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...
Wow huh?!"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.
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?
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.
Totally agree Sol. I may be a bit army leaning, but when it comes to the RAF or RN i'd pick the navy every time. Power projection is something that the RAF will never be able to do so they should sit back and let the RN reconstitute our carrier strike, escort and SSN force properly for real some real punch.
ReplyDeleteThe RAF have roles specific only to them which they constantly neglect to try and gain other operational areas. I'd happily say let them go back to their glory days of strategic bombing when they prove they can handle QRA (and deployable air assets - 8 tornados to Afghan is frankly pathetic), air tanking, transport and ISTAR.
Unfortunately they can handle precisely none of those sufficiently at the moment.
I just wish people would get over it and stop being so bitter and twisted, no one actually cares because there are much more important things to worry about
ReplyDeleteSorry Grim, think you are well off the mark with your comments
On to the rebuttal of the AVM, he was not wrong at all
The very simple fact is that GR9 was not cleared for DM Brimstone, Storm Shadow or the RAPTOR pod, all essential capabilities for Afghanistan/Libya and future operations.
The Tornado fleet had the depth to sustain the Herrick deployment and JFH did not.
In so much as it was a ridiculous decision to have to make, it would have been much better to retain both, when the chips were down, the Harrier decision was unfortunately the correct one.
Grim901.
ReplyDeletewe're in agreement. luckily the British Army has been spared most of the foolishness that we see happening between the RAF and RN.
TD.
i have to disagree. most people are looking at the operations in terms of only the platforms at the end of the kill chain. the other important facts have to deal with sortie rate and the utility of being able to operate closer to the scene. in all areas the harrier is superior.
But they were irrelevant because the Defence Main Effort is Afghanistan and that rightly trumps anything else
ReplyDeletetrue. but this story isn't going away. i look forward to your next post on it. love those boats by the way....we definitely need them.
ReplyDeleteTD, I keep a close eye on your sight and im a big fan of your work, but where we differ is our opinions (yes they are just opinions, we can both support our arguments here) on carrier strike. There is always that slight anti-navy twinge to your work which I disagree with. I often see the arguments for glorified container ships to replace some dedicated, whilst the RAF get their lovely personalised planes, why not suggest the A400M as a platform for all our transport (cargo and personnel), AAR, ISTAR, bombing and CAS missions. Hell with a couple of wingtip pylons they could even perform a little QRA.
ReplyDelete...Ridiculous argument but I see you using that logic for the navy all the time, good enough for most jobs, but I sure wouldnt want to be aboard a container ship or A400M when i'm going up against a half decent enemy.
Just for the record my background is within the army, but i'd say you've let them off easy in your cost cutting too, they're the least capital intensive for equipment and too important currently to take on (Sol thats probably the reason they've been spared a lot of this inter-service crap, the public thinks the army do it all right now).
If it were up to me i'd have the centrepiece of UK defence policy be 2 full carrier groups, with the ample amphibious support we've built up over the last decades. I see that as the most suitable way to remain credible. The army needs to be flexible, but not configured for these long term stabilisation ops (if they get to that point the CDS hasn't told the PM to shut up and listen hard enough), so they don't necessarily need massive manpower or the ridiculous number of platforms it currently uses. Likewise the RAF needs to focus on the tasks of supporting the Army and RN that it constantly ignores. Apart from that QRA is the majority of what it needs to be doing as the FAA could if properly equipped (or a Joint Force if the RAF are really crying by this point) perform the CAS and strike missions.
All of this obviously requires our politicians, and politicians still in uniform, to cut the crap once in a while. The RAF will never effectively perform the role of a carrier group but they can still be relevant and useful as any support arm of the army can be.
*Sits back and waits for the abuse.*
No abuse from these quarters, as long as you steer clear of slagging off bridges, mexeflotes and containers :)
ReplyDeleteIf there is an anti navy twinge (and I try really hard not to) it is a reaction to the navy lobby that see the acquisition of toys and shiny baubles as an end unto itself without putting forward any sensible arguments beyond we are an island.
By the way, the TD door is always open if you fancy doing a guest post.
I asked Sol ages ago but he keeps coming up with excuses like work, blogging and real life :)!!!
I'll steer clear of the bridges, mexeflotes and containers around you then TD. I do appreciate the engineers, they can be fairly innovative (the thought of a talk with a staff sergeant who used a pair of his flip flops as a flotation device for an explosive to go down a pipe during his last tour of Afghan springs to mind).
ReplyDeleteI know you try and steer clear of the bias, and I agree that the navy is overly obsessed with the shiniest of toys, which is why I try to focus on the quiet background stuff that gets ignored (our top notch MCM and amphib capabilities) that often get forgotten, and mourn the loss of escorts for carriers. But when it comes down to it i'd rather we have those carriers than not. If I ever ended up deploying somewhere like the Falklands, Iraq, Sierra Leone etc, i'd much prefer having a carrier offshore with CAS on call.
I'd love to do a guest post at some point, but right now i'm afraid Sol's excuses will be about spot on for me as well.