This givt has done more damage to the armed forces than the Germans in WW2. Discuss

[CatpainCaveman]

Well lets see.

They've managed to reduce numbers quicker than an advancing Panzer Division.

They've screwed up production and resupply of equipment better than any Luftwaffe raid ever managed.

And they should write a Psy Ops lecture on how they managed to devestate morale across every body in uniform in a more thorough and comprehensive manner than any German Psy Ops campaign that I can think of or find in the literature.

Right, pin pulled, grenade thrown, standing back. And before you ask/comment, no I'm not a journo fishing, I'm a serving member of HM Flying Club who is getting sick to death of the contempt we are being shown by the Govt.

[pr00ne]

Capt....


UTTER UTTER RUBBISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Complete and total clap trap.

Have you any comprehension of what the 1957 cuts did to the RAF, the RN and the Army, not to mention reserves and auxliaries.
These were the largest single series of reductions in peace time permanent forces known in the modern history of the UK

Try 'Options for Change' in 1992 which did FAR FAR more damage than this review, cut more front line squadrons. closed more bases and decomissioned more ships, or 'Front Line First' which devastated the support services, especially the Medical services and 3rd line engineering support.

1974/5 consisted of huge cuts in planned financial expenditure and, while sparing the front line directly, produced massive reductions in spares, munitions, fuel use and operational hours. It also closed 12 RAF bases, though not all actually did close.

1968/9 also reduced the RAF order of battle much more than this one, as well as closing more airfields and stations.

Cuts? You don't know you've even been born!

[CatpainCaveman]

Can anybody else hear some New labour whining around here?? Oh that'll be prOOne again.

Those cuts were made when there was slack in the system. Cutting those units wasn't going to directly affect ongoing operations. Cutting back those units wasn't going to directly risk the lives of people out on the ground trying to do something with nothing for a numty who doesn't appreciate what we do or what we go through to get the jobs done.

Put simply, we don't have any slack in the system to take these cuts. At my current unit, morale is so bad, 75% of officers have retired or applied for early posting and I get dozens of gen apps for environmental postings every week. All because of the cuts and bollocks we are being put through. My argument stands and you're talking crap. Again.

prOOne, you may have once served in the military, but then things were different. Until you have put up with what we have to now, and faced the risks we are facing on a daily basis climb back up Tony's arse and stay there until he gives you the MBE you are so obvisouly fishing for.

[Axel-Flo]

Has to be said prOOnester you do sound like someone giving or regurgitating a party line. There is no way these recent cuts can show us how fortunate we all are, well not unless you're CDS keeping his job safe, your attackon Diff on another post seems to have gone way off the track of his point.....Chalk another vote against yourself from me...well said Captain....Silly Old :mad: er

[pr00ne]

Capt,

What makes you think I don’t have an MBE?

I’m afraid that ordering me off the bulletin boards will not work dear Capt.

What slack was there in 1957, in 1975, or 1968 for Gawd sake! There was a thing called the Cold War you know, it was quite serious at the time and involved all the forces all of the time. There was also something called Op Banner going on for a big chunk of it. Also fighting the Mau Mau, the Malayan CT’s, Cypriots, deterring and actually taking on the Indonesians, a couple of Cod wars, fighting a nasty little war in Aden that is very similar to what is going on in Iraq right now, maintaining something called QRA in the UK and Germany with lot’s of buckets of instant sunshine, pretended to be firefighters a few times, played at dustmen and drove fuel tankers, and all the time this was going on the forces were getting smaller, and smaller and smaller.

I don’t recall too much slack in the system either.

I am not decrying the present folk in uniform nor do I think that you have a good deal right now, just don’t make the current situation out to be something it is not and don’t make hysterical and inaccurate statements about the size of cuts.

If you are that unhappy leave, I did.


PS: I am no fan of this lot, I just detest the other lot more.


Axel,

No party line and I'm not interested in your support or your ticks in the box or your vote.


I just don't like inaccurate statements, must be the day job.

