United States Air Force Tactical Air Control Party
A United States Air Force Tactical Air Control Party abbreviated TACP, refers to an individual or team of United States Air Force personnel with AFSC 1C4X1, who are aligned with a conventional United States Army or United States Marine Corps combat maneuver unit or to an Air Force, Marine, or Navy special operations unit, to provide precision terminal attack guidance of U. S. and coalition fixed- and rotary-wing close air support aircraft and naval gunfire. In conventional settings, TACPs are the principal Air Force liaison element to the United States Army. In this context, the TACP is an Air Force liaison element aligned with Army combat maneuver echelons from Corps to Battalion level; the TACP provides its aligned Army unit with expertise in planning and executing airpower in support of the land component commander's scheme of maneuver. In special operational settings, TACPs deploy with special operations units, including Air Force Special Tactics, Army Special Forces, Navy SEAL teams, the 75th Ranger Regiment, Joint Special Operations Command Special Mission Units, acting as precision airstrike controllers and communication/C2 experts.
The USAF TACP when operationally employed as an element of the Theater Air Control System, is subordinate to the Air Support Operations Center, which in turn is subordinate to the Air Operations Center. The AOC is the senior TACS agency responsible for the centralized control and decentralized execution of airpower in support of the Joint Force Commander; the USAF/USA Memorandum requires the USAF to provide Air Liaison Officers, Battalion Air Liaison Officers, enlisted technicians skilled in planning and managing airpower resources, 1C4X1 Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. JTACs are specially trained and certified airmen who provide terminal control of airpower in the form of Close Air Support missions; the TACP provides USAF Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and other liaisons to the Army. These liaisons serve as USAF subject-matter experts within their areas of expertise and assist in planning and integrating these functions with their aligned Army unit. All of these USAF liaison personnel are assigned to a USAF Air Support Operations Squadron.
Operationally, liaisons serve within a TACP aligned with an Army Brigade Combat Team, Division, or Corps. 1C4X1s and Air Liaison Officers serve in TACPs at Army echelons from battalion through corps. Initial AFSC training took place at Hurlburt Field, FL until 2015, when it was moved to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. Graduates of the TACP schoolhouse attend USAF Survival, Evasion and Escape School at Fairchild AFB, WA, after which they are assigned to a TACP unit to undergo qualification, skill level upgrade, initial mission readiness training. Most TACP personnel are assigned to Air Support Operations Squadrons, which are organized and equipped to perform one of two functions, that of a Tactical Air Control Party or an Air Support Operations Center. 1C4X1s are experts on man-portable, vehicle-mounted, field-expedient communications and are trained in weapons and fieldcraft, including navigation and crew-served weapons systems, small unit tactics and close air support tactics and procedures.
The Air Support Operations Squadron is a USAF squadron located on an Army installation, subordinate to an Air Support Operations Group in keeping with traditional USAF organizational practices. An ASOS is commanded by an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who serves as the senior Air Liaison Officer. For the purpose of this Wiki, only the TACP will be discussed; the TACP mission is to support its subordinate brigade combat teams. The BCT is the basic deployable unit in the US Army. TACPs are located on nearly all major Army installations. Few 1C4X1s will be assigned to an Air Force base during their career. Instead, 1C4X1s will be assigned to various ASOSs on Army installations throughout the U. S and overseas during their careers; as an unstated prerequisite to a career as a 1C4X1, it is understood that 1C4X1s live and deploy with U. S. Army combat units worldwide under some of the most demanding and difficult conditions in very austere environments. Additionally, there are numerous ASOSs within the Air National Guard that have participated in combat operations worldwide supporting the Global War on Terror since 9/11.
