Grand Logistics Blog nails the RAF...

The battle between the Harrier and the Tornado continues.

Or perhaps better stated, the war between the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm continues...

Grand Logistics has a great write up on the issue and says in pictures whats obvious to any observer...the Air Marshal lied...or at least stretched the truth till it was unrecognizable.  Go to his site for the juicy details but before you head there check out this statement...

"The Tornados have delivered [MBDA] Storm Shadows to penetrate hardened buildings and the dual-mode Brimstone,neither of which could have been delivered by the Harrier."

"I am not knocking the Harrier,just those who have,often willfully,overstated its relative utility in this scenario,"

"In operations such as Ellamy,on the periphery of Europe,the access,basing and over-flight restrictions that would necessitate carrier strike do not apply.

 There is simply no comparison in terms of platform capability,time on station or versatility between Tornado GR4s operating from a well-found NATO airfield in Italy and Harriers operating from a CVS*."

*A Royal Navy aircraft carrier.

Wow huh?!

But then check out this statement from a Brit when talking about sea power...(Robert Farley of Information Dissemination brought it to my attention in an article about sea power in today's society)...

We're a maritime nation—we've grown by the sea and live by it; if we lose command of it we starve. We're unique in that way, just as our huge empire, only linked by the sea, is unique. And yet, read Brassey, Dilke, and those "Naval Annuals", and see what mountains of apathy and conceit have had to be tackled. It's not the people's fault. We've been safe so long, and grown so rich, that we've forgotten what we owe it to. But there's no excuse for those blockheads of statesmen, as they call themselves, who are paid to see things as they are. They have to go to an American to learn their A B C, and it's only when kicked and punched by civilian agitators, a mere handful of men who get sneered at for their pains, that they wake up, do some work, point proudly to it, and go to sleep again, till they get another kick. By Jove! we want a man like this Kaiser, who doesn't wait to be kicked, but works like a n----- for his country, and sees ahead.

The question I have is this.

How did the Royal Navy get to a position of being pushed around by the Royal Air Force?

Quite honestly, Air Forces of all nations have a tendency to be quite vicious when it comes to budget battles...the USAF included...but I haven't seen interservice warfare like I'm seeing between the RAF and RN in modern US history.  Last I recall seeing this type of "no holds barred" jabbing was before the Korean War when the very existence of the Marine Corps was threatened and the USAF was attempting to make carrier aviation irrelevant.

Grand Logistics has posted an outstanding rebuttal to the Air Marshal's statement.

Sharkey Ward battles continuously for the Fleet Air Arm.

But its going to take more than two voices in the wilderness.  FAA supporters are going to have to get much more vocal and vicious if they're going to even keep pace in this fight.

The RAF is playing for keeps and the RN should be too.