The Defence Secretary speaking about the MOD/SDR tomorrow...
 

The obvious venue being the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

Message ends.

Long gone are the days when Ministers announced things to the House of Commons.....

It wont be anything formal, just the usual collection of thoughts on whats gone on, and how the process is working. I'd be amazed if there were any policy announcements at all, but its got to be tarted up to appeal to the RUSI crowd to get them in town!

We clip the wings of the RAF at our peril
 

We clip the wings of the RAF at our peril - The Telegraph 12 Aug 10

" But the fact that his department has singled out the RAF to bear the lion's share suggests that the Government is failing to grasp the crucial importance of air superiority in modern combat. "

Well successive governments have failed to grasp the importance of Sea Power or the importance of providing adequate protection for ground forces, so I suppose it's reassuring to know they are unbiased in their ignorance...:ugh::rolleyes:

" But the fact that his department has singled out the RAF to bear the lion's share suggests that the Government is realising that the Royal Air Farce is a complete waste of money "




Tee Hee...


3.....2........1.......

...... Bonehead. :rolleyes:



Sorry, ....... Fish-head.

I see Falmouth has their village idiot back.

Well, considering Their Airships have long since lost any kind of touch with reality regarding the procurement, development and use of air power, maybe vec has a point.... :rolleyes:

mind you, parking a T42 ontop of a big rock requiring it to be brought back thousands of miles on a barge, or driving a nuclear submarine into the sea bed because you're ripping a student a fresh @rsehole, or being more worried about the loss of your ipod when you've just been jumped by the Republican Guard doesnt exactly cover the navy in glory either does it? ;)

And we wont mention the Chandlers... :E


Seriously though... Yes, it should have been announced to parliament. Yes,it is likely to be a fairly hollow presentation designed to make it look as if something meaningful is going on. Yes, root and branch reform is absolutely necessary and long overdue.

But given how deep rooted the vested interests are in that building and how deeply the tentacles spread, will it actually happen? Is Foxy strong enough to bang heads together and force it through, to make it a reality??

For someone who isnt a defence expert, I have very grave doubts that he can make it happen. Unless I start seeing signs to the contrary, I'm afraid IMHO its a Titanic deckchair shuffling exercise., particularly in light of statements like:

"I will ask the Defence Reform Unit to work with the Permanent Secretary, Chief of the Defence Staff and the Service Chiefs to find ways of devolving greater responsibility for the running of the Services themselves," Dr Fox is to say. "We need to review all our current practices to ensure that we are using our greatest asset - our people - to the best of their ability.

So, the same out of touch senior officers who led us to this point are being tasked to find part of the way back? Genius.... :*:E

And incidentally... I dont know if any of you caught Newsnight 2 days ago, where John Redwood pulled out the interesting bit about public spending actually going UP 15% across the whole lifetime of this parliament... so if thats the case, why the hell is everyone rushing to the Hairiest Of Hairy Shirts Competition? :uhoh:

Something is up. We're all being taken for mugs again. :=

And SoS apparently said not very much:

Liam Fox reveals plans for 'leaner' Ministry of Defence | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Top military officers face axe to fill £37bn defence black hole - Telegraph

S41

At least this will end the constant speculation that the RAF will be disbanded or all of the forces merged into one.

Looks like we are heading for a single joint command chain, reading between the lines.

Could be good for the services as a whole. Single, joined up command above 1* level - reduced wage bill and efficiencies through closing 3 separate commands and co-locating into one unit - I wonder if that could be housed in London or elsewhere? - Dartmouth gets my vote - better location than HYW or Wilton.

Does that also mean that the Royal Marines are safe?


This is the best bit.......

He could have easily said...."There will be redundancies"

No - at least not from a merger with the paras. Obviously jointery is a firm fact of life nowadays and mergers at unit level may make sense. I am not indicating a preference either way, but marine regiments in the early-eighteenth century were part of the army structure so at least there is a precursor in history.

I was simply indicating that at least we can concentrate on these important issues without descending into arguments over which service will take over the RAF, or what a UKDF will look like which has recently been the subject of endless debate.

By the way before I get a witty reply I am not suggesting that just because something was done in the 18th century it does not mean it makes sense to do it today!

"Dartmouth gets my vote - better location than HYW or Andover."

Fixed that for you, Grimweasel

Plenty of building space here in the Test valley if the current Co-op distribution centre build leaves us any of the old airfield.

Snap for Ipswich.

Jabba TG12 said:
"So, the same out of touch senior officers who led us to this point are being tasked to find part of the way back? Genius...."

May I refer you to the MAA and the use of previously employed labour.

I think the day when a Pilot actually flies something like a fast jet into harms way is coming to an end, not this decade but most definitely the next one.

In 20 years time you will still see Pilots who did this but they will be giving talks about it to awe struck kids at Duxford and other museums.

The move to Intelligent drones where an operator will control 5-6 in an attack formation is probably not really that far off if it has not been done already.

Pilots will still be needed for the super transport aircraft that will fly close to a war zone with 50-60 drones and then release and recover them if that is required but pilots with actual combat experience will become a rarity as its cheaper to do it this way both in materials and in the life of a pilot.

The threat then becomes one of shooting down Satellites and other communication methods to remove the ability of distant users to control drones but thats a further stage on.

Mate, that is actually the easiest bit to automate. Creating a mathematical model for a computer to fly under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) is far, far, far easier than the chaos that is Visual Flight Rules (VFR). That's before you throw in the chaos of the combat zone.

So to re-word your sentence this is probably the more likely scenario:

Automatic Pilots will be needed for the super transport aircraft that will fly close to a war zone with 50-60 drones/manned aircraft and then release and recover them if that is required but pilots with actual combat experience will be necessary as its safer to do it this way both in loss-rate and through the required use of live weapons.

I'm gob-smacked that the freight world hasn't grasped the remotely piloted aircraft, more space and no need to heavily pressurise the cabin (or certainly all of it) - it all adds up to more freight or more range (or a bit of both!).

Let's face it, a perfectly flown IFR procedure is the Air Trafficker's dream!!!

We are so far away from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) required for fully autonomous operations - just check out the stuff on AI on the internet. The Cray Supercomputer required to think like a 2 year old is not going to fit into a small aircraft just yet!!! We've seen some automatics but no autonomy - what's the difference? Automatic is something that conforms to programming - ie. does as it is told/programmed. Autonomous is something that self governs - ie. decides what is the best thing to do for itself. There is a big difference.

Sadly (or happily, depending on your view), your Duxford prediction is way, way too early!

Anyway, back to the thread, I believe that MoD will become the single joint-service organisation that we're all talking about. I reckon CDS will be the head and that CNS/CGS/CAS will go. The CinCs of the 3 Services will remain and be the heads of each Service - at least 30% saving in MoD and also some streamlining at Navy Cmd, Land Cmd and Air Cmd. It makes no sense in having 4-star CNS/CGS/CAS and then replicate with 4-star CinCs - that's about £160k-£180k per person (about £500k for all 3!). Let's face it as well, all of the GOC's expensive HQs could go or be "blobbed" up as well - there's another big saving. If a single Joint-HQ does form at HQ Land Forces, then that started life as an RFC/RAF Station anyway, so it would be "home from home"!

LJ :ok: