Because Armament Engineering Section (AES) at MoD St Athan is severely undermanned and the inability to recruit more staff due the uncertain future of MOD St Athan. With insufficient manpower to operate safely all Air Cadet shooting activities would have to be suspended until further notice. As of the week commencing 2 Nov 15, AES will endeavour to retrieve all arms and ammunition from all squadrons across both wings.
So unless cadets can get to St Athan during the working week as they are also a ban on weekend working in the armoury cadets cannot shoot. Also with the loss of weapons from units there will be no dry training so any shooting will have to have been preceded with the dry training. So no training no WHTs and no shooting.
I believe this is not a short term thing as they have been trying to recruit staff but nobody wants to work in south Wales.
My knowledge of shooting is very limited but what do the ACF do? Could we piggyback on their system? Obviously that’s going to create headaches up top but might be the only option.
Units hold weapons, and ammo, they have ranges.
there is an annual (?) inspection by a regular, typically from the parent station to ensure all (on the unit armoury level) is legit
is this saying because MOD St Athan can’t inspect units, units will now have to surrender the opportunity?
there MUST be a workable solution??
Servicing is every six months and it’s a rolling progrMme, so each week or so, a unit will expire their schedule. Then ammo becomes an issue to obtain. Also (IIRC) the parent station are the designated owners of the weapons, and they go “on loan” to th.e unit. No armoury, no weapons controller means they cannot be controlled. So until someone higher up the food chain agrees to take them in, which I’m guessing no June has, it leaves the head shed no other option than to order a recall. Possibly quietly in the knowledge that a stink will get chased and some one there pay grades higher will order something be done.
if only some other service/RAF locations that had armouries in Wales - you know, in geographicly convenient locations like Brecon, Brawdy. Valley, Chepstow…
give the funding to whichever armoury/formation is willing to do the job.
The whole problem of weapons in the ACO and how they get serviced et al has been around since the first round of defence reviews in the early 90s and the subsequent civilianisation of armourer roles has exacerbated the problem as anything extra is overtime and or subject to restrictions / constraints.
How this hasn’t happened to this extent in other parts of the UK is surprising.
I’ve said before IF the ACO is to survive and deliver more than some glorified after school club, it has to start slipping the shackles of the parent service and become more autonomous and look outside the parent service for options. Holding on to these anachronistic ties will drag the organisation under. The questions are; are the parent service up for it and are our SLT up to it?
in terms of having the weapons serviced - the two Armourers turning up at 123 wherethehell Sqn at 7pm - problem, if the mountain won’t (can’t) go to Mohammed…
would it really be that difficult for someome - Sqn staff, wing staff etc… to gather the weapons from half a dozen Sqns and take them to whichever location is able to service them?
The e-mail said ALL Air Cadet shooting activities will be suspended. I presume this is includes full bore weapons held at St Athan. So moving weapons to and from St Athan is a red herring. There is no shooting in South Wales. They don’t have the staff to look after the weapons “owned” by the ATC.
You then get into the age old argument about taking time off from your day job (let’s call it holiday) to effectively appease somone in their day job. Not too bad for shiftworkers perhaps if they’ve not their own life.
How much paperwork would it entail to move the weapons and could one person move them on their own, which if not creates another problem?
One solution could be employ armourers on each Region whose sole responsibility is to service cadet units and their contracts include evening work, they could be shared with the ACF to cut the cost. This takes it outside the RAF/MoDs direct remiit and bring a degree of stabiliity to an area which has been a pita for years.
that would be a better solution, but not an easy one, particularly given the attitude currently in vogue that the closer we are to the RAF the better, regardless of whether its true or not…
a more immediate solution is to reduce the amount of overtime used by the parent stn by taking the weapons in - paying one armourer to open the box for 3 hours on a saturday morning so that units can bring their rifles in is much cheaper than paying two blokes to drive around every sqn of an evening.
if St Athan can’t find people to do the work (both the overtime and core) other stns will - IBS at Brecon might be a good bet, or RAF Valley, 14 Signal Regiment at Brawdy, or with 1 Rifles at Cepstow. the important issue is that the money follows the work - if St Athan can’t do it…
further afield - but a damn sight better than no shooting - is Hereford or Cosford.
They also deliver ammunition. That can’t be picked up by people moving weapons.
They also sign off the daily check of arms as the overarching body. That can’t be done remotely.
And that mindset has the potential to be our downfall IMO.
None of the solutions are easy, but someone needs to come up with one damn soon, as what has happened in Wales has the very real potential to cascade across other parts of the Corps.
I can see where you’re coming from but anyone who thinks Valley is a viable option for units in South Wales has never tried going from South to North or vice versa. I’m on a squadron in South Wales and at present and for a while in fact we’ve been getting our L98s and LSWs from Odiham from shooting at Bisley/Pirbright.
oh absolutely - i’ve done the 470 enough times to know its not a solution for someone in Cardiff or Pembroke!.
however, if Valley could take some of the weapons, and Brecon could take some of the weapons, and Brawdy or Hereford or Cosford could take some of the weapons then a solution might be available. perhaps one of the problems is that we’ve been looking for one person to solve the whole issue rather than a situation where 3 or 4 all provide part of a solution.
however that requires two things that HQAC aren’t very good at - accepting that the next solution might look different to the previous solution, and going round the different bits of defence and begging favours with a wedge of cash in their hand.