[BEagle]

For once I'm in agreement with pr00ne on this. I can just about remember the infamous 1957 White Paper. Wasn't that also the same year when Beeching murdered the railways. B£oody impresive government we had back then....NOT!

Then came the murder of TSR2 in 1964. Partly down to Wislon, but chiefly down to Lord Mountbottom.....

Then the 68/9 cuts, 74/5 cuts, 'Options for Change', 'Front Line First'.... All of them, utterly appalling.

I have a copy of 'RAF Flying Review' from 1954 (price 1/- or 5p in new money). It offered its readers a prize of half a guinea (10/6) (that's 52.5p in new money) if they had a letter published on the subject of "What do you think the RAF will be like in fifty years time - in the year 2004?"

I don't think that any could have guessed at the sale of devastation wrought by successive 'governments'..

[johnfairr]

Not quite sure what to believe here. Mention of the Mau-mau; OK, send a squadron of Lincolns to carpet-bomb the jungle, call it in-theatre training; guerillas in Indonesia? Fine, send in some Brigands, rocket the place. Rhodesia declares UDI? No problem, send a bunch of Javelins to sit and soak up the sun and fly deterrent missions, not forgetting the Vixens and Scimitars on the Beira Oil Patrol. Torrey Canyon bu88qred? Great, we'll fly Buccaneers and Hunters and napalm the wreck. Greeks and Turks having a bit of an argy over their holiday isle? No sweat, send out an FGR2 squadron, that'll keep Akrotiri as an SBA and fly the flag for UK (NB, 6 Sqn went out there at no notice, refuelled over France, in airways, and kept the peace, inside 36 hours, whilst the Lightnings, Vulcans and Hercs all removed to Luqa).

Now, let me scroll forward to 2005/6/7/8. Balkans flares up, International Court of Justice can't get a verdict, send in a few..... WHAT? Will we send Typhoons, just coming into service? Can't use them for real, HSE haven't cleared them, might hurt somebody! Saudia Arabia invaded by Iran/q, no tanks on site, no brigades available, all doing MOTs. Mali decides to annex another bit of Africa, Nigeria objects, so send a carrier. Whoops, no carriers available, they're all being shown to potential buyers, Argentina, Pakistan, India, Paraguay, (landlocked I know, but who cares, if the Swiss can win the Americas Cup, surely Paraguay can have a Navy).

Pr00ne, your arguements are valid if there is an alternative to some country having the balls to do something. Whilst I am no great fan of Dubbya, Bliar and Chirac, they are the only execs with a back-up to their rhetoiric and the UK now is opting out of this whilst at the same time speaking loudly and carrying a small stick. Teddy would not mind that comparison, I am sure

Way back in the 50s, 60s and even just about the 70s, there WAS some slack. Now there isn't and nothing you can say will convince anybody in uniform that there is.

Back off! Bliar and Hoon are wrong.

[Ali Barber]

Just heard on Sky News that CDS is ready to send 5,000 troops to Sudan if called upon to do so. I hope they give the correct forwarding address so that they not miss out on their redundancy notices while they're there!

[The Gorilla]

I am sorry guys but all this whinging isn't achieving anything!!

Your are in the Armed Services and your lives are ours, simple as that. It was never any other way 1945,1955 or 2004!!

You do have a simple choice, one I exercised 10 months ago. Either accept the rubbish that's thrown at you and accept things will never get any better OR leave and regain full UK citizenship!!

:ok:

[Kiting for Boys]

Ahh Wislon,

Then came the murder of TSR2 in 1964. Partly down to Wislon, but chiefly down to Lord Mountbottom.....

"Hands Off The Rann Of Kutch"
"Some of them have them this big"
"Britain's first man in space"

But then again...what is the most serious cut/issue here?
The CDS piece in The Times is very plausible but I don't believe them.

What should I complain about?

Oh and "Kinnock, Kinnock...who's there?"

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

What's a givt?

