That’s rather the point, there’s nothing the reg do that another formation couldn’t do equally well if not better.
So you teach them. They’ve got enough bodies and sway in the AAC to be able to convert folk over.
Part of our USP is we do flying. How’s that one working out…?
We mirror our parent organisation. If they don’t do green, neither should we.
There’s also the side point that if we say “we require cadets to do green stuff, we should provide them green uniform”, currently we don’t and this is a major discrepancy.
I realise there’s some crossover here, but considering we have a “RAFAC of the future” thread it would be great if we could try to keep them separate where possible please.
You can quote across from one thread to another by starting a post in the thread you’re quoting from, highlighting and hitting the “quote” button, then navigate to other thread and when you hit “reply” it will give you an option of which thread to post in.
No issue with that, but now we have the two - albeit related - it’s just cleaner and easier to follow if we differentiate and isolate with cross-referencing if needed.
Talking to people who were involved with the MRA 4 at the AVRO museum, the project had multiple problems which started to emerge as the project developed, one of the was that being a 50/60s aircraft was that they were ‘hand built’ and no two aircraft were exactly the same. Unlike today, you can take parts from A like wings and mount the on B all due to modern construction techniques. Also, they had lateral stability problems as well, I believe.
The other problem they had was the production run was too small and spares availability was also a problem, plus if an aircraft goes tech in say the USA you have to send home for parts, whereas the P8 you go to the nearest Boeing user for parts same for the E7 in the future.
This is still a problem with American aircraft too bizarrely. Their models of Chinook are completely different to ours, and piece part spares can’t simply be taken from American suppliers.
There is also the issue that we can not fit parts that haven’t been certified. Which means unless you have the parts with you in a deployment pack-up, you need to send for them from the UK.
You could be flying a Chinook, from an American Chinook base, and still need to send back to the UK for a screw.
Thing is how far do you take it? If the RAF no longer requires in house ground forces to help deliver air power, then does the navy need theirs to deliver navel power?
Technically no reason why they couldn’t be put into the Army as ambitious infantry.
It is however a very different concept, the ability to fight littoral actions with dedicated ambitious units is very different to what is (now) essentially a specialist ground defence unit.
Thing is, if the RAF Reg were disbanded the specialisation that they offer would have to be transferred to a different force, so we probably wouldn’t even save that much money, just change which command they fall under🤔
It would fall to an existing formation, the only additional cost is on the relevant training, which wouldn’t be that much, especially noting that the Regiment’s main use hasn’t been used since the 60s.
You make a good point, and honestly GDT could be transferred to the army if the regiment were disbanded, but having a dedicated force to protect air fields does allow the army infantry regiments to maintain a more aggressive posture rather than taking on a more force protection orientated role
Admittedly no airfields have been taken in decades, but the force protection role which the RAF Regiment provide is still definitely necessary, in recent years the battle of bastion could be a good example
If the RAF was to loose the RAF Regiment, then would the army still need the AAC? It might be more economically viable to adopt a model based off the Canadian armed forces where all air power is provided by the air force, all ground forces are provided by the army and all navel forces by the navy🤔
