This isn't exactly unique in civvy street either...it's not a forces thing. However you will be pleased to note that when one reaches the late fifties almost everything comes into focus and the things that made you hit your head on the keyboard become an amusing distraction...:ok:

Oh goodie - not long to go! People always said I was old for my age...

Hey I'm nearly fifty nine and it's without a doubt the best age of my life so far.

I had a discussion with a colleague over Christmas on the topic of the quality of senior leaders in the military and we agreed that they currently(in general, there are of course exceptions) tend not to be of the top drawer. We appear to be led by what the army would term as "top of middle third". Why? The top third recognise their value (or have it recognised for them) and are invited/convinced to employ it elsewhere, the bottom third are recognised as such and are required to leave the service at the earliest opportunity. That leaves the middle third who, naturally, sit somewhere between the two and it's from that layer that we select our current and future leaders.

They end up with a "sent down with the rations" MA, having conformed for a year on ACSC and climb the greasy pole by sticking to the regulations and avoiding controversy. When they get to a position of substance we all of a sudden expect them to ditch that which has got them there (risk aversion, conformity and not putting their name to controversial decisions) and become dynamic leaders. Funnily enough, as they are at this point in their late 40s/early 50s they unsurprisingly fail to change their behaviours.

As an army colleague of mine put it, the best Generals leave the army as Captains. I'm not overly cynical, just experienced enough to have seen how we tend to promote managers/those willing to flog themselves in an outer office (other similar roles are available); valuing managers (of time, workload, process) over leaders.

No I didn't get staff college (thankfully, in retrospect), no I've never worked an outer office, yes I've op tours under my belt (and not just ones that kept me out of the redundancy bracket) and no I'm not bitter, over-promoted yes, bitter, no!

Nothing changes much. It was back in the sixties I first heard the lament, and I guess it wasn't new then.

" We used to have aircraft made of wood commanded by men of steel: it's the other way round now".

I think there's another element here. As people get to Air Rank, they get exposed to issues that are invisible, irrelevant or trivial to those at lower rank. My own rank doesn't start with 'Air' but I've been close enough to see the amount of time our 'stars' have to devote to public engagement, ministerial concerns, inter-service and international negotiation, service complaints (huge for some), promotion boards, routine meetings and the like, before they can even think about the day job! Now perhaps some of all that is true for many these days, but fortunately for most of us, our ranks don't expose us to the level of public judgement that is easy to make on a forum such as this!

So if we expect them to have the headroom to really make a difference, maybe we should have more, not fewer (the OP would love that!).

MB, probably something in that.

The officer pool is comprised largely of JO and SO, the worker bees if you like and essential to any organization to staff the organisation. Now in the military the VSO are drawn entirely from this pool. The gene pool is small compared with industry or civil service (which can draw from industry).

The up or out amongst VSO is certainly necessary to thin the upper ranks. If you want to serve to 55 stay as a wg cdr.

Met one OC Eng, amazing CV, oil exploration in Saudi, worked in Antarctica, then joined RAF. Reached OC Eng by 40, and said there is nothing I can see for me in the RAF now. Off he went.

That lot ( or its equivalent) is likely to come with any senior position in a big organisation, as an inclusive part of the job.

Didn't someone write


"Stick close to your desk and never go to sea
And you will be ruler of the Queen's Navee

and somebody else:

" The field of war is no place for the career officer"

Mahogany Bomber:

MB - I could not have put this better myself - you are spot on and this supports my thesis (above) concerning risk averse and banal middle and senior ranked officers. Again, I see these officers with a string of degrees (all Masters') after their names and wonder how on Earth they obtained them, knowing them when they were junior officers. I joined the RAF after a 'proper' five year Masters' - but not Shrivenham, so, in effect, it didn't count. Moreover, a number of people I know who have done both - the fellowship at Cambridge and then ACSC - also confirm that they found the Dissertation at Shrivenham particularly easy and not particularly demanding, rating it as undergraduate level. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I hope I am; I did a foreign staff course and was awarded a Masters' Degree from that, which I don't bother to list because it is largely meaningless.

