GK121
Yes, a few deck crew and others are going on exchange, but nowhere near the number involved in day to day carrier operations. Lots of people need skills and experience for things to be efficient and safe, as some senior bods have
noted.
Why else do you think the RN leadership supported the Reservist/Harrier idea?
Courtney
Are you on a low irony diet? Yes, I saw the joke in your mention of Phantoms and Buccaneers.
I have a low opinion of politicians - and think that most of our current malaise is down to politicians. My view is that since we are now preparing for a different future, and that the world have changed post SDSR, I do not think it unreasonable to changes policies, and cannot see why the Government would not want to sell it as a success. Of course,one could argue that if they got the AV8B+ , then it would be a different aircraft, and tat they were replacing the old with something better (with radar/AMRAAM/cannon).
Plus, if Ministers are willing to consider building new OPVs (despite their limited utility) then ..... who knows?
I had a discussion about this privately with a serving Royal Navy. Actually we were talking about some of the
comments and suggestions in my initial post on the Harrier thread - including some of the more outlandish ones. We both agreed that some things are too difficult, or too expensive in wartime, although in a crisis things change (remember the improvisation in 1982).
Of course it is too late then. We can all think of examples were MOD tried to save money - only to lose many lives. Lack of armoured vehicles in Iraq, no explosion suppressing foam in the fuel tanks of the Hercules the list goes on.
Perhaps the best example is Falklands task group's lack of Airborne Early Warning. Several years before the 1982 conflict, some had proposed converting some ASW Sea Kings by removing the sonar and ASW gear and fitting a version of the Thorn-EMI (as it was then) radar to provide at least a basic AEW capability. At least one Officer of Flag rank supported the idea. Nothing was done - the idea was judged too costly, too difficult, and not needed as our forces would never operate outside the NATO theatre.
Then war came. The Argentines took advantage of our lack of AEW, and flew low. The lack of AEW reduced the effectiveness of the use of the Sea Harrier. When HMS
Sheffield got hit by the Exocet it was accepted that if the task force had AEW then it would not have happened. Within hours, an urgent project started to produce the SKW, and came to fruition in about three months. By then the war was over.
Organic AEW would have stopped the loss of
Sheffield, likewise the Exocet attack against the
Atlantic Conveyor. Not losing the Chinooks and Wessex aboard her would have meant that the Welsh Guards did not have to be transported about RFAs
Sir Tristam and
Sir Galahad. I have heard a comment (from an RAF Officer with an AWACS/ISTAR background) that organic AEW would have prevented all the ship losses. So why did it take the loss of a ship and twenty lives to make the politicians act?
This decade we seem to be planning on not facing any enemy, yet our politicians cannot resist
speaking loudly, even though they have thrown away much of the stick.