played a blinder

Please translate that, for the benefit of foreigners.

Tony Cameron, you are a nobody,get ****** you are the most unliked spock ever.............

Actually I think LJ's right. I think this is pretty much the best solution we could have come up with within the constraints. Yes, there are some big gaps, but there were always going to have to be. The Army, of course, being in contact, has escaped relatively unscathed, but I suspect their time will come.

"played a blinder

Please translate that, for the benefit of foreigners."



Done well, played with a lot of skill. Often used to describe someone's
performance in a sport.

.

Would disagree with the analysis on heavy armour it lead the way in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. However senior staff officers with funny coloured berets have been forecasting the demise of the MBT and Armoured infantry since the mid 80's and promoting the use of an insertion method for troops last used by UK in 1950's in Suez. AT helecopters aren't a replacement for the MBT they supplement it well. The cuts is AS90 are understandable with the loss of armour however it still has better reach than light gun.
The support hele fleet should be rationalised and put under a single user service Puma II plan should be scrapped, SK4 replaced by merlin and in fast jet aim for all single seat fleet getting rid of the need for expensive officers who in long term won't be needed.
Nimrod maintained and cuts made to non operational Airforce squadrons 32 sqn cut back to senior officer/royal use only

Occasional Aviator, you are quite correct, the Army's time will come i.e. by the next SDSR. As an Army Officer it gives me no pleasure to say this, but we have not played a blinder, far from it. All CGS (and CDS) have achieved is a stay of execution, but I very much doubt if the General Officer ranks will take this opportunity to undertake the radical surgery required. Instead it will be imposed from above, accompanied by lots of gnashing of teeth and wailing. Here are Failed Scopie's offerings for immediate savings within the Army:

1. Disband the REME and merge it with the RLC
2. The RE to no longer undertake EOD with the limited exception of search - this will concentrate EOD capability exclusively within the RLC
3. Merge all CIS branches within the R Signals - already the Infantry require enhanced RLDs with an R Signals RSO - BOWMAN is too complicated for them to easily cope with
4. Merge 17 and 165 Port Regts - no need to retain an underemployed Reg Regt as well as a TA one
5. RF Bde HQ's - plenty of scope for savings/mergers there e.g. 2 (SE) Bde and 145 (S) Bde
6. Kings Tp RHA to disband - as a former RA officer I shouldn't say this but they are not employable in any other role
7. Except for pressings reasons, do not let SO2s and SO1s serve until 55 - the Army has far too many old officers (hopefully the impending withdrawal of CEA will go some way to achieving this)
8. Ratioanlise all UOR equipment in service - decide what is to be kept (not much I would suggest) and bin/sell the rest
9. Close BATUS and move it to Fort Hood
10. And one for the RAF - the Tornado force is only safe as long as HERRICK rumbles on and will be dispensed with without direct replacement in 2015-16 (again, all the CAS has achieved is a stay of execution);)

Over to you chaps.

F_S

You may, or some of your ex-maritime members may, remember that SAR was not the sole mission for the Nimrod SAR.

In an office/work environment can be taken to mean that the player worked the situation, normally totally fairly, entirely to his advantage, without anyone else spotting his tactics/direction until it was too late.

Drop the default rank from SO2 to SO3. The RAF has plenty of sqn ldrs but also has many elderly flt lt.

Failed Scopie obviously no one ever briefed you on the troops operational role!

Pool of Driver/Radio operators and DROPS drivers and many of the gunners are light gun current they have deployed as individual reinforcements to units going on ops very useful capability. As well as keeping the gunners in the public eye

would sugest a few immediate losses

Create Defence medical services create 1 chain of medical command.
disband RAF police all service policing to come under RMP.
Agree rationalise alot of UOR kit however Items like Minimi, UGL, AGL should be standard issue.
Agree lines of EOD could be rationalised across all 3 services into tri-service units.
RLC take over all Mech transport across the military
REME take over all vehicle support across services
stop all military parachute training and withdraw jump pay from all except SF personel.
Merge MPS & MPGS
create 3 additional public duties coys 1 each from Irish and welsh guards, 1 from royal marines and 1 based round QCS releasing all other units from public duties tours and creating pools of troops that can be drawn on to reinforce units going on tours.
look at display teams and cull parachute display teams/motorcycle display merge red arrows and 100 sqn give red arrows real job

Leon,

Good to see a more original perspective. Not much made about the newish Levene Defence Policy Unit though - if I hear bloody 'salami slicing' mentioned once more, I'll chuck a paperclip in rage at the telly. But if we're thinking long term, how will the next SDR be conducted - more by the senior officers of tomorrow (the Lt Cols/Wing Commanders of today) than by centralised Civil Servants? Not much mention of the senior rank structure either.. any thoughts on more jointery - will we have a combined cadre of General rank Officers?

