Just seen one huge thing in it that hasn’t been reported - Army wildcats are being retired!!!
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Seen a bit of commentary around that. Will but a lot of pressure on the new medium helo fleet, even with an uplift in RPAS.
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One of the shortest times in service
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Shadow R1 as well
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This means the Army Air Corps will only operate 1 aircraft type in real operations; the Apache.
They will still fly the Juno (training) and Dauphin (Special Forces), but neither of these are designed for offensive operations.
Perhaps the aim is the disbandment of the AAC, or longer-term re-role to drone ops?
Someone will need to operate the drones (as they will in the RN too).
it may well shape up into a high - low / large - small mix. The small (quadcopters etc) are organic to the infantry or armoured units, the larger are a battalion or higher asset operated by dedicated units. Not dissimilar to how mortars sit with infantry but the howitzers with the RA.
The one way attack drones and loitering munitions are a different thing altogether. Are they artillery or aircraft even?
Well most battlefield drones are currently operated by the RA.
Maybe it’ll be that the AAC operate transport drones, RA operate offensive drones and infantry operate pioneer/scout drones.
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Currently and in the British set up, UKR has its own drone force so maybe that’s the way to go.
I confess I don’t know what NATO states are doing.
That said, and again I’m not up with current practice, were the Wildcats only used for recce/observation? Back in Lynx days its speed was great for inserting a small recce/Atgm/manpad or even sapper team and of course for casevac.
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Good breakdown from UKDJ here too
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They have the Jupiter HC2 in Cyprus and Brunei too
I will say George and the team at UKDJ have done an absolute cracking job of covering the DIP:
Their keyboards must be melting!
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There’s so much not covered by any other news outlets, like the retiring of shadow, wildcat etc and the red arrows stuff, that you wouldn’t know unless you read the DIP itself! Huge well done!
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Jupiter HC2 in Cyprus is operated by RAF.
Jupiter HC2 in Brunei is operated by the Army.
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Whoops!
From the Cmdt’s email:
Reducing overheads: Aligning with the Minister for Defence Veterans and People’s forthcoming Cadet Action Plan, we will focus heavily on simplifying policies and processes, so volunteers and staff spend less time on administration and more time delivering opportunities for cadets.
…“less time on administration…”
He’s a funny man, should be on TV!!
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Well, we have heard that before from other Commandants, let’s see if Al can come through.
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I mean, reducing ATC output by a third is, in many ways a streamlining and simplification so may be the SCD is part of MOD’s vision for the future…
Certainly be cheaper….
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personally i can think of one recently published policy than needs heavy focus on “simplifying”
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As ever this could also go in the WW3 thread!
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