However, as there is the FIDF and an Infantry Company also down South. Their is no need to deploy a Field Squadron as well. Although RAF Mount Pleasant is administered by the RAF, it is more of Joint Forces Base, rther than a single service base.

As the RAF Regiment are fully focused on Ops in Afghanistan. And that when Op Herrick 18, deploys shortly, their will be Two Field Squadrons deployed instead of one. As Nos. 2 and 3 Squadron are deploying to replace 15 Squadron. No one seems to have picked that up, or the fact that 2 Squadron are going back for their second tour in 2 years.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/units-to-deploy-as-part-of-herrick-18-announced

The RAF Reg as currently constituted is set up (at least in theory) to defend against under water flying knife fighters, or irregulars, not mechanised infantry.

I’d stick a light blue Scimitar troop on the Airbase, but thats just me.

Remember also that the reason the RAF Regiment was formed was that when there was a real shooting war on there was a consistent problem in making sure the protection of key air assets was prioritised appropriately…would that now be any different with a much smaller Army?

I should add that on this site I am mostly in the Dark Blue Anchorage, so I am trying to take a dispassionate view…

(PS are there many Armadillos in Cordoba? Always keen to learn…)

I agree, Mt. Pleasant should be a RAF Reg jobbie really but they seem to be more interested in running around getting in on the action in the middle east in an attempt to justify themselves.Rather badly I might add.

I would not be at all surprised to see them go in the next defence review, if not before. Surely their job could be done by infantry companies? Any additional training needed would surely be cheaper than retaining a specialist cadre of Force Protection soldiers?

If BA really want to change US Policy they could follow up their recent agreement with Iran by seeking Venezuelan military assistance to have another go, thereby almost guaranteeing that we will be in a position to deliver more TLAM’s from more Submarines than we actually own on key military sites in both Argentina and Venezuela…red, white and blue flags all look much the same at 150 Fathoms!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Armed_Forces_of_the_Bolivarian_Republic_of_Venezuela

As my Yankee wife tells her Georgia born husband, “You lost, get over it.”

I can’t squeeze a hundred or so books on the FIW down my internet connection. Is there anything specific?

This would probably answer most of your questions,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falklands-The-Air-R-Burden/dp/0853688427

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9839202/Falklands-belong-to-Uruguay-not-Argentina.html

http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=22038

Make your mind up – either we are behaving like colonialists or we’re being dictated to by the locals. Tch!

Yep. The choir hears you.

It is no secret here that I see the sea (!) as our main enabler for economic sustainability in the future. As I have said before in the coming decades we won’t miss the odd battalion of infantry but we will miss not having enough frigates, OPVs, and submarines. It was clever diplomacy, commercial guile, and the navy that took the Britain from European second tier power to superpower. We won’t achieve the latter again but a new version of that old plan may keep us from being a footnote in history.

Just don’t whatever you do tell the Daily Mail…

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/photo-captures-penguin-swimming-jaws-death-203300985–abc-news-tech.html

And buy more Mark II penguins…