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[smartman]

Guys, and prOOne,

Don't want to get into a slanging match:

But having done Aden etc inthe 60's, I don't think that and other similar campaigns are on the same scale as those that our chaps are experiencing now. In 'those days' we lived a bit more primitively, and excitingly, but our lives were generally more stable. In the RAF for eg, it was considered to be very hardluck if you got a 9-month unaccompanied during your career: most hardship postings in the Middle/ Far East / Germany were with the nagger. The Army was a little worse off, but then they treated things as a battle training ground (with respect to those few, in comparison, who did give their lives - as did those from the RAF/RN). The RN enjoyed living away from home and presumably still do - it's in their nature.

So when Mr Hoon talks of a turn-round time between overseas operational tours of 24-months being the norm, isn't he re-defining things a bit. These days our armed forces are doing far more, operationally, than we ever used to do during the Cold War - and with, comparativley, a shedload of less resource.

And whilst I do have a keen regard for modern thingies such as network-centric etc, there must surely be a bottom line for numbers on the ground? Particularly in the Army, and no less for the Air Force. Methinks we sunk below that line some time ago.

[CatpainCaveman]

ABIW - I was wondering when someone would spot that. You'd go far as a recce driver. Either that, or I won't go far as a typist!;)

prOOne, as for the Cod Wars and a few mutinous Fuzzie-Wuzzies hiding in the shrubbery and Op Banner:

Banner & Cyprus are still on going, albeit at a reduced level from the late 60s/70s/80s;

for the Cold War, try the Global War on Terror, which has done much more damage and directly cost more lives than the Cold War ever did;

for the Cod War against that formidable Icelandic naval force, try the Armilla Patrols, the RN anti-drugs patrols and those still present in the Gulf region, the former mine cleareance ops in the same place and various other ongoing bits and pieces.

QRA - yet again, ongoing, agreed, but with little chance of buckets of sunshine. Although buckets of 747s flying into buildings isn't far off and is more likely to happen than any Russian missile-laden bomber heading our direction;

playing at lets pretend to be firemen ..... yes still doing that too!

Oh yes and Iraq, the whole raison d'etre for that little exercision being so screwed up I have no idea where it fits in, and i've been there! Plus sundry other smaller ops that are ongoing around the globe that don't make it into the papers.

And of course, who could forget Afghanistan.

All this set against a govt that is happy to slash an entire fleet of ac (the Jags may be old, but we own them outright, unlike Tonka/Harrier and so can make what modifications we like, add on bits and use them as a test bed, as well as them being easy to maintain in the field - but when would we ever deploy???? Hmmm), reduce the RN's ability to patrol home waters and the RAF's ASW capability (what is that blue wet stuff all around us??), and according to a briefing from an SO1 is about to announce the redundancy measures at Christmas. Cheers fellas! Along with other bits in the ultra small print that no-one can see let alone read, but made up for with a theoretical capability that no one knows will work, but that is being introduced at a rapid rate of knots at the expense of the man on the ground.

It may be the future and it MAY just work, but it will never be able to be in more than one place at a time. So lets see now.... concurent ops, one bit of kit, who gets it? :confused:


From a serving blue suiter's point of view, this govt, couldn't find its arse with both hands, a map and a spare Nav to direct them! They don't care about service personnel or equipement issues, judt balance sheets and getting their tongues deep in Trust-me Tone's arse to secure their jobs and nice fat Govt pensions.

So the prOOne, how do you think that lot makes us feel, other than hacked off, betrayed, let down and lied to. We've done our bit, let s see the govt stand up and show us it means what it says when it says how good we are.

Why reduce numbers when so many ops are ongoing? These current cuts are a disaster that will end up with one solution - body bags piling up at BZN if ops carry on at the current rate. And don't even think about arguing that what we are in isn't a round of cuts. Less personnel, less aircraft and generally less kit IS a cut; if it looks like a duck, waks like a duck and goes quack, then its a duck. And this is a bloody big duck!