And I don't care what the kit is like - anything made by a company called 'General Atomics' has to be in with a shout.

when they cut the armoured brigade its Sig sqn should replace 250,248 or 246 sig sqn, its engineer sqn should replace 69 or 70 engineer sqn and its RLC personel should start to replace one of the Gurkha squadrons

NURSE, quite frankly it is dim-witted views of people like you with no basis in fact that got us into this mess...

Good, lets just ask our guys to change suits and that will save a fortune. Obviously.

Ah yes, as defence diplomacy, promoting British industry (and thus creating and maintaining British jobs), invaluable RAF and British PR and capability demonstration are not 'proper' jobs. What do you want, them to perform CAS in formation?

Like which non-operational Sqns? Soon-to-be-accelerated-into-operational-role Typhoon I'm guessing? If you actually did know your facts, you'd know that 32 Sqn ONLY carry senior officers, and the Royals when they did fly had to pay, not to mention their operational role. Training Sqns, then?

Here's an idea, read a few books, visit a few Sqns, and then come back and post your amazing ideas.

the barrel.

If Red arrows so important to British industry then get British industry to fund it.
32 don't just carry senior officers and royalty they carry politicians and civil servants as well see most of 32 parked on Ramp of Belfast city airport to bring the civil servants and politicans back to mainland for weekends.
There needs to be a look at who does what for whom in the armed forces why do the Navy, Army and Air Force need seperate mechanical transport and policing services, health is now more or less tri service just needs tidying up and formalised cutting chains of command down to size?
You could bring supply into that as well a comodity is a comidity!

thebarrel's right - they don't carry royalty any longer. As an aside, have they now dropped the 32 (TR) Sqn moniker to become plain old 32 Sqn?

Leon

a little late but can I endorse your view in a general sense.

For the RAF (I cannot judge dark blue or brown) it seems at least the "least worst" solution, and could have been a whole lot worse.

1. We retain an independant Air Force beyond its centenary (at which celebration I would guess the Reds would perform their "Farewell Tour").

2. We move further into the RPAV business.

3. We bin lots of civvies (one third of total) and some uniforms (one eighth of total) which will improve the ratio.

4. HQ Air will lose 25% of its posts! :ok:

Of course I hope my job isn't lost :eek: but it's still all the legacy of the North British Cyclops (noticably absent from the House yesterday) who acted like a man earning £3K a month and spending £4k - making up the difference with his plastic. We must never forget that

It's about the third "Defence Review" I've sat through, each was predicted to be the end of life as we knew it ....... none of them were.

We'll manage - we always do ...... which is part of the problem, but most of the solution!

Same could be said for the flying branch. How about everything that flies, whether from land or sea, comes under the AIR force ....;)

Any how ....

Just been watching the headlines for the rest of the CSR. At 8% over 4 years the MoD have got off reasonably lightly (IMHO). Granted not as good as Health and Education but the Police are looking at 4% reduction per year, the Ministry of Justice at 6% reduction per year and centralised funding to the councils 8% reduction per year. It could most definately been worse for the MoD (and, when the next Defense Review is carried out post-AFG (2015?), I think the Army may find themselves going through the same anguish the RN and RAF are currently doing so i.e they've chopped what????).:(

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics
 

Whilst the RAF is set to lose 4,900 personnel over 4 years, someone has done a wonderful job in the way this has been reported. 4,900 is the number required to reduce the RAF to a figure of 33,500 by 2015. The current strength of the RAF is around 42,500, meaning that we are to lose 4,900 personel whilst also dis-establishing 4,100 vacant posts (the burden of which is shared by all). This equates to a reduction of over 20% of the RAF establishment.

I state this not because I have strong opinions about SDSR, but because my knowledge of these figures differs from those in the media. Assuming this to be the case across all the services, is it safe to assume that todays detail of non-military cuts has the same spin.

Isn't it time for a little honesty. The voting public should know the truth about the capabilities of the military, education, medical, policing services that they pay for, without it being wrapped up in statistics.

would say the RAF is becoming the sole flying service as FAA is strangled and next target for their Airships will be AAC.
No harrier & transfare of Merlin to navy appears to have been scrapped and no mention of CHF in any of the documents