2022 OSD for the 146s IIRC (the 2 procured for airlift, at least). Rewinging for the C-130s already announced by gov (sort of) -

Photo of Angus RobertsonAngus Robertson SNP Westminster Leader, Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Defence), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Foreign Affairs)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether a study of the centre-wing box of the C-130J fleet is in progress.
Hansard source
(Citation: HC Deb, 16 March 2015, cW)
Photo of Julian BrazierJulian Brazier The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Stte for Defence
A joint UK-Australian study of the centre-wing box of the Hercules C-130J is in progress.
Does this answer the ab

And the mega bucks to be thrown at the E-3D for upgrades if it has to soldier on to 2035. I would imagine, however, a further shrinkage in the the number of airframes and crews/Sqns with the the rest being stripped for spares.

Assuming the NATO commitment/offset can be met of course - it may/may not be cheaper to run it on rather than fold it and have to fund the NATO E-3A force. I would expect the costs are close, but the flexibility to cover the FI task and OOA would make it preferable.

And, indeed, the 737 Wedgetail may come into the picture as a replacement, but not I imagine for at least a couple of decades until the P-8 bill has wound down.

FWIW, I shall continue to be the resident naysayer until all the details are in - I'm afraid I have to agree with Kitbag, Hangarshuffle et al.

This was a very pleasant announcement for a PM who has to sound strong in the midst of a global terrorist crisis and a foreign policy quagmire. Remember we were told before the election that the equipment budget would increase, but nothing about the personnel budget.

If the intent is for the Army not to drop below 82,000 under any circumstance, if SF and the Intelligence Agencies are having a huge (relative to their size) pile of cash thrown at them but the Chancellor still wants to save money, those savings will have to come from somewhere. I still haven't seen a formal breakdown of how we will meet the 2% NATO target going forward, so cynic in me thinks they are going to try and role bits of SIA and DFID funding into it by conflating Defence and hard power with Security and soft power.

Note there was no mention of pay and Ts&Cs today, clearly not the purview of a Strategic Review lest they be accused of a cuts driven review. But if they cut increments, if allowances are revamped (with a move to 5 yr tours and increasing stability I'd wager CEA and HTD look shaky) and if training budgets are cut, we still run the risk of having lots of new kit and insufficient people to operate it. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I've seen too much spin over the years not to look for the googlie when you least expect it.

ORAC -

Damn straight re. the E-3Ds. Someone badly needs to evaluate that against the LCC of buying something new.

Like it or Lump it
 

Melchett - beat me to it ....:{

Great, so finally after the lure of the shiny new toys we're getting into the details that will make or break this plan.

As others have said...a good day on the face of it for the light blue. Now need to see the supporting evidence to see if this plan survives... manning requirements, recruiting plan, T&Cs, impact on career structure, expectation of promotion, how fast can we recruit and train the engineers, prospects for a full career etc

But a message that is being pedalled widely is the need to become more like the likes of BAe and others out there i.e prepared to accept a transient workforce who come and go and are replaced, become leaner, lose any expectation of 'special treatment' on housing, schooling, pension, 'perks', and either like it or lump it i.e accept or walk.

No problems with a tough message or with change...the money is tight and any waste needs to be removed..but is it really wise to present such a stark choice and ignore any bottom-up views. If the wider T&Cs and the overall package is not a decent one, then people will walk. This has always happened but do people understand that when they walk they take experience with them. And experience cannot be recruited. Any gap takes years to fill. Add to this, the apparent move/desire for a workforce that are on short term appointments with no expectation of a 'full career' and this will lead to a RAF that is very different to the one in existence today.

So any thoughts on what needs to change on the personnel/T&Cs side to put the SDSR plan into reality?

Or to surmise, all the gear but no idea.

On the face of it, manning the force mix described today with a largely regular uniformed force of 31 800 requires a cunning plan from manning (god help us). It's more than binning a dozen adminers here and a handful of coppers there.

Doing all this whilst "in contact" in Iraq and Syria adds to the fun.

A review (another one) to see if you can make a post civie (not MOD civi as they have been butchered), bin it or contract it out is inbound...

The messages the civil service are getting is that it will be outsourced , do you seriously think crapita, G4S and their like will provide the service needed....... no I didn't think so.

