Defence Review 2024 – There will be cuts, but what’s going?

True. Normally it gives you little or no notice. That said you can’t have a wartime army at the ready in peacetime. It is impossible to fund. Any potential adversary would simply wait for you to go bankrupt. Let’s face it Russia can’t beat Ukraine how is it going to beat NATO plus everyone else who might well pile in. Sure it could go nuclear in which case it still loses along with us.

You can and should have a small wartime army ready in peacetime. Massive expansion is of course required for success in a world war or a long duration and very major regional war.

But you do need the capability to rapidly expand from peace to war – we can’t!

It really doesn’t mate. The ridiculous time in which ships are built,planes built etc not to mention battle casualty replacements trained from scratch is frightening. Unfortunately the clowns in charge apparently know better. Straight from the Corbyn let’s negotiate with ISIS. Crap.

With a Government like we have; who needs enemies. The enemy is within, if giving away Sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago is your benchmark.

You are clearly an idiot and the way you are talking about the Prime Minster is stupid as you cannot compare him to people like Stalin as he has done nothing to warrant comparisons and you are forgetting that for Diego Garcia was retained until 2113 which means until the USA wants, that lease is never going to end

Giving away the Chagas was the right thing to do – keeping them made our reason for keeping the Falklands and Gibraltar seem like hypocrisy. You can’t pick and choose when you do the ‘right’ thing, and sometimes doing the right thing can come at a cost.

Hi Graham, have you received a notification for this reply?

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Hi George. No, sadly not. As my emails said, my notifications stopped many weeks ago and I have no idea how to get them back. G

Hi George. Many weeks on I am still not getting notifications.

Well for the past (nearly) 80 years we have not been in a major war. The UK has not been in direct threat following the cold war until this point yet we still have a considerable force (Carriers, Destroyers, Frigates, F35s, submarines etc. and we are capable of deterring with nuclear weapons) which whilst acting as part of NATO (which is still up and running) can monitor and focus forces along a pretty sizable boarder.

We know from the usage of modern weapons in Ukraine that Russia sees our weapons as a direct and effective threat and that Russia is actively avoiding conflict with NATO countries. Russia is the only serious threat to the UK (in the northern hemisphere) and it is struggling to deal with Ukraine.

If the UK shifted to a war footing then the entire efforts of the UK would shift to producing kit, weapons, and training. We would be plugging gaps as quickly as possible. Certain issues such as larger kit which would be desirable (ships, tanks, etc) would be a problem but we are an inventive nation and we would come up with solutions. I am not seeing the Russians adapting in any serious way and they are surrounded by peaceful and determined democratic nations.

I would not disagree with most of that except you are rather too content with the availability of the escort force, the attack subs and the RFAs, just to take the Navy.

I was coming back to you on your claim that for a peacetime military we are not doing badly. Looking at some of the wars we have fought in….The 1982 Falklands Conflict was ‘a close run thing’. If the Argies had worked out how to properly fuse their bombs we would have lost a lot more ships, perhaps a critical number. If an Exocet had hit one carrier it would have been ‘game over’. Our artillery was down to 3 rounds per gun at the end. Far too close for comfort.
Many say we did not do well (in fact that we failed) at the operational and strategic level in Iraq and Afghanistan, including senior US officers.
Recently a senior US officer said that Britain’s army was no longer Tier 1 and that was before the slide down to 73,000 regulars.

In many ways Graham I think the escorts are now doing better than expected. I thought many T23s (especially Iron Duke) would never make it into (let alone out the other side) of refit. The T45s are now coming out of PIP with new missiles as well. We have two available at the moment which should expend to four by year end and probably 6 in a couple of years. T26 is motoring along & T31 not far behind.

You cannot compare the T42 with the T45s. Diamond has been int the Red Sea single handedly batting away missiles and drones. No sensible enemy pilot is going to take his plane anywhere near a T45 which would give Argentina pause for thought even if they did still have an Airforce & Navy.

As for the size of the British Military I think we punch well above our weight and should continue to do so. Sure there are holes which need plugging but we are a clever in ingeneous nation and we will find ways to keep our kit lethal ane relevant. Looking at our only likely adversary in the northern hemisphere it seems we are not doing badly.

Also the chat about AJAX and C3 has gone quiet suggesting there is no more bad news to throw around.

Mark, your optimism/complacency seems to focus solely on the navy.

The largest threat to Europe and UK comes from Russia, which would undoubtedly be backed by fellow Axis powers in the event of a NATO-Russia conflict. That war would primarily be an air-land one, with air superiority or at least parity the key element and land forces the key deciders on the battlefield.

We are now far, far below the absolute minimum air and army contributions expected by NATO. 5 manoeuvre brigades compared to the 16 we had, which itself was a comparative peanut. 6 going 7 fast jet squadrons compared to the 30 we had. Our warfighting strength has collapsed to Ruritanian levels.

The naval role in a European conflict would be a pretty limited and secondary one, due to the absence of any significant Russian naval threat other than submarines. The RN may be the principal drumbeater for a ‘Global Britain’ shift but has nothing like the number of warships or auxiliaries to contribute much east of Suez.

