More than 2,500 regular and reserve soldiers from 7th Infantry Brigade (the Desert Rats) are currently deployed on a six-week training exercise on Salisbury Plain, say the British Army.
According to a British Army news release, Exercise Wessex Storm is one of the biggest exercises of its kind in a decade and is designed to test the soldiers on the skills needed to live and fight for long periods of time under harsh conditions.
“Later this year, the Desert Rats will deploy on operations in Mali, Afghanistan and Poland. This Exercise is a key part of ensuring their readiness for those operations.”
Brigadier Tom Bewick, Commander of 7th Infantry Brigade, explained:
“This exercise is about training four British Army battlegroups for war-fighting operations as part of the Light Brigade. The exercise also forms a critical part of the preparations for deployments to Mali, Afghanistan and Poland later this year. It is about Regular and Reserve soldiers integrating, adapting, working together, testing themselves and each other in what is proving to be an especially harsh and demanding environment. The training is as realistic, innovative and exciting as possible, with soldiers deployed for six weeks on the Plain, driving the development of our core soldiering skills.”
The British Army say that the 7th Infantry Brigade is a ‘light’ Brigade meaning it has a mix of infantry on foot, infantry using high mobility light vehicles like Jackal and Foxhound and Light Cavalry soldiers who are reconnaissance experts using vehicles like Jackal and Coyote. This makes the Desert Rats highly deployable, able to move quickly anywhere around the world.
It’s the first time on such an exercise that four distinct battlegroups have come together to tackle a realistic training scenario.
According to a news release, the battlegroups consist of:
· 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, augmented by the Reservists of the Royal Yeomanry;
· 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment augmented by a company of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment;
· The Light Brigade Support Group, a composite battlegroup of logisticians and medics and equipment support specialists commanded by 6th Regiment Royal Logistics Corps – their role is to ensure the soldiers are fed and hydrated, have the ammunition and fuel that they need to fight and the medical facilities to deal with both simulated and real casualties; and
· A bespoke battlegroup made up of Army Reserves. This is the largest deployment of Army Reserves in 7th Infantry Brigade since the Reserve units came under command of the Desert Rats in 2015. About 450 soldiers from 3rd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment and the 3rd and 4th Battalions of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment will be the Opposing Forces or ‘enemy’ during the realistic for on force scenario. Both sides are fighting to win, and there is a great deal of pride at stake.
Exercise Wessex Storms continues into early March.
I love that historical name, so prestigious
Agree. I disagreed with Hammond’s decision to remove the armoured role from 7th Armoured Brigade when it returned from Bergen-Hohne to the UK. It is a famous name.
I cannot imagine the US mucking around with famous identities like 82 Airborne or the 101.
Totally agree D… Echos of O’Connor, Wavell, and Montgomery in that title…
Cheers
To be fair there also was a 7th Infantry Brigade… fought under Monty in France.
There was a TV programme in the 1960s entitled ‘The Desert Rats. It featured cool looking GIs with Ray Bans…driving Willys Jeeps sporting a fat 0.5in Browning. I remember my father (ex-eighth army) blowing a fuse and shouting “they weren’t the desert rats”. Cultural theft continues without any sense of remorse today!
I remember the public outcry, the BBC pulled it after 6 episodes.
I was only 12 at the time so don’t remember the public response….though my father died the year after….there was no connection!
My grandfather was 8-th army…Tunisia….Italy…via the waters of the med because his troop ship was torpedoed by a U-boat
Some good stories there Julian…wish there was space to discuss all the points. I remember my father saying that Rommel was the best general in any army in WW2. He was in the KRRs from 1922 and was released because of a kidney infection in 1930. He signed up again in 1939 (much to my mothers chagrin) but they wouldn’t allow him to re-join an infantry unit and he had to accept the Pioneer Corps. He made WO1 very quickly and had an amazing war on prison camp duties and escorting high ranking officers back to the UK for interrogation….some great stories about his General uniforms. He went through Italy with British forces and fell in love with an Italian girl….unfortunately, he was married and a Catholic…the rest of his life…me and my three post-war siblings all seemed a disappointment to him. He should have run off with the Italian girl! Always do what is in your heart….duty, is often over-rated!
sounds like your father had quite a career for himself. my grandfather wrote his memoirs and included a lot of detail of his war experience (to be fair, he was transport and behind the front line.) Prior to being drafted, he stowed away to Australia as a 15 yr old and built the railway to Alice Springs. Quite a character and you could make 3 films about his life! I don’t think they make them like that generation anymore
That show was called ‘The Rat Patrol’ in the US. The best part of the show was the Jeep flying over a sand dune in the opening.
