Yet more bad news?
Aircraftless bases
....except ATC and stuff. Syerston, Halton, Stanbridge, Hendon, Fylingdales, Cosford, Henlow, Brampton, Uxbridge, Woodvale. There's my ten and several RLG like Church Fenton and Mona.
Syerston, Halton, Stanbridge, Hendon, Fylingdales, Cosford, Henlow, Brampton, Uxbridge, Woodvale. There's my ten and several RLG like Church Fenton and Mona.
Not wishing to be picky or anything but...
Syerston - home of Central Gliding School
Cosford - home of Birmingham UAS
Woodvale - home of Liverpool UAS and Manchester UAS
Church Fenton - home of 85 (R) Sqn and Yorkshire UAS
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"Church Fenton - home of 85 (R) Sqn and Yorkshire UAS"
Church Fenton - I can remember when the real 85 Sqn flew Meteor NF14s out of Chrich Fenton. Well no I can't actually but I wish I could! (JPs and Tucanos when I was there - lovely station, shame its only an RLG now.)
Given the figures regarding the numbers of wg cdrs I'm so glad I didn't make it that far, because I feel less guilty resettling as a sqn ldr - yeah right! Does this count as self-banter?
Church Fenton - I can remember when the real 85 Sqn flew Meteor NF14s out of Chrich Fenton. Well no I can't actually but I wish I could! (JPs and Tucanos when I was there - lovely station, shame its only an RLG now.)
Given the figures regarding the numbers of wg cdrs I'm so glad I didn't make it that far, because I feel less guilty resettling as a sqn ldr - yeah right! Does this count as self-banter?
Via a work colleague last week I received a report which indicates that it is likely that there will be:
a 10,000 loss in head count
early retirement of Harrier & consequent closure of Wittering & Cottesmore
Training activities at Linton On Ouse and Leeming to transfer to Valley, presumably (although not stated) with closure of Linton, Leeming & their satellites.
a 10,000 loss in head count
early retirement of Harrier & consequent closure of Wittering & Cottesmore
Training activities at Linton On Ouse and Leeming to transfer to Valley, presumably (although not stated) with closure of Linton, Leeming & their satellites.
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Getting back on thread
The figure of £6 billion was bandied.
Let's be silly and multiply it by a factor of 10 and call it £60 billion (bear with me).
Even THIS figure is peanuts when viewed against what the government 'borrowed' to shore up the banks.
I heard £1.4 'trillion' mentioned for the first time last week. A debt figure of £44,000 for every man, woman and child (and probably the illegals too) was mentioned - as a scale of perspective (must admit I didn't bother to do the maths). Yes I did £2.64 with 12 zeroes (assuming 60 million population).
Personally, I find THAT scary.
But hey, give the bankers their bonuses, otherwise they might leave - where?
Let's be silly and multiply it by a factor of 10 and call it £60 billion (bear with me).
Even THIS figure is peanuts when viewed against what the government 'borrowed' to shore up the banks.
I heard £1.4 'trillion' mentioned for the first time last week. A debt figure of £44,000 for every man, woman and child (and probably the illegals too) was mentioned - as a scale of perspective (must admit I didn't bother to do the maths). Yes I did £2.64 with 12 zeroes (assuming 60 million population).
Personally, I find THAT scary.
But hey, give the bankers their bonuses, otherwise they might leave - where?
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Melchett01
The RAF does NOT send only its Officers to War.
NCA? RAF Regt? TSW? Get a grip, man! How long have you been in?
-----------------------------------------------------
Back to the post:maybe the time has come to try to redefine our Defence Strategy?
Perhaps we should take this opportunity to downscale our aspirations and accept becoming more like say, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark or Belgium? That does not mean no Typhoons or Carriers or Main Battle Tanks - lets just manage numbers in line with any new strategy better than we hitherto have done.
And ensure that the saved cash helps towards National Debt reduction and social frameworks like the NHS, Education and Law Enforcement AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES.
