Navy, Army & RAF to be merged

[Insight]

Could Liam Fox be planning to merge the armed forces in future. Thoughts?



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...tain-to-merge-itsArmy-Navy-and-Air-Force.html

 

[Tyson]

I think it will probably happen at some point. I could see the first step (in the near future) being, the RAF & RN doing the flying and ships/subs but all of our other functions being absorbed into Army/RLC units, supply, catering, medical, MT, police etc.

 

[amfortas]

Would it include the Girl Guides?

 

[Tyson]

Obviously, although that is slightly sexist as it labels them as female, like SAC(W). They’ll have to call them He-She Guides.

 

[Rocket_Ronster]

Could Liam Fox be planning to merge the armed forces in future. Thoughts?

I`d have thought it`d be an odds on certainty, seeing as it went so well with Canada. DT_Xtremez_42:
I can`t see an easier way to spend billions on nothing, followed by another load to sort it out in a decades time.

 

[rigpig]

Could Liam Fox be planning to merge the armed forces in future. Thoughts?

what? you meen the Army taking over as they would like to!!!!

 

[Tyson]

As a bitter, fairly miserable Techie Cpl, I’d see it breaking down something like this……

JUKAF
Joint United Kingdom Armed Forces

Land Command
• All the Army stuff, infantry/tanks/artillery etc

Sea Command
• Surface ships, subs and Coastguard, plus Marines

Air Command
• All aircraft & UAV (including current Naval & Army ones), air defence/control radar & missile systems, SAR Helos and Paras (if kept)

Support Command
• Everything else, logistics, catering, bomb disposal, MT, police, station security (MPGS), medical/dental, admin bods etc

2 Four Stars per Command, 4 Three Stars, 10 Two Stars and 25 One Stars, plenty of jobs for the boys.

Would it be any worse? Under my super new structure it would lead to an increase in size of the (ex) RAF element.

Sadly I think our bigger greener brother would see it more like this……

Army
Army Army
Watery Army
Sky Army
Back Up Army

 

[mib stacker]

Army
Army Army
Watery Army
Sky Army
Back Up Army

DT_Xtremez_31:DT_Xtremez_31:DT_Xtremez_31:DT_Xtremez_31:

WOuld be even funnier if it wasnt so true

 

[Ex-Bay]

Personally, I think we should be better getting all our troops in Foreign Parts home because pretty soon we will not have the personnel or the skills to do foreign operations.

According to last night's TV programme about Helmand, UK had 1200 troops looking after a province half the size of England (think Wessex as was). That was too bloody thin !

Just leave it as "Defence of the Realm", and wait for the next War; then the Government of the day will have some real headaches.

 

[tag_lincoln]

Its a little academic and the main impact would be on the *ships in all 3 services. Airplanes still need servicing, planes and lorries still need loading, people still need posting and having their pay sorted out/messed up. What it wouldn't need is 3 x command structures the size of the US armed forces command chains, (ie we have more *s than the USAF, Why?).

 

[Kryten]

I suppose it comes down to which is the more powerful argument - do you do away with (in the Navy and Army's case) hundreds of years of tradition, or do you look at the economic aspects such a merger would throw up and do it for the sake of the country?

I'm more interested in some of the greyer areas - for example, would you adopt the Army's discipline model as standard across the new Service? Would a member of the Naval Component continue to have seniority? If all air assets went under an Air Component would that sit well with ex-RN and ex-Army types?

 

[Climebear]

we have more *s than the USAF, Why?

I saw that little nugget qouted in the media too.
Only problem is that it is not true. Using the last stats (from 2010) the USAF had 315 starred officers, the RAF had 130 starred officers.

 

[Max]

Only a matter of time I reckon, and as long as we adopt the Army methods of promotion and such then it could be good for some, Although how they'd cope with doing away with A/C Techies at 40 and losing any and all experience would possibly be a downside.

 

[SirSaltyHelmet]

I saw that little nugget qouted in the media too.
Only problem is that it is not true. Using the last stats (from 2010) the USAF had 315 starred officers, the RAF had 130 starred officers.

