Wednesday, July 21, 2010
RAF offer to scrap Nimrod and Tornado
The RAF have offered up the new Nimrod MRA4 and the Tornado GR4 fleets as a sacrifice to save billions of pounds over the long run. The cuts were offered by the RAF as part of the government's strategic defence review and would hit Scotland hard with the closure of a base and the scrapping of an expansion of another. It is thought the RAF are playing the game though as one of the Nimrods' major roles is to protect the Navy's Trident submarines and it is likely the Navy would oppose such a cut. The Tornado cut, which would be within 5 years, is more likely however as the planes would be nearing the ends of their lives by then anyway. Although their official withdrawal date is 2025 it is thought they will be out of hours some time before that.
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2 comments:
One comment: The MR2 Nimrods went out of service in April, the MR4 isn't due in service until 2012. If they're so essential to the Navy does that mean we've stopped deterrent patrols during the gap? I think not. Perhaps the Navy will call their bluff and point out that the Nimrods aren't as essential as the RAF believes them to be.
Incidentally you still have my old blog 'boiling the frog' in your sidebar. Thanks for the link but I discontinued the blog some time ago due to lack of time.
Well they are supposed to be using Hercules in the interim i read somewhere
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