This would mean causing massive heartache to our British sense of martial tradition, but would also (pleasingly) cause alot of heartache for those politicians who, as Douglas Hurd once said, perceive the UK Armed Forces as a fantastic export:we help politicians to "play the big men" at the World Table because of our ability to "punch above our weight".
The RAF does NOT send only its Officers to War.
NCA? RAF Regt? TSW? Get a grip, man! How long have you been in?
-----------------------------------------------------
Back to the post:maybe the time has come to try to redefine our Defence Strategy?
Perhaps we should take this opportunity to downscale our aspirations and accept becoming more like say, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark or Belgium? That does not mean no Typhoons or Carriers or Main Battle Tanks - lets just manage numbers in line with any new strategy better than we hitherto have done.
And ensure that the saved cash helps towards National Debt reduction and social frameworks like the NHS, Education and Law Enforcement AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES.
This would mean causing massive heartache to our British sense of martial tradition, but would also (pleasingly) cause alot of heartache for those politicians who, as Douglas Hurd once said, perceive the UK Armed Forces as a fantastic export:we help politicians to "play the big men" at the World Table because of our ability to "punch above our weight".
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Chaps,
The figures from the MoD stats, (rounded and 'remembered from another window') accessible through open source, are a year old, but they show that the army has a total strength of 104,000 with officers of Lt Col and above numbering 2600. The RAF has a strength reducing to 41,000 and has 1700 officers of Wg Cdr and above. So, for whatever reason the RAF appears a little more top heavy. Interestingly though, the RAF are 160 officers short, the RN has 10 too many and the army has 690 officers over requirement.
If you fancy a look try www.dasa.mod.uk, or just search for officers numbers at mod.uk.
The figures from the MoD stats, (rounded and 'remembered from another window') accessible through open source, are a year old, but they show that the army has a total strength of 104,000 with officers of Lt Col and above numbering 2600. The RAF has a strength reducing to 41,000 and has 1700 officers of Wg Cdr and above. So, for whatever reason the RAF appears a little more top heavy. Interestingly though, the RAF are 160 officers short, the RN has 10 too many and the army has 690 officers over requirement.
If you fancy a look try www.dasa.mod.uk, or just search for officers numbers at mod.uk.
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Melchet
It may be land-centric (as COIN ops are); however, it is air power (delivered by air and aviation) that is giving our forces an assymetric advantage over the insurgets (especially in ISTAR, rapid battlespace mobility, and firepower).
notwithstanding the current land-centric campaign
Climbear,
Agree with you entirely there. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in terms of ISTAR, air power is absolutely fundamental to targeting insurgent networks, and the F3EA targeting cycle makes excellent use of it, ney, relies on it for much of its success.
I just wish that some of the less enlightened 'Brown jobs' could see the same thing, and get past the whole mindset of RAF = utterly useless, delayed AT and 'that white elephant Typhoon'.
That said, if you look at the forces we have deployed on HERRICK, and take out all the support elements - inc ISTAR, SH, AT, eng, admin, cooks, bottlewashers etc (all vital I know, but hear me out) - and look at the numbers in terms of actual prosecuting enemy targets by land or air, then it becomes very sobering and rather depressing when you realise that the entire MOD can now only effectively support a Bde+ and a couple of sqns (FJ / AH) theatre at any one time. And to do that, we have had to more or less mortgage defence for the next generation and get rid of any notion of maintaining a contingent capability. Yes, a rather simplistic view I know, and very rough numbers, but you get the general idea of just how bad a way Defence is actually in these days.
Agree with you entirely there. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in terms of ISTAR, air power is absolutely fundamental to targeting insurgent networks, and the F3EA targeting cycle makes excellent use of it, ney, relies on it for much of its success.
I just wish that some of the less enlightened 'Brown jobs' could see the same thing, and get past the whole mindset of RAF = utterly useless, delayed AT and 'that white elephant Typhoon'.