When assigned to a TACP, the mission of the 1C4X1 is to advise and assist Army ground commanders and fire support officers in planning, integrating and employing airpower consistent with Joint Army, Air Force doctrine and tactics and procedures. Because of their unique position in the USAF, which places enlisted airmen in positions of authority and responsibility placed on commissioned officers, 1C4X1s must be proficient in their specialty and experts on airpower and joint operations. During a TACP assignment, 1C4X1s must continually possess a high degree of self-motivation, enthusiasm and a willingness to operate as the lone airman in a joint team. Though challenging, a TACP assignment has its rewards: 1C4X1s are uniquely afforded the opportunity to increase their knowledge and operator capabilities by attending Basic Airborne, Military Freefall, Air Assault and Ranger schools; the Air Support Operations Center is an element of the Theater Air Control System aligned with the senior Army maneuver unit in theater and directly
Forward air control
Forward air control is the provision of guidance to close air support aircraft intended to ensure that their attack hits the intended target and does not injure friendly troops. This task is carried out by a forward air controller. A primary forward air control function is ensuring the safety of friendly troops during close air support. Enemy targets in the front line are close to friendly forces and therefore friendly forces are at risk of friendly fire through proximity during air attack; the danger is twofold: the bombing pilot cannot identify the target and is not aware of the locations of friendly forces. Camouflage, a changing situation and the fog of war all increase the risk. Present day doctrine holds that Forward Air Controllers are not needed for air interdiction, although there has been such use of FACs in the past. An additional concern of forward air controllers is the avoidance of harm to noncombatants in the strike area; as close air support began during World War I, there were pioneer attempts to direct the trench strafing by the ground troops marking their positions by laying out signal panels on the ground, firing flares, or lighting smoke signals.
Aircrews had difficulty communicating with the ground troops. Benno Fiala von Fernbrugg, an Austro-Hungarian pilot, pioneered the use of radio for fire control. Colonel Billy Mitchell equipped his Spad XVI command airplane with a radio, the Germans experimented with radios in their Junkers J. I all-metal-structure, armored-fuselage sesquiplanes; the Marines in the so-called Banana wars of the 1920s and 1930s used Curtiss Falcons and Vought Corsairs that were equipped with radios powered by airstream-driven generators, with a range of up to 50 miles. Another method of communication was for the pilot to drop messages in a weighted container, to swoop in and pick up messages hung out by ground troops on a "clothesline" between poles; the objective was air attack. Using these various methods, the Marine pilots combined the functions of both FAC and strike aircraft, as they carried out their own air attacks on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1927; the commonality of pilots and ground troops belonging to the same service led to a close air support role similar to that sought by use of FACs, without the actual use of a FAC.
On 27 October 1927, a Marine patrol used cloth panels to direct an air strike—arguably the first forward air control mission. This distinctive U. S. Marine doctrine of interaction between Marine infantry and aviation would persist, recurring in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. French colonial operations in the Rif War from 1920–1926 used air power to the Marines in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas but in a different environment, the desert; the French Mobile Groups of combined arms air attack. These aerial observers called in artillery fire via radio; the German military noted close air support operations in the Spanish Civil War and decided to develop its forward air control capability. By 1939, they had forward air control teams called Ground Attack Teams attached to every headquarters from regiment level upwards; these Teams directed air strikes flown by Luftwaffe close air support units. Extensive coordinated training by air and ground troops had raised this system to state of the art by the beginning of World War II.
When the United States Army Air Forces was founded on 20 June 1941, it included provisions for Air Ground Control Parties to serve with the United States Army at the division and Army headquarters. The Air Ground Control Parties functions were to regulate bombing and artillery in close conjunction with the ground troops, as well as assess bomb damage, they were thus the first of similar units to try to fulfill the functions of the FAC without being airborne. However, these units were plagued by turf wars and cumbersome communications between the respective armies and air forces involved; as a result, it could take hours for an air strike requested by ground troops to show up. However, forward air control during World War II came into existence as a result of exigency, was used in several theaters of World War II, its reincarnation in action was a result of field expedience rather than planned operations. In the Pacific Theater, 4 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force began forward air control at the Battle of Buna-Gona, New Guinea in November 1942.
