RAF Tornado fleet 'faces axe' in bid to save £7.5bn
Discussion
Guam said:
Dear God have these politicians never read ANY history books??
Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
Exactly. Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
No more base closures firstoff.
Fund and support a FULL Nimrod fleet to patrol our coasts and sea lanes.
Reopen and support Air Defence bases around the WHOLE country.
Give the RN both ships AND boats to complement and sustain the above roles.
Decide if we are going to let the Army pander to the EU multinational force structure, if not just go and invade them anyway (just kidding about the last bit.)
Mo.
Guam said:
Dear God have these politicians never read ANY history books??
Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
How will ground attack aircraft help us defend ourselves when the UK is attacked? They aren't even that good at ground attack anymore as their low-level tactics make them a bit vulnerable as shown in the gulf. We need fewer Tornadoes and more Typhoon and JSF if we are likely to be fighting any air force that's bought a plane since 1985.Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
Tornadoes would not be deployed as they were in 1991. They are now very different aircraft with much improved capabilities compared to the GR1 versions in use back then.
Trying to second guess who your future enemies will be and the weapons that will be most effective against them is a mug's game. All that ever transpires is that when the next conflict breaks out, you don't have enough of the right type of weapons that you should really have for that particular conflict.
Witness what I said previously about the lack of AEW aircraft in the Royal Navy.
In 1975 it was decided we didn't need them as we couldn't foresee any conflict where we wouldn't be able to rely on other (more sensible) countries who still had such capability.
Seven year later, dozens of men died in the South Atlantic as a result of that short sighted (and no doubt Treasury driven) decision.
Trying to second guess who your future enemies will be and the weapons that will be most effective against them is a mug's game. All that ever transpires is that when the next conflict breaks out, you don't have enough of the right type of weapons that you should really have for that particular conflict.
Witness what I said previously about the lack of AEW aircraft in the Royal Navy.
In 1975 it was decided we didn't need them as we couldn't foresee any conflict where we wouldn't be able to rely on other (more sensible) countries who still had such capability.
Seven year later, dozens of men died in the South Atlantic as a result of that short sighted (and no doubt Treasury driven) decision.
Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 30th July 13:40
Guam said:
OnTheOverrun said:
Guam said:
Dear God have these politicians never read ANY history books??
Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
How will ground attack aircraft help us defend ourselves when the UK is attacked? They aren't even that good at ground attack anymore as their low-level tactics make them a bit vulnerable as shown in the gulf. We need fewer Tornadoes and more Typhoon and JSF if we are likely to be fighting any air force that's bought a plane since 1985.Control of the Air is essential for any modern combat scenario, been that way since the first world war for crying out loud!!
How much further do they think they can keep cutting the Raf and leave us with a credible air component, in order to defend ourselves!!
This is just getting silly now, perhaps if we stopped trying to be a global Plod we could afford to retain a realistic defence capability!!!!
Cheers
Cheers
Eric Mc said:
You need both.
Why do you need to control the air?
You need to control the air so your other assets can be deployed with less risk of being attacked from the air by the enemy.
Those other assets include ships, tanks, men AND GROUND ATTACK AIRCRAFT.
Devils advocate hat on here (especially as I am an RAF child and my dad flew in the RAF so feel mightily upset by the fact nearly every base I lived at is closed or facing closure - Finningly, Lynhem being the favourites).Why do you need to control the air?
You need to control the air so your other assets can be deployed with less risk of being attacked from the air by the enemy.
Those other assets include ships, tanks, men AND GROUND ATTACK AIRCRAFT.
As someone said above, trying to predict the capabilities of the enemies in the future is the hardest thing to do. The military hardware we have at the moment is for fighting wars that we are not in any more and still based around fighting another organised military country.
The wars we are in now are against hidden insurgents using underhand tactics and half the equipment the forces have seem to be pretty useless in this type of war. Now I am not for removing it all, but the government and forces need a better way to equip the soldiers/pilots/sailors for the task they are given to do. Currently the procurement process takes far too long, and by the time a contract has been put in place we are in a different style of war.
The forces are not agile enough, and I think this change is starting to come through (take for example the Warthog now being implemented in Afghanistan which was put through in 18 months as oppose to the 6-8 years of a normal procurement process)
Looking at the spend on equipment that does not do a current job is key to funding the right equipment now, but there needs to be in place the facility to be able to quickly get the right equipment when it is needed.
And if you can predict the nature of the next enemy you will have done better than virtually every professional soldiers, sailor, airman or politician over the past 100 years.
You need to have a viable basket of options so that the country can defend itself no matter what type of enemy arises.
Making assumptions that we will only ever have to fight one type of war or one type of enemy in the future guarantees problems.
You need to have a viable basket of options so that the country can defend itself no matter what type of enemy arises.
Making assumptions that we will only ever have to fight one type of war or one type of enemy in the future guarantees problems.
I agree, but there is stuff you need to protect yourself. Then there is stuff you need to be able to provision quickly to support a war.
My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
RacingPete said:
I agree, but there is stuff you need to protect yourself. Then there is stuff you need to be able to provision quickly to support a war.
My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
The problem is that everyone thinks that all these options are mutually exclusive. They only are if you haven't got the guts to spend money on such matters and cut a lot of the more lunatic spending that goes on all the time.My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
Do you know that the annual cost of Trident (or a couple of dozen Typhoons) could be funded by the cost of the excess amounts paid out in ERROR in the Tax Credit system. Every year at least £2 billion is paid out BY MISTAKE in tax credits and very little of this is successfully recovered.
Eric Mc said:
RacingPete said:
I agree, but there is stuff you need to protect yourself. Then there is stuff you need to be able to provision quickly to support a war.
My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
The problem is that everyone thinks that all these options are mutually exclusive. They only are if you haven't got the guts to spend money on such matters and cut a lot of the more lunatic spending that goes on all the time.My point is that the way the forces work for getting new equipment is not agile enough to cope with changing wars, and there is signs that this is changing. Though to be able to support that, there needs to be some cuts to cope.
Do you know that the annual cost of Trident (or a couple of dozen Typhoons) could be funded by the cost of the excess amounts paid out in ERROR in the Tax Credit system. Every year at least £2 billion is paid out BY MISTAKE in tax credits and very little of this is successfully recovered.
But if the government do streamline their mistakes and procedures I am still not sure the defence budget is higher than trying to make baby heart surgeons do their job in Oxfordshire (OK I know it was the procedures wrong and not the surgeons)... but my point is that health will always be a bigger issue to pick up the savings.
Unfortunately not everyone thinks like you Eric, and the defence budget is seen as mutually exclusive.
Unfortunately not everyone thinks like you Eric, and the defence budget is seen as mutually exclusive.
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