Which branch of services is best?

[dancerandprancer]

DH is thinking of joining up. He has been keener on the Army but I was wondering if either Navy or RAF have any benefits or positives over the Navy/RAF.

army

can you tell i am a army wife!!

depends really on what kind of job he can see himself doing. my dh loves the army life, it can be tough when he is away from our dd's for 6 months at a time but that could happen in any service.

My DH is Navy, and that seems fine, and my dad is RAF, and that was OK too.

However, it all depends on what type of branch he's thinking of joining, and whether he wants to join as an officer or in the ranks.

RAF of course .

No, as the others have said it depends on the trade and rank.....

army of course

No echo the others - depends on trade/interests.

If I was to join up again (which I wouldn't!) I'd join the RAF.

If I was to join up again I would go back in the RAF. Army has much 'green' bullsh**t and the Navy spend too long away at a time. I was PMRAFNS.

PS I left the RAF to become an Army wife! RAF rules!

tori32, I was QARANC - hence saying I'd join the RAF if I could choose again. Being an army wife is so much more fun

And I was a QARNN so I would say Navy

scotlas i can fully understand that!
sidge hats off to you! literally bugger all those sodding folds in your titfers! It took me enough effort to starch my tiny caps!!

LOL, sidge - I couldn't have joined the navy, I felt sea sick even looking out the window in Haslar!

Sorry for hijacking op thread, as you can see
dancerand prancer there's no one cap fits all!!!!

Tori32 - I quite liked my daft cap, I remember just before I joined up they had a Forces Special Generation Game and one of the challenges was to fold a QARNNS cap. I watched and thought bugger, I'm going to have to learn to do that!

Scotlass - when were you at Haslar? I was there 92-99. Maybe we crossed paths

Sorry for the hijack - to the OP, I would say that it depends what trade he wants to do as to which sevice he joins. That would narrow it down a bit.

Thanks everyone. He is really interested in becomming an officer in something like IT, communications/intelligence.

Each service seems to have aspects of this but not sure if one focuses more on it than others.

I still vote for the RAF as I don't think he will have to go away as often as if he were in the Army or Navy. But there are overseas postings if he goes Army (fun) and not so many of those in the RAF. I think this is what my friends husband did when we were in Cyprus.
Tell him to ask lots of questions and then ask us for the real answers .
RAF Officers generally move every two years btw.
What about applying to be a civil servant with MI5??

Really is horses for courses. Each service deals in some aspects of these things but some specialise more in one area and some in another. He should get some info from the careers office but they obviously can only talk generalities, and to be honest half the info they give out is out of date as the careers officers won't necessarily have any background in the areas he is interested in.

He should think about whether or not he wants to do the trade or be an officer. Most officers do a managerial role and don't 'get their hands dirty' so to speak. As an officer you can expect to get posted around a lot more (every couple of years) than as a trade.

IT/Comms and Int are really separate things although there are some obvious overlaps. So he needs to decide what his preference is. Does he want to work with systems that collect intelligence or does he want to work with intelligence material that has been collected. Very few jobs will offer both options.

If he is more into the Int side then go for the RAF, I would recommend RAF Int Branch as an officer or Int Analyst (C) as a trade.
Only the RAF has a dedicated intelligence branch but few jobs are comms or IT related. The Navy has int jobs filled by officers from non-int branches. The Army has an Int Corps but few jobs are comms or IT related.

Don't know as much about the comms/IT side of things but he might also look at Army Royal Signals or which have a few jobs that are int related.

HTH

The Brylcreem Boys of course

Vanilla Pumpkin, all services officers and trades are away loads nowadays, the frequency really depends on how in demand and undermanned your speciality is. Also there are very few overseas postings now in any of the services compared to a few years ago and not half as much fun to be had as this crappy govt is too busy sending everyone off to Iraq & Afghanistan! (don't get me started)

If he is more into the Int side then go for the RAF, I would recommend RAF Int Branch as an officer or Int Analyst (C) as a trade.
Only the RAF has a dedicated intelligence branch but few jobs are comms or IT related. The Navy has int jobs filled by officers from non-int branches. The Army has an Int Corps but few jobs are comms or IT related.

Not true. The Intelligence Corps, which handles all aspects of intelligence - Sigint, Humint, Imint etc. There is a dedicated Sigint (comms and IT) role which works in conjuntion with the Royal Signals.

Officer selection for the Army works as follows: go to career office and chat to the people there. They'll assess your husband for offcer selection. They'll send him on a few fam visits to let him see various sides of the Army and he can pick a regiment/corps to sponsor him. Be aware that sponsorship through AOSB and Sandhurst does not garuantee a place in that corps/regiment. He then attends the AOSB to see if he's considered suitable for officer training. If he passes that, he goes to Sandhurst for a year. He must be 29 or under to go to Sandhurst. You may get housing - your husband will be told about that once he's been accepted.

To get into the Intelligence Corps is tough. There is a lot of competition - especially as the Corps is expanding. There are - on average - 5-10 places per intake at Sandhurst and there is no garuantee of getting one. However, if he is suitable and he impresses the selection board, well he has as much chance as anyone.

Once in the Corps, life is pretty varied. There are lots of postings to different types of jobs - mostly around the South of England as well as the chance to work on secondment to various other government departments/agencies. It's a demanding and busy career and promotion can be quicker than in other parts of the Army.

One other thing - in the Int Corps, officers do more than management (although there is an element of that) and they definitely "get their hands dirty"!

there is the raf regiiment, it's the raf's version of the army.

But the RAF is the most glamorous and exciting

RAF deffo

And the Navy throw the best parties

jcscot, sorry for causing you offence.

Fully aware of all that the Int Corps do (including getting dirty hands). I know they do work in sigint and much more besides(humint/imint etc) and that's exactly why I said that few jobs were comms/IT related. i.e. some Int Corps officers' jobs will be in sigint but not all. Ditto RAF Int branch.

Likewise some officers' jobs are hands on but many are more managerial, especially in IT/comms/sigint world when you have a team of techs/analysts/etc under your commmand. I know people who joined expecting to do a specific job as an officer and then found that they were managing a team who were doing the work.

Didn't want to get into any specifics, merely trying to give a general overview from point of view of dancerandprancer's DH and his expressed interests.

Totally agree with you. Especially on the promotion side of things, much quicker in the Int Corps than RAF Int branch.

(Are you a huminter by the way?)