Fact of life............you get dickheads wherever you work, be it HM Forces or any other place the world over......but that's not the point, too many negatives, all we hear is how fcuking BAD everything about the RAF Regiment is and how "WE" whoever "WE" happen to be have the only solution, one of the worst traits of a bad manager or workmate is the "Make you look bad to make me look good" thing... and sadly that smacks if insecurity and fear that whoever "WE" may be..."WE" might be next to have the Huge hand of the cutback monster on our shoulders.......

Yep thats true mate, cant argue with that.

Originally Posted by David2008

Originally Posted by Blue/GreenJob

Originally Posted by jaybee2786

Why is it when the facts about the RAF REGIMENT have been proved the thread/post always jumps down another avenue.As in stop moving the goal posts, No aircraft has been brought down in the rocks TAOR.In fact no aircraft has been brought down and i can go back to at least 1945.Any aircraft that leaves/arrives in theatre 90% of the passengers will be ARMY SO THE RAF regiment makes sure you arrive/leave safely, the day comes one is shot down god forbid it happens then you will have a point to ask why it happened until then shut the fcuk up, do your own job to your best ability and stop worrying about us and our job as you can see our record proves we know how to do ours.

Any way of changing the title of this thread to "Have a bash at the Rockapes and if you look like you may be on thin ice try like fcuk to find something else that can be used to slate them"?

You can argue away all day but the fact still stands that when airfields are defended by the RAF Regiment things tend to happen as they should, kites fly in relative safety and you lot get home, yeah, probably quicker if it weren't for movers, but at least all in one piece.

Why suddenly is it so important to justify your own exisitence? Feeling a little insecure about it? Gubment making you feel like you might be amalgamated into non-existence? Think there's a possibility down the line that there will be 4 Corps i.e Logistics/Engineering/Infantry/Armoured?

FFS argue away but it still doesn't change the fact that the RAF Regiment STILL has a place.......

But don't mind me....keep on with the "Craphat" mentality, soon it'll be all you have left if this bunch of TW@TS we call a Government have their way!

I am not having a bash at all of you, im talking about the small population of your regiment that believe they are more than what they are (yes, this also happens in the army, and probably the navy) im not singling you out just making a point of opinion.

dont get me wrong you do a fine job at what your doing and trained at doing, but for some rock's to think they have the right to say most of the stuff they do say, i think its pathetic.

So no im not slagging off the decent men amongst your regiment, im talking about the pricks amongst, and trying to point out that, they are the reason you get less respect off people nowadays.

And Weluvtheraf is he the armies equivalent to the above, i think some pongo should have a wee word in his shell like :D

I am not denying that the RAF Regt have done a good job for over 50 years; the record speaks for it's self. My gripe is when you get a load of them strutting around like they own the place and going on about how elite they are and their equivalant courses and qualifications. The RAF Regt are not full blown infantry, they are primarily a defensive force and the quicker that is realised by all involved, the better.

I'm getting a little bit bored of this now. If I had a quid from everyone on arrse who mentioned the RAF Regt "bigging themselves up" I'd be a wealthy man. Can I just ask my brown brethren to maybe qualify this and give an example? How and when does this apparent "bigging up" occur?

I wonder if maybe Fallschirmjager could confirm whether the RAF Regt FAC's attached to 16AA "bigged themselves up" in Afghan? Did the Rock Flt Lt FAC who won the MC for his efforts supporting the Paras do so by acts of extreme bragging and gucci kit display?

And of course the ARMY has never ever been guilty of that have they

It seems to me that there is a lot of verbal cow pats flung at the RAF regiment and I think it's a bit out of order. Am sure they dont need me to defend them but am gonna put my 2peneth in anyway. I know this site and
Naafi bar section particularly thrives on the cut and thrust of banter swapping and it has to be said, alot of it I find pretty funny..whether its RAF directed or army.

What I wanna say though is this. First of all I reckon a lot of people in the army feel they need someone to slag off and look down ther nose at in terms of military skills and stuff. Like, if you join RAF to do air traffic control or something, does it matter that you dont know how to camouflage yourself and live in a hole in the woods for two weeks? Equally, I dont hear anyone from the navy slagging off the army cos soldiers dont know how to stop the internal compartments of ship flooding when its been hit. As the RAF is the junior service and does'nt have all the long history of battle honours that the army does, they aim the insults at the RAF. Maybe am wrong but thats how it seems to me.

Next, we all know if the RAF regiment did'nt do there job properly with the eager eyes of the people controlling defence budgets, they'd have been axed years ago and someone else would have got their job, regardless of the burden and problems that might have caused.

