Soldiers from 1 Regiment Army Air Corps (1 AAC) recently concluded a comprehensive weapon system training exercise in North-East Scotland, reinforcing the operational capabilities of the Wildcat AH1 helicopter.
The exercise, dubbed “Wildcat Fire”, saw the deployment of 150 personnel across four key locations including RAF Lossiemouth, Tain, Cape Wrath Air Weapons Ranges (AWRs), and Cameron Barracks.
Operating from Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton, Somerset, the personnel from 659 and 661 Squadrons were involved in various training activities. A crucial objective of the exercise was to re-qualify the Regiments’ Rear crew on the aircraft’s crew-served weapon systems (CSW), notably the single barrel heavy machine gun (M3M) and the general-purpose machine gun (GPMG).
As stated by Major Rob Bramley, Officer Commanding 659 Sqn, 1 AAC, “The exercise was an important training event to re-qualify the frontline Squadrons in self-defence and call for fire profiles. Exercising with RAF Typhoon Squadrons signifies a strengthening of Air and Land integration to maximise operational reach and lethality – use of RH FAC(A)s being a driving component.”
Besides weaponry training, the Wildcat Fire exercise also served as a platform to complete Forward Air Controller (Air) (FAC(A)) training, integrated with RAF Typhoons based at RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby.
Such training amplifies the ability of the reconnaissance helicopter crews to control other NATO aircraft and designate off-board weapon systems onto targets.
You can read more about this here.
Damn! Saw the headline and thought the government had finally decided how to deal with the SNP 😏
Nah just some locals had a bit to much buckfast last night and this was the only safe way to deal with them.
UK invades Scotland? 🤔
Scotland is already part of the UK
Just being sarcastic
Well the targets are slow moving and knocking off the SNP is only a good thing.
However I offer this on Scottish Independence – Ask the Tax payers South of th Border – Do you wish to continue supporting Scotland with your hard earned pounds or have them better spent in England and Wales? That would shock them up in Edinburgh. Scotland could never survive without the handouts.
I think the handouts/ subsidising of Scotland is just a fact of life and a cost worth paying to retain the UKs integrity. Scottish independence would be an unremitting disaster for both the UK and Scotland. It would be a singular act of self injury worst then anything else conceivable as a result of a ballot box action.
Even worse then voting Tories in for another term 😂🤣😂🤣
That’ll generate a few responses me thinks. 🤔
How much is that per Prime Minister. On the whole the Scottish ones have been better than than the English public schools ones 🙂
Because it isn’t exactly hard and it really isn’t much to boast about.
The English and Welsh non public School educated ones on the whole did much better especially those that went to Grammar Schools.
Unless you seriously do think 454 Blair and Brown were much cop ?
I am going to say IMHO it was a tragedy John Smith died because he had the makings of greatness.
I agree wholeheartedly re your comment about the late John Smith.
Totally agree, John Smith was a loss, Blair hijacked the Labour party in his wake and turned it into a personality cult.
Indeed John Smith was a great loss. Blair attempted (the unBritish) Social Democracy with some success. Maybe with Starmer it will second time lucky. He also lit the blue touch paper of the devolution firework and retired to a safe distance. If Labour get in we will see constitutional reform which is badly needed. Brown signed the uncancelkable aircraft carrier contract and was smarter than he was given credit for. Macmillan was a good man – a one nation Conservative.
Ramsey MacDonald demonstrated that Labour could govern Britain…made Labour credible. Not a bad Scottish track record.
Well Ramsey MacDonald was an excellent PM and effectively proved that Labour could govern in a responsible way rather than as portrayed by the 2 existing parties. Harold MacMillan has been wrongly portrayed as a Scot which was an image he fostered. His Grandfather was but he was an Eton and Oxford educated man just like Cameron, Eden and Johnson and married into the Cavendish family so about as high end English Aristocracy as you can get. Brown was an excellent Chancellor, a mediocre PM and managed to build 2 Carriers in Rosyth (his neighbouring constituency). He then presided over… Read more »
You don’t like him then….
You Sir have the gift of understatement. Which along with genuine humility is something else he lacks.
Mirrors exactly my own feelings towards him. He is hands down top of my most unfavourite UK PM’s,(well in modern history anyway) a subversive , santimonious, self serving ,dupliticous twat – and don’t get me started on his bad points…. 🙂
Blair was on a series of moral crusades – always a risky mindset. For the economy that went well for the UK. He also did well with the Good Friday agreement. The jury is still out on devolution but he did start a debate and a process of constitutional reform which we badly need. We cannot continue to elect Prime Ministers like Johnson who can act like a re-incarnated Henry VIII. Agree that on Iraq and Afghanistan his ego got the better of him. He was lead astray by Bush and good men died because of,it.
Blair was teeded up well on the GFA by his predecessor, John Major.
John Major was a man of goodwill. Defeated by internal conservative divisions on Europe. No news there then 🙂
Privatising prisons would create a profit incentive to criminalise people which leads to the creation of ever more ways of transgressing. Its the downwards slide they are on on the US.
yep – absolutley – Prisons should always be run by the government surley incarceration of criminals and the control and rehabilitation (don’t laugh) of those locked in is one of the basic tenets of our society and one which we should happily pay taxes towards.
Not sold off for profits – like hospitals…
Perhaps you would like to expand? Two points: a) you are sent to prison as punishment not for punishment and b) per my original post; observation of the US experience shows that providing a profit incentive to incarcerate offenders acts in such a way as to increase the number of offenders who ‘merit’ imprisonment.
Re the idea that the rest of the UK supports Scotland economically? That is a fiddle caused by the way we apportion North Sea oil and gas revenues. If it is within 12 miles of the coast it is assigned to that country, England/Scotland etc. If it is more than 12 miles offshore it is assigned to the UK as a whole. If you look at any maps of North Sea oil and gas it is obvious a lot of it would have been Scottish if they were independent, probably 60% plus. This means Scotland could have had lower taxes… Read more »
Not really.
SNP now want net zero and want to kill oil and gas.
They will say that Westminster has to shoulder the decommissioning costs.
ATM North Sea oil and gas is vital for National resilience etc.
Oil is a petrochemical feedstock and gas will have a place with domestic heating for a long time.
Now that you have been pinching Scottish oil 🛢️ revenues for years 🔥
Wrong! Scotland subsidises England via our oil gas and renewables which are all tied to the national grid, we buy it back at a higher price than people on the southeast. Ask yourself why england won’t let us go. Then look at British history of asset stripping its colonies.
A manpad SAM and puff the Wildcat
The operational use of the Army Wildcat…
Fly about hosing things down with the door guns and generally missing.
Air taxi service for staff officers
Keep Wastelands open
Have I missed anything??
Battlefield recon and ISTAR
ISTAR, really? ?
What with, it has a flir and a very basic defensive aids suite.
It is in no way equipped for ISTAR against a sophisticated enemy, unless you consider flying around an active battlefield getting shot to bits as ISTAR?
In reality, it’s pure spin, it’s never been equipped for the role and various drones would now carry out the job, or the AH64E, if armed recon was needed.
However, we’ve got staff officer transport and keeping a factory open, you can’t take those important roles away from Wildcat…
Trails took place last year to integrate Link16 and the digital Bowman network for the Wildcat. Link16 was also trailed for RN Wildcats.
Good grief, so they still haven’t even got link 16!
I’m not being funny Robert, but the Army Wildcat really is about as much use and utility to the Army as a chocolate teapot!
It needs to be armed to at least give it a worthwhile bloody job to do……
UK procurement, you couldn’t make this stuff up!
So what should we have? And would you be happy to see the factory close? cos I’m sure you would have plenty to say about that if it did.
So what should we have, well, I would have probably produced a new batch of Lynx for the Navy, with new avionics and engines, why fix what isn’t broken??
For the Army, a light utility platform, US Lakota possibly fits the bill, or the ultimate sensible idea (wait for it) a buy of Blackhawk to cover both Army Lynx and RAF Puma, ‘far’ too sensible…
But the Wildcat basically is an updated Lynx with new engines and avionics. I get the Blackhawk argument, but it’s old tech, and it would mean job and design experience lost in the UK. That’s the balance the Gov has to make. People argue we should buy off the shelf, and in some cases we should, Apache, for example. But cry blue thunder if another British company goes under or another factory closes because we haven’t bought British. Wildcat is a very capable platform with bags of potential.
But it isn’t Robert, because of the modern crash worthy seating, Wildcat can only carry four passengers, effectively eliminating it’s utility capacity, (Lynx could carry 8). As an Army utility type it’s close to useless and it was absolutely forced on the Army, who would have happily kept their useful Lynx. As a Naval helicopter it absolutely has great capability, but it’s tiny build numbers mean a ticket price that prices it out of the market for most potential buyers. Wildcat was the last gasp of UK Helicopter design, a helicopter with no export market ( bar a handful of… Read more »
As if Westland had any significant design business. Most of historical helicopters were Sikorski designs: Wessex, Sea King.
AW-101 was designed with evil Italians 50 50. The Lynx was designed with some French input and it is only one that you can say Westland designed.
I’m not sure a naval helicopter with zero ASW detection equipment can be described as having great capability
So we will ignore Surface Strike, Vectac, ESM, SAR, OHT, Boarding Ops…oh and its most important capability, bringing the mail…😉
It can carry 6 combat troops in the crash worthy seats. It is superior to the lynx in every aspect, especially payload and range. It might be an Italian owned plant, but it is still manufactured in Yeovil, and the site still employs hundreds of skilled workers. I don’t believe the Army was forced to buy the Wildcat. The Army set the requirement for what it wanted and was presented with a number of options. Now, I’m not naive enough to believe political pressure doesn’t exist, and I’m sure the hundreds of employees in Yeovil are dam glad they did… Read more »
Ah, Blackhawk. How did I know that was coming?
Why are you advocating for old vehicles that rightly have it are being phased out?
If you were in charge, our lads world still be driving around in Centurions and Land Rovers.
“Ah, Blackhawk. How did I know that was coming?” Because the likes of John and myself see the usefulness of it. We could have had a deal a few decades ago replacing SK HC4, Lynx, and Puma in ampule numbers needed for, reportedly, $300 million. Instead, we got Wildcat for 1 billion plus, for 34 plus 28 for the RN. Using LRs and Centurions is not a valid comparison is it? Both are out of date, LR is vulnerable, and Centurion is way beyond Chieftain in history. Sooner or later we have to start getting good enough OTS rather than… Read more »
John, the AAC has always had a utility helo – did you object to previous utility helos?
Wildcat can do liaison, battlefield recce, move teams of up to 5 personnel, search & rescue, work with Apache and laser designate targets for them etc.
It may not yet have Link 16, but it currently has a Thales Avionics secure communications control system (SCCS) featuring VHF/UHF SATURN and HF radios and Bowman radio.
Utility heloes are not generally heavily armed – they are not ‘gunships’. But a long burst from a M3M will spoil someone’s day.
Afternoon Graham, I’ve no issue with a light utility helicopter, what I do have an issue with is replacing the Lynx AH9 with fewer, less capable and obsceny expensive helicopters, designed and procured entirely as a politically motivated procurement.
Less capable, carrying 4 instead of 8. Battlefield recce is a pure fantasy, it takes way more than a nose mounted flir to be a capable (and most importantly survivable) recce asset.
Wildcat would lbe shot out of the sky if it was used against a sophisticated enemy, a litteral sitting duck.
Thanks John. Good explanation.
In the early part of my career, recce was often done from the cab of a Gazelle – the Brigadier or the unit CO who requested the cab, usually just brought along a pair of binos for his recce!
More seriously, surely any aerial asset, be it a drone, Wildcat, Apache, Typhoon, F-35 – can be shot out of the sky if they were operating far forward, by a sophisticated enemy. Doesn’t mean we don’t have them.
Morning Graham, I think on today’s Modern battlefield, any helicopter in the recon role is thoroughly compromised.
It has to put itself in line of sight of the enemy it’s trying to locate, it’s toast basically….