The RAAF continued forward air control in the Pacific for the rest of the war. By November 1943, the U. S. Marines were using forward air control during the Battle of Bougainville. On the Allied side in the European Theater, British forces in North Africa began using the Forward Air Support Links, a "tentacle" system that used radio links from front line units to the rear requesting close air support from the next "cab rank" of on-call airborne fighter-bombers; the requesting unit would direct the air strikes. The U. S. Army would not copy the British system until the invasion of Italy, but adapted it for use there and in France after the D-Day Invasion of 6 June 1944; the United States would end World War II still without an air control doctrine. When the U. S. Air Force split from the U. S. Army in 1947, neither took on the responsibility for forward air control. S. military thus had no functional forward air control. The United Kingdom and Commonwealth continued to build on its experience in the Second World War in various campaigns around the
RAF Regiment
The Royal Air Force Regiment is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942. The Corps carries out soldiering tasks relating to the delivery of air power. Examples of such tasks are Non Combatant Evacuation Operations, recovery of downed aircrew, in depth defence of airfields by way of aggressively patrolling a large area of operations outside airfields in hostile environments. In addition the RAF Regiment provides Joint Terminal Attack Controllers to the British Army and Royal Marines, provides a platoon size commitment to the Special Forces Support Group; the RAF Regiment Gunners are personnel trained in various disciplines such as infantry tactics, force protection, field craft, support Special Forces operations, CBRN defence, equipped with advanced vehicles and detection measures. RAF Regiment instructors are responsible for training all Royal Air Force personnel in basic force protection such as first aid, weapon handling and CBRN skills.
The regiment and its members are known within the RAF as "The Regiment", "Rock Apes" or "Rocks". After basic training at RAF Halton, a 20 week gunner course at RAF Honington, its members are trained and equipped to prevent a successful enemy attack in the first instance. RAF Regiment squadrons use aggressive defence tactics whereby they seek out infiltrators in a large area surrounding airfields; the genesis of the RAF Regiment was with the creation of No. 1 Armoured Car Company RAF, formed in Egypt in 1921 for operations in Iraq, followed shortly afterwards by No. 2 Armoured Car Company RAF and No. 3 Armoured Car Company RAF. These were equipped with Rolls-Royce armoured cars and carried out policing operations throughout the Middle East in the 1920s. During the Second World War, with its first headquarters established at RAF Belton Park, Lincolnshire, the RAF Regiment came into existence, in name, on 1 February 1942. From the start it had 66,000 personnel drawn from the former Defence Squadrons Nos. 701–850.
The new regiment was made up of field squadrons and light anti-aircraft squadrons, the latter armed with Hispano 20 mm cannon and the Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun. Its role was to seize and defend airfields to enable air operations to take place. Several parachute squadrons were formed to assist in the capture of airfields, a capability retained by No. II Squadron, it mounted the King's Guard/Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace for the first time on 1 April 1943. During the War the RAF Regiment grew to a force of over 80,000 men. In late June 1944, with the British Army fighting in Normandy where it was sustaining heavy losses and at the same time suffering from a severe shortage of manpower, it was decided to transfer 25,000 officers and men of the RAF Regiment to the army to the infantry and the Foot Guards, to be retrained; the Second World War campaign in north-eastern India and northern Burma was fought in jungle and mountains with few or non-existent roads and which facilitated the infiltration of enemy patrols behind front lines.
This was overcome by holding defensive "boxes" or supplied by air. The defence of forward airfields close to the main army concentrations was vital to this tactic. A training school and depot for the RAF Regiment was established at Secunderabad in October 1942, to retrain former ground defence airmen, it had an assault course considered tougher than anything the army had in India. Six field squadrons and seventy AA flights were formed, containing 160 officers and 4,000 other ranks; until mid-1944 the AA flights were equipped only with light machine guns with Hispano 20 mm cannon for the rest of the war. Regiment units defended airfields and forward mobile radar units in Arakan in the Arakan Campaign in late 1942 and early 1943. During the Battle of Imphal all supplies and reinforcements had to be flown in between 29 March and 22 June 1944 with RAF Regiment units providing vital airfield defence. Following the failure of the Japanese Operation U-Go it was decided to pursue the shattered remnants of the Japanese 15th Army into Burma during the monsoon, in average rainfall of 10 in per day and rifle flights were sometimes attached to advancing Indian Army and British East African units, to gain experience in the jungle.