But look on the bright side, with the focus being on int assets, we'll be able to spot the enemy coming a mile off - won't be able to do anything about it as we've got rid of everyone, or overstretched them, but we'll have a good view of them ploughing their jets into London.

Tell me now that this govt hasn't done more to damage this country's armed forces than any other threat in living memory. And if you try (you're more than welcome), I'll put you straight as a typical example of overstretched, under-manned, under-funded, morale-seeking serving personnel .



:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :confused: :confused:

[smartman]

CC

Well said - some would say emotively, but stuff them. One small observation though - despite all of Soames's oratory, I don't think you'd be better off under the Blue Party. So where does that leave us??

[16 blades]

CC - BlOOdy well said! I couldn't have put it better my self.

Pr00ne, BEagle and all the other ex-firm KOSs who feel it is their duty to opine -

Please realise, with all due respect, that it is a very different Air Force, world and political situation we are now in than when you were in the firm. Yes, you were busy in the 50s/60s/70s, but we are NO LESS busy now, and we are doing the job with FAR LESS people than you were. Our Op tempo over the last 5 years or so has been ceasless. On my fleet, we are in the dire situation of either being able to train to do the job, or do the job, but NOT BOTH - Because the ac / people we need to train on / do the training are busy doing the job, resulting in boys who are inexperienced and sometimes woefully under-trained going out to do the job - and that's before we consider the issue of being under-equipped and resourced.

I am personally tiring of all the 'Thou doesn't know thou's born' -type comments from ex-servicemen on these forums who left the service, often early, to pursue their own selfish goals instead of sticking it out with the rest of the boys and getting the job done, as it is done nowadays, with great personal sacrifice and pride in our own professionalism which dictates that we MUST succeed at whatever foolhardy and poorly-thought-out venture is thrown our way, regardless of the lack of money / equipment / support we have. When we make it work, as we always do, through hard graft, determination and often sheer bloody-mindedness, their airships and the politicians claim that it worked because their plans were fantastic all along, giving little or no credit to our often herculean (no pun intended) efforts in holding their unmitigated f*ckwittery together.

As for comments such as Gorillas:

"You do have a simple choice, one I exercised 10 months ago. Either accept the rubbish that's thrown at you and accept things will never get any better OR leave and regain full UK citizenship!!"

Fair enough if you decided you couldn't hack it anymore, but please don't preach to those of use who have the gumption and commitment to stick it out. As for complaining, this (and other forums of this ilk) is the only place we can freely air our grievances and get things off our chests, so give us a break!

.....and Pr00ne's:

"PS: I am no fan of this lot, I just detest the other lot more"

I'm afraid this is just demonstrating your naked partisanship, suggesting, to me at least, that comments you make are not born out of logical analysis but sheer political prejudice.

Sorry if I've caused offence, but it had to be said............
........ducking..........

[prospector]

Perhaps some knowledgable person could advise why it is that even in the midst of all these cuts, a force of 5,000 could be sent to the Sudan immediately. What would be their task in the Sudan, stop ethnic cleansing?? surely that is what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe, and the ethnicity is a lot closer to home yet no sign of assistance to these people. Or would it be considered not politically correct to give any support to your own kith and kin in this day and age.

Prospector

[spud]

"PS: I am no fan of this lot, I just detest the other lot more"

Why? This lot abandoned all of it’s principles to put on the other lot’s political clothes so as to make themselves electable. They kept on a few old dinosaurs in high office such as the Tubby Minister With Special Responsibility For Thumping The Electorate to make it look otherwise.

Presentation wins over principle. ‘For your comfort and convenience, the next train is cancelled’.

Whichever lot you elect you get something similar, it’s just that one lot is a bit more honest.

AND, as for that claptrap about WMD!!!

p.s. How we can ignore what’s going on in Zim’ beggars belief.

[Trumpet_trousers]

What's a givt?


..A question from the King of spelling himself......
please call me an ambulance, my ribs are sore:p :p :p

[Fred4000]

Everyone in the military gets treated like a piece of sh*t these days. All my mates joining the RAF just now are getting put on years worth of holds, not getting into IOT for another year! or getting chopped pilot for no reason.

