Defence Cuts latest
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As a Trade Group 1 Chief Tech who is due to leave the Air Force on LOS 30 in 2008. Could anybody tell me this:
a. What are my chances to get promoted to Flt Sgt and serve to age 55.
b. Will I be accepted for the "Targeted Redundancy scheme"
c. Or will I just stay on in the air force, being rejected for redundancy and finding out in 2007, month 11 that I just missed out on promotion - THANK YOU - GOOD BYE.
a. What are my chances to get promoted to Flt Sgt and serve to age 55.
b. Will I be accepted for the "Targeted Redundancy scheme"
c. Or will I just stay on in the air force, being rejected for redundancy and finding out in 2007, month 11 that I just missed out on promotion - THANK YOU - GOOD BYE.
BEagle,
WHAT assertions?
and you can
off back to YOUR day job!
WHAT assertions?
and you can
off back to YOUR day job!
Lasernigel,
Consider this:
Prior to this review there was about £4.1 Bn in the pot to do the following:
1) Replace the almost life-exed Lynx Mk7 fleet and the Gazelles with a highly capable, network enabled, ISTAR, DofF and light utility helo.
2) Allow Merlin to continue to operate until 2030 via the Capability Sustainment Package.
3) Buy a heap of new Chinnooks to provide the sorely lacking battlefield lift capability (preferably with powered blade fold and marinised for amphibious ops).
4) Replace the Lynx Mk3 & 8 with SCMR.
5) Provide 20 odd military SAR helos.
Following the review that £4.1 Bn for helos has been cut to just over £3 Bn. Future Lynx was going to cost about £1 Bn, to provide both BLUH and SCMR.
Still wondering about the Lynx fleet numbers?
Consider this:
Prior to this review there was about £4.1 Bn in the pot to do the following:
1) Replace the almost life-exed Lynx Mk7 fleet and the Gazelles with a highly capable, network enabled, ISTAR, DofF and light utility helo.
2) Allow Merlin to continue to operate until 2030 via the Capability Sustainment Package.
3) Buy a heap of new Chinnooks to provide the sorely lacking battlefield lift capability (preferably with powered blade fold and marinised for amphibious ops).
4) Replace the Lynx Mk3 & 8 with SCMR.
5) Provide 20 odd military SAR helos.
Following the review that £4.1 Bn for helos has been cut to just over £3 Bn. Future Lynx was going to cost about £1 Bn, to provide both BLUH and SCMR.
Still wondering about the Lynx fleet numbers?
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pr00ne happy to accept you in the current job 
The 52200 was indeed the total number of personnel - in training included but when the question was posed earlier today the answer of 41000 included untrained as well as trained personnel so there has been an overall cut of 11200.
Whilst I agree that the aim of the 'efficiency' savings is to plough it back into the Defence budget, I have the sneakiest inkling that they will be taken back to the treasury, as they were this year. I know, call me a bluff old cynic but I've found it to be the most accurate source thus far.
The 52200 was indeed the total number of personnel - in training included but when the question was posed earlier today the answer of 41000 included untrained as well as trained personnel so there has been an overall cut of 11200.
Whilst I agree that the aim of the 'efficiency' savings is to plough it back into the Defence budget, I have the sneakiest inkling that they will be taken back to the treasury, as they were this year. I know, call me a bluff old cynic but I've found it to be the most accurate source thus far.
In Tor Wot,
Why thankyou!
If you are right about numbers where are they coming from I wonder?
11000 is a large chunk of the current RAF strength, I know you save a good number when you close a main operating base, 10% of the Rocks, between 1 and 4 FJ outfits, a Nimrod Sqn, where are the rest to come from?
Why thankyou!
If you are right about numbers where are they coming from I wonder?
11000 is a large chunk of the current RAF strength, I know you save a good number when you close a main operating base, 10% of the Rocks, between 1 and 4 FJ outfits, a Nimrod Sqn, where are the rest to come from?