Units of 1307 Wing were flown into the newly captured and tactically vital Meiktila airfield on 1 March 1945. Only a 1,076 sq yd box, shared with the army and some United States anti-aircraft artillery, could be held at night and the airfield had to be cleared of enemy each morning before flying could start; as one of the RAF Regiment's proudest battle honours, this three-week battle destroyed the Japanese hold on northern Burma. The RAF Regiment fought as field, armoured car and light anti-aircraft squadrons and flights in North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and North Western Europe, as well as 68 LAA squadrons defending the UK against V1 attacks as part of Operation Diver, alongside the Royal Artillery's heavy anti-aircraft and LAA batteries. Amongst other things, RAF Regiment units were the first British forces to reach Paris, amongst the first to enter Brussels, Squadron Leader Mark Hobden and his force arrested Hitler's successor as Fuhrer, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, at his HQ in Flensburg.
On 26 November 1944, a Me 262A-2a Sturmvogel of III/KG51 based at Hopsten/Rheine near Osnabruck was the first confirmed ground-to-air kill of a jet combat aircraft. The 262 was shot down by a 40/L60 40mm Bofors gun of B.11 Detachment of 2875 Squadro
Marines
Marines known as naval infantry, are an infantry force that specializes in the support of naval and army operations at sea and on land and air, as well as the execution of their own operations. In many countries, the marines are an integral part of that state's navy. In others, it is a separate organization altogether, such as in the United States, where the Marine Corps falls under the US Department of the Navy, yet it operates independently. Marines can fall under a country's army like the Troupes de marine and Givati Brigade. Tasks undertaken by marines have included: helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship, the boarding of vessels during combat or capture of prize ships, providing manpower for raiding ashore in support of the naval objectives. With the industrialization of warfare in the 20th century the scale of landing operations increased. Marine forces evolved to specialize in the capabilities required for amphibious warfare. In the earliest day of naval warfare, there was little distinction between sailors and soldiers on a warship.
The oarsmen of Ancient Greek and Roman ships had to be capable of fighting the rowers of opposing ships hand-to-hand. The Roman Republic was the first to understand the importance of professional soldiers dedicated to melee combat onboard of ships. During the First Punic War, Roman crews remained inferior in naval experience to the Carthaginians and could not hope to match the Carthaginians in naval tactics, which required great fleet maneuverability and tactical experience; the Romans therefore employed a novel weapon which changed sea warfare to their advantage — they equipped their ships with the corvus, a long pivoting plank with a beak-like spike on the underside for hooking onto enemy ships developed earlier by the Syracusans against the Athenians during the Sicilian Expedition of the Peloponnesian War. Using it as a boarding bridge, Roman infantrymen were able to invade an enemy ship, transforming sea combat into a version of land combat, where the Roman legionaries had the upper hand.
During the early Principate, a ship's crew, regardless of its size, was organized as a centuria. Crewmen could sign on as naval infantry, rowers/seamen and various other jobs, though all personnel serving in the imperial fleet were classed as milites, regardless of their function; the Roman Navy's two fleet legions, I Adiutrix and II Adiutrix, were among the first distinct naval infantry units. The first organized marine corps was created in Venice by the Doge Enrico Dandolo when he created the first regiment of ten companies spread on several ships; that Corps participated to the conquest of Byzantium officially called " Fanti da Mar" in 1550. The Spanish king, Carlos I, assigned the naval infantry of the Compañías Viejas del Mar de Nápoles to the Escuadras de Galeras del Mediterráneo in 1537, progenitors of the current Spanish Navy Marines corps, making them the oldest marine corps still in active service in the world; the third oldest marine corps in the world was founded as the Terço of the Navy of the Crown of Portugal in 1618, predecessor to the modern Portuguese Marine Corps.
The English noun marine is from the adjective marine, meaning "of the sea", via French marin from Latin marinus itself from mare, from Proto-Indo-European *móri. The word marine was used for the marine-type forces of England; because of this use of "marine" to mean "navy", exact one-word translations for the English term "Marines" do not exist in many other languages, which can lead to misunderstandings when translating, with the notable exception of the Dutch word marinier. Marine forces in non-English speaking countries have names that translate in English to naval infantry or coastal infantry. In French-speaking countries, two phrases exist which could be translated as marine, "troupes de marine" and "fusiliers-marins"; the principal role of marine troops is military operations in the littoral zone. Marine units deploy from warships using boats, landing craft, amphibious vehicles or helicopters. Specialist units are trained in combat diving/combat swimming and parachuting; as well as amphibious operations, marine troops are used in a variety of naval roles.
