Independent RAF
 

An independent RAF is becoming hard to justify. The Royal Navy, with its new carriers and aircraft could easily take on the RAF role on land. The Fleet Air Arm had a number of land bases in the past. As for transport aircraft, the work is done chiefly for the British Army so the army could take that part over. Training could be done at an MOD unit. Central Flying School would remain, as part of the MOD.

Any thoughts/opinions?

Ooh, ooh. Me first.
 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha haha.

BV

Someone's on a fishing trip

That's probably been true for years though the people who would make the decision would end up sacrificing their own careers, so unlikely to ever happen.

Take it one stage further.... The RN already have the RM, so why not merge the Army into the RM as well?

Sitting back, popcorn at the ready... Watch & Shoot, watch & shoot.....

Has Sharky got a new log in name?

First the RN want to take over the porn industry, now this.....

Ah, bring back the days when all 3 Services had their own element of the other two!

RAF + RAF Regt + Marine Branch
RN + RM + FAA
Army + AAC + RCT shipping

How did we ever get anything done?

Do we need a Royal Navy?

RAF used to have MCU's, so it can easily absorbe that role.. and as for the white elephant floating runways.. ;)

JLB, surely you've got this the wrong way round? The RAF should operate ALL aviation assets, Navy the boats, Army - land stuff. Simples.

😆🤣

Ttfn

It's these French Canadians, even worse than the real thing :p

YS

It would make more sense!

I read the OP and wondered how many replies would occuer until that name was mentioned! :ok:

Those of us who know John would never confuse him with Sharky. I just think he needs to take a longer view rather than a quick snapshot.

BB
 

Oh God. Are you trying to say it was a serious question?

In which case, may I say again:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha

BV

John Lebrun,

Ever since options for change the RAF's frontline assets have been eviscerated more quickly and widely than anything else. The Army have now lost most of their armour and the Infantry have been cut back significantly with Regimental identities lost and now we hear, they are desperately short on manpower in many of the Battalions.
This is all due to a dismissive attitude by all Governments since the end of the Cold war, it was bad enough before, but the Berlin Wall's destruction in November 1989 was snatched at as an opportunity to save money. If we try to subsume the RAF into the RN, and some elements into the Army, this will just quicken and worsen the process of evisceration of all that's left. Neither of the other services would get the Budget necessary to accommodate the RAF's roles fully. There would also be cost incurred by transferring the RAF into the other services, including the change in ethos, uniforms, training (particularly the finer customs and details of the more senior services), it would be an expensive, long drawn out and unhappy mess. Who would operate the A-400s, E-3Ds, Voyagers? These air elements don't sit well with either Sea or Land operations in fact they are very much irrelevant, just as the air defence of the UK (given how established and complex it is, GCI, QRA etc) is to the RN and Army. The problem is lack of investment in and proper attention to all the services.

FB

If this is John Lebrun AFC - please hand in your gong at the nearest Guardroom! :}


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d6a8c71df4.jpg

At the risk of crediting a stupid question with a sensible answer, I’m surprised you didn’t mention the ‘enormous savings’ to be made otherwise why do it?

Except that there wouldn’t be any. Most if not all the personnel would simply change services (£££ for new uniforms etc), Air Marshals would become Generals & Admirals (unless you could successfully argue that those of that rank in the RN & army had sufficient capacity to take on the extra responsibilities, in which case why are there so many underutilized admirals & generals?), ditto for adminers. You would need the same number of airfields, ATC, engineers, suppliers etc. If the aircraft numbers remain the same then you need all the support network as there isn’t much duplication between the services.

So where would the savings be? And if it’s not going to save any money why bother? Unless it’s to satisfy a long held grudge against the RAF?

As the FAA & AAC are so tiny it would make little sense for them to take over the (much larger) RAF. That would be like the RAF Regt absorbing the army. Which probably makes as much if not more sense than the original question.

Does it matter?

The map still says "United Kingdom", yet 'arry 'uckkers is int the process of disassembly.