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What will we do with Colt when she closes. Last I heard, under all the environmental laws, the cost of cleaning up a long-standing station far exceeded its sell off value. Plus, what will the value of the land be when you have just closed what is presumably one of the major employers in the area.
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Pr00ne
Allthough I do not post here often I have read this site for the last 6 years with great enjoyment.
I do not beleive that you are entitled to slag beagle off with the words "b*gger off and get back to your day job etc"
As an old chief in todays air force you sound like somebody that has been no where, seen no where, but knows it all,
Maybe I'm wrong!!!!
Allthough I do not post here often I have read this site for the last 6 years with great enjoyment.
I do not beleive that you are entitled to slag beagle off with the words "b*gger off and get back to your day job etc"
As an old chief in todays air force you sound like somebody that has been no where, seen no where, but knows it all,
Maybe I'm wrong!!!!
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Arms Plotting
Just reading through the text, and noticed that "Arms Plotting" - the practice of rebasing whole battalions every couple of years - will be phased out, which will "enable individual Servicemen and their families to plan on being based within a certain geogrpahical area ... and enable Service families to put down roots in the communities in which they are based.
I realise those of us on fleets with only one base already have this luxury to a certain extent, but for everyone bouncing between Benson and NI or Leuchars, Leeming and Coningsby etc, will we get the same opportunity? And as each Army regiment recruits from its local area, and a recruit gets to choose which regiment to apply for, will we be able to choose aircraft type based on location? Completely unworkable I know, but a nice idea.
BCH
PS Having finished the document, and seen that Northern Ireland is now well on the way to normalisation and Tornado ops at Leeming will stop around 2008, maybe it isn't so unworkable after all.
I realise those of us on fleets with only one base already have this luxury to a certain extent, but for everyone bouncing between Benson and NI or Leuchars, Leeming and Coningsby etc, will we get the same opportunity? And as each Army regiment recruits from its local area, and a recruit gets to choose which regiment to apply for, will we be able to choose aircraft type based on location? Completely unworkable I know, but a nice idea.
BCH
PS Having finished the document, and seen that Northern Ireland is now well on the way to normalisation and Tornado ops at Leeming will stop around 2008, maybe it isn't so unworkable after all.
Last edited by Big Cat Handler; 21st Jul 2004 at 22:23.
SRENNAPS,
You are wrong, very wrong, couldn't be more wrong in fact.
I flew the same sort of a/c in the RAF as did BEagle briefly, but I stayed a little longer on type...............................
You are wrong, very wrong, couldn't be more wrong in fact.
I flew the same sort of a/c in the RAF as did BEagle briefly, but I stayed a little longer on type...............................
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How much worse could it get?
Cuts reduce RAF to The Few
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent, and Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 22/07/2004)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../22/ndef22.xml
Nearly a quarter of the RAF is to be axed, with the loss of more than 100 front-line aircraft, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday.
Overall, the Armed Forces will be reduced by a tenth in what the Tories described as "a political and moral betrayal". Many ships and tanks will be scrapped.
The RAF is to be cut from 53,800 personnel to 41,000 and will lose all 108 Jaguar ground attack aircraft. A fifth of its Tornado F3 fighter aircraft are to go, plus its base at Coltishall, Norfolk.
It will also lose nine of its Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and the RAF Regiment's air defence capability.
The Royal Navy will lose 5,000 men and 15 vessels, including the Type 42 destroyers Cardiff, Newcastle and Glasgow, the Type 23 frigates Norfolk, Grafton and Marlborough and the hunter-killer submarines Spartan, Superb and Trafalgar.
The Army is to lose 5,500 men and more than 80 Challenger II tanks as part of a major restructuring in which all 19 single-battalion "famous names" will be subsumed into large regionally-based regiments, with the loss of four named regiments.
Much of the detail of the cuts will not be given until later in the year when military bases and many helicopters will be axed.
