I am somewhat reminded in this thread of Sean Connery saying he would never do Bond again! I think that the chances of GR.9 dropping weapons in anger are still very good for the old workhorse. Politically any government is going to find it very hard to scrap carriers that have already been started - I would anticipate that the potential Trident replacement stands a far greater chance of being abandoned.
As an insurance policy for the future the Harrier stands a good chance of surviving -in terms of technology, advancement of it's capabilities hasn't been abandoned and the airframes are capable of easily being advanced beyond 2018 -it's been looked at already.
So in essence I would say that F-35 has little or no future and the likely hood of the new carriers having a compliment of Harriers is very high.

Ranger, supprisingly it does make a differance what aircraft you have "up there". Its like comparing a ford escort to a BMW, there both cars but both have very differant qualitys!
Is Afghanastan winable? Id say no. We dont have the troops to hold the ground we spend so long trying to cover. Go out day after day, throught he same fields doing the same ****, all the time waiting for the **** to hit the fan! :(
What do i think, controversial as it is lets just get the hell out of there! This will no doubt anger people but hey...thats MY opinion! Feel free to rip it apart!
laters!

I'm not saying what doctrine / training uses (only do ops, don't you know) but I have heard a lot (50-100?) of operational 9-lines in the last year and every single one has been called a 9-line by both JTACs of many nationalities and aircrew from a large range of aircraft. Maybe you are right and everyone in the coalition in Afghanistan is wrong!

Second point - if you are implying that Reaper has a hit rate of 50% and/or that UK FJs employ anywhere near the same amount of weapons as Reaper then you are seriously misinformed (again I am talking about ops, Garvie / HWD don't count).

Mr Grim,

although you are quite correct that the term 9 liner is used out in theatre, it is infact incorrect. CAS Briefs replaced them a while back and any reference to a 9 line brief should be in connection with MERT!

Most British JTACs are actually using the correct terminology. Call it splitting hairs however, it makes a difference up in C2 when someone shouts, 'A 9 liner has just come in.'

a little something for the FAC?
 

ZM

I am a little concerned that, due to the way it's written, some people might consider that to be a joke.

Regards,

Orca.

This thread is just a vehicle the OP is using to boast about his/her job, just another pprune acronym chopper IMO.