We could debate this “the crown” & probably end up forcing HM to abdicate ( possibly for different reasons) however, it doesn’t change things, the RAF has a role but shouldn’t interfere with the FAA who belong to the RN. so to the origins of this thread the top brass of the RAF are behaving rather badly & not in the national interest. It just isn’t cricket.

the raf should be ashamed

wars are generally fought by two opposing forces, the ‘thems’ & the ‘us’. Regardless the ‘them’ are always wrong & the ‘us’ always right. Religion, colour of skin,political view, & economic wealth are the excuses for war. Fact wars are only won by taking & holding ground.

The British armed forces are all employees of HM the Queen. Their job, to defend her property form who-so-ever classes us as a ‘them’.
Britain is an island. to invade the opposing army must cross the sea exposed to attack from the air. A military force must be employed in this region, totally separate from the ground theatre. It must detact & destroy enemy air power & confirm total air supremacy then strike at the supply chain/enemy fleet. This force must be independent of & from the ground forces. That force must be AEW, interceptor & strike capable. That force can only be the RAF. Enemy units can also be stopped via SSN’s of the Royal Navy.
HM the Queen is also head of state of Canada, Australia, New Zealand & countless other small countries. It is therefore the duty & responsibility of British to power project in their support.
The only way to get sufficient ground troops into theatre is via a naval task force. This is vunerable to air attack. therefore the task force needs AEW & interceptors under the direct control of the fleet commander. To defend the fleet from enemy surface vessels strike aircraft are required & to protect from enemy SSN’s pingers are needed. conclusion aircraft carriers with the FAA on board are a must.
Whilst long range cruise missiles can take out pinpoint enemy key-points targets such as divisional FUP’s still require carpet bombing. long range heavy bombers operating independently from the task group the realm of the RAF.
ground forces need their own direct air support weather percy or bootneck operating as part of the battle group. ie brigade level a squadron of harriers & battle group apache.
using the military rule of 3 to 1 to defend “HMS GB” with an airfield every 100 miles-ish with two strike fighter squadrons the enemy requires almost 600 attack aircraft. Only the USA is capable of attacking in such force. We can conclude the home land can be counted safe only if the RAF are permitted the required amount & quality aircraft. This is simply a war being won without a shot being fired & anyone getting hurt.
to power project using the military rule of thumb 2 british armoured divisions & 2 carrier task groups are required to give sufficient forces to take & hold ground. A scenario often played out on these threads is the falklands war. Had Hermes & Invincible been two 50,000 ton carriers with ski-jump on bow & catapult on waist & a task group sailed when the Argentians stepped unto South Georgia, then this war would not have been fought & most importantly no lives lost, on either side.
To the original point. Is the RAF wrong to interfere with the FAA. Conclusion yes. But to come to a conclusion that the RAF is irrelevant is totally absurd.
Time for the RAF top brass to waken up, stop the infighting & instead support the other services & get the necessary funding to protect our interests.

any-one who would’ve suggested, say in 1925-30ish that the Japanese would’ve wiped the floor with both the RN & RAF & 200,000+ British empire troops surrender to just 40,000 Japs would’ve been locked up, Japan would never attack the British Empire, the notion is totally absurd.
Argentina would never be stupid enough to take the Falklands.
Remember our “best friends” the ol US of A have plans of what to do in a war between them & us. Who knows who we’ll be at war with in 5, 10 or even 15 years from now.
A strong RN, a strong army & a strong RAF are needed, to defend our assets, our culture & our way of life.
Forgive if my latin is incorrect, but dosn’t a certain gentleman’s signature translate ‘in time of peace, prepare for war’.

The real enemy is the UK defence budget, firstly too small but also operated as one budget with funds allocated on a need for need basis. It only promotes the petty interservice rivalry we get now. We should allocate a fixed budget for each service like the Americans with maybe a seperate R&D budget to support industry.