The only expansion is in special forces, with a second regular SAS regiment expected to be created to cope with the amount of work the SAS and SBS have been carrying out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Hoon told MPs that 10,000 Ministry of Defence civil servants would lose their jobs as part of "improvements to military capabilities".
He said the "rebalancing" was designed to ensure that the Armed Forces were "equipped and trained to continue to perform with success in the future those tasks which they have so admirably undertaken in recent years". The forces had "enthusiastically embraced this process of transformation" which would "see a shift away from an emphasis on numbers of platforms and of people".
But last night there was a deep sense of shock in the RAF and the Royal Navy, the two services hardest hit. A recently retired senior officer said both felt "the top brass have sold them out".
Nicholas Soames, the shadow defence secretary, said the forces would feel "betrayed politically and morally" and the public would be "dismayed" by the "underhand" treatment meted out to those who had fought for their country.
All three services are below their established strengths and the Army and the Royal Navy will need to lose only about 1,500 personnel. But many RAF and MoD civil servants will be made redundant.
Defence sources said the calculations had been very difficult, with the Treasury refusing to pay for the redundancies that were an inevitable result of its failure to fund defence properly.
It is still refusing to pay more than £500 million of the money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence is in the grip of a major financial crisis, caused in part by its failure to realise the full effect of the Treasury's introduction of resource account budgeting, which penalises it heavily because of the large amount of land it owns. It also over-estimated the amount it could save by making small cuts to large procurement projects such as the Eurofighter and the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers. Both projects will continue but the number of the Navy's new Type 45 destroyers will be cut from 12 to eight.
The angry debate that preceded the announcements had led Mr Hoon to warn the defence chiefs that any sign of dissent "would lead to them being shown the door", defence sources said.
In a personal message to the fleet, Adml Sir Alan West, the First Sea Lord, emphasised the difficulties the Navy now faced.
He said that "clearly a ship can only be in one place at a time" and added: "I do not instinctively welcome the early disposal of good ships."
Gen Sir Michael Walker, the Chief of the Defence Staff, told service personnel in a letter that "tough choices" had been made and that the numbers of personnel being axed were "stark".
Defence sources said he had gone to see Tony Blair three times to curtail the cuts to levels that he and the other defence chiefs believed the forces would accept.
So contentious were some of the cuts that changes were being made up to the last minute. The decision to axe only one of the Scottish famous name infantry regiments was taken this week for purely political reasons to try to contain the angry reaction in Scotland.
The names of the one Scottish and three English regiments to be axed will not be announced until later in the year. The six Scottish infantry line regiments have been told to decide among themselves which regiment is to go, with the Highlanders the most likely.
Cuts reduce RAF to The Few
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent, and Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 22/07/2004)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../22/ndef22.xml
Nearly a quarter of the RAF is to be axed, with the loss of more than 100 front-line aircraft, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday.
Overall, the Armed Forces will be reduced by a tenth in what the Tories described as "a political and moral betrayal". Many ships and tanks will be scrapped.
The RAF is to be cut from 53,800 personnel to 41,000 and will lose all 108 Jaguar ground attack aircraft. A fifth of its Tornado F3 fighter aircraft are to go, plus its base at Coltishall, Norfolk.
It will also lose nine of its Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and the RAF Regiment's air defence capability.
The Royal Navy will lose 5,000 men and 15 vessels, including the Type 42 destroyers Cardiff, Newcastle and Glasgow, the Type 23 frigates Norfolk, Grafton and Marlborough and the hunter-killer submarines Spartan, Superb and Trafalgar.
The Army is to lose 5,500 men and more than 80 Challenger II tanks as part of a major restructuring in which all 19 single-battalion "famous names" will be subsumed into large regionally-based regiments, with the loss of four named regiments.
Much of the detail of the cuts will not be given until later in the year when military bases and many helicopters will be axed.