Interesting that we’re deploying ground combat troops to Mali. I’m assuming these are for security purposes (for our RAF aircraft supporting Op Serval), or potentially training assistance?
Unfortunately as expected, there is mission creep. ISIS and Al Qaeda having been kicked out of Syria have moved to Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Northern Nigeria and Niger, doing what they do best. Mali and Chad are propped up by the French Government. Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso aren’t doing to well and I believe have asked for assistance. I have to yet to hear if this is anything more than instructing, but I do know our Chinooks have been ding trips across the border from Mali.
That doesn’t surprise me at all. To be honest, it’s a good mission for European forces in particular to be involved in; the destabilisation of these countries is really feeding refugees into Europe via Libya and elsewhere. It would make sense to deal with the problem at source.
Hopefully to Koch isis ass.
I very much welcome this opportunity for the Regs & AR to train together. However, reading the above, it seems that formed units need reinforcement from other units to deploy, as per a matter of course. If so the Army is actually half the size it is meant to be in operational terms. For example, why does 2 R Ang need reinforcement from 1 R Ang. These are meant to be regular units that are ‘ready to go.’
Because unfortunately there not ready to go. Speaking to one bloke supposedly one of his companies where bearley big then a platoon.
Crazy mate, in my day (I know in my day) a Battalion was 800+ men. What are they now 400 to 500? can’t go on like this.
True. It should also be noted a lot of people joining today go in to trades as opposed to the infantry. Since we live in a world where you need qualifications for everything, people don’t want to go in to the infantry when they can learn a skill instead.
Curious one historically because 7th Infantry Brigade never served in North Africa. Little bit of historical slight of hand when 7th Armd changed role.
Yeah a lot of Brigades have taken old divisional handlebars (one 16 AAB has taken two!). A few famous brigade numbers are still around e.g. 77th (the original Chindits)
To me this shows that the reserve infantry must be making some progress in deployability…albeit a long and slow journey. Good luck to the units in training and deployment.
6 Reg RLC are a part of 102 Logistic Brigade, due to disband, and not part of 7th Infantry Brigade.
This “Light Brigade” will have trouble “deploying round the world” as the army claim, because as a “Brigade” it has no Royal Signals, Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, REME. RAMC, or RMP assigned to it.
I suspect they are employing the “golf bag” approach where’s units are snatched from other formations to form a composite brigade, just as what happened in Helmand when the deploying brigades strength was augmented by other units.
A sad state of affairs, and the 1st Infantry Divisions brigades really should have their own support elements.
But they no longer exist, after the latest incarnation of A2020, A2020 Refine.
They’d best hope the enemy have no artillery or airpower!
Most of the said Inf units have only 2 rifle companies instead of 3 so they will them selves need reinforcing, cap badge mafia at its finest.
BV
Maybe that’s why they are increasing the Gurkha recruitment? A lot of the “Light” infantry battalions could maybe embed a Gurkha inf company in them over time. There is a precedent for doing it, but maybe not in such a big scale
As far as I’m aware the current extra Gurkha numbers are for additional Signals and Logistics Corps squadrons, which will be part of other non Gurkha Regiments, as they are currently.
Infantry wise, I recall one company augmented one of the RRS battalions for a time a few years ago?
Gotta be said, I served with 7th Infantry Brigade a few years ago, did a wessex storm etc until my battalion re-rolled… we always had 3 Rifle companys. not sure whree the idea of 2 Rifle Coy’s is coming from….
Guhrkas are standing up an new Battalion apparent (3 RGR) though I have no idea of the time line.
Sad state of affairs.
If there is one reorganisation I would jump at in the SDSR it is sorting 1 ( UK ) Division into a proper Light formation with its brigades having supporting elements to make them deployable.
And correcting my post above, it is 1 ( UK ) Division, not 1st Infantry Division.
