16 GR9 Harriers, flying in formation over Britain.
Photo: EPA/JAMIE HUNTER/HANDOUT
Posted on 12/19/2010 3:51:54 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
RAF commander: our air force will be little better than Belgium’s
The head of the RAF’s fighter and bomber force has said that drastic cuts in the Government’s defence review “worry the hell out of me” and would leave the Air Force only “slightly above Belgium” in squadron numbers.
By Andrew Gilligan
Air Vice-Marshal Greg Bagwell, commander of the RAF’s No 1 Group, which controls all Britain’s fast jet combat aircraft, said that Britain was likely to end up with only six fighter and bomber squadrons, half its current number.
He warned: “That might not be quite enough.”
Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell’s remarks, in a briefing last week to Defense News, a trade journal, are among the most outspoken by any senior RAF commander.
He warned that even the reductions that have been publicly announced — from 12 fast-jet squadrons to eight — would leave the RAF only “just about” able to do its current tasks, with no leeway for the unexpected.
“Am I happy to be down at that number [eight squadrons] next April? No, it worries the hell out of me,” he said. “I can just about do Operation Herrick [Afghanistan], and the QRAs [air defence operations]. Can I do other things? Yes, but it is at risk.”
In the medium-term, over the next seven to 10 years, Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell said, the RAF “will be a six-squadron world; that’s what’s on the books”. He said he expected there to be five squadrons of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft and just one of the Harrier’s long-term replacement, the Joint Strike Fighter. “I expect a single [JSF] squadron in 2020 and that’s it,” he said.
Asked whether this left the RAF on
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
16 GR9 Harriers, flying in formation over Britain.
Photo: EPA/JAMIE HUNTER/HANDOUT
The Dead Island continues it’s descent into Islamic hell...
It’s gun control all over again....the dark side is disarming the good guys....
...for a reason.
“Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”...
History repeating itself???
Well, you know Britain uses large sums on things like muslim-correct toilets in welfare housing given to muslims, and muslim-adapted health services which introduces various hygiene and pestilence problems and so on.
Of course there’s nothing left for the military. When the Brits find out they should go to war next, it will probably be with suicide bombers, against their neighbours.
They might as well kiss the Fauklands good-by...
View RAF Mt. Pleasant, Falkland Islands Map
Care to speculate what the Brits have in those hangers?
Perhaps Great Britain is getting rid of their military hardware so when it devolves into Great Muzzyland the head mooslimes won’t have a lot of military power.
When the Brits find out they should go to war next, it will probably be with suicide bombers, against their neighbours.
—
Who will belong to a different sect...
Since they’re retiring so much of their airforce, and ALL of the carrier fixed wing aircraft, they may have to fly those hangars into combat. Or convert them to private uses, such as a U-Store or some such...........sheep pens?
Put into perspective, the RAF will be inferior to the combined strength of the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Maybe we should wait to see if the Brit’s retire or remove the flight of Eurofighters presently at RAF Mt. Pleasant before assuming their hangers will have to fly missions.
According to wiki, not a lot - 4 fighter/bombers, 2 transports and 2 helicopters -
Currently based at Mount Pleasant are No. 1435 Flight with 4 Eurofighter Typhoons, No. 1312 Flight, with a single VC-10 tanker and one Hercules C130, as well as No.1564 Flight (since November 2007) with 2 Sea King helicopters maintained by SKIOS (Sea King Integrated Operational Support), an aeronautical engineering collaboration between AgustaWestland and VT Aerospace. There are also 2 Sikorsky S-61 civilian Helicopters run by British International Helicopters Limited (Brintel). Ground units include No 7, 303, and 751 Signals Units and a Rapier detachment from the Royal Artillery.
I think a lot of those buildings are probably storage for equipment for ground troops.
I suspect the US Reserve forces will be a lot smaller in the future.
Argentina listo....
Looks like what is left of the RAF could be accommodated in the Falklands in HAS.
The best RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain were Polish.
The hangars (hardened aircraft shelters) are there for a re-enforcement plan. There are only four fighter aircraft deployed in the Falklands at anyone time. This has been the case since the late 1980s. From 1987 four F-4 Phantoms, which were replaced by four Tornado F3s, which were replaced by four Typhoons.
The Belgians can't even shoot down swamp gas/the planet Venus/weather balloons when they invade their airspace
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