The Welsh airforce can keep the training stuff I guess but might mind bombing on one of their few bits of turf. Scotland is a new nuke power, excellent, nothing ever went wrong with strong drink and nukes. Isle of wright lays down a SOSUS array across the Solent to keep the pride of the English navy at bay, HMS Holland, last seen at Gosport. HMS Belfast raises a head of steam to venture out to keep the scots part of the Union, but DEPRA nails a writ to the foremast, for excessive particulates. The quartermaster's bowels loosened at the thought of QCB with PS Maid of the Loch, armed with haggis, scotch and fearful noisemakers. The bowel incident resulted in a further environmental regs penalty for discharge within the 3-mile limit, and much derision from the triumphant scots. Sadly, the scots knew that they still had to go back and live in Scotland, the reason for drink. Isle of Mann joined forces with Guernsey, and blockaded Isle of Wright and the perfidious Englanders, by the cunning method of reporting the actual coastal forecast, leading to shipping chaos, and a collapse of all logistics other than Harrods, who maintained their prestigious place in service to the crown, or half-crown, as it was now known. Harrods bottom line was improved immeasurably by the crowning of the King of Wales, who on coming out o the closet, was then coronated again as the Queen of Wales, to great joy from royalty fans in San Francisco. Rio collapsed on the realization of the competition mardi gras now had with the LGBTQ-XZ parade at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Oops, sorry, not sure if that was "spelt rite" or the cat went walkabout on my keyboard. The RAF now named the 'EAF based out of Duxford continued to work on getting black 6 back in front line order, but DBenz was only prepared to sell them spares that would fit the Mini Clubman turbo motor. The surplus aircraft were sold off, a C17 here, a MRTT there, the Tornadoes were turned down by Nigeria, who considered they already had enough chicken coops. The Typhoons, were subsequently found in the Iraqi desert, interspersed with MiG-23s and -29's. The remainder of the former RN was sold off to shipbreakers north of Mumbai, except for one carrier that was taken aboard by the Swiss, and used as a floating amphitheatre for the reformed ABBA group. It was considered to be a non-combatant ship. The army was able to fill their retirement funds by selling the challengers to Burundi, and the ammo to the French. A profitable enterprise, resulting in a remake of Catch-22 with the disclosure of the PM's son being the chairman of the intermediary company, called M & M Enterprises, Ltd. Providors to the Queen. The Army was disappointed that the IRA, refused the Enfield L85A1's considering them to be a trojan horse ploy.

Yup, at this point, the services combined, and all lived happily ever after. England, however, went bankrupt, having to pay for the change to the tourist maps n all, and then finding that the tourists and the city had taken the hint and departed the fix post haste.

At least the former United Kingdom didn't have to pay the EU for anything, they were now part of the updated moniker of disaster, PIGSUK.

Those were the days.

What is the logic of the Navy taking over the RAF? They (the Navy) only have two airfields and neither of those is likely to still be above sea level by day 2 of any future peer-to-peer punch up.

If the OP was fishing, 'twould see he's got a nibble or three.....

Where is the reasoned argument to either agree with or refute his questions?

Don't ask me - I'm just a civilian who's taxes pay for it.

Is this not the whole reason their Air Ships got rid of the Harrier force, to stop this happening?

MM

Why does the Navy have so many Admirals, Vice Admirals, Deputy Vice admirals and so on?

One would be more than enough.

As to the RAF and its Title Inflation, it is even worse!

bobward
 

When an OP appears on a forum and offers up a blatantly inflammatory question with no posting history it certainly appears as a fishing trip.

You’ll note he/she hasn’t reappeared since asking the question.

If it is a lazy attempt to get us to do their homework for them then it needs more effort.

If it is designed to make us Air Force types get all indignant and wound up he/she really will have to try harder.

Until some serious meat is put on the bones of why they came here to ask the question they should not expect any serious answers.

BV

Just to play the game of "I didn't realize I had been trolled" for a few moments, and as an excuse to use some terrible business vernacular, you would probably want to examine the "value streams" that each service currently delivers. A quick examination would show that specialist teams with specialist equipment are probably better at providing specialist capabilities. Whenever you start homogenizing and emulsifying, skill levels and capability get eroded and reduced to the lowest common denominator. That's why it saves money, we provide everything "adequately" instead of anything "exceptionally". If you think defending sovereignty and sovereign interests should be done by the lowest bidder, losing the RAF makes perfect sense. If you think there's a little more to it than allowing millionaires to pay less tax, then maybe it's not such a good idea.

What he said!

Made oi larf though.

It is probably past his bedtime...

Umm no, that was down to a poorly negotiated maintenance contract, that gave all to Bae, who then charged RAF for work when they broke 3 harriers while in their care.

Ttfn

What about the good old, really old, old days, when the RAF had its own Rolls Royce armoured cars to race around the desert in ?

BDF
 

Let’s go the whole way and become the British Defence Force, a truly true-service organisation. Boom.

do not feed the troll. I say again, do not feed the troll.

If God had wanted the army or navy to fly, he would have painted the sky green, brown or navy blue.

Neither is the sky painted purple....

Next question....

BV are you sure about that? joined 12 years ago, age 82, known to some, flown with by others. As my daughter said, one day the RAF will be the biggest cap badge in the Army. Though she had no great opinion of the Army officers she worked with. A colonel who wouldn't speak and a captain who thought her a subordinate.
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It is clear that the British (was about to say UK, but that is not PC) armed services are vastly experienced, but completely out of scale with current military realities.
Imho, the British military should best be compared to the US Marine Corps, they are both roughly the same size and serve largely as overseas intervention forces.
That does suggest that if the USMC can maintain an integral air force with no more than unit patches, so could Britain.
What is of course missed is that the US Marines do get access to the whole doctrine, design, develop, produce and support bureaucracy of the rest of the US military.
The British equivalent of this is presumably in Whitehall, invisible to budget cutters, even though that is where most of the money goes astray.
To illustrate, Space X provided government launch services for about a third the cost of the United Launch Alliance, the previous monopolist supplier.
Yet the USLA books were fully compliant with the lowest cost, best price requirements of the Defense Contracts Audit Agency....

BV is right. An observation that the Navy has land bases and an assertion that most transport flying is done in support of the Army doesn’t constitute an argument worthy of refutation. When change is proposed, the onus is on advocates for it to make the case for ditching the status quo. In the absence of anything substantive to engage with, I would simply fall back on the key argument which led to the formation of the RAF in the first place, namely the Navy and Army having neglected air capabilities other than those which directly supported their institutional core businesses of sailing and soldiering. At the very least, an argument for change would have to address this point and say why it would not apply again in future. And it would be wonderfully ironic to hear arguments such as “institutional myopia and parochialism are things of the past” from the typical sort of people who advocate abolition of the RAF :)

i have never understood the obsession with ranks.

It is just a name.

However, it relates to pay.

If you were the boss of a factory that had 150-200 people you would expect to get paid as well (if not more) than a Sqn boss who will be a Wg Cdr earning £70k ish, RRP is not rank dependent and is specialist pay.

Look at anyone in charge of 10,000 people they will be paid significantly more than an AOC Gp and likely way more than CDS, never mind CAS.

Google CEOs of companies of 32,000 people and see what they get paid...

100%...

That being said, I doubt the other services will let CAS do the Xmas message, decide on the generic non-gendered-inoffensive-PC name for the personnel (formerly known as soldiers, sailors and aviators) or the hair regs 😀

The OP is probably just trolling for laughs but the question is not as silly as it sounds. Canada went down this route although it was easier because all shipborne air are helicopters embarked on frigates and destroyers. Those guys and gals are Air Force members but tend to do the majority of their careers as MH drivers so they are a defacto Fleet Air Air and it actually works pretty well.

The bean counters made a pretty convincing case you could get the same bang for significantly less bucks and in the post COVID budget reality you can bet this idea is going to be floated in a venue much more consequential than PPRUNE....

BPF
 

You’re right. Canada did go down that route. And then made a dirty great big U turn.

PN.

It’s not a username I have ever seen post in this forum. If he is an experienced poster it is a very odd way of doing business.

BV