SDSR rumours.
 

Right then folks. As the date draws ever closer and with this being a rumour site it's time to dig out your best gouge that you've heard.

A bit of blind conjecture and blatant horse crap is always good for the soul so let's let rip and see what actually comes to fruition at the end of the month.

As a starter for ten I'll offer up the formation of a couple of new Typhoon Squadrons.

Any more for any more?!

BV:confused:

To be more than offset buy a significantly reduced F-35 buy no doubt. Wonder which one is buried in the small print.

F35 replaced with grounded air cadet gliders.
 

New glider winch to be installed on the bow of new carriers. Carriers will only operate at weekends as staff cadets still at college Monday to Friday. No serviceable aircraft predicted for a few years anyway. Winches and carriers to be immediately mothballed or turned into travelodge branches and sent to Newquay for the summer trade.

Red Arrows to be amalgamated with the Purple Helmets and the Red Barrows, the will be renamed The Purple Arrow Barrows.

Why not add your comments/speculation to a thread already running on the SDSR here on pprune,

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...sdsr-15-a.html

Rather than starting a new thread.

Yeah! I didn't start that thread all the way back in December last year, just for people to forget about it.;)

Sun.

Biggus
 

Thank god you're here to keep us all in check. What was I thinking wasting everyone's time like that. Not to mention using up vital space on the World Wide Web.

The founders of this forum could have saved us all so much bother if they'd just named a thread for each conceivable topic in the early days for us to continue adding to over the subsequent years. Or heaven forbid, from time to time we could start a new one about a similar topic to one that has been discussed previously but with a more up to date slant to it.

It's here now though so we might as well use it.

BV

Oh dear, looks like the Outrage bus has departed from Valley..:E

Meanwhile, 10 x Hawk T.1 replaced by 3 x black QQ Alfa Jets, F-35 to be downgraded and re engined to increase job share, Kawazaki wins MR contract and anyone interested leaves UK for Australia and NZ. :ok:

My SDSR theory:

A. Significant cuts to capability and manpower whilst maintaining an aspiration to mimic the US and be everywhere doing everything, result = the thrashing continues. Or

B. A slight uplift to funding with the result that politicians want to see a return for their investment, even though it's probably just sufficient to get us back to something like 2010 capability levels, result = the thrashing continues.

Russia wins the whole job with an unsolicited bid.:oh:

OAP

How about, build a new 5 storey headquarters at Shawbury for DHFS, have a 1 Star and 2 Group Captains and close the Squadron Ops buildings. Sorry that's not a rumour.

None of this is necessarily in SDSR2016, or SDSR2015/16 as some enlightened pundits are quoting. Recent topics "of interest" that may or may not be relevant. The phrase "very expensive" is relevant.

- Trident replacement is very expensive.
- Carriers are very expensive.
- F-35 is very expensive.
- Comprehensive Spending Review follows SDSR.
- The 2% of GDP figure is only a two year commitment.
- Fallon has already laid the ground by outlining a number of low-cost international cooperations that mitigate the effects of smaller national forces and capabilities.
- "And we need to reform our ways of working to bear down on inefficiency and eradicate waste.". Fallon.
- Counter Terrorism spending is ring fenced.
- Typhoon needs to assume all the FJ roles.

Please feel free to add up the numbers. You may find the budget is already overspent. A careless remark at a meeting recently suggested that the Navy is going to have to take a massive hit (more than I could have imagined) to get a single carrier with access to a number of F-35s when required.

The Army is unlikely to see anything surprising, but the large numbers of personnel that need rebasing in the UK is attracting a lot of attention.

Tornado handing over to Typhoon.

That's all I have.

New MMA (actually a C130J with a pallet or two) to be based in new facilities at Prestwick (actually, the soon-to-be defunct RN SAR flight).

Northolt to cease fixed-wing flying by 2020 - 32 (TR) Sqn to be relocated, location TBN (in other words, stood down).

GR4 to soldier-on - War on Terror.

Typhoon to whom-of-life programme to be stretched (Value for Money)

F35 numbers to be reviewed.

Air Cadet Gliders to be replaced - Commandant 2 FTS to get a Knighthood.

MFTS to be reviewed.

As we are getting a couple more Typhoon squadrons BV, can you fix it that 'The Tremblers' are one of them please?


Many thanks
TO

Rumour has it one of them will be 74 Sqn so that we can give some of the jets some really cool paint schemes to show the public we still are g-r-r-r-e-a-t! ;)

111
 

I know nothing of seniority but speaking from a purely selfish standpoint I'd bring back 19 Sqn personally.

BV:ok:

Mach, the defence budget is ringfenced until 2020, so 5 years not 2

They are going to reform the best Herc' Sqn, 48 and base it back in Changi so that there is a decent overseas tour for all the transport guys; might even get rid of those awful glass cockpits and bring back navigators and flight engineers!

