CM - thank you, I think I'm blushing...
Jacko,
I think that we're closer to agreeing than it appears. I am a vociferous critic of the SDSR process, precisely because it was rushed and did not lay out a credible foreign policy framework; instead, we got a pile of warmed-up woolly thinking that didn't help at all because it provided almost no direction.
This woolly thinking then led to yet more salami slicing to meet the HMT budgetary envelope, whereas a strategic approach would have taken the view that its better to make 20% savings by taking - as far as possible - 100% of the least useful 20% of the budget rather than 20% across the board.
So, we have a level of tasking and op tempo that would've astonished RAFG and, probably the SDR98 planners. And we have a much smaller force to deliver this, retrenching all the time.
My principal criticism is that we've always gone for the best equipment specification we can reasonably conjure up (or, to the cynic, the most expensive option BAES presents
) and for the same money we could have more less sophisticated but more than adequate platforms - eg Gripen viz Typhoon, Horizon or Arleigh Burke viz T45 - the list goes on. And it is from this tyranny of the fleet size numbers that the problems you allude to arise. (That, and a propensity for service chiefs to focus on their home turf toys - e.g. FJ, CVF, rather than other capabilities, eg FW MPA.)
Is 6 FJ Sqns the right answer? No, probably not even in theoretical terms, let alone current op tempo terms. But if I had a little more funding or flexibility, I'd add FW MPA and save ASTOR before I added another FJ Sqn.
S41