RAF Cottesmore.

[garyscott]

Just heard on news that Cottesmore WILL close because of defense cuts. Wasn't Cottesmore lined up to be one of the F-35 bases?

[BOLLO]

One of the best bases for viewing and they close it Should have binned Wittering.

[Vulcanone]

....

[Blackcat1]

A stupid decision yet again, wouldnt it make more sense to close Wittering and move the 9 or 10 Harriers of 20 Sqdn to Cottesmore instead of moving 1,4 and the NSW??!!!!!!!!

[Unknown74]

So when This Afternoon does that Prat Ainsworth deliver his "End Of Armed Forces" Address? All to aid a "meaningless" fight in a sand pit.

[Blackcat1]

Closing Cottesmore to save money for 20 new Chinooks. What's happened to the ones in mothballs awaiting new software that the government cant afford??!!!!

[Trenchard]

So when This Afternoon does that Prat Ainsworth deliver his "End Of Armed Forces" Address? All to aid a "meaningless" fight in a sand pit.

Apparently 3.30pm. It should be live on the BBC news channel.

[shane davis]

Depending when and if Cott closes, what is going to happen to the 10yr contract that BAE and R-R have up there. They move the navy there and build new homes. They build the paint shops etc. Why not close a base that "past it's sell by date" not one you've just spent millions on ffs.

[BOLLO]

Bob Ainsworth,wot a twerp.Why do we have civilian as defense minsters?Why not get someone like Col Tim Collins or someone who's exmilitary as a minister?

[Unknown74]

Could BAe Systems not purchase Cottesmore for themselves from the MoD? Or why if the Vulcan, Air Atlantique are looking for new homes them Cottesmore would be the perfect answer.

[garethbrum]

Bob Ainsworth,wot a twerp.Why do we have civilian as defense minsters?Why not get someone like Col Tim Collins or someone who's exmilitary as a minister?

What difference would that make? The MOD is full, far too full, with senior military officials. Ainsworth is only the messenger - he hasn't sat back and made these decisions on his own, if at all.

Just to add re Cottesmore, nothing has been confirmed yet and at 9am it seemed certain it would be Kinloss. Might be best to wait for the announcement.

[WAP]

i dont think its an imediate thing plus the beeb defence news guy was talking rubbish and had a ten min converastion with the presenter about nothing and telling us they were called woka wokas (great). Basically, dont look into it to much as the presenter admited himself that hes been pestering everyone and anyone at the M.O.D. so they are probably tired of him and tell him stuff to get rid of him.

And ill second that Ainsworth is a complete twit!

[gonk]

Closing Cottesmore to save money for 20 new Chinooks. What's happened to the ones in mothballs awaiting new software that the government cant afford??!!!!

As for the new chinooks, has a contract been signed?, and if it has , the first one is not expected till 2013, if it ever appears, and if it does it only replace the ones that will be clapped out in stan. Cottesmore closing is only the start, watch germany and cyprus and what is left in the UK,this is not going to be pleasant,labour is hell bent on destroying what we hold dear.

[shane davis]

Hope you're right Andy mate

[HighlandSniper]

One of the best bases for viewing and they close it Should have binned Wittering.

Since when was facilitating aircraft spotting a major consideration in defence planning?

[HighlandSniper]

111 Sqn. - interesting. I was assuming one from the GR.4 fleet - the big question being which, and whether from Marham or Lossie.

[RichC]

Although it probably wouldn't make a difference in what happens within the cuts, our governments have a habit of having defence ministers who really do not have a clue about defence. Why the conclusion you may ask?
Because they change the Defence Minister every 5 minutes. Moving them from one department to the next and not giving any of them any chance to even know what is going on. None of them have military experience, none of them have a proper 'enthusiasm' in the role and none of them really care.

If we had a minister with a military background then atleast he/she would know the ins and outs of the Defence structure and what makes it tick. Instead we have civilians with no military experience arguing with military top brass and in the end, who wins? The civilian minister with no experience to listen to what he is being told by people who do know what they are on about.

How many Defence ministers have we had this year? How many have we had since Brown was in power? How many do you see swapping over in other countries?

You'll find that other countries probably take more care in deciding who will they have in charge of the military rather than the UK taking 5 minutes to decide who will take over the last one in the latest re-shuffles which seem to take place more often than not.

It's a pee-take of how we run this country and it's a pee take of our military, which was the best in the world in terms of fighting capability and equipment.
Fair play we have decent ground hardware now but to cut front line aircraft and bases just to fund hardware for a poxy Rebel War where we are NOT making much difference (hence why the US have had to reinforce Helmand with 40,000 troops) then i can see why people are rather angry especially when this Government are now giving "away" £1.5bn to other countries just so they become more 'green' and to make Brown look good in the World leaders 'eye'...