Contracting out leads to contraction of your pool of deployable personnel. Sqns aren't too bad, but what about OOA VAHS sections or all the other supporting roles that make an airfield tick, these tend to be made up of waifs and strays from all those second line bays etc. Bin them and who's going to do the job, the hard pressed sqn guys? And is it really sensible to pull them away from their specialisation to do a generalist task? These days to meet the mandated requirement for Suitably Qualified and Experienced Personnel takes considerable investment at each rank level. That is a tension that the Service cannot resist.

There is a manning problem, TG1 are about to go to 12m PVR notice; not the sign of a healthy manning balance. Some other TGs are in much worse condition. FF2020 manning requirements have already been breached. The 'offer' is no longer enough for a lot of good guys; I've had people who are going to work as train drivers, or renewable techs, or train maintainers, or going into teaching, or maintaining production line equipment. They are all looking at 50-100% salary increase + overtime and they all remember the trauma of the redundancy notices less than 5 years ago.

Contracting out what is after all 737 maintenance should be fairly straight forward once a suitable Safety Case has been prepared and compliance monitoring applied.

[QUOTE]Woodford must feel a bit sick. Last UK aerospace whole aircraft production capability closed for what - a 5 year payment holiday?[QUOTE]


Apart from Westland. And it doesn't matter how close the MRA4 was to completion if it was never going to meet airworthiness regulation, which seemed to be the elephant in the room five years ago.


[QUOTE]regarding where the 2 new Typhoon sqns will be based, would basing at Boscombe Down be a possibility? It's already down to be a QRA base should the situation require it and there is certainly an RAF FJ absence south of Lincolnshire! As the QRA requirements would imply, its got plenty of HAS', two huge runways and I'm presuming all the other infrastructure that would be required.[QUOTE]


Very unlikely. Every fleet has been rationalised into the fewest possible number of bases in recent years, therefore setting up the Typhoon shop at Boscombe for only 2 sqns would be a significant U-turn. Other problems include integrating permanent QRA into an R&D airfield and the distance to both ranges and likely targets.

The grass can always look greener.

Any salary increase has to be taken in the round - the complete package of housing, transport, medical, dental, job security, the responsibility, the chance of promotion, the fun, the recognition, the cameraderie, job satisfaction, chance to do AT and representative sport, the challenge, the access to top class gym facilities, and ultimately the feeling that once is doing something worthwhile for others etc when making comparisons

But as I was alluding to in my earlier post, the notion that the Armed Forces was more than just a typical civvie job seems to be being eroded deliberately. To what harm? and what needs to be done for most impact and to enable the SDSR equipment buys?

I'll concede dental, but the rest? Nah.

when 30%+ of DES have left on VERS.... could be interesting. DIO and DES as back room organisations rather than front line are likely to take a bigger slice of civilian cuts.DBS will be hived off except for NSV and Ilford Park Polish home I would guess.

Blimey, what planet are you living on. I haven't met anyone who has looked back after leaving.

S-D

haha. Each to their own eh :)?

As far as I can see one of the Tranche 1 Sqns will be for RAFAT at Scampton, maybe both.

In fairness to today's announcements we need to see the detail of the spending round out of MOD. Does the froth hide an ugly side of cuts to other capability? For example where does the manpower come from to man 2xTyphoon Sqns + 9 MPA Sqn, plus run on of Shadow, C130J etc.

Nonsense...a bit of scrim over the top and you could use the anchors from redundant frigates to hoof out the back for a quick stop.

Absolutely - it will be interesting to see whether the RAF is able to tap into the rather healthy market of 737 servicing - or whether the self-emptying cargo hold will present a barrier to cheaper maintenance.

Defence Review: Fighting old battles? - BBC News

That won't go down well in Portsmouth. Where's the 'crying with laughter' emoticon when you need it?

I'll bet once the oil starts flowing in the Falklands (say early 2020's) there will be 8 Tranche One Typhoons down there - lots of space to fly in with a population who don't moan about noise and I'm sure will be happy to "make an increased contribution" to costs

Easy,

The Navy has the escorts it needs for a single Task Group with Type 45s already practicing the future role as part of USN CVN task groups. For a single task group, at any one time, the RN has the Type 45s, still very capable Type 23s and Astute class boats plus the support ships being built overseas. Not to mention most Task Groups are multi-national these days anyways, hence why we practice with allied navies so much during Joint Warrior and Cougar exercises/deployments. The BBC does not really know what it's talking about in this instance and there's no point stirring up the inter-service rivalries after the SDSR.

