Para Major calls RAF "useless"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5371392.stm

According to the above article this Para Major gives an example of an RAF harrier (I'm guessing GR7) missing the enemy during a strafing run, and that they'd rather call in the US tank busters. Now from my point of view, what I personaly think is that what we need is just more aircraft and better aircraft, which really just comes down to the forces generally needing more funding, correct me if I'm wrong. This Major is fair enough to critise if he feels that way, its understandable with all the stress they are under at the mo, but I'm sure the RAF / Fleet Air Arm / AAC are equally stretched at the moment. As I said, what is needed is more funding, not all this downsizing!

By the way, how do these sorts of emails even get out to the press?

 

Nah - the RAF are just bloody rubbish. Why do we even need them when both the Army and RN have their own capabilities? OK for the Nimrod, Hercs and the odd Puma lift but you could practically do most of this by civ contract these days.

Lets get shut of them. It will keep the wolves from the door in terms of "Defence reviews" for a while too. Bonus!

SF

 

nah, the transport boys and girls need to stay it's all the fast jet numptys we could replace with a couple of hundred cruise.........standing by........incoming due

 

The problem is their are just not enough strike a/c. 800 NAS are heading out now. No guns, not enough planes, piss poor comms. A recipe for failure, nothing to do with the professional doing their jobs on the ground and in the air.

 

I'm in the RAF. Get rid of us if you think we do not do a satisfactory job while the other two services are perfect. I've worked in a tri-service intelligence environment for 14 years now and am at least as good as my navy and army counterparts. The four years prior to that when I was trained and worked in a single service environment we did a brilliant job and I was extremely proud. When I deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 I had no trouble mixing in and pulling my weight with the Marines and SF that I was colocated with and I wasn't sitting in some REMF air base either!

I suppose you would deny what my predecessors did for the country in the Battle of Britain next.

Surely you would miss us for our sense of humour????

 

According to the recent historical research, the Battle of Britain was irrelevant anyway 'cos the Navy would have been able to stop any invasion as the Luftwaffe would not have been able to attack our ships.

This has caused an uproar amongst certain people as I'm sure you're aware.

As for the famed Crabair sense of humour, eh? :?

PS. We fly weekends too. :wink:

 

Better aircraft - no. Problem with the GR7 is it's not designed for strafing runs. It's basically a bomber - it isn't even equipped with guns to the best of my knowledge (and I'm in the business), so what's it gonna strafe with??? They got rid of the fighter version (i.e. the Sea Harrier). Take note Silver Fox - that means the RN haven't got their own facilities. Ever heard of Joint Force Harrier. Hell, it may even have been an RN pilot.

Interestingly, the US military described their version of the GR7 (AV8B) as one of the most decisive weapons platforms of the last Gulf conflict.

Of course it's easy to criticise the crabs, but what about the booties who invaded Spain, the certain frigate that ran aground off Australia, and dare I bring up the RNR captured by the Iranians.

People in glass houses and all that :wink:

 

jesse wrote: nah, the transport boys and girls need to stay it's all the fast jet numptys we could replace with a couple of hundred cruise.........standing by........incoming due.

Mate - I've just spent three and a half days getting back to the UK from the Sandpit thanks to the "competence" of the RAF movers and their charters. True there aren't enough military types involved and those that are aren't all up to the required standard. As for the charter - well, it's obvious we're already contracting out so why not go for quality and dependability rather than the cheapest bloody quote. Don't bother to answer than one - i already know the answer.

SF

 

Silver Fox wrote:

Mate - I've just spent three and a half days getting back to the UK from the Sandpit thanks to the "competence" of the RAF
-----

And you got 3.5 days pay for it! It's not like flying back from Spain you know!

I flew back from Afghanistan on an An-124 Condor (via Baku). Now THAT's what the RAF needs. I was mightily impressed with the C-17 as well.

 

This is a serious point. For all we know it was a RN pilot flying an aircraft maintained by the FAA.

In fact not 24 hours ago I spoke to a matelot serving in that theatre on a business matter. The RN (and I realise the RM are heavily involved) may have the smallest presence of the three services out there but we are contributing and we must all work as one team. This kind of warfare is about as difficult as it gets; if we divide: we will be conquered. It's bad enough not having the majority of the British population behind our actions nowadays.

h-o-o

P.S. Still, tell me a joke about the RAF anyday and I'll still laugh my arse off but lets keep the banter in-house. :lol:

 

It was announced on the news that therewill be more aircraft on the way to the area.A whole one more harrier bringing the total to.......................................................7!!!!!!!!!

Is it really worth it?7,bloody hell its crazy!surely we have more aircraft than that to spare?If not maybe we ought to lease a few A10's from the septics!!

 

Whitby wrote: And you got 3.5 days pay for it! It's not like flying back from Spain you know!

I'd rather have lost the 3.5 days pay and kept the R&R days mate. Time with the family is priceless and can never be retreived.

SF

 

The thing is, as far as I, (and a lot of my shipmates), are concerned there are 2 issues here;

The RAF are rubbish, and the RAF are rubbish!

