Originally Posted by high spirits
I would go the other way. It's JHC for a reason, and in times of conflict it has worked very well. I know of few places where the 3 services as operators get on so well as JHF(A). I think if you applied that model to the home sqns and split the individual fleets between them you would see fighting capability increased with mixed Sqns of AH and SH. It would also stop the pathetic bickering....
I don't find the success of JHC and JHF(A) a persuasive argument for the involvement of the RAF in the SH business. If the army and navy consistently demonstrate that they can share their toys nicely, and make strides in the development of capability, there is no need for independent air force involvement, shurely?
Originally Posted by HAS59
why do the RAF have the UAV/RPV/RPAS assets and not the Army?
They are about direct support to soldiers (mostly) are they not?
Since they were acquired, yes, they have been employed exclusively in support of land activity. However, Reaper could easily be employed in support of naval objectives (in the Straits of Hormuz, for example) and thus there is a strong case for it to be maintained as an air force asset, rather than being organic to either service.
The same argument could easily be applied to helicopters. All medium- and heavy-lift helicopters, operated by the air force, to be apportioned according to operational priorities between the navy and army. Exactly aligned with the Trenchard model. Except that it seems to have become accepted that the navy should operate its own SH fleet, which has left the RAF operating in practically 100% support of the army.
Originally Posted by Roland Pulfrew
CHF there specifically to support 3 Cdo Bde? Big RW there to support everything else?
Why? Both the RAF and the Army have operated RW from ships and into the littoral. Allowing 3 Cdo its own organic SH whilst denying the same to the Army is incoherent and blows a hole in the Trenchard model, making defence of RAF ownership of big RW somewhat awkward.
Until the rationale for all this contradiction is explained to me, I cannot put together a decent argument why the RAF either
should or
should not keep SH, which leaves me in a somewhat individious position as an officer in an air force now led by a SH pilot... perhaps I should ask him?!
Originally Posted by justanopinion
How has maritime air power fared since 2006 and back under the control of an Air Force?
The RN chose to discard the Sea Harrier in a political miscalculation. The GR9 vs Tornado debate has been done to death elsewhere. Suffice to say that the decision was taken based on short-term operational requirements, with the long-term future of maritime fast air already secure (ruthless prioritisation, yes, but is that not the point of an independent air arm? The decision was vindicated only months later). The Nimrod saga would have played out exactly the same under the FAA since the failings were in the Centre and the support organisations, and emphatically
not in Air Command, the groups or the squadrons. What would the navy have given up to fund an alternative?
Originally Posted by Finningley Boy
To imagine that the Army or the Navy would have pursued the development of aircraft to the standard of the JU87 and 88 along with 20 mm cannon armed Fighters... well I somehow doubt.
Agree. I'm 100% sold on the need for an independent air force, most particularly in the fields of air defence and attack, but also AT and ISTAR. The notion that an air force consisting only of these elements might be broken up is plainly wrong.