One operational carrier with a dozen short-range tac air fighters does not make us a major player on the world stage. The vulnerability of the carrier strike group to missile swarm attacks etc adds some doubts about the wisdom of the carrier strike concept. Would it have been better to invest that money in half a dozen additional Astutes, which really can project seapower wherever we wish and which pose a much greater threat to enemy navies? I think that would have been a better national strategic option.

So who are these major players on the world stage (Navy). OK the US fine. You have given your view on Russia, China is still struggling to get much to work but is trying and might get there one day. India? Brazil?

The UK is looking at the successor to the Astute and we have just launched one with a last one to go? OK the situation with Astute is not ideal at the moment but that will be resolved soon and we should then have far more Astutes capable of being on station at any one time. I hear what you say Astutes are useful some might say decisive however we have gone for balance which has quite a bit going for it.

Mark,

The navy’s part in the bigger strategic picture looks pretty clear.

Faced with the most likely threat to NATO Europe, it has a limited role to play, because the Russian surface fleet is too small to really challenge NATO naval power.

The naval threats we do face come from Russian subs and, in peacetime or on the eve of war, cable-cutting, undersea pipe sabotage, mining, intelligence gathering etc.

That calls for something like an ASW squadron in Eastlant, plus a hunter-killer submarine sqn to seek out any subs that get through to the Atlantic shipping lanes. The sub sqn would also need to patrol the High North, to guard against any Chinese naval attempt to enter the Atlantic to reinforce their Russian mates.

We currently have nothingi like the number of subs and escorts to do this principal naval job. Those we do have look to be primarily tasked with out-of-area roles, either with the CSG or as independent patrol vessels.

Nor do we have sufficient minor warships to handle the current grey area threats. The planned two Proteus MROS ships are not enough to do cable and pipe inspections on east and west coasts, as one will generally be alongside and one at sea. It would look to need at least 3.

4 Castle MCMVs will not be enough to sweep the approaches to the RN naval bases and cover other main merchant ports.6 Hunt McMVs is also a pretty small number for the MCMV patrol task in home waters, let alone for out-of-area duties. And 3 River 1s is pretty small beer to police the entire uK coastline against Russian grey area challenges. It needs a larger number of bigger and better-armed ships, something like the 3,000 tonne Euro corvette which is in development.

Which brings us to the RN’s preferred role, cruising the high seas east of Suez.

First observation is that it takes away escorts and subs needed ifor the principal task in Eastlant.

Second, one carrier group with a dozen or even two dozen short-range tactical fighters is not going to signify a lot if things kick off with China. NATO Europe will be duty-bound to provide as much assistance as possible to the USN Pacific Fleet. This would likely best be done
by a combined NATO Europe fleet, as none of the principal European navies can spare more than a few warships and auxiliaries. But taken together, they could assemble a pretty strong fleet that could change the odds in the Indo-Pacific region.

So in my long-winded way, for which apologies, the answer to your question about who has a stronger navy is… I don’t think that’s the right question tbh. We have a compartively small navy compared to the USA and China. We are pretty much on a par with the French and Italian navies and will likely be near-enough matched by India, Japan, Turkey and others over the next decade or two.

So the question of top trumps doesn’t really figure in the strategic calculation. We are not some key global naval player, facing down all comers, our comparatively small population and limited defence budget constrains what we can do. Because the RN is a very professional navy with a lot of state of the art warships, we can punch a bit above our weight.

With our limited number of ships and subs, we can best do that by taking a/the leading role in the North Atlantic and in a NAtO Europe fleet out-of-area.

My concern here is that the RN is off on a strategic tangent, largely ignoring hhe ctitical Eastlant NATO task in favour of strutting the globe with a little posse of ships.

Other opinions are available of course!

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Steering away from RN for a minute I would say that the British Army until recently didn’t know if it had any role defending Europe. As we currently have forces aound Europe that has been answered and I would expect pressure to expand the Army. The positivity from Government over new aircraft also suggests that the military are exerting pressure to move forward with Tempest as fast as is possible.

If the British Army didn’t know it was meant to defend Europe alongside NATO allies, then I would be very surprised. Why would it have an armoured division?

Point taken however it is the scale that i am referring to. As you will know only too well the BAOR days have gone. Personally I suspect that there has been a wish for countries closer to Russia to beef up their defences and not to rely on British & US forces. This seems to be happening. Having seen the difficulties Russia has had with Ukraine I think it might well be that now is the time to make informed decisions about the nature of the kit & manpower necessary to best support our NATO allies.

Both are important points. The key issue that both RAF and Army face is lack of mass. What we can currently put in the field in the event of conflict is tiny, even by European standards.

On M-1, where M is national mobilisation day, I reckon we woud need 13 ot 14 manoeuvre brigades absolute minimum. We currently have 5, so about 37% of what we would need.

