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...