Thirdly, it seems to me as the RAF regiment were only formed during the 2nd world War, most (not all) of their development in the 20th century revolved around operations in the cold war europe context which was very different to what they are doing now. That basically involved a big stand off between us and the Russians with british air and army installations being heavily protected and RAF regiment holding a primary defensive role.

Another thing which occurs to me is that having a defensive role is seen by some of the army lads on here (the ones who are doing the slagging off) as negative, which I think is strange. Loads of prestigous army regimental battle honours relate to battles where british army were in a defensive position in some way and nobody (quite rightfully) seems to think that these honours are any less valuable or relevant in regimental history and overall prestige of the units concerned. If anyone accused british soldiers of being lazy walts for doing their job in providing defence to army positions or supply convoys in iraq or afghanistan, you'd think that person was just some stupid *..and you'd be right. Why is defending an air base or aircraft in a forward position any less worthy.....specially when you think that RAF support aircraft are regularly dropping some serious woop arrse on taliban and such like, mainly in support of army/RM units.

Having said that, the RAF regiment have obviously adapted to the theatre of conflict they find themselves in as you would expect any professional unit to do and are getting on with things very well from what I've read here and elsewhere.

This brings me onto the next point. Basically, if you imagine an army infantry unit leaving its base, going out on foot or in vehicles, engaging an enemy and then holding and patrolling ground afterwards, what is the difference between this and what the RAF regiment do? If the RAF regiment go out and patrol ground, engage an enemy and secure that ground, it makes no odds whether there is a british air base nearby or not and whether the purpose in mind is to pro-actively prevent that airbase coming under attack or not....it still means that british (RAF)infantrymen are hunting our enemies, engaging them and denying them territory.....and what they do still relies on effective soldiering skills.

Finally, the US airforce equivalent have quite a pro active role and I dont know how they compare to RAF regiment but they seem quite happy with their own profile and standing amongst the various american army and marine units. I reckon RAF regiment profile should be raised further, so more people know about the good job they do. Like, if RAF recruiting people focused more on the RAF regiment and showed it to be a tough little unit with an important job with different specialisms available (snipers, mortar platoon, TACP etc) just like an army regiment, the whole being snotty about RAF regiment would pale into insignificance.

Anyway..just thought I'd pass on my thoughts....I have respect for all British service men and women out in the world doin the job......WHATEVER ARM or SERVICE they are part of.

Johnny

Originally Posted by jaybee2786

And Weluvtheraf is he the armies equivalent to the above, i think some pongo should have a wee word in his shell like :D

Hope you ain't referring to me matey, i've done time in BOTH services, it just seems to me that people are going off on the wrong tangents and for deeper seated causes than just Regimental/Corps pride...

I am PROUD of both my terms of service and in their respective Trades/Careers all our guys do their jobs better than any other TW@T on this planet with probably less kit and less blokes.

In the end, all of this In-fighting is just what the Brasshats and the Gubment want ain't it, so when a Battalion/Squadron/Ship gets binned it's more a case of "Glad that wasn't me, they were "Craphats" anyway" so no one really cares or notices anymore....

I myself have a deep seated antithapy towards this because of the way they "Drew down" the Jaguar Force and binned RAF Coltishall, they call it "Rationalization" I call it the first death throes of HM forces...next they will be modelling us on either the NZ armed forces or maybe even Eire god forbid!

[quote="johnnyonthespot"]Finally, the US airforce equivalent have quite a pro active role and I dont know how they compare to RAF regiment but they seem quite happy with their own profile and standing amongst the various american army and marine units. I reckon RAF regiment profile should be raised further, so more people know about the good job they do. Like, if RAF recruiting people focused more on the RAF regiment and showed it to be a tough little unit with an important job with different specialisms available (snipers, mortar platoon, TACP etc) just like an army regiment, the whole being snotty about RAF regiment would pale into insignificance. /quote]

Johnny, the USAF SF (security forces) are basically heavily armed military coppers. They are not infantry trained as such. I was attached to them during Telic 1 and they seemed to know what they were about - good guys all round really. They don't have the same fire support, ISTAR or snipers that a Regt Sqn would have, and don't tend to patrol so far out as the Rocks do.

So, for those who haven't got the message_

1 Airfields - like any other bases - need protection.

2 Air forces have security or force protection units that do this.

3 The UK version are called Rock Apes.

4 Rock Apes get some infantry training but not the whole package (could it be because they don't do the full job of the infantry?).

5 The equivalents in the army of Rock Apes are the RLC pioneers.