I think amongst the Gurkha increase in numbers will include an extra specialist infantry battalion of (300)
Correct John.
3 RGR will join the other 4 “Specialist Infantry” battalions in the Specialist Infantry Group, based at Aldershot.
These battalions have been heavily cut and the manpower shifted elsewhere.
The army are calling this a “new” capability. As far as I can tell the only thing that is new about it is that there are dedicated units assigned to the role. Previously other battalions and SF conducted this sort of training, mentoring, and fighting terrorists abroad in partnership with the host nation.
Thanks for the info: Daniele.
Expanded and formalised capability is a better description. In Afghanistan in my time one company was assigned the role, but it did not have a lot of specialist training – was all rather ad hoc. SF worked with irregulars. However it’s now a key part of fighting for the ‘grey zone’ conops of the new hybrid war. And it has been successful in Kurdistan, and perhaps most successfully it stays out of the headlines. IMHO should have been approach in Afghanistan all along. Very useful capability – both cost effective and delivers achievable results, especially when combined with other hybrid capabilities (IO, Cyber etc.).
Thank you for that much better explanation James.
You also won’t hear a lot about what Specialised Infantry does. Period. They are very busy units but rather tight lipped about where they deploy and what they do.
Thank you Danielle. I’m a long term reader of your excellent website. Kudos.
I say sack all of 1 Div, what do they bring to the fight? reinforce 3 Div so it can “Do” strike properly.
BV
You know my view, I would happily see Infantry Battalions removed from the ORBAT if that means the manpower is used to form additional artillery, air defence, signals, logistics, and engineer Regiments. All useful things the army is short of due to the blasted cap badge mafia preserving names.
The army is currently unbalanced, and of our 33 Infantry Battalions just 8 will be in its main fighting formation!
Daniele, no problems with keeping cap badges but it is the way it is done. So we have a regular army which is infantry heavy (yes in small Battalions) and an army reserve which is support arms heavy (especially in medical services). It’s the wrong way around surely. It takes longer to train a signaller etc than an infantry soldier; have the bulk of the infantry in the army reserve and the bulk of support services in the regs. It doesn’t sound that romantic but it is the way to do it like all other western armies. Oh and I have some more artillery too, especially air defence – one regiment – ridiculous.
but the point of having specialists in the reserves is that often they join up already trained/qualified or well on their way from their civvy jobs…
…and therefore cost less. That is the crux of the problem, unfortunately, with Med they learnt innovative techniques for dealing with trauma, for everyo else, it is a busman’s holiday.
As for infantry, with the plethora of technology they have to learn, I think you need more than a cadre, you need properly formed Bns. Then question becomes whether they train to fight as battlegroups, Bges or Corps in the next peer on peer fight.
Make the decision and fund it.
Fair points. I do not see a problem with having smaller battalions (regiments), 400(?) provided they were formed within a coherent brigade structure. Thus this would be flexible and would give the brigade the role of being the tactical unit. Equally the support arms could be embedded in the brigade or the higher level – a correspondingly smaller “division”. So if a brigade regularly has 4 battalions, say 2 would be active at anyone time with the other 2 training or resting it at readiness.
Cap badges and tradition would remain, and reserves part of that and again linked with the brigade. The so called light brigade could be let us say the 95th, 43rd, 52nd and 60th. All would have shoulder flashes for the light brigade. 2 brigades could be consolidated into a division. The phrase “light” of course does not necesssrily focus on the role…. the point is the ethos and traditions. In many ways modern (british) infantry, except heavy armour, are “light” in their traditional ethos origins and training. Paras and marines can be classed as “light” too but their origins and roles are more shall we say “assault”, whilst other roles in other brigades might be “mobile” and wheeled, with appropriate artillery.
Here endeth the ‘logical’ lesson….
“It takes longer to train a signaller etc than an infantry soldier”
It takes about the same time but once he/she (see what I did there) is at their unit an Inf bod will continue to develop their skill set.
So for example, a fire support company will have Jav operators, 81mm mortar, snipers and SF GPMG, all needing a career path. All of these skills are none transferable form civy street whereas a BT fibre optics engineer can slot right in after minimal training at a reserve centre.