The F35 has apparently excellent multiple sensor recon capabilities, this plus standoff systems and more expendable drones will be used in future…
From a battlefield perspective, the life of even an all singing, all dancing, heavily armed AH64E crew is going to get ‘significantly’ more perilous….
Wildcats recon capabilities are a pure work of Whitehall PR fiction….
In reality it’s a white elephant unfortunately..
Thanks John. Good job the enemy won’t be able to shoot down that £100m F-35!
Hi Graham,
You would hope the F35 will be significantly harder to target….
Battlefield recon in an helicopter is like battlefield recon in Lysander in WW2. Not survivable.
Creating jobs in Westland. That was its primary purpose
They are going to need to be up armed with something a little longer range. Navy ones now have options, time for the army ones to get them also.
Wildcat is for battlefield recon. Apache carrys the big guns.
In a modern battlefield, is there any place for a recon helicopter that can’t also strike, considering it would be an extremely high risk operation due to high availability of manpads.
It is good for low intensity stuff like Mali or The Gan where manpads are rare. The vulnerability of all helicopters has been highlighted in Ukraine. We lost a Gazelle to friendly fire down south so its not a newish vulnerability. The US seems to be keen on the “scout” concept. For myself I think the dreaded drone is the future, as is being proved against the Russians in major conflict. Still a role for lights though, insertion of a few bodies etc. I would not personally want to be tooling around in any helicopter near a front line though.
The US version though is a high speed high mobility and high fire power option. They have rocket/missile options on all their helicopter options. To me if your going to scout with a helicopter, have it able to first strike, as chances are by the time the Apache arrives it will either be expected or the enemy will have moved.
Plus Apache can scout itself and has a way better radar do to it. It just drop off troops for them to setup survalliance
Apache is as vulnerable as any of them imo. Alligator has proved that. Ok the flat land has not helped its case, and maybe a “popup” and look is an option in hilly country, but I still think choppers are vulnerable. I hated it in NI, just knowing that the pads had a few 50 cals around, and a few hairy RPG 7 moments for choppers spring to mind elsewhere. As for the US? They have mass, something we will never have again, so the unmanned and cheaper drone is a better option.
Not checked recently but last I read the russian helicopters havent actually fared that badly. They had a number knocked out early on, due to poor tactics, but after that the numbers dropped heavily and yet they are still being heavily used.
Keeping them out of the thick of it. There are a few videos of Alligator and others being downed. Like I said earlier, that terrain is not friendly for any aircraft rotor or fast mover. And the AA cover on both sides was, until degraded, quite good. Think I read about thirteen Alligators lost so far and a fair number of MI17. Frogfoot and SU 27 + 35 are also vulnerable so kept out of it as far as possible.
It’s the type of terrain that both the Apache and alligators were designed to fight on. It’s just that they were never really tested on it in a real war situation and so have found to be wanting. Saying that 13 downed after a year of heavy fighting isn’t actually that many, look at Vietnam and thousands taken out
A few years ago when the rebuilt Merlin’s entered service there was a senior person from the military talking excitedly about future weapon upgrades, to support the ground forces. I would guess there was something planned but was quietly dropped or they would have kept quiet in their normal polictical stance of not saying anything bad until they retire then stating everything is a mess.
On a fat pension and become a news pundit lol. Merlin is a shame, it has never reached its full potential.
I kinda understand why they do it, but they should choose, either talk truthfully when in office or shut up when not, it’s not helpful. All it does is sound like it was better under me, all gone to hell after I left, like some boring ego trip.
Well the Germans are about retiring the Tiger and replacing with a similar helicopter to Wildcat form but they will put it with i think will be Spike NLOS for long range hits.
So no need for all that armour and expensive bits of an Apache since you are firing from +10km distance and eventually even behind a hill.
It’s a certified long established fact that England needs Scottish resources fsr more than Scotland needs the Barnett formula “handout” it’s not actually a handout you’re buying our resources for a bargain basement price, so cheap in fact you couldn’t possibly get anywhere near as sweet a deal anywhere else on Earth that’s why England paid Scotland a large sum of money as a sweetener to join the union because yes Scotland was in financial difficulties but England was facing total bankruptcy the smart people knew it was only going to get worse because England has no natural resources except… Read more »