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Defence
RAF commander: our air force will be little better than Belgium’s
The head of the RAF’s fighter and bomber force has said that drastic cuts in the Government’s defence review “worry the hell out of me”
and would leave the Air Force only “slightly above Belgium” in squadron numbers.
By Andrew Gilligan 9:37PM GMT 18 Dec 2010
Air Vice-Marshal Greg Bagwell, commander of the RAF’s No 1 Group, which controls all Britain’s fast jet combat aircraft,
said that Britain was likely to end up with only six fighter and bomber squadrons, half its current number.
He warned: “That might not be quite enough.”
Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell’s remarks, in a briefing last week to Defense News, a trade journal, are among the most outspoken by any senior RAF commander.
He warned that even the reductions that have been publicly announced — from 12 fast-jet squadrons to eight —
would leave the RAF only “just about” able to do its current tasks, with no leeway for the unexpected.
“Am I happy to be down at that number [eight squadrons] next April? No, it worries the hell out of me,” he said.
“I can just about do Operation Herrick [Afghanistan], and the QRAs [air defence operations]. Can I do other things? Yes, but it is at risk.”
In the medium-term, over the next seven to 10 years, Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell said, the RAF “will be a six-squadron world; that’s what’s on the books”.
He said he expected there to be five squadrons of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft and just one of the Harrier’s long-term replacement, the Joint Strike Fighter.
“I expect a single [JSF] squadron in 2020 and that’s it,” he said.
Asked whether this left the RAF on the same level as Belgium, he replied:
“I think we’re slightly above Belgium, and we are not a Belgium-minded country.”
He added: “I might, over the next few years, argue that that might not be quite enough.”
As recently as the 1990s the RAF had 30 front-line fast-jet squadrons.
Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell described the decision to axe the RAF’s Harrier aircraft, which went out of service last week, as something that “takes us below what we would have seen as a sensible position.”
He said the longer-term “problem” for the RAF was that “you can’t in 2018 go, 'oh hang a on a sec, I’m a bit short of fast jets, can we just hang on a sec …’ it’s going to take a while to build [them].
Will we get caught out? Maybe. Do we know what the risks are? Yes.”
He said: “Have we gone to a 'compare-the-market’ era and bought the cheapest [defence] we can find, or have we hedged our bets?
“You can’t just do defence on the cheapest option, you sometimes have to pay more for the right capabilities.
The whole thing about procurement is as much about long-term future deterrence and keeping the enemy on the back foot as it is about physically fighting.
The deterrence and coercive effect of air power has somehow got lost in the noise.”
An RAF comprising six fast-jet squadrons would be smaller than at any point since its foundation in 1918.
It would take British combat air power back to the pre-RAF days of the Royal Flying Corps.
Belgium no longer has a stand-alone air force, but an “air component”, with five fast-jet squadrons.
In squadron terms the RAF of 2020 will be only slightly larger, but will still have significantly more aircraft, with an estimated minimum of 135 fast jets to Belgium’s 70.
Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell said that one way around the shortages was to collaborate more with the French.
“It looks like we are going to twin 3 Squadron [a Typhoon squadron] with one of the [French] Rafale [fighter-bomber] squadrons.
I’ll make a prediction we will have British officers flying Rafale from a carrier within a few years. I’m quite sure of it.”
Ministry of Defence sources said that Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, Chief of the Air Staff, “did not share” Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell’s views.
An Ministry of Defence spokesman said that Sir Stephen and all the Service chiefs “stand by the decisions made” in the defence review, which were “collectively reached and supported”.
Air Vice-Marshal Bagwell insisted last night that his comments had not been “accurately portrayed or placed in context” and said the RAF would “absolutely meet the current task and operational priorities”.
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