Ditto the RAF, which would need something like 16 or 17 fast jet squadrons on M-1. MoD claims we currently have 8, with a ninth forming. In reality, we couldn’t turn out more than 6 at anything like standard squadron strength. I e. 36% of minimum need.

The RN is rather better off. I calculate it would need around 105 ships at M-1. As we are heading towards 65, once the last Astutes, T26 and T31 are delivered. So about 61% of minimum wartime strength – and the strongest service by miles.

If I’m even half right on the maths, it says to me that we are placing far too much emphasis – and budget – on the navy, which would be the minor service in a NATO-Russia conflict. I think a lot more important at this juncture is to beef up the army with an additional armoured infantry brigade and the RAF with a batch of 20 extra Typhoons and some F-35As – not Bs – for the currently vacant interdiction/SEAD role.

Sure, the RN needs some more ships and I would say 7 if we ever get a jump to 2.5% of GDP. But RAF jets and boots on the ground are a far higher priority than, say, T32 frigates or similar on the naval wishlist.

Modern weaponry is complex. These days you can’t just repurpose a woodworking factory to make aircraft!

Mainly because we don’t have many woodworking factories anymore. If necessary people would be putting drones together in their garden sheds. Basically f**k the modern weaponry and make simple weaponry. Might require modern components but keep it simple.

Trouble is Nukes as a singular deterrent are useless, u need a strong conventional deterrent too. Our potential enemies know that unless they used WMD on our cities there is no way our leaders would ever use such weapons.

True however Covid gave the world a taste of the medical resources needed in a pandemic. Just as the NHS cannot be on a war footing 24/7 and afford it then the military cannot either. The Soviet Union bankrupted themselves attempting that.

In reality a country at war eventually resorts to what it can build quickly so we could end up churning out spitfires or hurricanes once the typhoons run out or maybe something smaller.

True, but PPE and vaccines are a lot easier to churn out than Typhoons or Challenger IIs.

Sure, we could churn out Spitfires or Hurricanes but they’d do sod all against even semi-modern aircraft. There’d be no point in building planes that wouldn’t stand any chance at all. We need enough forces to last whilst we start pumping out alternatives.

Drones, sure, but we’re not going to manage air superiority with drones, and air superiority is key to winning any war, especially if we don’t want it to drag on for years.

I’m not saying we need massive forces and vast fleets of ships and aircraft, but we do need to establish a credible minimum force level and never fall below that. And what we have currently is well below what that minimum force level should be.

And we need to make sure that we can keep ammunition flowing, too. Right now if we ended up in this war against Russia we’d run out of ammunition within weeks.

As we found out the PPE was not easy to produce and vaccines were only possible because we happened to have turned a corner with that technology. I think you are assuming that our enemy’s modern aircraft would last longer than ours. Russia must be pretty short by now.and would probably resort to drones pretty quickly. We would need ways to knock them out of the sky at a faster rate than they can make them. That might well be simpler with a hurricane than a fancy missile.

I’m not assuming our enemy’s aircraft will last longer than ours. However, I’m not assuming that our aircraft will always win 100% of encounters with enemy aircraft or enemy GBAD. In a fight against an opponent such as Russia or China, we will lose some.

Even if we don’t, the small number we have will get knackered very quickly as we’ll be using them very hard. If our Typhoons start doing 2 or more sorties every day then they’re going to wear out quickly, and we have precious few to replace them. Whether we lose them in combat or just wear and tear, we have fewer to replace them and keep a credible force operational.

PPE and vaccines are still a hell of a lot easier to produce than Typhoons or F-35s.

And no, regarding the Hurricanes. A Hurricane will not knock anything out faster than any missile. If you’re suggesting sending Hurricanes or Spitfires against SU-35s or even MiG-29s then you’re having a laugh! That’s sending pilots to the slaughter. Hurricanes vs modern jets will equal dead Hurricanes 100% of the time!

Steve I am suggesting that very quickly their aircraft will be history and as you suggest ours may wear out. What then?

Then we have the same ground slog that Ukraine is dealing with, except Ukraine’s army is around 3 times the size of ours.

We don’t want ours to wear out. Even in peacetime it’s a false economy; fewer planes working twice as hard, needing potentially several refits and life-extensions to keep them airworthy until a replacement aircraft is in place, as opposed to just buying more for an initially greater cost and putting less stress on each airframe, requiring less intensive maintenance, and refits only being for updates.

And in wartime, we want enough that we can keep our aircraft flying consistently, providing an advantage to our troops over enemy forces.

For that, we need to make sure we have enough aircraft for the job. Really we shouldn’t have fewer than 250 fast-jet combat aircraft, as a minimum!

Yes well last time we had a cold war was right after a hot war. In recent times we have had a period of about 20 years where we were a lot friendlier with the likes of Russia. Building a ‘cold war’ military will take a little time meanwhile Russia is depleting it’s weapons & personell in all areas.

Not quite accurate. After WW2 western armies were gutted virtually straight away – Korea was a problem – so the cold war just about starting building from scratch. Jets rather than pistons, nukes – well, from scratch… So we had the same problem of building a cold war military then as we would now. Meanwhile, after the cold war the West got rid of it’s cold war stuff, Russia didn’t – it’s cold war stuff they are depleting as much as anything. Plus they are buying in a lot of poor quality stuff from the likes of North Korea.