I have made the decision to go commercial as a result of this. Applied to CTCMcalpine, got it, out to NZ in Sept. Cancelled the old RAF application. I don't think UK forces are supported enough, with the future looking this bleak I don't see it as a viable career option, unfortunately.

[Rattus]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's a givt?

I think this one's more of a takt

R

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

Audi,

:rolleyes: I just love the way I grate on you:ok:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[Miss Kay Gridley]

What we really need to start with is a couple of political parties, made up of people who believe in what they say, make sure what they say is accurate, and who are willing to be responsible for **** ups when they happen.

I spent years being told how amazing it was that we live in a democracy, and how hard women had fought to get the right to vote. Years of being told that it was my responsibility to vote.

Do I? No.

What reason is there to vote when all of the parties trot out as many promises as they can to get votes, to then do nothing, or to very blatently go against public opionion? Some how I think those women would have saved themselves the bother of protesting if they knew what a spineless bunch we have as politicians today.

As I understand it the officers in our armed forces are expected to act on the principles of honesty, integrity, and courage. Without these qualities those under them would be far less likely to follow orders, mostly due to a lack of trust. Surely their political masters owe them the same?

[Jackonicko]

George Robertson wasn't a bad Defence Secretary. (Better than Portillo, probably). Hoon's a tosser. Sandy's (Tory) Defence Review was far worse even than this one. This one's doing more damage than 'Options' or 'Front Line First', however.

New Labour and the Tories are, as Proone suggests, just as bad as each other, and to pretend otherwise is to ignore reality. Moreover, to say so doesn't make on a New Labour apologist, it just makes one a realist.

[Spotting Bad Guys]

If we were all sitting around drinking tea and having every Wedsnesday afternoon off to play sports, I could see why the cuts would be justified. But as the last 5 years have easily been the busiest of my RAF career (not as lengthy as BEagle's but 18 years nonetheless) I still don't see any logic bar cost cutting in any of the measures taken in the Review.

Since 1999 the RAF has taken part in: Kosovo (Allied Force), Kosovo and Bosnia (Deliberate Forge), Mozambique, DROC, Afghanistan, Horn Of Africa operations, Iraq (OSW, ONW, Telic Phase III and IV), whilst of course maintaining QRA in the UK and a huge presence in the FI (some 800 personnel), Cyprus, NI....

I've probably missed a few here; apologies to any chaps involved in something not listed above. I merely point out that our greatest resource has always been our people - can we keep up the rate of ops as described above and keep our personnel motivated and ready to go? Hmmmm......

SBG

[jayteeto]

So Mr 16 Blades, you are now ducking??? So you should!
I agree that things are tough now, but I really would like you to retract some of your comments. I actually feel insulted!!
I left in January after 24 years loyal worldwide service, mostly in the SH Force as groundcrew, then aircrew. It was not a case of couldn't hack it!! Or selfish Goals!! Or lack of committment!! The SH Force were doing long detachments years ago, I hardly saw my eldest son in his first year. We all just got on with it. A lot of us left because we were not prepared to continue to work for this administration. Quite simply, I did not trust my little (well not so little) pink bottom in the hands of Mr Blair. Because of this, I did not bleat on about how bad things were, I just left. Selfish? I took an £18,000 pay cut for my beliefs. By all means have a go at the people who say 'we had it worse' but don't insult all of us who left......

