equipment programmes - constantly having to cope with u/s, poor-quality or insufficient equipment does nobody any good. (Deploy to the desert in Soldier 95 DPM as we can't afford any more Desert gear...!)
4. Sensible retention packages for those personnel areas we are short in - my Branch is currently 20% below the Crisis Manpower Requirement to be able to carry out our war role. Apparently we can't afford to train any more than the barest minimum during the financial year. The aircrew issues are already well discussed, so I won't go into them here.
5. The AT fleet is up against the buffers...more C-17s/C-130s plus additional crews, and purchase of cheap, economical passenger AT would help immensely. It takes over a day to get back to the UK from the desert - either in a VC-10 or a C-130 because we don't have enough crews and stop in either Ali Al Salem or Akrotiri. In pure financial terms, how many 'man-days' does that waste?
There are lots more fixes that could be employed but the point of my argument is really aimed at those in charge.
If you want us to be able to fly the flag and support your policies around the world, Mr Blair - then fund us properly and increase our actual capability so we can.
Sabre rattling is all very well, but I think you'll find that if you look closely, that the cupboard is in fact bare.
Rant over.
CV
[ 22 December 2001: Message edited by: Chinese Vic ]
[ 22 December 2001: Message edited by: Chinese Vic ]</p>