That said, if you look at the forces we have deployed on HERRICK, and take out all the support elements - inc ISTAR, SH, AT, eng, admin, cooks, bottlewashers etc (all vital I know, but hear me out) - and look at the numbers in terms of actual prosecuting enemy targets by land or air, then it becomes very sobering and rather depressing when you realise that the entire MOD can now only effectively support a Bde+ and a couple of sqns (FJ / AH) theatre at any one time. And to do that, we have had to more or less mortgage defence for the next generation and get rid of any notion of maintaining a contingent capability. Yes, a rather simplistic view I know, and very rough numbers, but you get the general idea of just how bad a way Defence is actually in these days.
Melchett -
Can you take data samples from which ever planet youre on and forward them to NASA. It may save them launching an expensive probe so deep into outer space.
MGD
Can you take data samples from which ever planet youre on and forward them to NASA. It may save them launching an expensive probe so deep into outer space.
MGD
MGD -
I assume it is my contention that Defence can now only support one Bde+ and a couple of air / aviation sqns that you disagree with. Difficult to say though from your post it just sort of hangs there as an open statement. If it's the ISTAR comments at the start you disagree with, you best have a word in theatre, because that's what we're using.
But working on the assumption that you don't agree that Defence can't manage to field any more than a Bde+ and a couple of FJ / AH as specifically roled combat / teeth arms - and I did make that differentiation and the importance of the CS/CSS units quite clear - let's have a look at some rough numbers (all open source before anyone calls for black Omegas).
RC(S) is about 35,000 strong. We currently command it via 6 Div. How many troops in 6 Div? Not many at all - in fact 6 Div is little more than a trg / admin Div lifed until the end of 2011 when it is scheduled to be disbanded.
In terms of pure combat / teeth arms in RC(S) you have:
TF Helmand - UK
TF Leatherneck - USMC
TF Kandahar - Can
TF Stryker - US / Romania
TF Uruzgan - Dutch
Now of all those TFs, only Helmand is British, and even then its role has become more concentrated in a relatively small pocket of the Province. UK Plc certainly does not have a large number of teeth arm forces outside of Helmand BG.
Drilling down into UK Plc's contribution, look on the MOD website at which British units from across all 3 Services are involved in Herrick during the course of 2009. Many of the units on that list are not permanent fixtures, but rotate through theatre on short tours. But having one big consolidated list makes life easy and makes our contribution look numerically much bigger than it is at any one time.
http://http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInte...tishForces.htm
We have roughly 10,000 in country i.e a Division's worth of troops, which is probably at the lower end of what constitutes a Division. If you acknowledge that most of our fighting power is based around TF Helmand and its Battlegroups, then by the same token of what constitutes a Division, a Bde is generally thought to be between 2 - 5,000 troops. Now I haven't been in theatre since late 08, so may be a little out of date, but I would suggest that we don't quite have 5,000 teeth arm troops in Helmand, but I'm willing to play along and run with 5,000 as the upper end of a Bde-sized unit. That still leaves another 5,000 troops to provide support of all kinds - CS, CSS, ISTAR, intelligence, etc etc etc to the 5,000 combat troops.
Now how big are the collective UK armed forces? Lets call it a nice round 225,000, to include Reserves and those going through training. Based on these numbers, 10,000 troops equates to just under 5% of the total strength of the UK armed forces deployed in Afghanistan, of which probably only half i.e. 2.5% -Bde+ and AH / FJ are actaully there in a pure combat role.
And to allow us to sustain that the Army has had to go onto a permanent war footing with its Op Entirety, the RAF is cannibalising airframes left right and centre across all fleets whilst harmony figures are now only found in an History of the RAF, and the Navy have more or less deployed the majority of its air assets whilst the rest of its surface fleet can largely manage a couple of laps of the Channel before somone in the Treasury hauls them back in for costing too much to operate. And as for the MOD, they seem to be in a constant tail spin with trying to keep up with events. And whilst all this is going on, we aren't doing anything else. Surely even you have heard the cries of 'if we can't use it in Afghanistan in the next couple of years, we aren't interested / can't afford it'. Now how many troops has the USMC just deployed to Helmand at a stroke, and how many more US troops are coming in over the next few months? Puts things into perspective about how broken we actually are doesn't it.