They sound similar, but there are a few differences:

Firstly, they are dealing with an aircraft that is, as some pointed out a bomber, not a fighter, not like our own ex fuel-to-noise converter- the SHAR. So they're on back foot from the start, but then who was it who pushed for such a beast- not the FAA that's for sure. However, the crux of this problem still lies in wrong and poorly thought out acquisition, further constrained by small budgets. End of any sympathy for our crab friends.

Secondly, they are the self-proclaimed experts on all things aviation. However, their "best practises" procedures are consistently found to be lacking and their understanding of being in a military force seems somewhat at odds with what we in the Navy and our brethren in the Army think. On a recent visit to both Fleet HQ and JHC it became evident that RAF are out for only one thing themselves and their ever increasing empires. :evil:

In the past 18 years my attitude has changed completely from that of Joe Publics’ good impression of them to a much more cynical view, brought about by my own experiences and that of those both matelots and pongos alike.

A pongo mate out in Iraq in 04’ has said getting the crabs to do what they req’d when they req’d it was a constant battle, only fully realised when one of our Jungly SQNs took over half way through their tour and suddenly they were getting a service commensurate with their needs. I’ve heard of similar situations arising in Northern Ireland, (let’s face the Junglies got their name from because they were willing to help the Army out in the jungles of Borneo, when the RAF weren’t), and indeed whilst FIGS, many years ago we were pulled off our patrol around the islands to go and extract a pongo patrol at short notice. It turns out, when these wet and cold soldiers were brought onboard after 2 weeks in a Falklands winter, they’d already suffered the discomfort of having to take a 20 KM detour from their patrol to wait for a water re-supply by the crabs that never happened, (fortunately there was plenty of snow round) and then wait an extra couple of days a t the end for another crab helo for their return to MPA that again didn’t turn up- apparently on both occasions, the crabs had “something else come up†but didn’t think to tell anyone! Finally, and particularly relevant to this thread, whilst on a Defence College Sea day a few years back, a live firing demonstration was giving by a crab harrier and one of our own. The target was a splash target towed by a RFA. During the RAF display the safest place to be was on the aforementioned drogue! Then the SHAR turned up and caused it some minor damage!

So maybe there is some substance in what the Major was saying?

So SF, I whole heartedly agree with you, disband the RAF and share the spoils between us and the Army. An opinion that for me was well truly brought home by a paper written in the mid to late 90’s, the crux of which stated “the British Army should be a weapon propelled ashore, and subsequently supported by, the RNâ€. It made good reading and a lot of sense, (there was an edited version of it going around VL in the late 90’s- if anyone still has a copy could they post it, as mine went missing during rounds- TIA.

I didn’t mean to go on, but suffice to say the most useful, and successful things the RAF do is look after their own and PR.

They are individually decent enough people, but collectively appear to be narrow minded empire builders with delusions of adequacy!

Boy, do I feel better for that.

 

I'll take issue with that bit if you don't mind shippers. Although I'm RN background, my family work on a very large RAF base which was the largest stores in Europe. That has now been shut down and shifted to an army store (remember that when you complain about kit not turning up). To add insult to injury, said RAF base is being turned into an Army base. That don't sound like world domination and empire building to me!!

Plus, the GR7s that were uprated with more powerful engines mostly found their way to the RN pilots for use of the carriers, when the SHARs were taken away. Something that p****d the crab pilots off big time.

Anyhow, however you feel about the RAF, how does this sort of shit help our armed forces. When the shit hits the fan, we all need to work together. A bit of ribbing is one thing, but to openly and aggressively criticise the crabs in this way doesn't help anyone.

Let's get onto some more constructive comments shall we instead of believing everything the gutter press tells you is gospel.

Rant over!

 

Now here is a constructive comment! The Royal Navy has over the years lost its own air force 3 times, not a good record, in fact piss poor. On April fools day 1918 the RNAS and RFC amalgamated to form the RAF. All the navys air power gone, the air mechanics and air crew all disapeared into the air force. After a struggle of 21 years the navy was allowed an air force again, unfortunatly with crap aircaraft. By the end of ww2 it developed into a very efficient service with the help of lease lend aircraft from the USA. from 1945 to 1970 were good years for the FAA with the following aircraft, Venom\Seahawk\Gannet\ Skyraider, and then, Vixen Scimitar\Bucaneer\ Gannet AEW3\helicopters. in 1966 the Labour Government decided to scrap the carriers and gone again was the fixed wing element and expertise of the FAA. The Invincable class was built as tho\deck cruisers as the navy was not allowed carriers, it was pure stroke of luck, not super naval planning, that the RAF developed the Harrier,and god knows what the end result would have been in the Falklands war without them, probably coming home with our tails between our legs. Now we have a Harrier JSF under the control of the Air Force, the navys air power gone once again, dont these Admirals ever learn.The Navy is now left with with less aircraft than the AAC (Army Air Corps). Just a handfull of helicopters really. The Army are in desperate need for helicopters in Afganistan and the Navy has plenty at Culdrose airfield in Cornwall, bad news, they are the wrong type, the navy , over the last sixty years have spent billions on sonar and ASW (anti submarine warfare) the navy has always had this facination with ASW, Why? Ijust dont know, we havent had a RN ship attacked by submarine since ww2. Since WW2 the only operational use RN helicopters have been used for ia assisting the Army in ground logitics ie Malaya\Borneo\Aden\Cyprus\Radfan\British Guiana\Falklands and many other conflicts, now the FAA has lost the ability to help out in any way with its aircraft. I believe the Harrier that could not hit targets in afgan was a woman, can that be confirmed?