Then its the quality, OBUA training for example, is expensive and time consuming, to get good at it an unit needs to have regular practice to get it right, something you cant get by parading every other weekend. You don’t want that unit mong doping a grenade or getting your section pink misted because he didn’t check his corner, it wont be his fault, he hasn’t done it for 2 years.
You may ask yourself how I know all of this being a 15 year old Chinese kid, I watch a lot of Discovery channel.
BV
Spot on BV, we could both elaborate on the subject a little more, but I know you Chinese kids are busy writing the next Labour Party manifesto…..um, or was that the pesky Russky kids!
You mean great uncle Jeremy? I have a picture on him on my bedroom wall next to Chairman Mao, Lenin, that chap from Cambodia and Mr Tumble from CBeebies (Clearly a communist, wears a uniform and talks too much about sharing)
BV
As Margaret Thatcher said in the Commons about Neil Kinnock….’he’s a socialist….a crypto-communist’. She should have read PPE at university rather than Law….might have understood political ideologies a bit better. 🙂
Most reservists in the Medical Corps are working in civilian medical services, that is exactly why the RAMC has so many reserve formations: the core of their reserve units simply take their NHS scrubs off and don MTP to go to work.
I did read somewhere that the general idea of light role infantry is a bit past it; from the persepctive that infantry should at its lightest be in something like MRAPs, as everything moves too fast on the battlefield anyway. The additional equipment that everyone needs to lug around these days beign another reason. Obviously, infantry will still dismount to advance and fight, but the argument was that even bussing them to the front and then having them on fott from there is pointless. I’m not sure how our light infantry are set up, is it 1:1 infantry soldiers to seats in vehicles?
Hi Joe.
Of 33 Infantry Battalions, currently – 6 have Warrior, 6 have/had Foxhound, 3 on Mastiff.
The Rest are light role, of which 2 are Para, 1 SFSG, 5 Defence Engagement, 2 Gurkha, with a third in the DE role. The others being Public Duties, garrison, and so on.
Under the A2020 Refine exercise, which are simply cuts – now moving to – 4 Warrior – 4 Boxer. Unsure on the Foxhound units.
I’m unsure of the status of the Light Mechanized Foxhound Battalions, as I read that experiment was not successful.
I have no idea how many trucks a Light rolled battalion would have.
The money is not there, nor ever has been, to equip the bulk of the infantry with armoured vehicles.
Even in the 1980’s, during the Cold War with 3 Armoured Divisions in Germany, of I recall 56 Infantry Battalions, 15 were armoured with a mix of FV432 and CVRT, then Warrior. 5 to each Division.
Most of the infantry have always been lightly equipped.
Have been reading all of the comments here and it looks like we all agree that the Army is well below the numbers needed, they even fall well short of the limited numbers that the Government say they should have.
There are two possibilities to help with the numbers.
1. Create a Commonwealth Division, with the battalions for the diffrent nations, eg the Bengal Battalion, the ANZAC battalion etc. Areas that a Commonwealth Div could be used in would be UN or Commonwealth sanctioned deployments.
2. Have the regular Army Inf Battalions as core units, they would be heavy on NCOs and experianced troops’old timers’, the TA units could then be fed into these core units. If the time ever came that a massive surge of manpower is needed then the core units would become the NCOs of surge battalions. By doing this the Inf could expand if need be quickly with senior staff being spread over the expanding units giving experiance to the newer troops.
Possibly there could be two levels of TA, the current level and the secondery level that could be from made up from those that have just left the Army, The second level would only undergo first level training and then just two weeks per year keeping up there skills but would need thirty days training before deployment. It might need a 60 day training before deployment. The secondery level TA could be used for garrison policing duties, combat troops don’t make good policemen but if we trained this level of TA in policing methods then they could also be used as a reserve police force.