So do you still disagree that the UK armed forces are in such a state that effectively our future has been mortgaged to support a numerically limited amount of combat power? Most of this has come through the UOR process rather than Core or organic capability; when our time in Afghanistan comes to an end and we have to sit down and look seriously at what we want to do and more importantly what we can do. We must also remember that there is a chance that much of this current UOR-derived capability will not make it into Core in the longer term, meaning that when HERRICK ends, if this capability is not brought into Core, Defence will potentially be looking at a serious regression in capability and will be significantly weakened as a viable tri-service organisation. And as much as it pains me to say it, even you with an endless supply of ammo wouldn't be able to sort this one out - although I would quite like to let you loose in Main Building and watch the feathers flying even more than usual!
I assume it is my contention that Defence can now only support one Bde+ and a couple of air / aviation sqns that you disagree with. Difficult to say though from your post it just sort of hangs there as an open statement. If it's the ISTAR comments at the start you disagree with, you best have a word in theatre, because that's what we're using.
But working on the assumption that you don't agree that Defence can't manage to field any more than a Bde+ and a couple of FJ / AH as specifically roled combat / teeth arms - and I did make that differentiation and the importance of the CS/CSS units quite clear - let's have a look at some rough numbers (all open source before anyone calls for black Omegas).
RC(S) is about 35,000 strong. We currently command it via 6 Div. How many troops in 6 Div? Not many at all - in fact 6 Div is little more than a trg / admin Div lifed until the end of 2011 when it is scheduled to be disbanded.
In terms of pure combat / teeth arms in RC(S) you have:
TF Helmand - UK
TF Leatherneck - USMC
TF Kandahar - Can
TF Stryker - US / Romania
TF Uruzgan - Dutch
Now of all those TFs, only Helmand is British, and even then its role has become more concentrated in a relatively small pocket of the Province. UK Plc certainly does not have a large number of teeth arm forces outside of Helmand BG.
Drilling down into UK Plc's contribution, look on the MOD website at which British units from across all 3 Services are involved in Herrick during the course of 2009. Many of the units on that list are not permanent fixtures, but rotate through theatre on short tours. But having one big consolidated list makes life easy and makes our contribution look numerically much bigger than it is at any one time.
http://http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInte...tishForces.htm
We have roughly 10,000 in country i.e a Division's worth of troops, which is probably at the lower end of what constitutes a Division. If you acknowledge that most of our fighting power is based around TF Helmand and its Battlegroups, then by the same token of what constitutes a Division, a Bde is generally thought to be between 2 - 5,000 troops. Now I haven't been in theatre since late 08, so may be a little out of date, but I would suggest that we don't quite have 5,000 teeth arm troops in Helmand, but I'm willing to play along and run with 5,000 as the upper end of a Bde-sized unit. That still leaves another 5,000 troops to provide support of all kinds - CS, CSS, ISTAR, intelligence, etc etc etc to the 5,000 combat troops.
Now how big are the collective UK armed forces? Lets call it a nice round 225,000, to include Reserves and those going through training. Based on these numbers, 10,000 troops equates to just under 5% of the total strength of the UK armed forces deployed in Afghanistan, of which probably only half i.e. 2.5% -Bde+ and AH / FJ are actaully there in a pure combat role.
And to allow us to sustain that the Army has had to go onto a permanent war footing with its Op Entirety, the RAF is cannibalising airframes left right and centre across all fleets whilst harmony figures are now only found in an History of the RAF, and the Navy have more or less deployed the majority of its air assets whilst the rest of its surface fleet can largely manage a couple of laps of the Channel before somone in the Treasury hauls them back in for costing too much to operate. And as for the MOD, they seem to be in a constant tail spin with trying to keep up with events. And whilst all this is going on, we aren't doing anything else. Surely even you have heard the cries of 'if we can't use it in Afghanistan in the next couple of years, we aren't interested / can't afford it'. Now how many troops has the USMC just deployed to Helmand at a stroke, and how many more US troops are coming in over the next few months? Puts things into perspective about how broken we actually are doesn't it.