Well that strategy hasn’t really worked for Russia. What was it 20,000 tanks – and how many of them actually worked.

I take your point about the switch to jets.

The reality was that it was necessary to keep advancing the technology – the falklands taught us that. We needed modern ships with missiles etc. and we did that but in smaller numbers whilst the Russians simply kept the old rubbish that they had (in the main). Which was the better strategy. Fortuneately we haven’t had to find out.

Challenger 1 dates back to 1983. T72 is from 1971. Not that much difference. Challenger 2 1986, T80 1976, T90 in service from 1992. So pretty much of an age – 1992 is just after the fall of the USSR, so pretty much all cold war tanks. Then look at the B52 – continuously updated but last airframe made in 1962! The main problem Russia has with it’s old stuff isn’t that it’s old, it’s that it hasn’t been maintained.

MoD still has to pay sizable design and development costs for any new project. I think MoD has spent well over £3bn out of the £5.5bn budget for Ajax.

Agreed. I also suspect we have resolved the Ajax problems. We just need them to roll off the production lines in significant numbers ASAP.

You speak although war in enevitable. It isn’t. Indeed I would put it at maybe 20% or 25% max. We have a decent sized navy whcih will do a decent job of meeting any Russian navy which has been so neglected much of it probably won’t float. I wouldn’t write us off just yet.

War is always inevitable, it’s just a matter of when and where.

We lack any strategic depth. The problem we have is that we’ve tailored our armed forces to fight low-intensity conflicts against enemies without air forces, navies or any powerful conventional forces. We’re using low numbers of high-end kit, assuming we’ll never lose a unit in combat.

We lack the numbers – in literally everything – to replace units lost in combat.

Yes, the Royal Navy is qualitatively far superior to the Russian Navy, but that doesn’t mean our ships are invulnerable. We could lose a ship to a mass Russian missile barrage. If we lost even one Type 45 then we’re screwed.

With only 148 Challenger 3 tanks, we’re limited in our deployment of them.

With barely 100 Typhoons, losing even a handful of them in combat is going to have serious implications, and it would take 6 months or so to build a new one to replace it. Even if we don’t lose any in combat, they’re going to be used so much that they’ll be knackered and scrapped for parts to keep others flying. It’s a death spiral.

Mark, there you go again, focusing your good eye on the navy, your blind eye on the fact that any future conflict in Europe will, in the absence of any significant Russian navall capability, be decided principally by airpower and land forces.

The RN is as strong as it needs to be or we can afford it to be in peacetime. It is by my reckoning about 60% of the minimum strength needed on M-1 (where M is national mobilisation of reserves).
The army is about 38% and the RAF barely 40%.

The obsession with the RN in some political and public minds continually distorts our strategic military focus. The modern role of the RN is far removed from the imperial days of a couple of hundred men-of-war beating up all-comers. That role has long since been taken over by airpower.

We are in the daft position of running down our air force so far that it could not protect the fleet (or much else) for longer than a few days in any peer war. A fleet without air cover takes us back to the heavy naval losses in Norway, Malaya, Crete etc in WW2.

Thing about the army… allies in Europe cover that side better than we can at the expense of their navies. I don’t like the army or air force situation, but at least they are covered elsewhere. The navy is OUR main requirement – I would like all the services to be much better resourced, but if I had to prioritise the navy gets my vote every time. Air force we all need to be strong!

The trouble with 20-25% max – still at least 1 out of 5 times when it actually happens.

Ocean was built to commercial- rather than military- standards to save money. This does result in a theoretical 20 year hull life however, so the Brazilians may have bought themselves a maintenance nightmare. Then again we’ve created our own maintenance nightmare by LIFEXing the T23s instead of replacing them on schedule.

Ocean was an absolute bargain for the MOD – in 1993 Vickers bid just £139.5 million, almost certainly well under cost. Indeed the tendered price was so far below the MOD’s expectation of £170 million that it was announced that a second vessel might be ordered – but this was cancelled in 1995. However the success of Ocean, particularly during Operation Iraqi Freedom, again led to serious consideration of building a second vessel but with modifications to allow her to also operate as a Joint Casualty Treatment Ship. In April 2005 the MOD admitted it just didn’t have the money for the order.

After completion, Ocean was hard worked for 20 years with just two refits, and they were no more than a year each. By 2018 she badly needed a LIFEX but she only got a modest three month facelift, included as part of the £84 million that the Brazilians’ paid for her. The rest of the money should have effectively been used to pay for adding “Littoral Manoeuvre” capabilities to first POW and perhaps later QE, but that didn’t happen.  

Note that the Brazilian’s don’t work the now Atlântico anywhere near as hard as the RN did. No 6-month long deployments any more, mostly just week long exercises and sea training periods a few times a year. She is berthed at Rio de Janeiro at least 90% of the time. [The previous Brazilian carrier, the ex-French Sao Paulo went to sea for a total of just 205 days over the ten years 2000 to 2009!]   As a result the Brazilian Navy may well get 15+ years of service out of her.

