There is a saying from the days when Britain was an empire over which the sun did not set, and the British fleet was many times stronger than any rival. Now it sounds like a mockery, but in those days it was completely natural. One of the variants of the saying sounded something like this. "There are many navies in countries headed by kings, but there is only one Royal Navy, which does not need clarification, whose it is." Likewise, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) did not need clarifications for a long time - they were in a worthy position among the other largest air forces in the world. But everything flows, everything changes, and especially the remnants of power flow between the fingers of the rulers of the former empire, which now killed the tank industry, being the inventor of the tank, and has no nuclear carriers of its own, but can come up with an idiotic story with the poisoning of the Skripals by the Novichok, and burn the poor cat with a flamethrower. With the RAF, everything is the same as with the rest of the symbols of past glory.
Good news and bad news
Recently, the Daily Mail published an article by Joel Adams on the disastrous state of the Royal Air Force, including the reduction of the fleet of combat aircraft. Or rather, fighter and strike aircraft (now these two concepts in the RAF have become a single whole - there are no more strike vehicles). First, giving the seed "good news" that the RAF for the first time carried out combat missions against terrorists banned in Russia ISIS in Syria and Iraq on new F-35 aircraft, completing as many as 14 sorties in 10 days.
And then the author moves on to the bad news. He reports that the beloved but outdated Tornado aircraft in the RAF, which were in modifications of the F.3 fighter-interceptor, GR.4 fighter-bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, were removed from service earlier this year. As a result of this action, caused by both financial reasons and the obsolescence of the fleet, the British Air Force was left with 119 fighters in service - 102 Eurofighter Typhoon FGR.4 (it should be noted that 22 combat training aircraft are not included in this list) and 17 F-35B Lightning-2. At the same time, of these 17 new aircraft, 8 are permanently located in the United States, are used there for training pilots, and the RAF cannot count on them in combat operations or on alert duty.
Situation for 2007 and 2019
Comparison not in favor of the present
While quite recently, in 2007, there were 210 fighters in service, the Tornado was the main aircraft at that time, but the first Typhoons have already appeared - 32 aircraft (again, excluding combat training vehicles). There were also the last Jaguar fighter-bombers, but already in 2008 this simple and reliable machine was removed, as before that they said goodbye to the ground versions of the Harrier short-take-off and landing fighter-bomber.
At the same time, the command of the Air Force and the Ministry of Defense of Britain declares that the difference in the number of aircraft does not correspond to the difference in capabilities, recalling that the current aircraft have great capabilities, and they believe that the current number is sufficient for them. Of course, this is nothing more than a good mine with a bad game and bad cards. And "Lightning" itself, in general, is not just a masterpiece, but one big endless problem, and it corresponds to the level of the 5th generation only in terms of avionics and the possibility of internal placement of a limited set of weapons. "Typhoon" only in the last series turned into something similar to what the customers and creators saw in it many years ago. But not all aircraft of this type are brought up to the technical appearance of the latest series. And the reliability of both the Typhoon and the Lightning is such that this fleet of over a hundred fighters can be safely divided in two. But the author of the article in the Daily Mail prefers not to talk about this.
Comparison of the RAF combat strength for 1989, 2007 and 2019
Instead, he refers to the recent past. At the end of the Cold War, in 1989,. the RAF's payroll included 850 fighters and attack vehicles in combat. Of these, about 400 were Tornadoes (mainly F.1 and GR.1), about a hundred more American-made Phantom fighters, more than a hundred Jaguars, more than 170 Harriers (GR.3 modifications), and more fifty Bukanir bombers. The author does not appease and also refers to the times of the Second World War, when the British industry produced more than 35 thousand different fighters, in particular, the Spitfires (which could be quite proud of) and Hurricanes (which it would be better not to remember) … But why compare piston aviation and wartime with modern times? There is an overkill here.
Glorious history
If we turn to history, then the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) with an entire air battalion in its composition was created in April 1912. This happened after the successful actions of the Italians against the Turks in the fall of 1911, who used aircraft in these operations. Although much more material for thought was provided by the First Balkan War that happened in the fall of 1912, where Russian volunteer pilots also took part. By the beginning of the First World RFC, it consisted of 5 squadrons and numbered 63 aircraft, far behind the leaders, among which were Germany and Russia, which had air fleets of more than 200 aircraft each. At the same time, the British could well become the first owners of fighter aircraft - such an aircraft was created as an experimental one by the Vickers firm back in 1912-1913, but inertia of thinking won out.
RFC officer at his Sopwith Snipe, World War I
Realizing the value of aviation during the war, the British, thanks to their developed industry, quickly became the leaders. When in 1918 RFC became the RAF and the first air force in the world as an independent branch of the Armed Forces, and not just a "flying appendage" of the army or navy, as many countries had in World War II (for example, the Americans and the Japanese). Then the RAF had 150 squadrons and 3300 aircraft, and it was the largest air force in the world at that time. However, the RAF had more than 20,000 aircraft in its composition - there were such times.
RAF airfield in 1939
The famous "Spitfire" needs no introduction. In the photo, most likely, an aircraft of the Mk. V modification.
After the Second World War and the transition to jet aircraft, the number of the RAF has been steadily declining. If you look at the personnel, then from 300 thousand people. by the end of the 50s, they decreased to 150 thousand, and by 1985, to 90 thousand, and at the end of the 90s - to 50 thousand. The aircraft fleet also decreased accordingly.
Further it may not be better
At the same time, Adams quite correctly draws attention to the fact that the Typhoon deliveries did not keep pace with the "cutting" of old types of aircraft, in particular, the Tornado, and the situation with the F-35B deliveries will be even worse. 138 aircraft of this type have been ordered, but even the first batch of 48 aircraft will not be fully delivered until 2024, at a cost of at least £ 9 billion. At the same time, even the new Typhoons were already partially cut by the British - for financial and technical reasons (the modernization was either complicated and expensive or completely impossible), 16 Tranche-1 vehicles had already been removed from service and sent for disposal (first series). Who knows, suddenly, while waiting for the Lightnings, they decide to cut a part of Tranche-2? And then the promises of the MO leadership that "the park will fall a little more, and then even grow up" will not be worth the paper on which they can be printed.
Of course, the British are not the only ones to have drastically cut their Air Force over the 1990s and millennium. They cut everything and moreover at times - both the Americans and the Chinese, and we, but there is nothing to say about the European NATO. The state of the "old Euronatists" did not disintegrate into parts, and looking at the evolution of their armed forces, one cannot say so. But the British have always been a country with ambitions, and had opportunities, and now there are, in fact, only ambitions. Even if the F-35B (which is objectively worse than the other two options for obvious reasons) and justified those advertising tales that manufacturers tell about it, it cannot be in many places at the same time. And when your air force is several times weaker than, say, the Turkish - well, what ambitions can there be? More precisely, there may be ambitions - problems arise with implementation. One "phantom pain" for the lost power remains. It is strange that so far, Russia and V. V. Putin have not been accused of the poor state of the British national Armed Forces. Moreover, the slogan "The British Armed Forces have never lived as badly as under Putin" and cannot be called false. And the truth is - never. But if someone like Boris Johnson or a character approximately equal to him in IQ becomes the prime minister, then we may not hear that.
