Pr00ne,
Not really a rant, just a melancholy ascerbic nostalgic view.
You are a little aggressive in your tone but what the heck, it's a public forum and some people clearly have to impose their PoV in order to self-fulfill.
The BS to which you refer is a point I'd take issue with. There always remains the manoeuvrist vs attritional context and I'm a relatively pragmatic type, however there comes a critical mass. Speaking as a convertee from light blue to green, we can talk about capability and technology until the cows come home but when you only have a finite number of resources - tanks, boots on the ground, ships and aircraft. There needs to be a sensible trade off against the two and without getting into the loft to find all my capability planning guides or the staff officer handbook from my staff course, I'm loathed to argue a case for cheaper technology vs numbers in light of a government that fails to understand anything other that the management of the defecit. We are constantly faced with the rhetoric of our armed forces being at a pre-Napoleonic size, however, there is always some magnitude of Napoleonic ego in the world.
Where am I going with this? No idea; I simply resent being messaged in such a pompous manner.
BTW, I'm well aware that 617 are re-forming; I simply referred to the number of squadrons lost since 1990.
You can call it a rant if you wish; quite frankly my dear....