[MReyn24050]

I can fully understand the sentiments being expressed by CatpainCaveman, Mr 16 Blades and others. It very obvious that Blair couldn’t careless about the welfare or of the morale of HM Forces. However I must support jayteeto it is not just only of late that the Forces have been subjected to overstretch or expected to do the job without the support being in place. I left the Army in 1989 after 22 years service. In the early 70s. I was with REME supporting the AAC. During that period I spent Christmas in Northern Ireland on an Op Banner tour to be followed by a six week Sky Warrior Exercise on the Otterburn Training area. This was followed by another Christmas away in Belize with three Sioux Helicopters “preventing” Guatemala from taking over the country. This was followed by another tour in NI. I hardly ever saw my kids in two years. When back at base, although we were not supposed to work overtime, the flying tasks continued to be accepted regardless of the maintenance workload. The Flight Commander still had all his aircraft to complete these tasks. At the end of the 70s I was involved in bringing the Lynx into Squadron Service in BAOR. The manning of Technicians to support this aircraft had been based on Westland’s “sales” talk regarding the manhours required per flying hours and as expected had been totally underestimated. The technicians were working round the clock to maintain the aircraft. On the first field exercise we ended up with 4 unserviceable aircraft stuck outside of 4 different villages being repaired. As usual the aircraft had been introduced without all the support being available. The point I am making is that overstretch, logistic and support equipment shortages are not a new words in the Forces vocabulary. However the main difference is that we are now talking about more and more Operations than Exercises and that is totally unacceptable.

As Mr 16 Blades stated

“it is done nowadays, with great personal sacrifice and pride in our own professionalism which dictates that we MUST succeed at whatever foolhardy and poorly-thought-out venture is thrown our way, regardless of the lack of money / equipment / support we have. “

Well it is not just nowadays, the services have always performed in such a manner. Perhaps that is the trouble we mask the problems. I believe most of the time these people do not realise the effort the boys put in to meet the demands. Although their airships should as they must have been there themselves at some

[BackfromIraq]

As we've proven more than once, technology may well make a significant contribution to winning the war but, as anyone who's been anywhere in the last 10 years should have noticed, it's manpower that wins the peace. Saw it in Kosovo and Bosnia and again in Iraq. Whatever is said about the infantry when they're causing havoc in barracks, they do a top job when the bricks are being thrown.

Unfortunately all those MPs who come out to operational theatres just see the guys in their lines and ask if the "food's all right?, Post getting through? Good, good", pick up a bottle of duty free then fly back to Westminster. All this creates is hassle. The guys have to sweep the sand off the desert, paint the roads black and kerbs white rather than getting their heads down or being allowed to get on with their primary role. You could get away with this with more troops bbut it ain't gonna happen because the visitors don't get to see the overstretch because that would mean them putting themselves closer to danger than the risk of chocking on a bone in their smoked salmon sandwich (no crusts of course).

Do you think the Govt will do anything about the recent report stating that there are far too few troops on the ground in Iraq at the moment? I'm not confident. Why? Because they're all insulated from the bad stuff that might give them nightmares. Let's face it, Defence budgets never won votes. The people want more unemployment benefit, better medical care and schools. Rather than cutting the massive administrative budgets of all these departments and having to pay them unemploymeny benefit, if there's such a small identifiable direct threat to the UK, we become the target.

Unfortunately the Govt haven't figured out that in a conflict of almost any kind there have to be immediate reserves, especially as it seesm the training time has increased exponentially with technological advances. 6-7 hours in a Spitfire and then plunged into battle...?

The armed forces will (hopefully) never (have to) be a profit-making organisation but I'm sure that someday in the relatively near future someone's going to look at our increasingly limited capability and decide that we can fulfil no role whatsoever and we should all seek alternative employment...but it'll be the fault of successive Govts, not the one that makes the decision.

I have a deep distrust of all politicians (including our immediate masters) and I'd love to know what some of them really do and what they aim to achieve by their jobs but this was started a long time ago.

[Yeller_Gait]

The armed forces will (hopefully) never (have to) be a profit-making organisation

Are they not 80% of the way there anyway, what with all the budget holders that each RAF station has (and I assume that the Army and RN are the same). The only difference is that our budget holders are not accountants (yet) and will never make a profit, just penny-pinch wherever and whenever.

[SRENNAPS]

Please see my post in More Defence Cuts Planned.

Sadly I do not think we will get anywhere with our chats here.

There are two types of person in the RAF (and prob the army and Navy as well).