Stationed at naval bases or forming marine detachments on board naval ships, they conduct small scale raiding, maritime boarding operations, security of naval vessels and bases and coastal missions, mess duty, field day operations. In addition to their primary roles, they perform other tasks, including special operations and land warfare, separate from naval operations.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales, Diana, Princess of Wales, is sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, he was styled Prince Henry of Wales from birth until his marriage, but is known as Prince Harry. Harry was educated at schools in the United Kingdom and spent parts of his gap year in Australia and Lesotho, he underwent officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned as a cornet into the Blues and Royals, serving temporarily with his brother, Prince William, completed his training as a troop leader. In 2007–08, he served for over ten weeks in Helmand, but was pulled out after an Australian magazine revealed his presence there, he returned to Afghanistan for a 20-week deployment in 2012–13 with the Army Air Corps. He left the army in June 2015. Harry remains patron of its foundation, he gives patronage to several other organisations, including the HALO Trust, the London Marathon Charitable Trust, Walking With The Wounded.
On 19 May 2018, he married the American actress Meghan Markle. Hours before the wedding, his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II conferred on him the titles Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel. Harry was born in the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, on 15 September 1984 at 4:20 pm as the second child of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, he was baptised with the names Henry Charles Albert David, on 21 December 1984, at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. His parents announced their second son's name would be Prince Henry Charles Albert David, but that he would be known as Harry to his family and friends; as the prince grew up, he was referred to by Kensington Palace, therefore the Press and the public at large, as Prince Harry. As a son of the Prince of Wales, he was called Prince Henry of Wales. Diana wanted Harry and his older brother, William, to have a broader range of experiences than previous royal children.
She took them to venues that ranged from Disney World and McDonald's to AIDS clinics and homeless shelters. Harry began accompanying his parents on official visits at an early age. Harry's parents divorced in 1996, his mother died in a car crash in Paris the following year. Harry and William were staying with their father at Balmoral at the time, the Prince of Wales told his sons about their mother's death. At his mother's funeral, Harry 12, accompanied his father, paternal grandfather, maternal uncle, Earl Spencer, in walking behind the funeral cortège from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. In a 2017 interview with The Daily Telegraph, the prince acknowledged that he sought counselling after two years of "total chaos" while struggling to come to terms with the death of his mother. Like his father and brother, Harry was educated at independent schools, he started at the pre-preparatory Wetherby School. Following this, he attended Ludgrove School in Berkshire. After passing the entrance exams, he was admitted to Eton College.
The decision to place Harry at Eton went against the Windsor family convention of sending children to Gordonstoun, which Harry's grandfather, two uncles, two cousins had attended. It did, see Harry follow in the Spencer family footsteps, as both Diana's father and brother attended Eton. In June 2003, Harry completed his education at Eton with two A-Levels, achieving a grade B in art and D in geography, having decided to drop history of art after AS level, he excelled in sports polo and rugby union. One of Harry's former teachers, Sarah Forsyth, has asserted that Harry was a "weak student" and that staff at Eton conspired to help him cheat on examinations. Both Eton and Harry denied the claims. While a tribunal made no ruling on the cheating claim, it "accepted the prince had received help in preparing his A-level'expressive' project, which he needed to pass to secure his place at Sandhurst."After school, Harry took a gap year, during which he spent time in Australia working on a cattle station, participating in the Young England vs Young Australia Polo Test match.
He travelled to Lesotho, where he worked with orphaned children and produced the documentary film The Forgotten Kingdom. Harry entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 8 May 2005, where he was known as Officer Cadet Wales, joined the Alamein Company. In April 2006, Harry completed his officer training and was commissioned as a Cornet in the Blues and Royals, a regiment of the Household Cavalry in the British Army. On 13 April 2008, when he reached two years' seniority, Harry was promoted to lieutenant. In 2006, it was announced. A public debate ensued as to. Defence Secretary John Reid said that he should be allowed to serve on the front line of battle zones. Harry agreed saying, "If they said'no, you can't go front line' I wouldn't drag my sorry ass through Sandhurst and I wouldn't be where I am now." The Ministry of Defence and Clarence House made a joint announcement on 22 February 2007 that Harry would be deployed with his regiment to Iraq, as part of the 1st Mechanised Brigade of the 3rd Mechanised Division – a move supported by Harry, who had stated that he would leave the army if he was told to remain in safety while his regiment went to war.