Speaking of what I know, the Fleet Air Arm is not badly off manning wise compared to some and it has been planning the required personnel to man F-35 properly, both air and ground crew, for some time. Utilising the strong links with the USN to train aircrew, engineers and deck handlers seems, so far, to have worked well. The FAA manning system also seems to actually look ahead and takes significantly beter care of it's personnel compared to the deskies at High Wycombe.

I would personally suggest 892 NAS for the next dark blue F-35 squadron. The badge has a lightning bolt and the Motto "Strike Unseen", which seems rather appropriate, and it has the fixed wing (F-4), big deck carrier heritage.

2 x Typhoon squadrons.

Any clues or a good guess as to which 2 squadrons?

19 and 43, I reckon. Unless they want to use another Tornado numberplate. What will be more interesting is which numberplate will be used for the Poseidon squadron; it should be an ex-MR unit, but I think it will more likely be 9 or 12.

The maritime squadrons 201 or 120 would be sensible. 201 because it was 1 Sqn RNAS and became 201 on 1 Apr 1918 or 120 because of its special circumstances in the award of its standard.

I've reformed a couple of units in the past and by far the hardest and most contentious thing was the number plates because everyone seems to have a vested interest and everyone has an opinion. Everyone's opinion is the correct one and causes hours of nugatory staff work.

Indeed so Random.

One was in the RAF's Odd Job Department in the Ministry when an earlier "Numberplate Fest" was going on (was it "Front Line First"? must have been mid-90s ish) and a guy I shared an office with was running with the numberplate sketch. Oy Vay! the problems he had with VSOs trying to keep "their" numbers.

It got to playing Top Trumps with numbers of VCs and DFCs at one stage........ Mate allegedly said to one VSO:

"Sir, the only way we can keep xyz Sqn numberplate is if one of the essential criteria is having been commanded by a bloke called ........... (insert name of VSO as required!)"!

It didn't work for that VSO, fine chap though he was............

.... which sorts of suggests that the best thing is a new sqn number?

..... well the 900 series numbers were used for Barrage Balloon Squadrons, perhaps we could resurrect (re-inflate?) some of those. ;)

renumber the whole lot from 1-20

I'm sure the Russians realised long ago that we don't really have 800+ squadrons.....................

One thing that seems to have slipped through the comments is that the

Vanguard SSBN's are going to be serving a lot longer....... almost as long as the US boats..............

Who knows, maybe with new management in Argentina the FIG will be on trading terms with their neighbour. Potential £50m per annum saving?

I' d like to think the 2 additional Typhoon sqns would be 43 & 111, located at the obvious Scottish airfield...

Did anyone see this slip through??


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-34909649

HMS Ocean to be scrapped in 2019 - After a recent £65mil refit. Guess it will be replaced with the QE class helicopter carrier.............

Slipped through? Always the planned retirement date and confirmed as long ago as last April*. With the tight manpower constraints in the RN I would presume the crew are planned and essential to transfer across and man the QE and PoW.



* David Cameron's Tories' plan to axe flagship helicopter carrier in savage cuts - Mirror Online

Fi on you Harry.

You'll be suggesting next that the infantry don't need 19 different cap badges ......! ;)

Course you could always use an 800 series numberplate - 800/801/892 for example. Big dark blue manning component. Ready for when the squadrons transition to F35 and spend a significant period of time embarked........

SDSR2015
 

You mention Tornado GR4 not being drawn down as planned. Has there been anything announced on this. I have read the SDSR report and all I could find was something along the lines..Tornado will continue to operate until replaced by Typhoon...
as someone who has been involved with this wonderful aircraft for some time, I would appreciate any relating information other than the planned retirement in 2019.

Looking through Jeff Jefford's book on RAF Squadrons it is noticeable that for some reason the Air Ministry missed out No.188 Squadron during the Second World War. Perhaps this could be a good time.

Now, what shall we use as the motto?

Teetering - that's a different argument....

TBH I can just about (at a stretch) understand that politicians want to keep the late Victorian County regiments inteh Army (tho' I doubt their relevance anymore) but no-one ever rolled up to the RAF to join XYZ Squadron

Squadron identification is post posting and seems to grow the longer people have been away from them... especially amonst VSO's.... (ducks) ;);)

We know that RAF Scampton effectively serves no purpose, but hasn't anyone told the local MP not to draw advertise the fact! :ugh:


Lincolnshire MP calls for 'home of the RAF' to have more staff and resources - The Lincolnite