Is there a big army exercise going on?

[TorqueVR]

By the end of the weekend even my wife could tell the difference between Chinooks, Merlins and Apaches without looking up. There's hope for the old girl yet!

[ecsrobin]

It is standard fit for chinooks in formation to have a surf board in the back and a loud speaker playing ride of the Valkyries

[ecsrobin]

So a chinook decided to bomb some sheep with some ration packs #notforsheep http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/chino...

Guessing the hookers will be in trouble for an incorrect load.

[Surfr]

I was on camp at St. Athan all weekend. I'd seen the NOTAM and fighter control threads on accumulated traffic so knew to expect rotary traffic but it was so much more active than I'd expected. Chinooks, Pumas, apaches, merlins, Lynx all in multiples and often with USLs. Herc taxied past as I left the junior ranks mess which is pretty much on the runway. The amazing thing is that an entire room of 12 airmen missed the apparent arrival of a c17 at 11:45. We were only a couple hundred metres from the runway all weekend.

Edited by Surfr on Tuesday 21st April 16:37

[onyx39]

Surfr said:

I was on. Amp at St. Athan all weekend. I'd seen the NOTAM and fighter control threads on accumulated traffic so knew to expect rotary traffic but it was so much more active than I'd expected. Chinooks, Pumas, apaches, merlins, Lynx all in multiples and often with USLs. Herc taxid past as I left the junior ranks mess which is pretty much on the runway. The amazing thing is that an entire room of 12 airmen missed the apparent arrival of a c17 at 11:45. We were only a couple hundred metres from the runway all weekend.

possibly silly question, but would the MOD have more money to "play with" and more assets to use now that we are not in Afghanistan anymore?

[Fluid]

onyx39 said:

possibly silly question, but would the MOD have more money to "play with" and more assets to use now that we are not in Afghanistan anymore?

Yes, very much so.

The Defence Exercise budget has gone up massively, and units from all three services have taken advantage of this.

I'm off to do a bit of work on JW tomorrow.

[anonymous-user]

onyx39 said:

possibly silly question, but would the MOD have more money to "play with" and more assets to use now that we are not in Afghanistan anymore?

After near on 15 years of continuous ops in Iraq and Afghanistan plus other shorter deployments such as Libya, everything is a bit knackered so there is probably a bit less to "play with" at the moment.

War costs dont wholly come out of the MoD budget either, most of the cost of deployments such as Afghanistan comes from separate contingency budgets. The MoD will pick up some costs from its own budget but only a minority.

[ecsrobin]

I would suggest that having a lot of kit and people with nothing for them to fight means they need to practice to keep the morale low,

I believe there is an intention to also get back to more field based training rather than in an office at an airfield type training.

[onyx39]

ecsrobin said:

I would suggest that having a lot of kit and people with nothing for them to fight means they need to practice to keep the morale low,

I believe there is an intention to also get back to more field based training rather than in an office at an airfield type training.

Keep morale low?

[ecsrobin]

onyx39 said:

Keep morale low?

For some reason living in a tent under the stars and playing war games seems to lower morale for the vast majority of the military.

[insurance_jon]

looking on my brother's pub's facebook page it seems joint warrior pretty much moved into it

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cock-Inn/161394...

some great photos

[anonymous-user]

Funny how the Navy homes in on a pub called The Cock Inn.

[insurance_jon]

I did raise that when he bought the place a few weeks back

[onyx39]

insurance_jon said:

I did raise that when he bought the place a few weeks back

The cock?