Monday 15 April 2013

Just some links for now

While I kill time between posts... I mean, while I work exceptionally hard on my next post, I thought I'd share some links. This post wont be long enough to justify a page jump, so those of you who have come to main site can stop looking for the "Read More" button now.

First, the RAF's Tranche 2 Typhoons (whatever happened to the work "batch"?) have now achieved multi-role capability as six Squadron became the first to drop Paveway bombs from the upgraded aircraft. Link to full article here.

The other three links are all related to Exercise Joint Warrior which is taking place off the coast of Northern Scotland. Joint Warrior is a major exercise involving over 12,000 personnel from various countries, with nearly half the count being made up by UK forces.

This is something that I'd like to see the UK do more of and have written about in the past; Britain taking the lead in a major International exercise, with limited American presence, which helps to develop our ability to conduct and lead operations that the US may not be so invested in.

The exercise will combine naval, air and ground assets. Link one. Link two. Link three.

8 comments:

  1. Spotted this on UK Armed Forces Commentary's twitter feed, listing all ships involved in this year's JW exercise (at least I think that's all).

    Impressive force
    http://www.seawaves.com/portvisits.asp

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    1. Will get even more impressive in the future when Queen Lizzy finally gets into the water.

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  2. We're probably doing as much of it as we can these days. JW takes place twice a year - it used to be three times a year - out of Faslane, Rosyth before that. The OpOrder used to be two inches thick, just listing participants, procedures and serials.

    Used to be a very good way for the various NATO countries to get involved and not just on the naval side. I've watched Dutch and Norwegian F16 come in at bridgetop height during the ADEX phases. Some stunning phots resulted!

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    1. @ NaB,

      Sounds perfect. Shame we're short of cash really :(

      I thought JW was a once a year job?

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  3. No two per year. One now and one in late October. There used to be one in teh summer as well in the "good old days".

    What are missing now are the open ocean exercises NATO used to do, Ocean Safari et al. Used to be tied into wider exercises like the annual cold weather training in Norway IIRC.

    Bit of a gap now, although apparently there is no open ocean threat any more, so no need.....

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  4. "Sounds like famous last words."

    Spike Milligan's tomb stone: "I told you I was ill."

    There's alot of it about. The cousins have had to cancel the next scheduled Red Flag exercise, with possibly more to follow:

    http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/air-force-cancels-red-flag-exercises-at-eielson-air-force/article_d91cacd2-9723-11e2-93d7-0019bb30f31a.html

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    Replies
    1. You know it's bad when the US is feeling the pain! I think part of the problem is because they've protected so many areas of spending that it means the axe has to fall hard on the remaining areas. Sound familiar?

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