My brother, a civil servant at Abbey Wood, told me that it was a recognised fact that most people get promoted to their level of incompetency!

HA, "C Northcote Parkinson"

No doubt this will please the OP.

BBC News - Senior British army roles likely to be cut

Pontius - I think you'll find that being elevated to ones level of incompetency is "the Peter Principle"

Parkinsons Laws are "work expands to fill the time available" and " Senior managers generate subordinates"



All of them all to true

The comparison with the US Army is quite something - they have 50% more SO's to run 500% more men

and no-one ever claimed the US Army was exactly lean and mean................ half of them seem to be in Washington DC

One thing is for sure - the Army won't take that hit on their own - a lot of SO's in the RAF and Navy will be looking for work soon I think

Forgive me if this has been covered, but what is the ratio of Squadron Leaders to Squadrons in the current RAF?

I mean that to only include "proper" Squadrons, not the bits that were previously sections of Ops wing, like the Air Traffic Control squadron at every station.

Sqn Ldrs don't lead Sqns, Wg Cdrs do.

Something tells me that the review into senior officer numbers might not yield the results that will produce the more slimline, efficient command structure General Carter talks of.......oh yes I remember now, previous experience.

When Gp Capt Beetham was station master at Khormaksar in 1965, I remember him saying, "An officer is not an officer until he reaches the rank of Wing Commander".

No sympathy from The Guardian readers.
 

Ranks of senior army officers to be slashed in latest reforms, say reports | Politics | The Guardian


Comes under a politics header, not defence interestingly.
Army first, then Navy, RAF. Looks like some of you will be looking for new jobs in 21st century Britain.
Which is a shock if you cop it, but not a world ender by any means. Embrace it, if it comes.
A lot of the comments in the Grad are interesting in the impression many civilians have of the senior officers in the military-lots of talk of old men, sitting in rooms, flying desks with swords attached, sumptuous messes, kids at top schools.....and so forth.
Wonder why this is so, is it a TV thing, peoples images of the military shaped by TV, Monty python, Blackadder?
Both Colonels I worked for were entirely the opposite to that image and would have fitted in well in the civilian organizations I've worked in since. So, chin up.

Sounds as though he was a complete tosser.

Well known, and thus I suspect you may have missed the point.

WW

I think not. The point being Sqn Ldrs don't lead Sqns.

Might be more of a problem for the country when you can't carry out the political direction because you've chopped the leadership and experience required not only to lead fighting units, but also to plan, sustain, direct and develop.

Because most of the comments of this type, regardless of newspaper, are made by ill-informed arm chair generals that think because they've watched Zulu, A Bridge Too Far and the annual repeat of Dad's Army, they are qualified to shape and run the nation's defences. A belief only compounded by a 21st century sense of self entitlement that I pay my taxes and therefore DEMAND that my opinion is listened to and implemented. There are things my taxes go towards that I'm not overly happy about, but as taxes are the price we pay for membership of the club, then you have to accept these things.

MB,
Sometimes it really does feel like we're being led by the top of the middle third. Whilst there are notable exceptions, many of these are 'be-ers', determined to follow the proscribed course, secure a sponsor (doubtless cut from the same cloth) avoid risk and if at all possible avoid original thought. Truly as Boyd described:

To Be Or To Do? | Defense and the National Interest

Such men can only succeed if the pile below them retains sufficient experience and knowledge to cover their gaps. Increasingly it is this core at Wg Cdr and below that is bailing out as they find they are not 'in the club', and are tempted by fresh challenges outside.

The reduction in the top levels has been tried before and didn't work. It will be used as an excuse to clear out the 'dead wood' to allow some breathing space for the 'thrusters' to be promoted into....