The only expansion is in special forces, with a second regular SAS regiment expected to be created to cope with the amount of work the SAS and SBS have been carrying out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Hoon told MPs that 10,000 Ministry of Defence civil servants would lose their jobs as part of "improvements to military capabilities".
He said the "rebalancing" was designed to ensure that the Armed Forces were "equipped and trained to continue to perform with success in the future those tasks which they have so admirably undertaken in recent years". The forces had "enthusiastically embraced this process of transformation" which would "see a shift away from an emphasis on numbers of platforms and of people".
But last night there was a deep sense of shock in the RAF and the Royal Navy, the two services hardest hit. A recently retired senior officer said both felt "the top brass have sold them out".
Nicholas Soames, the shadow defence secretary, said the forces would feel "betrayed politically and morally" and the public would be "dismayed" by the "underhand" treatment meted out to those who had fought for their country.
All three services are below their established strengths and the Army and the Royal Navy will need to lose only about 1,500 personnel. But many RAF and MoD civil servants will be made redundant.
Defence sources said the calculations had been very difficult, with the Treasury refusing to pay for the redundancies that were an inevitable result of its failure to fund defence properly.
It is still refusing to pay more than £500 million of the money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence is in the grip of a major financial crisis, caused in part by its failure to realise the full effect of the Treasury's introduction of resource account budgeting, which penalises it heavily because of the large amount of land it owns. It also over-estimated the amount it could save by making small cuts to large procurement projects such as the Eurofighter and the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers. Both projects will continue but the number of the Navy's new Type 45 destroyers will be cut from 12 to eight.
The angry debate that preceded the announcements had led Mr Hoon to warn the defence chiefs that any sign of dissent "would lead to them being shown the door", defence sources said.
In a personal message to the fleet, Adml Sir Alan West, the First Sea Lord, emphasised the difficulties the Navy now faced.
He said that "clearly a ship can only be in one place at a time" and added: "I do not instinctively welcome the early disposal of good ships."
Gen Sir Michael Walker, the Chief of the Defence Staff, told service personnel in a letter that "tough choices" had been made and that the numbers of personnel being axed were "stark".
Defence sources said he had gone to see Tony Blair three times to curtail the cuts to levels that he and the other defence chiefs believed the forces would accept.
So contentious were some of the cuts that changes were being made up to the last minute. The decision to axe only one of the Scottish famous name infantry regiments was taken this week for purely political reasons to try to contain the angry reaction in Scotland.
The names of the one Scottish and three English regiments to be axed will not be announced until later in the year. The six Scottish infantry line regiments have been told to decide among themselves which regiment is to go, with the Highlanders the most likely.
Where did he get 108 Jags from? 3 x front line squadrons plus an OCU - Telegraph clearly believes that each has a UE of 27 aircraft... (Yes, I know about reserves/ airframes in storage, etc, but still...)
He also seems to have added a submarine to the list - Buff thinks he's only getting rid of two.
On top of that, CNS seems to be under the impression that he's not losing any personnel.
The idea of a second SF rgt is interesting as well - not least since the press (and I think it was the Torygraph) has been busy reporting that members of said forces are leaving in droves.
It's all very well the Torygraph coming out with a hostile reaction to the cuts (no bad thing), but to do it in such a way that the misleading facts can easily be rebuffed (no pun intended) and used to discredit the entire story. But then this is the Torygraph defence 'expert' we're talking about, I suppose.
He also seems to have added a submarine to the list - Buff thinks he's only getting rid of two.
On top of that, CNS seems to be under the impression that he's not losing any personnel.
The idea of a second SF rgt is interesting as well - not least since the press (and I think it was the Torygraph) has been busy reporting that members of said forces are leaving in droves.
It's all very well the Torygraph coming out with a hostile reaction to the cuts (no bad thing), but to do it in such a way that the misleading facts can easily be rebuffed (no pun intended) and used to discredit the entire story. But then this is the Torygraph defence 'expert' we're talking about, I suppose.