I do however think the Army with its current numbers needs a complete restructing, a Rapid Reaction Force, depending on location the core Units for this force would be the Paras, Gurkhas and from the RN the Royal Marines. Three Armoured Battlegroups, one at 24 hour notice, one at three day notice and the last at ten day notice. These Battlegroups would be about 1,000 men each with 18 MBTs 32 Warriors Recce Units, supporting Artillery and Mortar sections, Anti Air, Anti Tank units and Tech support units. If all three battlegroups are in the same threat area or are working jointly then a command group would be needed which would include extra signals units, medical ,REME. artillery, logistics etc. It seems that we have brought back the old Light Brigade with Jackal and Foxhound vehicles well thats a start but they would need to have helicopter lift and close support Apaches to make it a independent high mobility force. Basically the equivlant to the US Air Cavalry. I am an old believer in the one up two back system so for one Light Brigade there should be two Heavy Brigades with the Boxers and that is the full range of Boxers. Just in these few units the British Army would have a highly flexible quick reaction capabile force starting to deploy within 24 hours. It stops short of deploying divisions but if we ever got to that stage then it is a full shoting conflict where everything would be deployed anyway. Again I believe in the system were at the Div level we should have One Armoured Div (Challanger based) and two Armoured Infantry Divs (Challnger/Warrior mix). All in all that would mean about 60,000 front line combat troops without the Tech/ Logistic troops and not to include the TA numbers. The three Divisions would not include the three battlegroups as they are an independent command used as battlefield manouver groups. The Light and Heavy Brigades, Paras, Gurkhas and the RNs Marines are also independent commands that would be attached to a Div or Battlegroup when or if needed.
The main problem with this method is equipment numbers, the Light Brigade would need a dedicated helicopter lift capability and RAF heavy lift capability. The Paras would need enough transport to be able to do a large drop say two thirds of its force in the first wave, the RN would need to be able to not only land the RMs but an Armoured Battlegroup anywhere in the world with a second lift landing for follow on forces. Then the RAF and RN would need enough aircraft and ships to be able to supply these forces world wide for 30 days.
So thats how I would restucture the Army, lean, mobile and hard hitting.
Ron
Your not asking for much are you?
I love the idea of a commonwealth division, we used that system well during the war and it turned out some of the units were hard as nails. The problem is where will they be based? the UK would be problematic, 10k young Indian chaps dropped on the street of Warminster would be carnage, as would 10k pi**ed up Australians. Then there is the pay, most of our budget goes on pay and pensions, if we can base them abroad (without sounding like a D**k) we could pay them much less (for the less developed parts of the commonwealth that is).
Read my post up thread about infantry training, a rifleman, believe it or not is quite a skilled job when you think about it, not something you can learn in a few weeks not to mention be good at. Having a battalion of NCOs sounds like hell, who would paint the kerb stones?
I think using recent leavers of the armed forces as a reserve like the Americans do has some legs, but bare in mind, a lot chaps that leave the Army, leave because their body is in turbo rag order, especially the ones form the combat arms, knees and backs being the main culprit.
” Again I believe in the system were at the Div level we should have One Armoured Div (Challanger based) and two Armoured Infantry Divs (Challnger/Warrior mix) ”
Those days are long gone, without doubling the defence budget we just don’t have the resources. Having 60k combat soldiers would mean an army of 240k all up, I do agree that is how big it should be but its not going to happen.
The RN cant come close to landing an armoured battlegroup, they cant even land the marines at the moment hence they are (deliberately, not deliberately) going back to raiding parties. Does any body know how many CR2s the Navys landing ships can hold? not my area.
I like the idea of light brigades, a foxhound Jackal mix would be fast and punchy, you could sell it as “Light Strike”?
Some good ideas tho.
BV
BV Buster, thanks for that, they were ideas on how to attempt something within our limited budget.
There are a few more ideas but I don’t know how workable they are, for example all three servicies need engineers, communications, logistics etc. These take the longest and cost the most to train and to be honest in some ways their skills are not really used unless they are deployed on active service. Just think of the cost return for the nuclear power engineers on HM Subs, we don’t need many but the training costs a fortune. My training took two and a half years the na further year in the regt before I was allowed to go it alone as a T2. So why not create something like what the US has in its Corp of Engineers or SeaBees, where these highly skilled people can undertake government investment projects into national infrastructure but they are uniformend personnel of HM Forces. If that was done then more people could be trained, it costs the same if not less if you train five people or 20 people. These units would almost pay for themselves as they would be doing national infrastructure projects, overseas military projects and it would give them even more experiance, making them more employable in civvy street. Why would people want to join something like that, well ten years service for free university training and experiance all over the world.
