Posted on 04/14/2015 7:01:46 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The U.K. Ministry of Defense has released an accounting of all the aircraft in Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and British Army service — and the overall tally is tiny … and getting tinier.
As of March this year, the air forces of the United Kingdom possessed no more than 362 combat-ready warplanes and drones plus 249 helicopters — a mere 611 military aircraft.
Britain’s air force, navy and army together have another 93 planes and copters that are in deep maintenance or rework plus 18 that are in storage. None of these 111 aircraft are immediately available for combat.
It’s worth noting that the United Kingdom is the world’s fifth-biggest military spender — dropping no less than $64 billion a year on its armed forces. But that $64 billion doesn’t translate into a lot of war-ready hardware.
With a defense budget of $585 billion, the United States spends far more than the United Kingdom does, but that investment supports an aerial arsenal of 13,900 manned warplanes and helicopters along with hundreds of large drones. Not all of America’s 14,000-plus military aircraft are combat-ready at any given time — but most are.
Drilling into the data, which the blog Think Defence first brought to our attention, the weakness of U.K. air power is even more evident. The 362 ready warplanes include just 59 Tornado and 89 Typhoon jet fighters. Another 28 Tornados and 38 Typhoons are in maintenance.
Even if the RAF’s mechanics worked overtime and managed to get all of the fighters onto the flightline, the kingdom’s war fleet would number just 214 fast jets. By comparison, the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps combined possess 2,800 fighters. Russia and Chine each boast around 1,500 combat jets.
And as bad as the situation is now, the trends point to an even smaller U.K. air arsenal in the near future. In 2006, the RAF operated around 220 fighters, dropping to 160 in 2009 and 148 this year.
But the Tornados will retire in 2019 and the Defense Ministry has announced it will also dispose of the 55 oldest Typhoons around the same time, leaving the RAF with just 105 or so total fighters five years from now — not all of which will be combat-ready.
To be fair, the U.K. plans to acquire at least 48 new F-35 stealth fighters — and these could boost the RAF’s frontline combat strength back to around 150 jets by the early 2020s.
But that’s assuming London doesn’t further cut the military budget. That’s hardly a safe assumption. At least one analyst expects the U.K. to slash defense spending by up to 10 percent from 2016, continuing the island nation’s decade of unilateral disarmament.
I bet Eglin and near by Tyndall have more aircraft than the entire nation of GB.
Getting a couple dozen useless F-35’s in 2020 is like Israel getting them after Iran has nuked that country.
Too little, too late. Becoming a very dangerous and bad American policy (deliberately by Comrade Obama and his chickshits at JCS), but also among our NATO allies.
Red China will have more planes than the US, NATO and even Israel combined in the coming decade. They can afford to lose half their air force in combat because they would still outnumber us in the end.
Moscow is also building up a major offensive air force. Put Moscow and Peking together and you have one helluva New Cold War military machine and blackmail policy.
I’d go back to the old F-4s for good firepower and fast production versus the very expensive and limited numbers of the F22 and F35’s.
We won WW2 in the air by outproducing our enemies, not by shooting them all down (with the late war exception of Japan. Remember not all of the 5,000 Kamikazes which sank scores of ships and killed an estimated 5,000+ American soldiers and soldiers were shot down. Many reached their targets and inflicted great casualties and ship losses).
And if Hitler had succeeded in mass producing the ME262 jet fighter, our planes would have been in deep shit until the British got their Meteor really operational. We had the P-80 Shooting Star in advanced development stages but not in war time production mode).
The Red China (and to some extent the Russians), believe in mass production, overwhelming numbers, enough trained crews, and an aggressive-forward expansionist outlook.
What do we have? Obama? McDonough? Rhodes? Dempsey? The women leaders in the military? Political Correctness never shot down an enemy plane. Being the meanness, best trained and best armed bastard in the valley did.
Gotta save their money to put illegal alien Muslims on the public dole.
Thankfully, due to “The End of History”, there is no need for countries to have a military...so why bother with one?
It looks like the RAF is next on the menu.
(Sadly, quite sadly so.)
.
The UK having to call on FRANCE a few months ago, to look for a suspected Russian Sub deep in UK Waters off of their primary sub base should have been a wakeup call.
All the sub-chasers laid up for maintenance.
Not a SINGLE ASW Aircraft left in the UK fleet now.
One has to wonder if the UK complaints about the newly-frisky Russians flying around the UK is because they are shocked by it?
Or shocked because it’s crashing their budget, having to respond to each and every one, clearly showing the current ability deficit?
And not a single strategic bomber. None,,,,
“I’d go back to the old F-4s for good firepower and fast production”
F-15s are even faster to build and easier to maintain. And they are unbeatable so far in air to air combat. A huge fleet of F-15SE’s would be cheap and deadly.
You took my post, darn you! Tis true, what you say.
The National Health Service ate the Navy, and will soon swallow up the army and air force.
The grotesque big baby and robot nurses put on display at the British Olympics will destroy the nation that once ruled the waves.
“And not a single strategic bomber. None,,,,”
Actually, assuming they can keep raising the necessary money, a group of dedicated volunteers is going to keep the Vulcan flying one more year.
No they can't even rule Birmingham and stop the Muslims from implementing Sharia Law and the massive rape and pillage of young girls.
Why do they need an Air Force? They need a psychiatrist.
Prolly spent it all on diversity and sensitivity seminars.
I have heard the UK NHS is the largest financial entitity in Europe. This is a staggering thought considering there is huge companies like FIAT, Daimler-Benz, Siemens and Volkswagen Porsche Audi located there. These companies produce revenue while the NHS sucks it up.
#3 Superiority - by Arthur C. Clarke
http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html
Short story (6 pages) that tells how a side lost despite being “superior”.
It was bad for America when the Boeing monster gobbled up McDonnell. It might be a good thing to reopen the StLouis factory for upgraded F15s even if they are Gen 4 but it ain’t gonna happen.
How much of that US budget goes into salaries and other non-operational costs?
Anyway, another problem for Britain in conjunction with the hardware reductions is the loss of skilled aviators to operate them.
Hey hundreds of thousand of muzzies on welfare suck the blood out of a country. Not much left to take care of defense.
The title is appropriate but it also applies to the USA as unfortunate as that seems, and it is not just Air Power!
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