 

Now here is a constructive comment! The Royal Navy has over the years lost its own air force 3 times, not a good record, in fact piss poor. On April fools day 1918 the RNAS and RFC amalgamated to form the RAF. All the navys air power gone, the air mechanics and air crew all disapeared into the air force. After a struggle of 21 years the navy was allowed an air force again, unfortunatly with crap aircaraft. By the end of ww2 it developed into a very efficient service with the help of lease lend aircraft from the USA. from 1945 to 1970 were good years for the FAA with the following aircraft, Venom\Seahawk\Gannet\ Skyraider, and then, Vixen Scimitar\Bucaneer\ Gannet AEW3\helicopters. in 1966 the Labour Government decided to scrap the carriers and gone again was the fixed wing element and expertise of the FAA. The Invincable class was built as tho\deck cruisers as the navy was not allowed carriers, it was pure stroke of luck, not super naval planning, that the RAF developed the Harrier,and god knows what the end result would have been in the Falklands war without them, probably coming home with our tails between our legs. Now we have a Harrier JSF under the control of the Air Force, the navys air power gone once again, dont these Admirals ever learn.The Navy is now left with with less aircraft than the AAC (Army Air Corps). Just a handfull of helicopters really. The Army are in desperate need for helicopters in Afganistan and the Navy has plenty at Culdrose airfield in Cornwall, bad news, they are the wrong type, the navy , over the last sixty years have spent billions on sonar and ASW (anti submarine warfare) the navy has always had this facination with ASW, Why? Ijust dont know, we havent had a RN ship attacked by submarine since ww2. Since WW2 the only operational use RN helicopters have been used for ia assisting the Army in ground logitics ie Malaya\Borneo\Aden\Cyprus\Radfan\British Guiana\Falklands and many other conflicts, now the FAA has lost the ability to help out in any way with its aircraft. I believe the Harrier pilot that could not hit targets in afgan was a woman, can that be confirmed?

 

Now here is a constructive comment! The Royal Navy has over the years lost its own air force 3 times, not a good record, in fact piss poor. On April fools day 1918 the RNAS and RFC amalgamated to form the RAF. All the navys air power gone, the air mechanics and air crew all disapeared into the air force. After a struggle of 21 years the navy was allowed an air force again, unfortunatly with crap aircaraft. By the end of ww2 it developed into a very efficient service with the help of lease lend aircraft from the USA. from 1945 to 1970 were good years for the FAA with the following aircraft, Venom\Seahawk\Gannet\ Skyraider, and then, Vixen Scimitar\Bucaneer\ Gannet AEW3\helicopters. in 1966 the Labour Government decided to scrap the carriers and gone again was the fixed wing element and expertise of the FAA. The Invincable class was built as tho\deck cruisers as the navy was not allowed carriers, it was pure stroke of luck, not super naval planning, that the RAF developed the Harrier,and god knows what the end result would have been in the Falklands war without them, probably coming home with our tails between our legs. Now we have a Harrier JSF under the control of the Air Force, the navys air power gone once again, dont these Admirals ever learn.The Navy is now left with with less aircraft than the AAC (Army Air Corps). Just a handfull of helicopters really. The Army are in desperate need for helicopters in Afganistan and the Navy has plenty at Culdrose airfield in Cornwall, bad news, they are the wrong type, the navy , over the last sixty years have spent billions on sonar and ASW (anti submarine warfare) the navy has always had this facination with ASW, Why? Ijust dont know, we havent had a RN ship attacked by submarine since ww2. Since WW2 the only operational use RN helicopters have been used for ia assisting the Army in ground logitics ie Malaya\Borneo\Aden\Cyprus\Radfan\British Guiana\Falklands and many other conflicts, now the FAA has lost the ability to help out in any way with its aircraft. I believe the Harrier pilot that could not hit targets in afgan was a woman, can that be confirmed?

 

Well said huffnut, well said!

 

Just three words...

"Civvies in uniform"

 

ASW was part of the doctrine of the Cold War, so I don't think that there is anyone to blame for that, but if we're going to talk about the last time parts of our Armed Forces were used in the manner for which they train, what about the Parachute Regiment?

The Crabs are part of today's doctrine, but they just don't fly much, especially if they're near to going "over hours".

RAF pals of mine have worked IRT, picking up casualties in Iraq, and much prefer working with RN fliers as they're treated like they're part of the team.