An answer a few of your points, at the moment the RN Assault ships cannot handle CR2s, it is why I keep arguing for a HMAS Canberra style ship to replace Albion and Bulwark on a one for one basis. Each Canberra can handle a Armoured Battlegroup with air support, if I could I would order three of them. The third would be to replace Ocean. However if I remember correctly they cost about £1 billion each. That sounds a lot and in many ways it is, but you have a baby carrier combined with an assault platform. When you think that a T45 costs £1.2 billion each and the T26 is £850 million then for what a Canberra would bring as a force multiplier is worth the money. It could work as a Anti Sub Carrier with Merlins, an Escort Carrier with some F35Bs and Merlins, a CAP Carrier with 12-16 F35Bs for fleet defence and an Over the Beach Assault Ship landing an armoured battlegroup, it would be good for humanitarian aid, so whats not to like. Basically a Royal Navy Swiss Army knife. Give it a T45 radar suite and you then have a Assault Fleet Command and Control platform, but that would cost an extra £250 million. Not only that but about 50% of the cost if they are built in the UK would come back to the treasury in the form of taxes, VAT etc.
If a port was available then the Bay class can land 24 CR2s the RFA has three of these ships, but they need a dock to land them. So that is what I would class as a second wave or secured landing. So between an Albion and Bay a Armoured Battlegroup could be landed if there was a dock for them but not in the assault role (over the beach).
I’m not sure of the 240k needed for 60k front line combat troops, I know of the three suport troops for one combat soilder ratio. Yet, I remember when I was in the Army, in Germany we had four Tank divisions cut down to three that was about 55k troops all in which as we know formed 1 Br Corp and if need be built upto 150k troops as divisions would be brought in from the UK. I don’t remember how many tanks that was as I am ex R-Sigs but it was sure as hell much more than what we have now. So it was 55k -60k for an independent armoured corp of three tank divs with support if a shooting war started with the Warsaw pact. That is also what I meant with 60k front line troops a rebuilt 1 Br Corp, independent of the Rapid reaction Force, three Armoured Battlegroups and the Light and heavy Brigades. So what is that in numbers rebuilt 1 BR Corp 60k, Rapid reaction 15k, ABGs 3k, Light/Heavy Brigades 10k, total front line strength 88k plus an extra 10-15 for tech/logistic/eng support. Also rememeber that each of the ‘Commands’ are independent fighting formations so they all will have sigs,REME, logistics etc for the size and needs of their command. The TA first level should be one third of the front line strenght and the second level half of the first level. Overall army strenght 147-152k, if you think that at the moment the overall strength of the army should be about 130k (including TA) its a 20k increase and much more flexible.
I do think however that my idea of a two level TA has some merit. Combat troops that have just seen combat do not make good garrison (policing) troops, it takes time to switch off. I agree that many of the guys leaving the army are ‘broken’, but are they? what experiance could they bring as instructors to combat training. Could they replace the front line capable NCOs in training units, these front line NCOs could look after and pass on their knowledge to the new guys in the regt. I know I always had time for the new ones to show and teach everything I knew and also to learn from my or my mates mistakes.
I totally agree that the Light Brigade could be a fast punchy outfit but I still think they need a dedicated helicopter componant to make them more like the US Air Cav.
As for the RM their role was never to work in large formations, they are the troops of the navy, hit were its not expected, raid, destroy and cause chaos along the coast lines. They were good at this but have been forced into operations that they are not designed for. They are now reverting to what they should always have been the sea borne equivlant of the original SAS, get in cause mayhem and get out.
Ron, I cant believe you admitted to being a scaleyback in public.
In regards to your comment about joint training, I think lots of corps train jointly now, I know my medic had a navy section commander during training so that’s all done jointly, I suppose a stinking sailor has the same body as a stinking soldier at the end of the day. I don’t see why this model cant be transferred across defence, electricians, metal smiths can all be trained together.
Cheers for the info on sea lift, looking at the numbers, 3 bay classes would struggle with a full armoured battle group, just the REME alone mounts to something like 30 armoured vehicles. Add in the tank squadrons, Inf company/s, Recce, Arty, AD, Engineers each with their own logistic units and your looking at an insane amount of kit.
