This last week the press were making some hoo-haa about the first Merlin to arrive in Afghanistan. The Govt acting like this was some level of success.
Well it wasn’t and I’ll tell you why.
Several years ago, the MoD set up 16 Air Assault; their way of trying to be an ‘all-in-one’ air mobile force…
Well the reality of modern warfare requires you to move two or three regiments of men quickly – so what does that actually take?
A standard British regiment is 650 men strong, I should say Battalion size seeing as the
y’ve amalgamated most of them now (which in it’s self was incredibly damaging). With that 650 men you have upto 150 men/women in other trades, artillery, forward air controllers, medics, the list goes on – we’ll call it 800 men.
Now take those 800 men and load them onto Merlin EH101 helicopters and then give them an Apache escort… So, just how many helicopters does this require? Bare in mind that this is just the m
en and their personal equipment – not supplies etc
That’s 40 Merlin helicopters and at least 8 Apache’s
Your other helicopter types would still be engaged in other roles.
So in reality, you would need at least a further 10 to bring in the support equipment – so 50, for just one battalion to hit the ground in force.
So how many Merlins did they order/buy
Army 0
RAF 22
Royal Navy 44
Anyone see a problem here?
66 helicopter and only one has made it to theatre in 5 years of fighting…
Sometimes I wonder if the people who are charged with forward planning in the defence of our nation – simply need taking out and beating with a very big stick…
