Allthenick,
Thanks for the astonishingly astute observations and revelations.
Well I’ll be. So the Dutch do their Apaches differently. So what?
Some nations Maritime Patrol aircraft are operated by their Navies, others by Air Forces. Some even have mixed crews. So what?
They certainly dont understand Airpower in the Maritime environment, if they did they wouldn't keep trying to get the carriers cancelled.
A desire to cancel the carriers has nothing to do with understanding the ‘maritime environment’. It has to do with understanding the economic environment, and the fact that tough choices need to be made. That some niche capabilities simply can’t be afforded. That while the Army and RAF have been slashed to the bone since the 80’s the Navy has not borne its fair share of the cuts, and now needs to do so, and that the least damaging thing to give up is carrier air.
And expressing that desire is another matter. While I’ve heard plenty of senior Army and Navy officers banging on about how ‘wasteful’ and ‘Cold War’ Typhoon is, I’ve never heard a serving Air Rank bloke publicly criticize the carriers – observing the nicety that you don’t ‘crap’ on your fellow service’s spending priorities in public. Personally I wish they’d grow some testicles and speak out.
So the RAF is more ‘officer heavy’ than the Navy, which is in turn more ‘officer heavy’ than the Army?
How astonishing! The more technologically advanced a force is, the narrower its rank structure ‘pyramid’. What a blooming revelation.
And the fact that the RAF now has relatively few other ranks? After all the privatization of all the other-rank intensive activity areas like MT, engineering, etc. Well colour me astonished!
And you think that trimming a few senior officers will “make far greater saving than cutting equipment”? You’re deluded.