Jacko - your list of priorities is actually fairly representative of the outcome of SDSR, if you accept that cuts across the board were inevitable.

Obviously we kept a carrier and binned MPA, so perhaps 6 and 7 are the wrong way round. However my belief is that the carrier was retained for contractual, political and inter-service reasons, rather than military necessity, so in purely theoretical terms you could argue that the outcome is roughly in line with your thinking.

The only major disparity in your list is that CAS/BAI/AI have taken a major hit with the withdrawal of GR9 and the reduction in GR4 numbers, with no foreseeable possibility of Typhoon filling the (deployable) gap. That is a reflection of the Army thinking that while CAS is nice to have on Op HERRICK, it is not essential to the current strategy.

If you accept that Jacko's list is roughly in line with the outcome of SDSR, then why his angst? Along with other posters I would argue that the quantity is now the problem; "more with less" has been taken a step too far.

Quite wrong actually, the Typhoons, it would appear, are having to pick up the slack of the disappearing Tornado GR4s. Wasn't suppose to happen that way and with the Typhoons greatly downsized in number, the F35C numbers all but written off ala TSR2 and the Harriers and Jaguars well and truly short serviced. All in all with the Nimrods gone and the Sentinels going all leaving the R.A.F. with a loss of comfortably more than 70% of its air combat capability (the actual reason for having an air force) I think to suggest the air chiefs are a little narrow in focus is a tad unsympathetic. Rather as if the General Staff were trying to cling onto the last dozen or so Infantry Battalions.

FB:)

FB
Not "quite wrong actually". My source is current and reliable.
As for my being a tad unsympathetic about the air staffs, just take a gander at what is being said above about the CDS, General Staff and anyone else in a brown suit! I feel positively threatened!

Ever since the advent of T Blair, the military establishment of this country has never been worse served by the government. To the point where quite recently, unseemly squabbles and surprisingly dismissive comments by officers (usually former) of one service have been made about one or both of the others. I do hope that when TB appears, for the second time, before Chilcot on Friday, he steps on the ultimate Banana skin and we get to find out just what kind of nonsense was said in these papers which some civil servant has decided can't be released in the public domain.:E

FB:)

No, QUITE wrong. Typhoon is not a single role air defence aircraft (though the Tranche 2 aircraft currently being delivered are, temporarily, as I hope is explained below).

This is because the software required for the Austere A-G capability (CP193) is UK only, and Tranche 1 only, though it could quite easily be 'ported' to Tranche 2.

Typhoon is already a multi role aeroplane (via CP193) though aircraft numbers and training hours mean that the existing squadrons (which are effectively tied to the UK AD/Falklands/QRA commitment) cannot actually exercise it.

The T1 Typhoons have demonstrated their ability to drop and self designate in Red Flag, Green Flag West and at least one Magic Carpet, but with 3 squadrons and less than 17.5 hours per pilot per month, it simply isn't possible to keep the capability going. Which is why journos like me have asked why we spent all that money on CP193 in the first place?

With FCP arriving in c.2015, Typhoon (including Tranche 2) will be employing all of the weapons carried by Tornado. Not ALARM, which will have gone, but strafe, EPW, PWIV, Dual Mode Brimstone, and soon afterwards Storm Shadow too.

So I'm wrong but I'm right!

You are fundamentally and essentially wrong, but are temporarily and partially right.

Your simplistic claim was more wrong than right.

The bulk of the fleet is multi role CAPABLE now (though that capability isn't being exercised, though it has been demonstrated and could be made available), and by the time Tranche 2 jets represent the bulk of the fleet they will be swing role capable.

Once we have four Typhoon squadrons (2013?) I would expect the MR work up to begin in earnest.