He said: "There's no way I'm going to
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2018, the British Army comprises just over 81,500 trained regular personnel and just over 27,000 trained reserve personnel; the modern British Army traces back to 1707, with an antecedent in the English Army, created during the Restoration in 1660. The term British Army was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between Scotland. Although all members of the British Army are expected to swear allegiance to Elizabeth II as their commander-in-chief, the Bill of Rights of 1689 requires parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years; the army is commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The British Army has seen action in major wars between the world's great powers, including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the First and Second World Wars.
Britain's victories in these decisive wars allowed it to influence world events and establish itself as one of the world's leading military and economic powers. Since the end of the Cold War, the British Army has been deployed to a number of conflict zones as part of an expeditionary force, a coalition force or part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation; until the English Civil War, England never had a standing army with professional officers and careerist corporals and sergeants. It relied on militia organized by local officials, or private forces mobilized by the nobility, or on hired mercenaries from Europe. From the Middle Ages until the English Civil War, when a foreign expeditionary force was needed, such as the one that Henry V of England took to France and that fought at the Battle of Agincourt, the army, a professional one, was raised for the duration of the expedition. During the English Civil War, the members of the Long Parliament realised that the use of county militia organised into regional associations commanded by local members of parliament, while more than able to hold their own in the regions which Parliamentarians controlled, were unlikely to win the war.
So Parliament initiated two actions. The Self-denying Ordinance, with the notable exception of Oliver Cromwell, forbade members of parliament from serving as officers in the Parliamentary armies; this created a distinction between the civilians in Parliament, who tended to be Presbyterian and conciliatory to the Royalists in nature, a corps of professional officers, who tended to Independent politics, to whom they reported. The second action was legislation for the creation of a Parliamentary-funded army, commanded by Lord General Thomas Fairfax, which became known as the New Model Army. While this proved to be a war winning formula, the New Model Army, being organized and politically active, went on to dominate the politics of the Interregnum and by 1660 was disliked; the New Model Army was paid off and disbanded at the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. For many decades the excesses of the New Model Army under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell was a horror story and the Whig element recoiled from allowing a standing army.
The militia acts of 1661 and 1662 prevented local authorities from calling up militia and oppressing their own local opponents. Calling up the militia was possible only if the king and local elites agreed to do so. Charles II and his Cavalier supporters favoured a new army under royal control; the first English Army regiments, including elements of the disbanded New Model Army, were formed between November 1660 and January 1661 and became a standing military force for Britain. The Royal Scots and Irish Armies were financed by the parliaments of Ireland. Parliamentary control was established by the Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689, although the monarch continued to influence aspects of army administration until at least the end of the nineteenth century. After the Restoration Charles II pulled together four regiments of infantry and cavalry, calling them his guards, at a cost of £122,000 from his general budget; this became the foundation of the permanent English Army. By 1685 it had grown to 7,500 soldiers in marching regiments, 1,400 men permanently stationed in garrisons.
A rebellion in 1685 allowed James II to raise the forces to 20,000 men. There were 37,000 in 1678. After William and Mary's accession to the throne England involved itself in the War of the Grand Alliance to prevent a French invasion restoring James II. In 1689, William III expanded the army to 74,000, to 94,000 in 1694. Parliament was nervous, reduced the cadre to 7000 in 1697. Scotland and Ireland had theoretically separate military establishments, but they were unofficially merged with the English force. By the time of the 1707 Acts of Union, many regiments of the English and Scottish armies were combined under one operational command and stationed in the Netherlands for the War of the Spanish Succession. Although all the regiments were now part of the new British military establishment, they remained under the old operational-command structure and retained much of the institutional ethos and traditions of the standing armies created shortly after the restoration of the monarchy 47 years earlier.