Incidentally, the RN wanted to directly replace Ocean and in 2003 started preliminary concept studies on a 20,000-30,000 LPH(R) to enter service in 2018.  But like most other naval projects of the time (FSC, JCTS, OMAR, MARS …) the project soon stalled due to lack of money, and SDSR 2010 finally killed the idea for good.

What is done cannot be undone. As it stands the T23 is essential and will be for a while possibly even after most of them have been replaced by the T26 & T31.

Andy, the issue isn’t that they sold Ocean, it is that it was not replaced with a new LPH, and the crew redirected to the QEC class.
Ocean was knackered, Gunbuster has explained this so many times here now he’s probably tired of repeating himself.
Ocean herself only carried 4 LCVP. The LPDs are the true enablers here in that they carry 4 LCVP, 4 LCU, BARVs, as well as having the C3 and storage capacity.

Who are THEY? RN, MOD or politicians.

The later are people voted in by the system we have in this country to represent us whilst making decisions like this. So essentially they are our decisions.😂

if the whole sorry bunch of them had any idea of what they’re doing, things could be better all round

They have at least 4 possible roles, not one.

I understand. But most can be done more cheaply by a cheaper ship such as Argus and / or the Bays. I wonder the degree to which the ‘non carrier strike’ roles have influenced the debate on the design and number of MRSS where it looks like we have decided in favour of 3 large ships versus 6 small / medium vessels.

I think it sensible that our carriers are multi-role to get more value and use out of them. Not sure about its relationship to MRSS.

If they’ve actually ordered 3 MRSS what design have they gone for or is that still pending or some big secret? Are the second three definitely cancelled or still possible. Maybe a different size of design for this might be quite sensible.
I’d like to see a “Cavour” style carrier with dock in the RN as part of the MRSS, for LRG Ops, or the BAE Helicopter carrier with dock, to replace the Albion/Bulwark.

So, Grant Shapps announced in May that the MRSS program is approved for ‘up to 6 ships’. Then in June there was an announcement from the MOD of funding for an ‘initial 3’. The UK has discontinued discussions with the Dutch about a joint design. It seems the Dutch want a ship of which can replace both their Holland class OPVs and their large LPDs, bit of a stretch, whereas the RN wants replacements for both the LPDs and the Bays, more doable but implies much larger ships 20-30k tons. As far as I can see the design is still ‘a big secret’. There are supporters for the thru’ deck LHD options like Cavour/ Wasp and for the Albion ++ options like the Ellida concept. Thing is the RN wants a single class of 6 ships. Ocean had a lot of helo spots but as you say, no well deck. You can see where Damen are going with their Enforcer ‘family’- you could spin Enforcer as a single class of different size ship? Since H&W are going into receivership we have a bit more time to think about it 🙂

One problem with this unending quest for amphibious landing ships is…we don’t any more have anything very much in the way of troops to land.

3 of the 5 remaining army brigades are supposed to constitute the warfighting division, which would likely be on the North German Plain. One brigade, 16 Air Assault, is the strategic reserve and would be deployed on day one of hostilities. 4 Bde doesn’t have the regular CS and CSS units to deploy prior to mobilisation. There are no spare infantry bns to wade ashore.

The Royals are down to two reduced-size raiding bns. We hardly need an Albion or Ocean for the small raiding role now envisaged. Yes, an LPHD would be nice if we ever had to retake the Falklands or reinforce Norway but, with our cut-down force force levels, these no longer look like priorities.

Good point. I do wonder whether the ‘unending quest’ isn’t so much for amphibious landing ships as for a lost world to which we are emotionally still attached. Hopefully the defence review will help us to let go and ‘move on’ as they say.

I annoyingly can’t find the NAO report that stated how much had been “saved” by cancelling the LPH mods to POW. I have a vague recollection that it was £27 million but far from certain. The ship was still in build so the mods would have been much easier to make around 2017-19 then now. Add on inflation and you can speculatively at least double, maybe triple, the cost if the work was done now. Incidentally, I have always considered it mad to risk using in littoral waters 65,000t capital ships costing about £3.5 billion each as a makeshift LPH when a c.25,000t purpose built LPH/LHD similar to Ocean would cost less than a quarter of that price.

Yes one can but hope the blokes down at the Admiralty are making similar calculations…🤞🤞

I guess you can do anything if you set your mind to it. I think the question is really isn’t it cheaper, quicker and result in a more flexible fleet to just build another LPD like Ocean or another Argus?

Yes, the art of the possible may not be the preferable. 🤔😳

Yep, we all know it, the second order for F35 cancelled and a single carrier operational at any one time, with the other in refit/ reserve.

Probably swapped every 3 years.

48 aircraft, gets you two operational F35B Squdrons, hopefully some capable UAV’s to help out….

