UK Defence in Numbers 'booklet'
 

Interesting reading, I like the bit that says we still have 4 Wessex in the Combat Support Helicopter role!

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ers_screen.pdf

-RP

7 x Jet Provost as well.

....and only 17 Merlin. Page 7 is a bizarre page with strange groupings, obsolete aircraft listed and others completely missing - and that is just the aircraft.

It's absolute rubbish in terms of content.

Arc

Teeny bit embarrassing to put in the SARbuoy Sea Kings too .........

What a feat of @rse.

It appears to be a direct copy and paste, without an iota of thought as to what is in and out of scope, of the headlines from the following report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...9/CFE_2015.pdf

They've also missed off 6 Spitfires, 2 Hurricanes, 1 Lancaster, 1 Dakota and 2 Chipmunks :E

Some thoughts and amusing comments here.

Spot the Mistooks - Think Defence

Good job we've got plenty of Armoured Combat Vehicle Look-alikes on strength though..........

Just remember one thing .
We rip this item to shreds because we actually know what we are talking about.

What about the other "facts" that we accept?

Gate Guardians as items :) ???

More retire than you'd like
 

7 JPs are for taxy training at RAF Cosford. There are probably 17 Merlin left... Some have been retired. Seen 117 recently? Also the bbmf are probably under some weird charitable ownership like the RNHF so off the books. It might be crap but its plausible crap

The Wessex bit is definitely rubbish though

Bae 125? I thought we'd binned those?


MD

I think they use Jaguars for taxy training at Cosford, not JPs...:ok:

for the C130 - nice photo of a K…. shame it retired several years ago!!!

(as did 125s)

4 landing platform helicopter/docks? HMS Ocean, Albion, Bulwark and...?

apart from errors previously noted. Under Attack Helicopters the only remaining Lynx are the AH9As and the Special Forces AH7s, nowhere near 47! The Gazelle no longer has an attack role. There are no Gazelles in Combat Support (looking at the source report these are RAF examples! I don't think so). No mention of the maritime Merlin HM2, Lynx HMA8, Wildcat HMA2 and Avenger T1 observer trainers. No mention of Army Defender AL2, T3 and Islander AL1, CC2B. No mention of MRCOA fleets in operational and training roles such as the DHFS fleets at Shawbury and Middle Wallop (Squirrel HT1, HT2 and Griffin HT1), Griffin HAR2 in Cyprus, Bell 212 AH1, AH2 and AH3 in Brunei and Kenya, and A109 at Northolt. King Air 200 trainers at Cranwell. Atlas C1 at Brize Norton. Dauphin for fleet support and AH1 SF. As for including 146 gliders!
Its all a bit of a joke.
Oh, and under Armoured Vehicle Launched Bridges, Chieftan should be spelt Chieftain!

Last page speaks volumes.

I'm seeing Work & Pensions as the largest spend, but I don't see benefits. Is there some clever wording going on here or does the UK really spend that much on benefits?

I'm seeing Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but where is England in all that?

Curiously, I see no mention of MPA in the future spend plan. I'm starting to wonder if there is any plot at all to regenerate MPA. It's been left so long now it can hardly count as a capability holiday, can it?

Love the Combat Air planned spend too: £10.6bn (e.g. Typhoon, Tornado, Lightning II). Now, can anyone here tell me how much of that is Typhoon and Tornado? A cynic might think that they've lumped the three types together to hide how much is being spent on JSF by making it look like it's just another little bit of the fast jet thing.

The Navy looks set to lose another thousand in the next five years despite the risk of having an aircraft carrier or two to think about and manning and some fixed wing aircraft. But at least they win the prize for the race to the bottom by being the first force to smash through the 30,000 mark.

The Air Cadet gliders are listed FFS!

They are giving away all our secrets, if the Ruskies find out they are grounded we will be totally exposed :\

Operation BARRELSCRAPE go, go, go:ugh:

Oh, and...

Out of 233,540. That's hardly a stat that's going to make the public think it's money well spent - B£34.4 . I hope the great unwashed don't realise that all that money ends up with 1.7% deployed on ops. I hope they don't wonder what the rest are doing. Of course, if that number were greater they'd be shouting about why the UK is involved in so many ops, so there's no way to win that one.