If I recall, Moulds carried out this exercise in his tenure - weaving it into his strategic plan. He was keen it had a 4 yearly refresh cycle to ensure we could always justify cost/benefit - and it always relied on current data. He talked of it getting a feed from Bader to act as a dashboard to get it all automated. Not sure whether Stewart, Cooper or Aunty Dawn ever realised the importance or relevance of it.
I donāt think so, cost per cadet is still eye watering for JL.
I know of an Activity in W&W that isnāt happening this year that has for over 2 decades and there are many political excuses for it not happening.
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There are issues with the essential and the desirable on some areas and the way that impacts funding.
Bronze DofE is essential but Gold is only desirable. The problem with that is that Bronze is local and cheap, easily funded by units and cadets contributions. (Ā£10 a head for an expedition). Gold is far away and expensive (Iāve known units be refused transport for Expeditions).
Gold wasā¦ New flexibilities should resolve that!! Itāll still be ādesirableā though.
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The thing with cost/benefit analyses is when you arenāt judging a financial ROI, theyāre more cost/value analyses - and that is dependent on the values of the person making the judgement.
Fieldcraft would be a prime example - the benefits are confidence, self-reliance, leadership and teamwork, problem solving, resilience, and the bump they give to the myriad of other skills such as navigation, radio, first aid. Thatās not an exhaustive list. The higher levels such as blank and pyro push these further.
But does the person making the judgement value (the boost to) those things when the underpinning skills donāt provide a qualification and arenāt necessary for the majority of the parent force?
If we do first aid, leadership, etc. and have independent streams with tangible qualifications for them already, why do we need a more expensive way to practice them?
Someone who doesnāt like it and doesnāt understand the broader benefits, wonāt place the same level of value and will therefore consider it poor in terms cost/benefit.
Modelling - no value to the RAF, but an outlet for some with MH benefits. Radio, outdated and uncommon with different procedures taught for anyone who joins anyway - yet can be a gateway to confident communication for many. Musicā¦ Ah musicā¦ Totally irrelevant except for tradition, but incredibly social, filled with camaraderie and teamwork, and pride-inducing for many involved, building self esteem. I do think a national choir or band is unnecessary though - give corps champs the title for a year and push them out into the world at whatever events paid for by some industry sponsor and appearance fees or whatever.
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That was called out, why are we paying so much for something when the level of FT being taught is far more advanced than most RAF recruits will ever recieve.
Just dug out the figure that was mentioned from my conf notesā¦ouch.
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And thatās probably because they put down activity as Gold DofE and not ATC
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The commandants recent visit was very positive and I hear he likes the course.
What we need is for the blockers of the new FT policy to get in the bin so we can actually release it and it will all fit together properly.
Will be interesting to see what JL is allowed to do when the ASTRA fieldcraft review is undertaken and the output standard is what the RAF want.
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It takes some hard miles to get beyond the basics and into basic battle lessons with blank. Once there it is worth it.
At the moment though there is a risk that we are losing the ability to deliver basic FT (shelters, cooking, whatnot) because of the effort required to deliver FT with blank or even just ādryā with the weapon, and because we donāt yet have the promised new syllabus.
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Preach
Iāve often heard the assertion that fieldcraft with blanks etc is better training or better development than dry. In my experience, anything involving blanks and pyro just generates more staff control and oversight, so cadets actually have less opportunity for leadership and independent learning. Theyāre buzzing at the end and itās great fun, I completely get that, but Iāve never been convinced of the additional training value.
Thereās also the factor of the higher staff:cadet ratio needed, which means that, when blanks are involved, fewer cadets get the training opportunities or experience.
Fieldcraft is a brilliant medium for development, but RAFAC have too much focus on fieldcraft training and not enough on delivering experiential learning through applying fieldcraft and other skills.
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Of all the exercises I did on real IOT, all but one involved blanks, but none involved pyro. If thatās good enough for those joining the RAF as officers, why do 17 year old wannabes (no offence meant by that) need more?
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Because 14 year old ACF & CCF get to experience it before them.
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The RAF has determined it has no tangible benefit for those it employs as leaders in training. What benefit does it then serve cadets?
Doing it ājust because other orgs doā isnāt a credible argument.
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The jump from blank to blank & pyro isnāt massive. Fire risk on the DTE is more of a blocker for pyro than anything else.
FT with blank is great, dry training with the rifle is frankly just a bit annoying -
most of the logistics are the same apart from needing M Qual staff for B&P.
My worry is that we donāt have enough people teaching the basic lessons (say 1-9 or thereabouts) which might be as much Fieldcraft as a lot of Cadets and staff want to do, and still delivers a lot of the learnings mentioned above.
On that point why donāt we teach survival skills? Used to be part of DofE exped training, and the Scouts do it.
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Something Iāve often wondered. One of the TSAs blocked some teaching it as he said they would need to be SERE trained. Same person teaches it to scouts.
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From anything Iāve seen recently, this is due to the limited scope and micromanaging of the activity, as opposed to inherent to the activity itself.
A full set of orders has greater impact with a firing exercise.
Reaction, decisiveness, and adaptability under pressure
Inventory and resource management between engagements, welfare checks, rest and hydration management are more complex.
Personnel management for temporary defensive positions during admin stops
Managing that adrenaline and stress from the buzz you mentioned in yourself and others during and after
Post engagement analysis and debriefā¦
What weāve been left with is still too sanitised and limited in scope to fully realise the potential and a lot of stuff resorts to very restricted patrols with a few rehearsed outcomes. The contact time and CPD to progress from staged practice elements to fully independent (but supervised, obviously) exercise with planning, briefing, executing, analysing, debriefing, and team management is incredibly difficult -demoting a lot of B+P to novelty experience.
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For me, this is still a value add.
Itās fun, gives a good incentive to prior weapons and fieldcraft training, and is (potentially) a great recruitment tool when cadets shout about it at school after.
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we already have to do this in our Wing if requesting transport (Pheonix) a ābusiness caseā to detail the:
- Why this event should go ahead (benefits)
- Contributions from Cadets/Staff
- How many attending
i am yet to see anything refused, but WExO does seem to want to look after every penny regarding transport to ensure he can justify it having indicated a 55 seater coach for 30 Cadets is not viable for a museum/airshow day trip as it isnāt full
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The phrase āknowing the cost of everything and the value of nothingā springs to mindā¦
Itās all very well thinking about bums on seats when it comes to transport, but there is a lot of value in not having to consider drivers hours, kit storage etcā¦
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