So do you still disagree that the UK armed forces are in such a state that effectively our future has been mortgaged to support a numerically limited amount of combat power? Most of this has come through the UOR process rather than Core or organic capability; when our time in Afghanistan comes to an end and we have to sit down and look seriously at what we want to do and more importantly what we can do. We must also remember that there is a chance that much of this current UOR-derived capability will not make it into Core in the longer term, meaning that when HERRICK ends, if this capability is not brought into Core, Defence will potentially be looking at a serious regression in capability and will be significantly weakened as a viable tri-service organisation. And as much as it pains me to say it, even you with an endless supply of ammo wouldn't be able to sort this one out - although I would quite like to let you loose in Main Building and watch the feathers flying even more than usual!
Last edited by Melchett01; 14th Dec 2009 at 13:56.
It was nothing to to with all that guff, it was the placement of SH/AT in the same sentence as cooks and bottlewashers.
Nice in-depth retort though, wasted on a crewman!
Nice in-depth retort though, wasted on a crewman!
Nice in-depth retort though, wasted on a crewman!
And fair enough - I'll take it back about SH being in the same sentance as cooks and bottlewashers, but AT stays!
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is it it worth a nibble
Cooks and Bottlewashers ......
Could i nearly be on the hook ? did anyone ask the cooks and bottlewashers if they want to be put in the same bracket as you..of course we would not be in a job with having such wonderous persons as you as our lords and masters!
God Bless you Guv'nor - I forgot that its only people like you that make the airforce work...may i doff my beret to you!
Knowing quite a few AT/SH mates and lots of FJ mates, i think you may be the odd one out here with a view point such as that..
lol - the team works!
My money is on Kxxxxxx closing by the way and Cxxxxxxxxx too! shame -
Could i nearly be on the hook ? did anyone ask the cooks and bottlewashers if they want to be put in the same bracket as you..of course we would not be in a job with having such wonderous persons as you as our lords and masters!
God Bless you Guv'nor - I forgot that its only people like you that make the airforce work...may i doff my beret to you!
Knowing quite a few AT/SH mates and lots of FJ mates, i think you may be the odd one out here with a view point such as that..
lol - the team works!
My money is on Kxxxxxx closing by the way and Cxxxxxxxxx too! shame -
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Melchet
Careful there, you are in danger of sounding like a 'brown job' yourself there.
From the Air perspective, many of the UKs air assets (and association ACS and ACSS) are not[B specifically there to sp the UK's bde in Helmand. I now that this may be a shock to our friends in the geographically challenged land arms; but bear with me. The UK's air assets operate as part of the Coalition's Air Component. As such, they are tasked to sp non-UK ground forces in both RC(S) and the other RCs. Similarly, the RAF FP Wgs deployed provide FP for ISAF forces not, just UK ones.
Coalition Air should, and is, allocated on the basis of best platform to perform the task not on the basis of nationality of the ground troops supported. Hence why, on TELIC 1 much of the UK CAS around Basra was not provided by RAF fast air as that was being employed suporting the coalition's main effort further north on the advance to Baghdad.
That still leaves another 5,000 troops to provide support of all kinds - CS, CSS, ISTAR, intelligence, etc etc etc to the 5,000 combat troops.
From the Air perspective, many of the UKs air assets (and association ACS and ACSS) are not[B specifically there to sp the UK's bde in Helmand. I now that this may be a shock to our friends in the geographically challenged land arms; but bear with me. The UK's air assets operate as part of the Coalition's Air Component. As such, they are tasked to sp non-UK ground forces in both RC(S) and the other RCs. Similarly, the RAF FP Wgs deployed provide FP for ISAF forces not, just UK ones.
Coalition Air should, and is, allocated on the basis of best platform to perform the task not on the basis of nationality of the ground troops supported. Hence why, on TELIC 1 much of the UK CAS around Basra was not provided by RAF fast air as that was being employed suporting the coalition's main effort further north on the advance to Baghdad.