Now use those figures against aircraft and troops

 

[Jim_P_Pulfrew]

Looks to me like more than another mile has been covered in the march to the end of the 100 year experiment.

No maritime any more, so all airborne effort is now pretty much concentrated on Army Support. The addition of further reduction in the RAF and it is very easy to see an expansion to Close Air Support, Transport, Air Defence and C4I regiments of the Army Air Corps.

Fox will oversee the ditching of a large proportion of star ranks alright - and they will mostly be in light blue. CDS is a pongo and sits alone now on the Defence Board.....see where I am going with this?

Army rules on 22 years and out you go, will not affect the skill levels as badly as you may think; and the prime defence will be Apache, complex aircraft mended by pongos.

And the cries of 'the day they transfer me to the Army is the day I PVR' will have the bean counters rubbing their hands with glee. The AAC will be just as gleeful as they get to recruit lads and lasses who have known nothing but the Army and that aids transition.

The Fleet Air Arm will also get their own way with JSF and the carriers and if it isn't privatised - SAR.

There is no stomach in any of the three services for a Joint Force and the defence is robust - Canada. It cost a fortune and reduced capability, both of which are complete anathema to the current government.

The writing is on the wall my dear friends and it is writ large and horrid. The Royal Air Force I spent the best 29 years of my life is in its death throes. It may not even make a 100th birthday telegram from HM.

Jimps

(All references to AAC obviously includes REME troops too)

 

[Rigga]

No. UK wil not get full jointery for its forces.

The UK Forces will however get better jointery with their fellow EU armies, Navies and Air Forces.

At which time the former Royal Air Force wil become the UK Arm of the EUAF.


Don't forget who's going to do the Base Maintenance on the Voyager...

 

[Max]

Well I can't wait for the beancounters to then turn on the Army and reduce their numbers drastically, They wont find it so funny then.

In the Air Force we service maintain and operate our aircraft so the AAC can go and the reme can do the job (apart from the pilots) Post Afghan the army can see what's coming their way and want to sacrifice the RAF and Navy to save themselves but I can't see them retaining their numbers for long...

 

[BillyBunter]

3 bases will be left in 2018, Brize , Waddo and Coningsby. The rest will be binned as we come into one fighting force. So if you dont live in Lincolnshire or Oxforshire then i suggest selling your house now and dont fall into the trap I and thousands of others have and lost serious cash on our property.

 

[supersquip]

very bad news

 

[Insight]

I was reading this comment someone posted on that article and the person thinks that RAF is essentially a waste of money.

lestermay
06/30/2011 09:09 PM


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Con Coughlin's piece is barking mad if he thinks any navy can be succesfully run by landlubbers. What he fails to point out is the following.

The RAF is a waste of public money. £7bn a year, 40,070 people and 630 aircraft, of which 143 are gliders! Last victory was BoB 1940 and don't they bang on about it! The RAF has not shot down one enemy aircraft in action since 1945, so they have little to bang on about, I guess.

Only 5% of the RAF is overseas on operations in Afghanistan and over Libyan airspace, many of the latter living in hotels in southern Italy. Only 10% of the RAF is aircrew and, of the remainder, many rarely, or never, leave the UK, and some stay in the same air station for many years. The organisation is ripe for civilianisation if it's not abolished. Fully 14% of the RAF's people are classed as medically unfit or "not fully fit" for operations; that's very high when the numbers of RAF people injured in Afghanistan is very low compared to the Navy and Army.

All of the operations carried out by the RAF could be carried out by the Navy and Army; after all, the RAF mostly operates in support of land and sea operations. Abolish the RAF and there would be 20,000 fewer personnel and a saving of £3.5bn a year.

The country cannot afford the light blue any more, and certainly not a light blue that can't keep up the pace and claims it's "running hot". The UK cannot afford any more procurement fiascos, the majority of which have been RAF problems: Chinook, Typhoon, Nimrod, Sentinel ... the list goes on.

It's the Euromillions jackpot at £136m on Friday: the winner can afford one Eurofighter and still have £10m to fill up its tank! The RAF sure got the jackpot with the Typhoon from that crackpot Labour government.