I would (reluctantly) swallow that, if they go full Project Ark Royal with an angled deck, get shot ofbthe ski jump, cats and traps, for a capable loyal wingman and allow safe higher speed RVL’s for the F35.

It’s important we have a strike carrier avaliable and this would, at.least, allow this.

It’s very hard to see what else is actually left to cut!!!

Certainly if AUKUS and GCAP are ringfenced, then somthing big has to give, we are looking at a radical fleet sweeping axe somewhere among the sevices.

The one operational and one refit/reserve arrangement would give us powerful strike asset and was at one time the ‘original’ plan. You would think that any cuts ( in planned or ongoing programs) will dovetail into the defence review. You can get a good idea what’s coming by asking a few simple questions like what’s important? what’s urgent? what is a NATO commitment? what can’t realistically can’t be cancelled? what generates skilled UK jobs?
My take…I don’t see T26 or T31 programs being cut. MRSS has already been cut to 3, and the RN say they only want 3 custom designed MCM motherships. OPVs, Solid support ships and Tides. Mothball the LPDs and let them go when you have MRSS. If MRSS gets cancelled convert a sister ship to MV Contender Bezant – another Argus – and operate the LPDs as with the carriers – one operational, one in reserve and keep the Bays going.

Thanks RB. Good info on the replacement for the F-35 dropped overboard. You’d think they’d just add an extra aircraft in the next batch! Still, if the cost can be reclaimed from the Treasury and prised out of them any year now, we could actually get to 48.

Nope what. The weapons were sent.

Putin invaded in Feb. 2022. Check your calendar, Trump was out of office a long time by then. Whatever little he provided made no difference whatsoever. You really haven’t a clue.

Trump most likely to end the war , expect more attempts on his life as they want to keep the gravy train going and transfer ownership of Ukraine’s farmland and minerals to the west for more loans.

Nope. Deluded much?

Utter rubbish.

A poor attempt, Trollski!

What I find really worrying is the unwillingness to accept or acknowledge the valid results of an election..link that with some heavily armed radicals who think their nation has been stolen and are prepared and ready this time ( and fired up over two assassination attempts on their man) and the U.S. could be in for some pretty awful times.

Yeah, it’s partly the result of a huge percentage of the population being gulled by Russian and Chinese netbots on social media to believe the false AI generated narratives they peddle. As a result then, they believe anything that Trump tells them. ( cats, dogs, stolen elections etc). The same is happening here as well.

Trump is a danger to NATO, but he 100% is a bigger threat to the Republic and Constitutions. “I will be a dictator on day one” and “Vote for me and you’ll never have to vote again.”

I could all to easily imagine an Austrian Corporal shouting about Jews eating peoples cats and dogs…

Mate, that’s a frightening analogy, I fear you may well be right! The one ray of light is that a president cannot override congress or the senate – a safety net for democracy.

I am really at a loss to understand the Trump/Vance reluctance to support the Ukraine. Perhaps they have a plan to cut a deal wit Putin possibly Russia keeps the Crimea and they pull out of the Ukraine?

It would be good to see an end to the suffering.

Trump seems to think of everything as a business deal. What you put vs what you get out of it

cheers Simon.

Pretty simple really. Trump admires Putin and Putin see’s Trump as a gullible fool who will believe anything he says as long a he massages Trumps ego. They’re buddies.

Zelensky also told Trump to get lost when Trump tried to twist his arm into framing Hunter Biden, so there’s a personal grudge there as well. Trump/Vance will make a deal where Putin gets everything he wants.

cheers for the insight Dern – it’s a sad sate of affairs.

Good point, about Trump ego.

Unless the Upper and Lower Houses are Republican and are aiding and abetting him… and remember where Project 2025 wants to replace all civil servants with political appointees? How effective would, eg, the Senate be if all the civil servants working for it where pro-Trump.

Or you know… how fascism works.

Man, that’s a frightening prospect. I can see how fascism applies in this scenario – scary.

Worth noting that since the debate there have been a number of reported violent attacks on Haitian immigrants in America.

Wish I hadn’t been able to predict it, it’s all very Kristallnacht. :/

That does feel like Germany mid to late 30s. Have a good weekend Bud.

Replace golf with painting as a hobby and it’s basically the same thing!

Shut up you moron!

You must have anger issues, I think you try getting some help. being offensive due to differing opinion shows a lack of maturity !

All of those proposed projects would take effect after 2033, when the equipment budget hasn’t even been allocated yet.

There is no point in cancelling projects which aren’t costing you money within your envisioned budget cycle.

Please, let’s not bring reason into it. All politicians are bastards, after all

I think if the T32 is an upgrade with an ASW role, it is cheaper to continue with it and subsidise its sales for export than not to build it at all. It can be subsidised out of the aid budget.

To survive in the open sea if we have an RN at all we will need a T83. Again they can be used in a Home Defence role if we build 10 and keep 3 based on the Clyde.

I don’t think it ever started. I’ve seen nothing to account for it

Don’t just think in military terms, Andy.
Boris Johnson thought up this Global Britain slogan to describe something that already exists.