The first are people that post here on Prune. They express an opinion, are proud and very loyal in their beliefs. They work hard and place others before themselves.

Then there is the rest who sit back and keep quite, until the time is right to say "THE RIGHT THING". They have no loyalty, only agree with what the current PC system dictates and worst still they smirk at people like us.

Having spent 44 years in the Air Force (17 as kid with his old man & 27 in the mob) I have seen real change - and not for the good.

Sadly I see that more people of the second catergory appear to be in the nest these days deciding PC policy and sucking up to Politicians.

Am I right or just old/wrong and $$$$?? off.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

27 years...get some time in:p

Whilst I applaud your sentiment I am sure that a good few of those who post here are the same "faceless monkees" who capitulate on a daily basis when times are getting hard for their troops:}

Sqn Boss........no names no pack drills etc........having recieved a PVR from one of the finest, most loyal and hard working guys I have had the pleasure to work with in my 30 years toil was heard to remark.........."we can afford to lose a few"

To move onwards and upwards one assumes you don't rock the boat...................lord help us all:}

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[Tigs2]

16 Blades

Your comments concerning retired servicemen and women are insulting. You have as you say, every right to get things off your chest, so do they.

Service life has been demanding for everyone over the last 40 years, and it is still demanding today. Do not mention selfish goals to me , when as a pilot in the SH force spending nine months of the year away from home, i sweated blood and tears for the RAF, and it cost me my family, relationship etc etc. When i decided it was time to move on, I did so quietly, I was sent away on detachment when it should have been my dining out from the airforce(and went on said detachment without bitching and moaning). You have it hard now (as everyone does) but do not belittle the efforts and sacrifices of your predecessors.

Just because people leave does not imply that they can't cut it or they are disloyal. Like many of my peer group who have left, cut me through the middle and you would find a roundel. Your statement

quote:

"Fair enough if you decided you couldn't hack it anymore, but please don't preach to those of use who have the gumption and commitment to stick it out"

Does your 'gumption and commitment' include the numerous people I have spoken to, who are unhappy with their lot, and when I say 'why don't you leave', i get retorts such as 'well i can't really, who else would pay me this well in civvy street', Or even worse 'I'm just going to stick it out so the RAF will pay my kids boarding school allowance'. Is that the sort of 'selfless people' you are talking about when you accuse the rest of us of pursuing our own 'selfish goals'?

to finish with your statement 'well it had to be said' - but i'm not ducking

[soddim]

Too often in my 36 years in the RAF "Can do attitude" meant "My men can do and I can get promoted". Nowhere could I find a senior officer prepared to say "No can do" even though many had protested that the job could not possibly be done if manning was reduced. How could they expect to be believed after that?

Unfortunately, the service is now staffed by people at the top who would never have got there if their competing peers had stayed in and it is unlikely that any of these would be listened to even if they did have the gumption to make a stand against reduction of capability.

However, a hypothetical question for the few at the top who might still care 'What would you advise the Defence minister if he asked you to mount an operation to retake the Falklands from the Argies after they seized it back in 2008'? Would the answer be 'Can do'?

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

Soddim,
How painfully accurate your words are. Our third of the J cadre are, to quite a bl@@dy nice Flt Cdr, currently bleeding:}

Having been further tasked with providing a Guard Cdr our upper echelon were advised that something would have to give to make this so. Advice from the Boss................I know it's painful but just get on with it:sad:

Stars is a wonderful thing and allows all of us to see what each section is up to. Our sister Sqn's are currently heading west on a more frequent basis and no jealousy I hasten to add. However all frames are carrying at least double crews...........one has 17 CREW and 3 GE's but as it is off to as far west in the good old US as you can go........ nice one dudes:ok

With our blindingly obvious manpower surplus why are those with blindingly obvious manpower surplus not picking up the niff naff etc.............cos despite our protestations if a Boss rejects something, whatever it is,............. the next rung just slips slowly out of sight:rolleyes:

Still only 8 years to go till the new pension scheme and PA spine see me into retirement:ok:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced