Sudan brit evacuation
 

Various news items suggest that we now have an airfield from which to repatriate hapless Brits.

Job for the Regiment? Surely yes, but probably not being used. Again.

Anyway, good luck to all, get Home safely.

They're on their way?


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....bf9ed8e377.png

https://news.sky.com/video/sudan-vol...ation-12866133
Ben Wallace press conference (interestingly with some looking suspiciously like the Commandant General of the Regiment (AVM Smeath) sitting next to him)

Germans in charge at Airfield - UK will take over if they leave before evac complete.

Looks like it's the Marines (footage of them boarding C-130 at Aktrotiri) also scoping out sea evacuation from Port Sudan. (Youtube version of same clip is longer)

Good Lord, AVM Smeath! I remember Fg Off Smeath!

If it does turn out that the RAF Regt has been overlooked again for airfield defence, surely the time has come to accept that it is no longer needed?

If the Marines are already in Cyprus then surely that makes the most sense?

But why let sense get in the way of a good rant!

But were they in Cyprus?
By continuing to not use the Regiment its perceived usefullness will indeed decline.
Not a rant

Why? Has an EFI been set up?

please translate

It won't guard itself will it.

Almost back on thread...
1. I too remember Mick Smith as a Fg Off. He's done very well and I wish him good fortune.
2. Despite the RAF Regt's banter over the years, they really are part of the RAF's overall capability. I think the case for elements to be present on the ground (alongside all the others needed to turn around aircraft and process/load the entitled pax) is both sound and enduring. Indeed, I expect there will be some Regt personnel there, just not as highly visible and newsworthy as RM.
3. The UK is usually quite slow off the mark compared with others. My predecessor in squadron command related at our HO/TO that after being alerted and preparing he and the squadron had been awaiting the order to go into 'x' for so long that the window of opportunity had closed. Germany, Italy and France had all been in and out the previous day.

News reports indicate that some of our entitled personnel have now been brought out by RAF.

To clarify, please what is an EFI?

"only a retired civvy poking his nose in again".............

Expeditionary Forces Institute - deployed NAAFI.

To expand on Toadstool's reply, the RAF Regt were the wrong end of banter during the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles as the 'short range desert group' and known for keeping the EFI safe

Thank you both

Do we still have a nominated "Spearhead" regiment, on rotation from the UK's collective infantry units? If so, isnt it most likely that it was 40 Cdo's turn to provide the Spearhead "regiment" and therefore step up for this op?
Do the RAF Regt have a formed unit that provides the "Spearhead" regiment?
I would be surprised if 40 Cdo are not being augmented by specialists in airfield security.

and that banter turned into pure hatred and bile by some very ill informed people. I don't remember any of our casualties being killed or wounded on camp, except in the Bastion attack and Basra rocketing, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army/Tongans sat in the towers at Bastion.
Back on track, the RAF Regt don't have a Battalion/Commando sized unit sat on standby for this sort of thing. We have troops on the AMPTs and TACPs, but that isn't newsworthy.

I am sorry to have turned over a stone or, dare I say, a Rock!

Given the Regiment's role of Force Protection, I would have been surprised to find it far from an airfield or Line of Communications.

Rather like Marines on an airfield, come to think of it.

I couldn't help looking up the name of the film starring a very young Kenneth More and an Indian locomotive. It's North West Frontier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_...rontier_(film)


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....95b41c4aba.jpg

Posted by Langley Baston
We had a RM detachment at RAF Luqa, Malta in the 70's. Very quick off the mark when an aircraft decanted several not so friendly vehicles onto the runway.