Actually I worked in the MoD as a Civil Servant for 15 years supporting the Jaguar, Canberra and Hawk and have a pretty good understanding of how this are/were. It is said there are alot of jobs that are not neccessary like health and safety etc. These are often roles taken on as secondry responsibilites by someone already doing another job. Yes there are alot of “Bean Counters” but these were made neccesssary when the previous Government introduced Resource Account Budgeting (RAB) which micro manages accounting.

I worked in the Then DLO and we were constantly have money taken from our budgets to bail out the then DPA at Abbey Wood. THere is where alot of the blame lies with the Senior Project Management yet they were also the victim of unstable budgets thanks to Treasury interferrence and Politically driven actions such as imposing delays etc.

The system was/isn’t perfect, far from it but we all had to work within a system. This is what the DFU is supposed to be looking into to correct but it will not happen overnight. In the mean time many technical SNCOs and Junior Officers are goingto be moven into desk jobs to fill gaps left vacant by Civil Servants who have taken redundancy reducing the pool av ailable for deployments etc. The RAF and Navy should have too much porblem with the numbers of planes and ships going down fast but the Army may find it more difficult.

To solve the Inflated price of some seemingly bespke spares, where ever possible industry should provide a full tech spec for an item and transparent sourceing info. Too many items in Illustrated Parts Catalogues are duplicated and classed as bepoke to individual platforms when it is not the case. Also the MoD shold once again invest in Intellectual Property access to allow comperative sourcing rather than single source.

Please define “Pen Pushers”. If you mean the average civil servant then you are way off base. If you mean the Senior Civil Service and Government Officials who decide policy and set the rules then fine. AS with the Military the Senior Civil Service to too large and has jobs created just to maintain said numbers.

AS for you average Civil Servant in the MoD, well most of them replaced Senior NCOs that were doing the jobs previously and get paid alot less. In the MoD responsibilites are scaled up so everyone has responsibilities that outside would be done by a grade higher again to save money. In addition an equivilent position in industry also pays substantially more. Yes they have a non-contributionalry pension but on avaerage it isn’t very big, 15 years will get you around £45 per month so don’t use that arguement.

What has to change is both the attitudes of Industry and senior management. The former must realise that it can no longer inflate its balance sheets by over charging the MoD/customers for spares and services and the MoD/costomer must ensure that contracts are written to allow transparent review of costs incured by the supplier. With budgets and business tightening Industry should be more open to this if they know what is good for them.

Yep did some more research, Introduced after Kosovo, the RAF use the Enhanced Paveway II and Enhanced Paveway III both of which have had GPS and an on board Inertia Navigation System under the title GAINS (Global Positioning System Aided Inertial Navigation System), whilst retaining the laser homing capability making them some of the most advanced no power Smart munitions around. The Enhanced Paveway II has limited service life remaining but the Enhanced Paveway III will cntinue on the Typhoon and F-35 (Probably) together with the Paveway IV.

As currently plannd the RAF will have a total of 6 fast jet squadrons by 2020, 5 being Typhoon and a single F-35 unit which will also have to be shared with the Navy. And to think I got shot down last year when I suggested the RAF might be reduce to 10-12 squadrons!

Please differenciate between Civil Service and Senior Civil Service. The majority of the former do a damn good job especially in the MoD whilst the latter enjoy the gravey train and have their noses up the A£$% of whatever Government is in power.

By the way do people know th e amount of red tape the Previous Government and Treasury imposed on all Government Departments and the excessive micro-management and interferrence this entailed. Add to this the unwillingness to make major decisions in a timely or consistent manner on nearly all defence programmes or provide consistent funding and it is no surprise that many major programme were stuck in limbo before Main Gate or delayed afterwards for years whist still costing millions of pounds a year.

There are still large holes in the MoD’s finances which can only be closed by further cuts. Reducing the Tornado to the minimum size to support Afghanistan or withdrawing it completely are serious options. In fact nothing that involves expenditure now is safe. Programmes like the T-26 are safe for now but the pre-Main Gate activities will be slowed right down.

Neither is going to happen. We just need to make sure the CVF doesn’t become a very large Helicopter Carrier when the powers that be decide the F-35 is unaffordable and we can rely on the French or US for fixed with naval air support.

The Sea Typhoon has about as much chance of entering service with the UK’s armed forces as the Space Shuttle. The offer to India is more a hail mary pass as all european manufacturers are deperate for export orders as their home markets dry up.

Rafale would be a good choice if we are truely getting into bed with the French on defence matters and if chosen we could get an initila squadron early if the French agree to divert some slots on their delivery schedule. There are quite a few hurdles to cross but not many more than with the F-35C.

Then there is the Super Hornet. Given the number of F-35Cs the USN is planning to buy (approx 250) is not sufficient to replace all the existing hornets and the still to be filled hole in the numbers of airframes the USN needs compared to in service or on order, I can easily see the Super Hornet being in production well past 2015. The USN are not stupid and realise they have an effective platform with the SH that can carry out the vast majority of FJ missions and the few it cannot can be carried out by the smaller fleet of F-35C. The planned UCAVs will have very specific missions such as Recce, SEAD and supplimenting day one missions. It will be the next generation that will be a serious replacement for manned platforms in the majority of missions. If fact there are programmes to look at using the two seat Super Hornets as command and control platforms for UCAVs.

The best hope the UK has is that post Afghanistan in the 2015 SDSR, sane head prevail and realise that we need to be able to operate the carriers effectively not as mobile airfields for small detachments of FJs and rotary assets. Whatever platform is finally purchased will have to be operated by both the RAF and RN as the former needs a Tornado replacement, but I cannot see a joint force where both services squadrons operate from the CVF as really feasible given the constant training required. However there is no reasin that the RN squadron(s) could not support the RAF fleet of a surge is required fir land based operations. In fact both fleets should operate from the same base sharing supprt infrastructure etc.

Finally in choosing this platform the requirements for carrier operation are paramount with the RAFs requirements having to fit around those of the RN. There is no reason the resultant platform will not meet the AF needs but if iwants to retain a viable FJ fleet it will have to play ball and concentrate its immediate efforts in to getting the Typhoon fleet up to spec.