Bu**er I just woke up when I fell out of bed!

Budget.
 

Hawk unfortunately there have been several announcements regarding the budget so I'd take them all with a pinch of salt.
2% of GDP minimum however expect a portion of the security services budget and military pensions to be counted in that. (they aren't now)
1% real term rise in the equipment/procurement budget for the term of this parliament. Based on projections from 2 years ago, how's F35 budget doing? Trident replacement costs recently revised as well.
1% pay rise cap for all public sector workers for the duration of this parliament. Sadly probably the only thing we can trust the politicians to deliver.
As for the review I suspect some regurgitating of old news with lots of buzzwords but nothing substantial and I can not see us getting any sort of MPA although I hope I'm wrong.

2 C-17 to NZ...
It'll all be smoke and mirrors.

I think we all know that if any squadron's going to be stood up it will be 43. I s'pose Tremblers would do at a pinch.

If a 3rd F-35B sqn is in the longer-term offing, it seems fairly likely that it would get a FAA numberplate, which means that options for keeping the IX(B) Sqn numberplate alive post-Tornado OSD are few. As a single-digit number with quite extensive senior backing (VCDS and DCom Ops are both former commanders) I suspect that one of the rumoured new Typhoon sqns will take the numberplate, either on disbandment of the third Tornado sqn or at Tornado OSD. Protestations about fighter heritage should be given a stiff ignoring given that Typhoon will shoulder the majority of the RAF's attack duties (with Storm Shadow, Brimstone 2 and Paveway IV) even after F-35 enters service - and let's face it, it's far more likely to use any of those weapons in anger than it is to shoot anything down. I reckon the Air Force Board will take the view that 'hibernating' IX(B) for a potential 4th F-35 squadron is too risky an approach.

31 and 12 Sqns? Looks like the history books beckon, sadly.

Sacred cows such as squadron numbers should have been confined to the history books the day the Royal Navy gave-up Greenwich.

I'm sorry, but we're talking about the continuance of the Service, not a few battle honours. :ouch:

Free socks are a gonner....:(

An increase in the number of squadrons.

(and a decrease in the number of 'planes per sqn)

Introduction of workplace parking charges on a graduated basis. Designated slots charged at 50% of the daily rate of the occupier other wise the nearer to the door/higher the rank, the more you pay. (A new trade group, with a brand new CHQ and 2* post as HoB , to be introduced to regulate on-base parking).

From another thread- Cpl's pay for WSOps, leading to a study into the introduction of NCO pilots on the premise that not so much command ability is required in the 21stC; and with the long lost air dropped nuke capability.

Makes sense.

CG

Just contract out parking to NCP or APCOA.


On the subject of Sqn numbers, why not just logicify the whole thing and go for:

0x: fast 'n' pointy
1x: sneaky beaky
2x: fat 'n' heavy
3x: wokka
4x: training

The RAF is getting smaller but is trying to behave like it did in the 1980's, IMHO it shot it's self in the foot in SDSR 2010 by keeping too many FJ Sqns and taking too many hits in other areas (I know we lost a fair few FJs). I don't think the whole Force structure looked relevant for future Ops, I think this was proved by the subsequent loss of a couple more Sqns after SDSR as we still looked fat. For example many of our neighbors had already bitten the bullet and done this by halving (or more) their FJ fleets and making sure they were efficient and capable (Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium) also by mixing them with SAM systems, etc. while we persisted with the Battle of Britain concept.
As for Sqn number plates, we are only fooling ourselves by trying to prop up so many on inappropriately on none FL units, if we only put them on FL units we could demonstrate how much we have shrunk and it might be help the public understand what they have e.g: in 1990 we had 50? now we have 15? much like the RN do with ship numbers.
The rivalry of Sqn numbers is becoming corrosive and distracting us from what is important. It's time to try something new, perhaps rotate them every 2 or 3 years (Maybe tie with the new CO?), that would provide good PR opportunities, provide potential confusion to Foreign Int Services on force structure and personnel, chance to clear out dead wood, prevent rivalries becoming damaging and distracting, allow more history to be revisited/discovered, etc.

Rumour.
 

Battle of Britain Flight to be civilianised and given charitable status.

More Rumour.
 

Good quality DT rumours here, someone is spinning but quite what I'm not sure;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11981015/Armed-Forces-personnel-to-be-denied-automatic-pay-rises-as-George-Osborne-looks-to-make-efficiency-savings.html

Regardless of the detail, the same political same political spin will surface: budgets down but capabilities will go up. :-/

Where to start with this??!

- The decisions that led to the 'loss of a couple more sqns after SDSR' - reducing the Tornado force from 7 to 5 to 3 squadrons - were all taken as part of that SDSR and its 3-month exercise, they just weren't announced or implemented immediately. But they were all laid out plainly in the classified plans alongside the headline chopping of the Harrier force.

