Nothing that was not expected, long before the last Election.
Labour left the country broke and once again the Tory's are having to sort out Labours mess.

john

Originally Posted by ashie

It's Tory cuts 101. Announce something absolutely mega, then when the cuts aren't quite as bad, everybody goes home happy.

Hey, it's what you voted for - well 36% of you.

Just remind me why the last Government deliberately delayed and refused to hold the long overdue SDR?

ashie's gone rather quiet now,

however looking beyond his wind up approach & yet another attempt to boost sales with media speculation i'll await until the facts are released in Oct,.

Originally Posted by Archimedes

Which decade is the journo living in? The RAF hasn't been the fifth biggest AF in the world for some time - even if you lump the four US services together as a single air force (don't tell them I've done that), you have China, Pakistan, India, Russia, the two Koreas, Iran, Israel (aircraft numbers, and when all AF reservists are counted), Germany, France, Turkey and Brazil ahead of us. I'm pretty sure that the Syrian, Iranian, Ukranian and Taiwanese AFs are larger than the RAF as well. Even if you merged the FAA and the AAC into the RAF (there'll be a paper on that somewhere which hasn't leaked, I'll bet...) we'd only go up the rankings slightly.

Russia? Russian Wild Fire wipes out military base and threatens nuclear supply depot

Originally Posted by ashie

It's Tory cuts 101.

As opposed to Labour 'investments'?

Russia - Still leaves them with about 1,800 aircraft to play with...

Gleaming , looks like im about to become an infanteer.

Fair points


"…So despite a glorious, century-long history the RAF will enter a less celebrated era.

For that, its fighter jet educated chiefs have to shoulder some blame. For far, far too long they ignored the pleas to become the workhorses of the sky, instead opting for the “exquisite” technology found in fast jets.

They therefore pay the penalty for failing to get to grips with the scandalous helicopter shortage, the ailing Tristar passenger aircraft and the overworked Hercules used to fly in troops and equipment.…"

MoD cuts: Loss of big boys' toys will change forces forever - Telegraph

Originally Posted by beemer007

ashie's gone rather quiet now,

.

I was waiting for more examples of right-wing whataboutery

Its worth remembering that no decisions have been taken yet - Liam Fox has already said that they will be made in September. This to me reads like a Pro RAF person has leaked the 'if we gut the RAF then this what happens' paper to a friendly journo. Large bet suggests there are other papers out there doing the same for the RN and Army.

As for the loss of the Amphibs, is it really such a loss? We've never used the Amphib fleet to its full potential because of HERRICK - indeed two of the ALPDs which are likely to go have spent most of their careers doing work utterly unrelated to amphibious jobs (e.g. acting as MCMV base ships in the NAG) becase we haven't done large scale amphib work for years. Add this to the likelihood that we'll lose some MCMVs and your rationale for keeping them becomes a bit weak unless MSFI remains on the medium term agenda. Indeed it is possible that they won't be scrapped, but put into reserve for future use.