And all this bitching about how many sqn ldrs etc....you may want to ask how many wg cdr engineers there are in the RAF. The answer (certainly when I last looked) may surprise you. And not because it is a low number!;)

From personal experience ('55-58) not an isolated individual but with some exceptional opposites, too.
Am half way through a book by AVM Sandy Johnstone which is an anecdotal collection rather than an autobiography and two incidents stand out so far ... when operating as Staff Officer, he organised a Mosquito to be available at his local airfield and was subsequently tasked to fly Leigh-Mallory to France after D-Day ... never having flown one before!!!:eek: This was duly accomplished, after finding out about torque effects on the take-off:=
The second was a meeting with Ike, when one of his staff came in with a soon-to-be-published order, declaring it to be 'fine for publication' Johnstone remarked that the individual appeared to be 'a few sandwiches short of a picnic' or its equivalent. Ike replied that this was so - and intentional!! His reasoning was that if the order made sense to this individual, it was fit to be published.:D
Having been around in the days of the Atcherleys and Paddy Bandon, when I left after 35 plus years, I left a VERY different organisation and found working in BA and Virgin a most pleasant shock to the system.:ok::) What I read of today's version of the Royal Air Force would most certainly not induce me to a repeat performance.:yuk:

Wrathmonk

All ranks at Sqn Ldr and above are over manned, some by 115%. How can that be accetable when nearly every other rank is under manned.

jay, you keep posting that figure on this forum but it is not one I recognise and it is nothing like the manning figures that pass my desk. Where did you get it from?

The Manning MOSS site!

jay,

When you say some ranks above Sqn Ldr are over manned by 115%, are you saying they have 215% of the required number?

If there are 115% of the required number then the overmanning level is only actually 15%.

Biggus

Yes, 215% of the required trained strength hence over manned by 115%.

Jayc530 - please enlighten readers as to how many sqn ldr pilots the RAF is currently overmanned by?

I'd love to know where any of these extra 115% are hiding, irrespective of Branch.

According to the latest DASA statistics, the RAF as a whole was running a deficit of 2070 personnel on 1 Dec 14. Added to this, the PVR rate for officers has increased from 2.8% to 3.6% from FY 11/12 to 13/14.

Additionally, in a Parliamentary Briefing note submitted to the HoC Library in Sep 14 noted that the RAF officer cadre as a whole was 7.7% under strength as of Jul 14.

Now I don't have access to the Manning MOSS site, but to me, something doesn't quite add up to say that one section of the RAF officer cadre is effectively at double strength whilst the Cadre as a whole is under strength and the PVR rate is growing. There seems to be something not quite right with the figures somewhere here.

Hang on guys, this chap has form:

One of his many posts on this subject. There is in no way shape or form an extra 80 or so 1-stars kicking about with nothing to do. From memory there are only 70 or so 1-star posts and around 72 of them in the system. The RAF declared 75 serving 1-stars back in Apr 14; the figure will be lower for 2015.

It's not rocket science.
Sqn Ldr runs a Sqn. Wg Cdr runs a Wing. Gp Capt runs a Group.
So, say 6 Typhoon Sqns on two Stations then then you have 6 Sqn Ldrs. Two Wg Cdrs and one Gp Capt.
Apply that approach across the board and hey presto, savings with, I argue, no loss of standards.
Simples. :E

Are there 6 Typhoon Squadrons?

Yes. Five are front-line, one is the OCU. Plus there's 1435 Flight in the Falklands and 41 Sqn has six aircraft for test & evaluation. If I'm not mistaken.

Wyler,

They are ranks, not job descriptions!

RAF Squadrons have been led by Wing Commanders since the early 1940's, based on numbers of people reporting to them and responsibility held.

On the larger stations in the 70's there were station commanders who were Air Commodore's, such as Brize Norton and Akrotiri, with the Wings commanded by Group Captains.

Something similar happened in Bomber Command at the peak of it's size in WW2, stations were grouped into Bases, with each base commanded by an Air Commodore and three Group Captains commanding the three stations in that base.

No. 8 Group even went further and simply increased the relative rank for EVERY officer in the Group, and that was in 1943...