This Government has cut so much over the years that we have so little airframes available to fly it is ridiculous. Have you not seen how quiet it is nowadays? There is hardly anything flying.
1. There is nothing left to fly as it is (and even less now after this bout)
2. What is on station is cannibalized to the point it will never fly again to keep 'a few' airframes flying in Afghanistan
3. We never buy or we cancel replacements before we retire.

Off Aviation but still on Defence, the Government wants to scrap our main battle tanks knowing full well how effective they were in Iraq but just because we have not deployed them to Afghanistan they say we don't need them anymore. The same goes with AS90's.

The Govenment is purely thinking on what we need in Afghanistan and NOT for the future (outside of Afghanistan). Cutting back at home to fund programmes just for Afghanistan is wrong and they should find money elsewhere (but they have disagreed on slashing any other civil funding).

It's horrendous and even more so when this Goverment wants to look after third world countries first before our own people. The Government has Rid the "Great" out of Great Britain... purely on the basis of their incompetence on funds and wrong decisions.

Why on earth did they not scrap Scampton? Again, completely idiotic thinking. Scrap front line aircraft and bases but keep secondary stations which offer nothing to the Defence of this country. Scampton's CRC can be moved back to Neatishead or Waddington or Coningsby.... Reds can move elsewhere. There you have it, an secondary Air Station shut, the 'majority' of jobs moving elsewhere and will save 'a lot' of money to go towards those Chinooks.

Again we are looking at the dire situation whereby our troops/crews will come home from Afghanistan fighting Browns war and come home to a letter saying they no longer have a job because their unit is being cut. Like they did from Iraq.

"Dear Corporal.........
"Thanks for fighting our war, sorry but you don't have a job anymore because we need to cut your unit to fund others. Here is your pension, find another job"

No one can defend the way this MoD/Government are doing things at the moment. It's a pee take to this country and more so when i watched Gordon Brown smiling (false smiling) with our troops in theatre when in fact our troops should be boycotting the chap and giving him what they feel in reality.

[Sheff]

I think you'll find that what actually happens is that Cottesmore is run-down and then the remaining assets at Wittering will follow. The notion of "re-locating" to Wittering is probably just political spin to cover the fact that the basic aim is to dispose of all the Harriers. The only reason Wittering seems to have survived (but hasn't, it's just a delay) is because it's more difficult to dispose of that base so it's cheaper to get rid of Cottesmore sooner. It's been on the cards for ages as you'll know if you've read threads on FC for a year or so.

PS Razor, Scampton will close. The Reds will have moved to Waddington probably by the end of 2010 and the base will not survive for long after that (the notion of continuing to use the air space is just a short-term thing which will inevitably be dropped when necessary). Linton will probably go when the Tucanos go, Leeming will presumably go too it's clearly redundant), Cottesmore and Wittering will go, Kinloss will go, and then it's just a question of whether Lossie and Marham survive, depending on what happens to the F-35. However, when you note the comments from the NAO today:-

A delay in the delivery of two aircraft carriers is forecast to save 450 million pounds over the next four years, but in the long run will cost 674 million pounds more, the NAO said.

You can see that the carriers and F-35 are pretty high on their radar so by next year they must be the next primary targets. Given the size of the order now, it seems unlikely that both bases will survive but if the cuts next year are as big as feared, then both bases will probably go, along with the remainder of the Tornado fleet.

[RichC]

What is annoying is the fact this is closing to fund helicopters which won't be of use until 3 years time (if that can be believed).
Hardly fast tracking like Brown has said, is it?
Look how quick our first C-17s went into service from acquiring them.
There must be a quicker way of getting Chinooks into service.... oh wait!
No... let's go back to that point again which crops up.... We might get them in the UK quick enough but of course Qinetiq need to get their hands on them first to "British" them. Which means faffing around with the avionics and sub systems and cockpit and defensive suites etc when in fact, they are perfectly fine when they arrive in the UK and ready to fly.

Where have seen this before? Oh year... years ago with the Chinook HC3 when infact they were ready to fly before the MoD farts about as usual with them at Boscombe Down.

[RichC]

Extremely well put Razor! What is so frustrating is the sheer impotence that people have in this and other government matters! I know that not much of the defence community has any time for Brown. It would be good to see the CAS and other senior officers forget about their pensions and show some spine! I for one as a mere dependent am going to make as much fuss about this as I can!

The trouble is Figgis.... they only show their spine when they are about to retire. We have seen this recently whereby the Chief of the Army wouldn't say anything harsh about the Government until he was about to retire. Then he went hell loose on how crap the procurement was and our equipment shortage.
Yet when in seat, they are told what they will say and as you put it, have no spine at all.