I think you need to remember even before anything else the UK is a nation that still straddles the globe, we have sovereign territory in every ocean of the world, we are and will remain one of the biggest 10 economies in the world, we still have one of the most effective and powerful BLUE water navies in the world. London is still a centre of trade, we still 4 out of 10 of the greatest centres of education and research in the world. Just because we are no longer the preeminent super power in the world does not mean we are not a world power…the only issue the UK has is that its population insists that the only true measure of greatness is complete world domination.

We know we trade globally and are on the UN P5, etc. Most of the developed world also trades globally, dozens of countries have far longer coastlines than we do. One can go on listing things we like to think make Britain some kind of special player on the world stage.

We are not really. Boris bought into this Global Britain narrative to attract the easily fooled but left the defence budget at barely 2% of GDP. He fooled people by adding in the funding for Ukraine, which comes from the Treasury Contingency Reserve budget, not from the defence budget, to claim we were spending 2.3% of GDP on defence. Of course we weren’t, the core defence budget is south of 2.1%.

I turn this issue to defence because no one can claim to be a global player with such a small and shrinking defence force. We may well have worldwide interests and our Commonwealth legacy, but need IMO to get away from this Global Britain.mamtra. it is how some of us like to see ourselves, but it gives us a false perspective on things. We can’t really, on 2 or 3% of GDP, afford an independent nuclear deterrent, expensive carriers or carrier air groups and the idea that we should tilt to the Pacific is politically, economically and militarily rather absurd.

These things are a legacy from past years when we were still trying to act as a world power and had a considerably larger defence budget to back up the pretension.

Today, we need to accept where we are in the pecking order, stop trying to punch above our weight all the time. We could then start to make some more logical and practical d4cisions about how we spend the def3nce budget.

I know Daniele will disagree 101%!

I agree and have posted a similar view.

Not necessarily mate, there is some common ground I can agree on!😆

The UK is a Permanent member, of the United Nations Security Council. That is why we need to punch above our weight.
We have a sort of shared global policing role.
I think some on here would prefer to give that role to a country that is less friendly to the interests of the West, and more friendly with ruZZia☠
It will be in the interests of our adversaries to topple Britain’s place in the above mentioned global role.

Exactly.
Add nukes.
Soft power.
The English language.
Diplomatic and cultural links.
The monarchy.
We are somebody regardless if we have 14 escorts or 50.

Two carriers is surely representative of Global Britain?

Well it’s too late. Our navy is built around the carriers and we’re procuring MRSS.

The Air Vice-Marshall reconfirmed the 138 F-35B target alongside Tempest as the future of the air force.

I think that it’s too late to look back on F-35B. That’s the only item of our defence spending that I’m aware is directly funded by the Treasury (rather than defence budgets).

The EU states are still quite fragmented when it comes to defence, so don’t expect a unified defence force for many reasons.

For example, Italy have been sidelined from the development of high end systems by France and Germany.

Don’t be surprised if Saab piggyback off Tempest for a lighter aircraft.

The competition for workshare is too competitive for a unified European defence industry.

What is your source for F35 directly funded by HMT? I have never heard of that.
We are not going to get 138 F35B and Tempest, the Combat Air Budget does not stretch to that as it is.
As it is, tranche 2 of F35B and Tempest I would be ecstatic with.
12 Billion is allocated to Tempest over the next decade. An easy saving, but an idiotic one as Tempest will make a profit for UKPLC like F35 has.
The problem is the MoD budget does not see that profit, and 12 billion is a lot of money now not allocated to other areas.

Google ‘F-35 Ring Fenced’. James Cartilage quoted. That’s the closest I can find atm, though I read something a few years ago with plainer language.

To be clearer, reading NAO reports directly implies that ringfenced (they use to describe nukes) means that HMT promise to fund any cost overruns without affecting the defence budget. Not that this doesn’t affect the budget altogether.

I’m almost certain that we’re tied in to F-35 by our substantial workshare and we can’t ignore that the Navy’s future is built around FAA.

I want to be clear that I’ve read quite a bit of the NAO report and that most sentiments over the present WRT to defence investments are based on previous justiable (grievances).

We are currently in the middle of our biggest defence investment programme since the Cold War and the issue WRT to equipment numbers is delays/overruns and a lack of decisiveness (e.g. Type 26 should’ve been ordered in the early 2010s).

To repeat, 40% of the budget that is renewing all of this equipment is being hogged by nukes!

We haven’t actually committed to anything past 2033. £12 Billion over the next cycle would get you 80 Tempest (assuming it costs £150m) and we’ve budgeted for at least 39 F-35 during the previous cycle.

The next cycle won’t include SSBNs, so there’s plenty of money for equipment.

Our defence budget IMO is understood. We spend 40% of Europe’s defence R&D. Our budget is largely used to protect our technological lead and domestic industry.

The marginal cost of equipment once developed isn’t so large for the defence budget.

The reason we really need 2.5% isn’t for equipment, but the fact that manpower is short. Then you need to maintain/upgrade/arm the equipment. The equipment itself isn’t so expensive.