I think a Mech BG minus would fit, you could do away with Arty because of naval gun fire and air defence, swap out Scimitar recce for Jackal and job jobbed. Or as you have said, just get Canberra! Could we pay for them out of the aid budget? it has a hospital on board.
So as it stands, grossly inflating the numbers (massively), we have 30k full time combat soldiers (Inf and Cav), that is massively skewed by the fact that we have lost a huge amount of combat support and combat service support over the recent years, just ask Mr Mandelli. Fully manning 3 full time divisions with all the bells and whistles to enable them to fight independently would require a massive uplift. To put it into perspective, we are just scraping through with 1 division, divisional level ops are what we are aiming for, a divisional level operation has a strategic outcome whereas a brigade level op is tactical.
” I agree that many of the guys leaving the army are ‘broken’, but are they? ”
You sound like a medical officer signing off on a services compensation claim for a lad who has lost his leg to an IED blast. I get your point though, lots of chaps I know miss it, they go rough camping at weekends and do that Airsoft thing that makes you question their sexuality, they would make good instructors and mentors.
I get it about the RM, they changed massively for the Afghan job so they could deploy as a brigade, now it is over it is understandable they return to raiding.
BV
*Albion and Bulwark can carry each about 6 Challenger 2 tanks and the LCU’s to land them over a beach as well as a Platoon of Warriors.
The 3 RFA Bay class can each carry 24 CR2’s but don’t need a port to unload them: Between it’s LCU and Mexifloats it’s more than capable of unloading CR2’s over a beach.
What does need a port is the Point class vessels, not sure how much they can carry, but I believe it’s significantly more vehicles than either a Bay or a Albion (IIRC about 100+ Warrior sized vehicles).
So really a RN landing would effectively be in three waves, Albions, Bays and Points.
I read back in the 90’s of an idea in MoD of a Sikh Battalion, unsure what happened to it.
A Commowealth Division is a great idea, but I believe plenty serve already in regular units. How about toning it down tremendously and having a Commonwealth Regiment instead of a Division? Akin to the French Foreign Legion.
I too like the Light Strike concept, and we had that within grasp until the cuts of A2020 Refine. In the Infantry Brigades of 1 ( UK) Division I keep complaining about, 3 each have a Jackal Regiment, and 7th and 51st Brigades have the Foxhound units. The basis of 2 Light Strike Brigades, and at that time still with supporting Artillery, Logistic, and Engineer Regiments, part manned by the TA. These could have been bulked up and then in due course upgraded to Boxer. As they were they still had no Signals, no artillery beyond 12 Light guns, and no air defence assets whatsoever.
Instead they cut those enablers, and are reducing our 3 armoured brigades ( which formed a good armoured division ) to 2, while converting the 3rd to Strike ( a cut in reality ) and bringing a brigade from 1 Div over to the 3rd as the 2nd Strike Brigade.
It is admittedly hard to follow all the changes.
I agree, it could start of as a Regiment but have the capability to build out to a division. The reason is simple, many of the Commonwealth nations have their own traditions, religions but more importantly within the British Army their history. An example the Bengal Lancers, the Sikh Regiments, ANZACs all have a proud histroy and it is to that that they will feel attachment.
As for all the changes in the Army I am also struggling to not only keep up but understand. I remember when I joined the Army, I went to the recruiting office in Shrewsbury, then to Sutton when I came back to the recruiting office the Staff said ” so junior leaders” light infantry, when I said no AAC Harrogate it was “what, I don’t have that on my board”. Still remember the look. Thats what I mean by tradtion, Shropshire was light infantry anything else was for them was ‘not the real army’.
I think we need to be realistic about all this, we wont see any more money in my life time. I think we are at a cross roads in our capability and should just cut our losses. Get rid of all tracked vehicles (except Ajax, paid for) , they cost a huge amount to maintain and swap them out with Boxer. This will enable 4 brigades of strike, able to deploy a division on 3 brigades, lets be outstanding at this and not armature at everything.
BV
I realise that the solution to a lot of the arms flexibility /cost problems, might be to make a tracked version of boxer and invest in a fire support module. It would mean that they have the various mission bays to choose from and then can flip between tracked/wheeled as the role requires.