Bitburger
22-09-2005, 14:34
The RAF was formed on 1st April (how appropriate) 1918 by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Naval air Service. At the end of World War 1 it found itself the Word’s most powerful air force with 22 000 aircraft , 188 operational squadrons and 291 000 personnel. In an early version of LEAN, this was reduced to 12 operational squadrons and 31 500 personnel by 1919 (now that’s cutting out the deadwood). 1918 to 1936 was the golden era of the bi plane with unforgettable designs like the Grebe, Tomtit and Westland Wapiti. In these between war years the RAF had to be content with bombing the crap out of defenceless natives in various parts of the world, in particular Iraq where it dropped 100 tons of bombs for the loss of 11 aircraft. This demonstrated a remarkable foresight on behalf of the RAF and stood it in good stead for a similar operations some 75 plus years later.
World War 2 proved to be a sterner test for our boys in serge blue on account of the natives being slightly more inclined to put up a fight. Still on the plus side, it was drop a few bombs on Jerry then back home for tea, medals and a jump from some tart in Lincoln while her hubby was sweating it out in the North Africa with the Desert Rats. Despite all this our heroes in blue came through, in part to ‘state of the art’ designs such as the Fairy battle (a light Fighter bomber with Morris Minor like performance) and the Manchester (a heavy bomber with C130J like reliability),.but mostly because Bomber Harris let us drop lots of bombs.
The post war years brought new challenges with the start of the jet age and with this new technology at our disposal it was high time we started bombing people again; so Indonesia, Malaya, Korea, Kenya Aden, and Egypt soon found themselves on the receiving end of large amounts of high explosives.
The 1960s brought us the ‘Supersonic Age’ the English Electric Lighting was an important breakthrough. It was built in response to an early episode of ‘Scarp Heap Challenge’ where the object was to get rid of 1500 gallons of kerosene without actually pouring it down the drain. The Lightning completed the challenge with ease and a useful spin off was that it could fly at almost twice the speed of sound and shoot things. Unfortunately it could not drop bombs, but the RAF bought it anyway because it discovered that it could scare the crap out of kids at air shows.
A long period of inactivity facing off the Soviets in Germany followed this, but an advantage of this was that although we did not drop any bombs we had LOA, tax free cars, booze and fags. In 1982 the horrid Argies gave us the chance to start to bomb things again. The pathetic attempt by RAF Vulcans to bomb Port Stanley runway demonstrated the importance of regularly bombing things. Eight years later the RAF found themselves back in familiar territory in the Gulf. Faced with a massive abundance of falling HE the Iraqis responded with psychological warfare; they surrendered thus forcing the RAF to vacate their 5 star hotels and return to dear old Blighty . The next few years were spent with the Jags and Tornados just itching to drop some more HE on the Iraqis, but next in line were those horrible Serbs. This time it was back to the type of war our boys in blue loved best. Bombing Johnny Serb direct from Bruggen and getting home in time for tea and medals (well bratties and tax free cars and booze any way). Next on the list was Iraq again with the opportunity to drop more bombs, this time smart bobs that you could put up Saddam’s hoop (but just remember smart weapons need smart people).
At the time of writing due to Defence cuts, E2E and Lean, we are heading towards a similar size that we were in 1919 and chances are, due to Jointery, we may yet become the Royal Flying Corps again; Trenchard and our heroes of yesteryear must be rolling in their graves.
World War 2 proved to be a sterner test for our boys in serge blue on account of the natives being slightly more inclined to put up a fight. Still on the plus side, it was drop a few bombs on Jerry then back home for tea, medals and a jump from some tart in Lincoln while her hubby was sweating it out in the North Africa with the Desert Rats. Despite all this our heroes in blue came through, in part to ‘state of the art’ designs such as the Fairy battle (a light Fighter bomber with Morris Minor like performance) and the Manchester (a heavy bomber with C130J like reliability),.but mostly because Bomber Harris let us drop lots of bombs.
The post war years brought new challenges with the start of the jet age and with this new technology at our disposal it was high time we started bombing people again; so Indonesia, Malaya, Korea, Kenya Aden, and Egypt soon found themselves on the receiving end of large amounts of high explosives.
The 1960s brought us the ‘Supersonic Age’ the English Electric Lighting was an important breakthrough. It was built in response to an early episode of ‘Scarp Heap Challenge’ where the object was to get rid of 1500 gallons of kerosene without actually pouring it down the drain. The Lightning completed the challenge with ease and a useful spin off was that it could fly at almost twice the speed of sound and shoot things. Unfortunately it could not drop bombs, but the RAF bought it anyway because it discovered that it could scare the crap out of kids at air shows.
A long period of inactivity facing off the Soviets in Germany followed this, but an advantage of this was that although we did not drop any bombs we had LOA, tax free cars, booze and fags. In 1982 the horrid Argies gave us the chance to start to bomb things again. The pathetic attempt by RAF Vulcans to bomb Port Stanley runway demonstrated the importance of regularly bombing things. Eight years later the RAF found themselves back in familiar territory in the Gulf. Faced with a massive abundance of falling HE the Iraqis responded with psychological warfare; they surrendered thus forcing the RAF to vacate their 5 star hotels and return to dear old Blighty . The next few years were spent with the Jags and Tornados just itching to drop some more HE on the Iraqis, but next in line were those horrible Serbs. This time it was back to the type of war our boys in blue loved best. Bombing Johnny Serb direct from Bruggen and getting home in time for tea and medals (well bratties and tax free cars and booze any way). Next on the list was Iraq again with the opportunity to drop more bombs, this time smart bobs that you could put up Saddam’s hoop (but just remember smart weapons need smart people).
At the time of writing due to Defence cuts, E2E and Lean, we are heading towards a similar size that we were in 1919 and chances are, due to Jointery, we may yet become the Royal Flying Corps again; Trenchard and our heroes of yesteryear must be rolling in their graves.