- Keeping 'too many FJ sqns'? Within months of the SDSR, Op ELLAMY showed that we had cut them too far - the op was only possible without impact on Afghanistan because the sixth and seventh Tornado squadrons had not quite shuffled off the parade square yet. Then Op TURUS and Op SHADER forced the reversal of the PR11 decision to FURTHER cut the Tornado force to just 2 squadrons! And now I think pretty much everyone expects that the Typhoon force will grow to compensate for the retirement of Tornado, whereas previously we were going to decline yet again.

- 'Battle of Britain model'? Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands all have the benefit of very small FIRs than can easily be protected by a combination of SAMs and QRA. Plus the latter two are well-surrounded by NATO members and will rarely be responsible for making the first intercept and identification of an unidentified contact. Conversely we have to defend an enormous patch, much of which is over sea, and quite often have to go and make first identifications, both things which SAMs are poor at. So there are very good operational reasons why we haven't copied the F-16/Patriot model.

The logic of SDSR10 and PR11 would have seen our fast jet force reduced from 30 squadrons during Gulf War 1 to just 6 squadrons in 2020. That isn't halving, as in the examples you quoted - it's an 80% reduction. Apart from those capabilities which have been deleted, I think you will struggle to find such a precipitous decline anywhere else in our forces. These cuts have been widely accepted as a mistake in senior circles and SDSR15 is almost certain to see the direction of travel reversed.

If I was looking for imbalances in our force structure, or questions of relevance to future ops, I would be asking what exactly we propose to do with 60 Chinook, a number which was only arrived at as a sop to an angry public during HERRICK. The size of that fleet is a legacy of a particular kind of war, the kind which Robert Gates advised any leader considering to "have his head examined".

George has ideas about incremental pay...

No NATO air arm has decommissioned its 'FJ' fleet to the same degree or as quick as the RAF has, apart from the RN and Marineflieger.

Belgium has cut from eight squadrons to four, they have a population of approximately 10 million

We have cut from 30 squadrons (37 if you want to include the OCUs!) to eight squadrons. Now, you work out the sums and tell me who has been the more ruthless in decimating its raison detre for existing, for the FJs, as they simply referred are the principal means of delivering ardnance in just about every way. Further, there is no way that the RAF today acts the way it did in the 1980s, on far to many subjects! Oh we had a maritime fleet of 35 Nimrods back in the day as well, all for ASW, nothing more, another three for elint at Wyton.
If the RAF lose any more FJ squadrons then it may as well be subsumed into the Navy and Army as it can barely justify its independence in a country the size and output of the UK and with the size of the other two services such as they are. RAF manning used to be nearly a third greater than that of the senior service, today they are virtually comparable, the RAF use to stand at slightly more than 50% of the the Army's total strength, today its slightly more than a third and this is after the much hugh and cried cuts to the army's strength. Just observations made in my spare time. By the way, the transport and rotary fleets have maintained numbers quite well and istar, I'm sure is vital, has gone from strength to strength.

FB:)

FB

Globe Trotter asked:Easy answer to that - none whatsoever. The UK no longer has sufficient aerodromes, training aircraft or QFIs to support anything more then the handful of military pilots undergoing flying training these days....

The last increase I can recall was around the time the Tornado was introduced. Valley was at full stretch and the RAF had 3 TWUs at Brawdy, Chivenor and Lossiemouth. QFIs in non-instructional posts were pulled back to augment UAS training a little later, but there was sufficient capacity in the system to replace them....

Once the UK could afford to give potential pilot recruits 30 hours of PPL-level flying on Flying Scholarship schemes, then either 2½ years at RAFC training to Wings standard - or 3 years at university flying about 30 hours a year at the UAS under regular RAF QFIs.... The JP course was about 140 hours, but reduced to around 120 for UAS graduates.

Since then it's been cut after cut after cut. MoD cannot even manage a fleet of Air Cadet gliders, there are no Flying Scholarships, UASs do so little flying that they're hardly worthy of the title and most of their 'staff' are retread FTRS long out of regular service. Cranwell has a few plastic pigs and a handful of King Airs and the ogre of MFTS is about to put the final nail of the coffin of the once proud RAF flying training system.....

So coping with a pilot training surge requirement? No chance whatsoever

Chinook
 

The Mk3 Chinooks are going to be sold to save the cost of the Julius upgrade to Mk5.

BEagle
 

I would agree with virtually everything you said apart from your final point. It might be via non traditional means but in true military fashion, we will find a way!

BV:cool:

More like flogging a dead horse!

Which final point? About the utter bolleaux of MFTS, Ascent and its snake oil salesmen?

Good luck finding enough QFIs who will be happy to move to Anglesey.....