The order of seniority of the most-senior British Army line regiments is based on that of the English army
Air force
An air force known in some countries as an aerospace force or air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military branch that conducts aerial warfare. More it is the branch of a nation's armed services, responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army or navy. Air forces are responsible for gaining control of the air, carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, providing support to land and naval forces in the form of aerial reconnaissance and close air support; the term "air force" may refer to a tactical air force or numbered air force, an operational formation either within a national air force or comprising several air components from allied nations. Air forces consist of a combination of fighters, helicopters, transport planes and other aircraft. Many air forces are responsible for operations of the military space, intercontinental ballistic missiles, communications equipment; some air forces may command and control other air defence assets such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, or anti-ballistic missile warning networks and defensive systems.
Some nations, principally Russia, the former Soviet Union and countries who modelled their militaries along Soviet lines, have or had an air defence force, organizationally separate from their air force. Peacetime/non-wartime activities of air forces may include air-sea rescue. Air forces are not just composed of pilots, but rely on a significant amount of support from other personnel to operate. Logistics, intelligence, special operations, cyber space support, weapons loaders, many other specialties are required by all air forces; the first aviation force in the world was the Aviation Militaire of the French Army formed in 1910, which became L'Armée de l'Air. In 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, Italy employed aircraft for the first time in the world for reconnaissance and bombing missions against Turkish positions on Libyan Territory; the Italian–Turkish war of 1911–1912 was the first in history that featured air attacks by airplanes and dirigible airships. During World War I France, Italy, the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire all possessed significant forces of bombers and fighters.
World War I saw the appearance of senior commanders who directed aerial warfare and numerous flying aces. An independent air force is one, a separate branch of a nation's armed forces and is, at least nominally, treated as a military service on par with that of older services like navies or armies; the British Royal Air Force was the first independent air force in the world. The RAF was founded on 1 April 1918 by amalgamation the British Army's Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. On establishment the RAF comprised over 20,000 aircraft, was commanded by a Chief of the Air Staff who held the rank of major-general and was governed by its own government ministry. Arguably, the Finnish Air Force was the first independent air force in the world, formed on 6 March 1918, when the Swedish count, Eric von Rosen gave Finland the second aircraft, a Thulin Typ D; some considered that the Finnish Air Force did not exist during the Finnish Civil War, the Red Guards had its own air force. Over the following decades most countries with any substantial military capability established their own independent air forces.
The South African Air Force was formed on 1 February 1920 and the Royal Australian Air Force was formed shortly afterwards on 31 March 1921, although it was not until 1922 that the head of the Service was titled as Chief of the Air Staff, placing him on a par with his Australian Army and Navy counterparts. The Canadian Air Force was formed at the end of World War I, was abolished and reorganized several times between 1918 and 1924, it became the permanent Royal Canadian Air Force when it received the "Royal" title by royal proclamation on 1 April 1924. It did not however become independent of the Canadian Army until 1938 when its head was designated as Chief of the Air Staff; the Royal New Zealand Air Force was established in 1923 as the New Zealand Permanent Air Force but did not become independent of the New Zealand Army until 1937. Other British-influenced countries established their own independent air forces. For example, the Royal Egyptian Air Force was created in 1937 when Egyptian military aviation was separated from Army command.
The Afghan Air Force was established on 22 August 1924, with support from the Soviet Union and Great Britain, but a civil war destroyed most of the planes and it wasn't reestablished until 1937, when King Mohammed Nadir Shah took power. Outside of the British Empire, the Italian Royal Air Force was founded in 1923, the Finnish Air Force was established as a separate service on 4 May 1928, the Brazilian Air Force was created in 1941. Both the United States Air Force and the Philippine Air Force were formed as a separate branches of their respective armed forces in 1947; the Israeli Air Force came into being with the State of Israel on 18 May 1948, but evolved from the pre-existing Sherut Avir of the Haganah paramilitary. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force was not established until 1954. Unlike all these countries, the Mexican Air Force remains an integral part of the Mexican Army. Germany was the first country to organize regular air attacks on enemy infrastructure with the Luftstreitkräfte. In World War I, it used its zeppelins to drop bombs on British cities.
At that time, Britain did have aircraft, though her airships were less advance
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