I am aware the RAF will go in to get them out however if the plan is we need to stay on the ground and Apache isn't enough you do need to ramp up a bit. And yes today Harrier/Tornado are doing the Job how about 5-10 years time?
Or will it be Phone good old uncle sam? and what if we're playing by oursevles somewhere that isn't Afghanistan? The mantra of we don't need this capability in Afghanistan is very short sighted. What if we'd gone down that line in the 70's/80's Falklands would have been interesting with some NI patrol boats Makraloned Land Rovers and Baton Guns as Northern Ireland was real and the Russians comming over the IGB was only played out on exercises. The Armed forces seam to have developed tunnel vision or is it they've dropped into the political 5 year cycle.
The Armed forces needs to be much more flexible than what it is turning into. Yesterday one of the Editorials talked about the reconfigured military medical services set up to deal with small numbers of casualties from peace keeping ops. It would appear our whole armed forces will soon be set up to fight COIN so I hope the next conflict we end up involved is COIN and not high intensity warfighting.