Janes report on AAC

[Nigerian Expat Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Two's in

The trouble is, it's all a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The AAC fought tooth and nail to win (and keep AH) in the early nineties partly to divest themselves of the "ash and trash" reputation that grew up around BAOR and GW1. Never mind that the ash and trash roles provided critical recce, comms and liaison functions to ever eager BG Commanders. At the start of the millenia along comes Apache, and the beginning of a serious teeth arm role for the first time. Not only is Apache wildly successful, thanks to Afghanistan it brings major changes in Army doctrine that fully validates the AAC in a combat role. So now everybody either wants to fly or employ AH to stay on the glitzy end of the battlefield.

Meanwhile, back in the hangar, Aviation budgets are blown left right and centre trying to keep enough Apaches operational. Tough decisions have to be made, the AAC have eschewed the importance of those recce, comms and liaison roles, allowing UAV and JHC to consolidate in those areas (don't underestimate the lack of a meaningful troop lift capability in the AAC's demise) and suddenly, they have no political support. Gazelle was always going (no point doing recce for a fire platform that outperforms it on every level) and the 5 Regt role is politically unsustainable long term. The SF have always done their own thing, either with or without the AAC on board, so there's no capital to be gained there, and as for Wildcat, well the Navy just did the same trick to the AAC that the RAF did to them with Harrier.

So it's Apache or nothing, it full on ops or full on training, its a small cadre of dedicated and talented individuals bringing a key capability to the battlefield. But it's certainly not a lot of things that made it such good fun.

Spot on. Apache took the AAC from poor relation to Number 1 in the Hit Parade with a bullet. But everything has a price, particularly in this era of austerity.

NEO