All our services are vital and the petty rivalry saddens me:([/QUOTE]

Agreed, but how would the cake be sliced? RN + booties 2% RAF 2% percies 2% all equal slices of a max 6% (would prefer 8 another 2 for the booties) RN oldest= mostest. size army first. Even with separate budgets the thems will still have more than the us and the us will always need more.
So back to the same old/ same old.
Potential threats to the British way of life?
We a part even a major player in the global village.
Hot-spots- 1/ Central America. 2/ India Ocean (north, east & west) 3/ homeland invasion.
First two require strong attack/defence Royal Navy surface group & ability to put Marines on the ground. Falklands proved RAF can’t power project.
Again in first two scenarios a large military ground presence ie an armoured division+ requires RN to transport as RAF can’t carry their heavy equipment in the required amounts necessary.
Last RAF in a modern battle of britain, army to repel ground forces RN just an over glorified coast guard.
logical conclusion:- RN win 2-1 so should get first slice, percy the next and light blues last. Like it’s not rocket science, unless you’re a politician.

cva-01

late 40’s early 50;s Powell was “pro eastern empire” & privately held this view through-out his career, in the house, as we sold out on Australia, singapore etc he turned on the government over Suez advising them 2 yrs previously not to withdraw. Keep the eastern empire all be it in dominion status possibly an EU type along with Oz, New Zealand Canada etc instead of europe which he was against.
Back to the bird farm.re 1970’s-90’s USA approx 5 time bigger than UK. US navy has 12+ carriers with 90 birds = 1080+ aircraft. divide by 5 = 216 divide again by 5 carriers = 43 roughly the size of CVA-01.
Agreed as of july 1963 CVA-01 was to replace Victorious & Ark Royal but to keep to a 5 carrier scenario it would be more logical to replace Centaur first. Vicky was still in good running order and giving the fact that the Ark steamed over 400,000 miles in the 70’s without a major overhaul bears testament she was a good well built ship.
I recall though may be mistaken seeing a photo of Hermes with buccaneers on board so both both her & Vicky could easily operate an air group centered around p1154’s and possibly vickers 583’s just enough to fly the flag until the bigger bird farms came on line.
true HS141 never flew but then again the carrier never made it of the drawing board either. But didn’t the Americans fly a hercules of Forrestal, so a V/STOL of “Queen Elizabeth”, no problem. Think of a situation where British nationals needed evacuation ASAP ie Tehran Saigon etc British carrier 100 miles of the coast a couple of HS141’s with bootnecks on board, escorted by four p1154’s zoom in, land on the embassy lawn, 100+ civilians rescued and back on the bird farm with-in 30 minutes 45 max. Try that with Sea-Kings. We had the technology, we could’ve built them, but we decided the money was better spent keeping people on the dole instead of work.

CVA-01 should’ve gone ahead. If GB actually had a strong leader ie the late Enoch Powell the petty squabble between the services would not have happened. Vickers 583 with the capability of Tornado in RAF & RN guises 10 years earlier & P1154 (sea harriers) with the performance of the Jaguar, H139 for sea control & AEW. CVA-01 replacing Centuar 1972ish CVA-01 replacing Ark ’76ish, CVA-03 Vicky’80ish, CVA-04 Eagle ’84ish & finally CVA-05 Hermes in 88. The later 3 could well have been possibly improved to say an enlarged invincible layout only scaled up to around 50,000t with the gas turbine propulsion on 3 shafts as described earlier.
As for escorts leanders were good possibly a further 16 with gas turbines 1/2 with Ikara in lieu of 4 1/2 inch 6 sea wolf & martels aft of the bridge & 1/2 with single 4 1/2 inch gun.
Politically a strong leader makes a strong economy. Strong economy equals more money. More money gives better RN.
As Falklands proved no CAP no ships. how do you think a couple of dozen frigates in the gap would’ve fared when a two or three squadrons of backfires zoomed in on them. They would join the subs beneath the wave.
The carriers were needed & still are, & always will be.