Yeah, we’ve had an email about organising getting all our weapons serviced. No sign of them being removed!
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Hush now, don’t go giving people ideas
We’ve still not been given any reasonings behind it, just that it’s not their decision.
Which is really frustrating, because we don’t know what the issue is.
The two bits of information we’ve been “given” (rumoured it was officially given) . Is that its a Core directive and the SW Region are just ahead of the game.
And the other one is becausethat type is being removed across the core. But you would of thought (i know comms aren’t brilliant but even a hint of something) there would of been an announcement, or a stoppage on courses
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The official reasoning is because of money for the alarms. They want money as not all hubs are up and running, and then they want money to maintain them and have the contract.
And in SW they are apparently going to move to a LASER model of Wexos, removing them from supporting units with hubs.
Lastly, they mention a review that could end up seeing air rifle for delivery on squadrons.
Or heat injury training banning going outside above 20 degrees.
I, too, have seen the email.
The armouries are there, they are alarmed, they have been for years. And now because they aren’t being used they’re being removed.
They aren’t being used because THE WEAPONS WERE NEVER ISSUED. That’s not a squadron issue.
I might just turn to one of my cadets and tell them that I’m not promoting them to corporal because they haven’t performed well enough in the corporal role to keep it. See if the logic makes any sense to them, because it doesn’t make sense to me.
Not getting value for money? Try putting some weapons in them.
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Sort out the high paid help……
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Certain Sqn in SWR, with an indoor 25m .22 range (.303 really) and armoury, not selected for an alarm as it wasn’t central enough in the wing. Alarm given to a single pane tube range instead which has now never seen a weapon. Cadets asking when they get to do shooting, only answer I can give is “I don’t know”.
Durrr what? The point was to spread them around - you can’t have them all “central”!
Wherever they are, someone will have to travel, someone will have to travel further, and some lucky sod will get to roll out of bed onto the range. The important aspect should have been where has the best potential for use? Range size and quality should have been the factor after suitable armoury, then followed by teaching space.
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Which would be arguement, although I am biased. All become rather academic anyway, I’ve see a L144 once and it wasn’t on a range.
I’m a cadet, so don’t know anything more than what I’ve heard. All the L144s in a certain wing in SWR are now being held centrally rather than on the range. I’ve shot the L144 a couple of times, and they were used in our wing competition weekend, so I’m surprised they aren’t so widely used. Equally, I know many cadets who are a decent shot on both the air rifle and L98, yet couldn’t hit a barn door with the .22 at ten paces, so I see why they aren’t liked.
I saw a couple dozen on a rack at Brize once; all had tags saying “defective - do not use”.
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So was talking about this with the Wing Shooting Officer yesterday.
You can see the RC Instruction here (Thanks B&G) and an FoI was submitted on this over the weekend so will be interesting to see that response in ~45 days.
Locally this has no impact on us, other than the hope we’ve been holding onto for the pat 5 years being removed, we’ve not got any hubs operational so it’s been bad money thrown after bad money and a lot of effort with alarms in place but no value being received.
Honestly, this whole shebang needs some sort of proper formal review on why it’s gone so wrong. A few ministerial complaints? I bet it has cost 100s of thousands. If not into the 7 figure mark all in. Yet the actual benefits have been minimal.
Absolute farce and waste of tax payers money! I don’t know enough about the situation to comment as to who is at fault, but surely this level of screw up sits with HQ. Even if not directly their fault, this should have been solved years ago.
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I’d be sticking a bet on 6 figures per wing plus service fees.
I think it’s been a combination of factors, not helped by a pandemic.
Poor procurement, poor communication, poor implementation, the RAF not doing their jobs and making life as hard as possible.
Undoubtedly there has been money wasted but I still think this could have been resolved. Why isn’t the new air cadet charity being approached to fund it? Isn’t that what it’s there for?
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Not being in the shooting fold and not owning any weapons, or wanting to.
Is the RAFAC being held to a higher level of security than Joe Public with the required arms certificate a .22 target rifle, or a shot gun for clays or indeed a full bore rifle?
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You mean like how were not allowed to use BGA sites for gliding!
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Yes. Absolutely this is the case.
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