matthew22081991
New Member
The following article is an attack by the General Sir David Richards on the RAF and Royal Navy's funding:
BBC News - War rules rewritten, says general
This is what we can expect to be common place in Britain after the general election. This is incredibly short sighted and irresponsible of Sir David Richards. He is only looking at what will happen in Afghanistan, just to say that because the Taliban are fighting this way it does not mean all future conflicts will be like this one. Even if all future wars are fought like this, the Army will be needing the Navy to get it to wherever the war's at in the first place, and provide air support, logistical support, etc. until that can be done by air, as happened in Afghanistan.
Something that was in the article but appears to have been edited out what the general's belief that wars between states would be fought without aircraft carriers and fighter jets too! NO THEY WON'T AND HE KNOWS IT.
I agree that we need more cyber defences and UAVs etc. and I believe the RAF's fighter numbers could be reduced drastically (it doesn't take 200 odd Eurofighters to ensure Britain's airspace isn't breached, and even with that number of jets the RAF left it to the Navy to provide air support in Afghanistan until very recently!).
The fact of the matter is, we need the following:
- A Navy capable of: taking an aircraft carrier and amphibious assualt vessel anywhere in the world and beating whoever they're told to beat, whilst keeping them supplied, stopping them from getting sunk and supporting forces ashore (which with an aircraft carrier hopefully wouldn't need to be sent ashore at all); and carrying out duties such as survey and charting, on top of the necessaries like fishery protection and immigration control. The FAA must be independent of the RAF (it only is in name at the moment).
- An Army capable of winning the present war in Afghanistan and any other future counter-insurgency, whilst maintaining the conventional war fighting capabilities some people tend to forget about, as well as providing civil support (flooding, etc.).
-An air force capable of supplying the Army in a war like Afghanistan, a handful of fighters to protect British airspace, and a lot of helicopters for the Army and civil SAR in Britain.
Well, we all know the Government (whichever one it is) will fund the Army at the expense of the others because it's the Army that people see pictures of in the news. They'll build the aircraft carriers with a bare minimum and late air wing (but only because they've already started, so stopping now is political suicide). The RAF will do what it does best and attack the aircraft carriers as unnecessary whilst making sure the Navy puts in the effort of fighter support but taking the credit themselves (remember the general public doesn't know the Navy has it's own jets).
Nice to see the armed forces tearing themselves to bits isn't it?
Please comment and disagree with me and we'll have a right old disagreement hopefully
I'd quite like to see articles from other sources if anyone finds any please.
BBC News - War rules rewritten, says general
This is what we can expect to be common place in Britain after the general election. This is incredibly short sighted and irresponsible of Sir David Richards. He is only looking at what will happen in Afghanistan, just to say that because the Taliban are fighting this way it does not mean all future conflicts will be like this one. Even if all future wars are fought like this, the Army will be needing the Navy to get it to wherever the war's at in the first place, and provide air support, logistical support, etc. until that can be done by air, as happened in Afghanistan.
Something that was in the article but appears to have been edited out what the general's belief that wars between states would be fought without aircraft carriers and fighter jets too! NO THEY WON'T AND HE KNOWS IT.
I agree that we need more cyber defences and UAVs etc. and I believe the RAF's fighter numbers could be reduced drastically (it doesn't take 200 odd Eurofighters to ensure Britain's airspace isn't breached, and even with that number of jets the RAF left it to the Navy to provide air support in Afghanistan until very recently!).
The fact of the matter is, we need the following:
- A Navy capable of: taking an aircraft carrier and amphibious assualt vessel anywhere in the world and beating whoever they're told to beat, whilst keeping them supplied, stopping them from getting sunk and supporting forces ashore (which with an aircraft carrier hopefully wouldn't need to be sent ashore at all); and carrying out duties such as survey and charting, on top of the necessaries like fishery protection and immigration control. The FAA must be independent of the RAF (it only is in name at the moment).
- An Army capable of winning the present war in Afghanistan and any other future counter-insurgency, whilst maintaining the conventional war fighting capabilities some people tend to forget about, as well as providing civil support (flooding, etc.).
-An air force capable of supplying the Army in a war like Afghanistan, a handful of fighters to protect British airspace, and a lot of helicopters for the Army and civil SAR in Britain.
Well, we all know the Government (whichever one it is) will fund the Army at the expense of the others because it's the Army that people see pictures of in the news. They'll build the aircraft carriers with a bare minimum and late air wing (but only because they've already started, so stopping now is political suicide). The RAF will do what it does best and attack the aircraft carriers as unnecessary whilst making sure the Navy puts in the effort of fighter support but taking the credit themselves (remember the general public doesn't know the Navy has it's own jets).
Nice to see the armed forces tearing themselves to bits isn't it?
Please comment and disagree with me and we'll have a right old disagreement hopefully
I'd quite like to see articles from other sources if anyone finds any please.