4 Squadrons you reckon Jacko old fruit. Like to see some country have a crack at us with that little lot up our sleeve!:E

FB:)

I remember plenty of talk about the threat of hijacked airliners as weapons in the 90s; I seem to recall Tom Clancy or some other thriller writer putting it in one of his books and in March 2001 the 'Lone Gunmen' spinoff from the X-files began with a show about some shady government agency hijacking airliners to crash into the World Trade Center.

Lots of people predict lots of things that later come true; the hard part is figuring out which of those predictions are correct _before_ they come true :).

Perhaps in considering the paucity of CAS squadrons and the armies percieved lack of demand in current ops one should consider the larger picture. The army has integral CAS (RW) to the tune of six squadrons and when considering the larger joint picture perhaps this should be factored into the assesment. The success of Apache has peviously been talked about as counter to the requirement for CAS but I havent seen it mentioned in the context of this debate.

I dont pretend it fulfills every aspect of what can be done by something pointy and fast but in the context of persistence, ISTAR and the employment of proportional effects perhaps it leads the field in this area. Indeed with GR4 migrating to dual mode Brimstone for proportionality then perhaps some COIN lessons were learnt froom AH.

HEDP

You're in the wrong job, Jacko! You are a born politician.

CM

"Those aviators who maintain that fast air will be more useful in future conflicts than infantry have my pity. Please don’t aspire to air rank! "

What about the containment of Sadam by fast air between Gulf wars 1 and 2 with no "boots on the ground", no allied casualties and at minimal cost?

Jacko, no one doubts that AD of the homeland is important, but I contend that that can be achieved with Carrier capable assets that can be land or carrier based, depending on the threat at the time. Thus the AD of the UK culd be achieved with, say 6 quadron of F/A-18 E/F or Rafale etc if that is where the greatest need is, but some of those same aircraft could be deployed to sea if we had overseas commitments/ dependencies/ events that needed our geater attention. Typhoon cannot.

For the same reason, all SH & AH should be marinised.

The UK cannot afford to have specialised, single domain assets any more; it needs to have assets that it can deploy to concentrate power where the effect is most greatly needed.

Flexibility s the key to air (& sea) power.

TL
Yes, they did a great job of containment, though the Marsh Arabs of Basra might not agree. However, what role does containment contribute to the end result in war fighting? Everyone needs everyone else to do their bit in the team, but only infantry can take and hold ground, which tends to be a basic requirement in most conflicts.

Why "take and hold ground" if the effect you require is being achieved from the air ?

TL
It depends on the desired end result. In this case containment was not enough and we ended up having to invade Iraq, which could not have been achieved without infantry. Of course fast air played a vital role in that invasion, but the end result is inevitable taking and securing the objective on the ground.

Who says that containment wasn't enough? It was cheap, and it kept Saddam in his box. It did so without resulting in a massive insurgency, and without stirring up too much of a hornet's nest of Islamacist hatred of the West. If you remember the excuse for a full scale 'take and hold ground exercise' was the supposed presence of WMD......

Andyy,

Carriers are massively expensive, and very slow moving. Keeping one in place to do Northern Q, Southern Q and the Falklands would, I suggest, be both inefficient and costly. So you base the carrier aircraft on land, so that once in every 30 years or so (when a carrier is essential rather than merely useful) you can use them on a carrier.

And if you keep their crews fully carrier capable, the training burden is such that they won't ever do much else. How often have we seen the Aéronavale Rafales do an enduring land based deployment? Or US Navy Tomcats or Super Hornets.

In the real world, carrier-capable tends to mean carrier-fixed, unless you go down the STOVL route.

So the solution for the future of the UK's armed forces according to the proponents of fast air is to abolish the Army and navy and contain any future threat using fast air which may, at some point in the future, be dual roled if we are lucky.
I think I can detect the odd flaw here.

Jacko - You may not have noticed but land bases are also very expensive and do not move at all, not even slowly.

If the effect is to 'take and hold', then we've not got the loiter to do that from the air. The other rather large factor here is cost. The RAF are not cheap - the effect we bring is very expensive for what it is.