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As a civvy taxpayer this whole episode depresses me.
We need to spend money on defence, more than on many of the harebrained schemes that this, and to be honest many previous, governments seem so wedded to. People need to wake up.
In today's global security environment can anybody tell me that the USA are also seeing a "shift away from emphasis on numbers of platforms and people" and implementing similar "improvements to military capabilities".
I doubt it.
We need to spend money on defence, more than on many of the harebrained schemes that this, and to be honest many previous, governments seem so wedded to. People need to wake up.
In today's global security environment can anybody tell me that the USA are also seeing a "shift away from emphasis on numbers of platforms and people" and implementing similar "improvements to military capabilities".
I doubt it.
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Lasernigel
"Anyone want to tell me where all the Gazelles and Lynx from the AAC have gone to??"
I agree the figures given in the Force Structure and Overall Force Levels are confusing. As as well as Lynx/Gazelles there in no mention of Merlin Mk1s or other Mark Sea Kings.
Excerpt from the Review Paper
"Over the next ten years, we plan to invest some £3bn
in helicopter platforms to replace and enhance our existing capability. In light of the improved security situation in
Northern Ireland we plan to make some reductions in overall helicopter numbers.
2.24 This substantial investment within a relatively condensed timeframe offers an opportunity to maximise efficiencies and coherence across our future helicopter fleet in the key
capability areas of lift, reconnaissance and attack, which will be central to future expeditionary operations. We have accordingly been working with industry, to review thoroughly both our
capability requirements and our forward plans. This work continues, and we aim to report on progress in the next few
months."
More to come!!
"Anyone want to tell me where all the Gazelles and Lynx from the AAC have gone to??"
I agree the figures given in the Force Structure and Overall Force Levels are confusing. As as well as Lynx/Gazelles there in no mention of Merlin Mk1s or other Mark Sea Kings.
Excerpt from the Review Paper
"Over the next ten years, we plan to invest some £3bn
in helicopter platforms to replace and enhance our existing capability. In light of the improved security situation in
Northern Ireland we plan to make some reductions in overall helicopter numbers.
2.24 This substantial investment within a relatively condensed timeframe offers an opportunity to maximise efficiencies and coherence across our future helicopter fleet in the key
capability areas of lift, reconnaissance and attack, which will be central to future expeditionary operations. We have accordingly been working with industry, to review thoroughly both our
capability requirements and our forward plans. This work continues, and we aim to report on progress in the next few
months."
More to come!!
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Archimedes,
Remember this is Micheal Smith, the same ace Telegraph defence reporter who has spent the last few weeks confidently predicting the loss of the Harrier and Puma fleets as well as the Jags, the entire Regt and Cranwell. Do you think the guy just uses a dartboard?
Remember this is Micheal Smith, the same ace Telegraph defence reporter who has spent the last few weeks confidently predicting the loss of the Harrier and Puma fleets as well as the Jags, the entire Regt and Cranwell. Do you think the guy just uses a dartboard?
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What the press are missing in all this crap is that although spending is increasing the entire increase and more from the existing budget will be swallowed up by a Trident upgrade, hence the hammering of conventional forces.
Who exactly are we fighting with nuclear cruise missiles this century?
Every conflict and commitment in recent times has needed well-equipped air, sea and land forces. Erm...so where should the money be spent?
Sorry I forgot - on the big expensive weapons with no targets.
Can't remember the last time a nuke provided air support, protected people's feet in the desert or camoflaged them from the enemy.
Rant over.
Who exactly are we fighting with nuclear cruise missiles this century?
Every conflict and commitment in recent times has needed well-equipped air, sea and land forces. Erm...so where should the money be spent?
Sorry I forgot - on the big expensive weapons with no targets.
Can't remember the last time a nuke provided air support, protected people's feet in the desert or camoflaged them from the enemy.
Rant over.