It largely depends on what needs to be operational and what can be kept for a rainy day.

I am struggling with a lot of your points ADA. The nuclear budget is not 40% of the equipment budget, it is precisely 27 % of the budget over the next 10 years.

The nuclear budget will not suddenly cease in 2033 as you seem to think. We will still have 3 or all 4 Dreadnoughts to fund and hard on their heels AUKUS. The nuclear budget will not diminish at some set point as you seem to think.

The F-35 budget does not come directly from the Treasury at all. The first 48 are funded in the Combat Air Programme. Any further purchases have to come from the Strategic Programmes TLB budget.

All this and more is in the 2023 Equipment document published by MOD.

‘Ring fenced’ just means that MoD has funds for a particular programme and has earmarked them and intends not to shift any of those funds to another project or towards general operating costs. Nothing to do with HMT.

Berwick signed that off some time ago, it is a town that takes from both sides of the Border to suit it’s needs.

Absolutely Smickers, and the Tynwald Government can arrest any Russian visitor as a prisoner of war and vice-versa, daft but true.

The issue is this, we do not give arms to North Korea nor Iran so that is not a good comparison. However, if Storm Shadow is deployed into Russia in numbers and Russian civilians die also in numbers, that is war by proxy as such a weapon would otherwise not be in the Ukrainian arsenal. I’m a firm supporter of Ukraine’s right to defend itself but in all honesty the lines of engagement are rapidly becoming fuzzy, which may prove to be a step too far in terms of international law and NATO doctrines?

The war by proxy is just an FSB talking point of no consequence.

In 1982 the Argentines had French made Exocet anti-ship missiles pointed towards UK critical capital ships.

Did Margaret Thatcher acuse France of reopening the 100 years war, by proxy?

Of course not!

Ukraine is a sovereign democratic nation with the right to defend itself using all the weapons available as they choose.

Slava 🇺🇦

We need to wait and see.

I am as guilty as anyone of pessimism much of the time.

But today on Army Technology there is a very informative article that Britain is well on the way to buying the units needed to uplevel the MLRS fleet to over 70 vehicles, which would be more than any other country except the US.

There is also a number of sources discussing the purchase of next generation TAIPAN radars for enhanced anti air capability.

So even today there is good news with the concerns.

They were about right for the army as I implied. Every cut since has been an unjustified savings measure. To return to the correct post Cold War figures which were decided upon after considerable analysis would indeed require a min of 3% of GDP.

Thank you Graham. I didn’t comment on the army as it’s a bit outside of my knowledge area.

I would imagine that FSS will end up being built in Spain or at least the first one.a lot of the work was already being done in spain and I don’t think they can afford to delay. So unless there is a very swift buyer for both Belfast and appledore who can guarantee the shipyards being ready the programme would be delayed a lot and I don’t think the RN can take that risk,at lest not for the first one.

But honestly from a review point of view I can see this programme being cut from 3 to 2.

Thanks for your replies and your posts. I just saw on UK Forces site 17 Sep saying that NI minister has said the FSS is still to be built at H&W despite going into administration. The logic of that doesn’t sound very doable! As you say at least there’s always Spain!

Oh look, 26 days later it manages to muster a reply.

No the sotres of the BAOR where not bare, not a single Cheiftain for example was sent to Iraq, we elected to send the Challengers instead. It was not a “supreme effort.” it was a calcualted decision to send the best and most modern kit.

You’re an uneducated oaf that seems pretty intent on making enemies here “girlfriend,” so wind your neck in, and maybe actually have an accurate point for once in your life before mouthing off about others.

The arctic role seems to have fallen away in the Corps already, according to some ex RM posters here, with just 45 and some elements from 30,24,29,CHF, CLR,M&AWC, SBS involved.
And with the move to smaller raiding units in the LRG concept, as you’ve suggested before, the RM seem caught between two stools as to what they will be going forward.
If they were reconstituted back into 3 Cdo Bde and more Viking procured, expanding the ASG and putting Viking directly into the Cdos as was once the plan, they could then do that Lapland role, as the enablers for the Corps still exist, albeit mostly army?
That would mean dropping the LRG role, concentrating the RM as the arctic force as in the Cold War, and leaving OOA roles to ASOB,DSF in the Grey Zone area.

The army seems pretty keen to snap up the arctic role as well, it’s already active with 3 Ranger in Sweden and with the EFP Battlegroups in Finland and I expect both roles will grow with time.

I can’t see RM dropping the FCF and LRG concepts any time soon, both where decisions made to adapt to the RN’s disinterest in landing a Brigade in force, and required the aqquisition of some expensive and flashy individual kit. I don’t see them going back on either of those things unless something drastic changes.

So, as I suggested several times over the years, perhaps the Army can take the Arctic role. Would take a long time to absorb the RM expertise in this area though?

Depends on the scale of the take over, getting Arctic expertise into 3 Ranger won’t be hard, a few guys jumping on AWIC, plenty of exercises in Sweden, Alaska, and Canada to go around, small cohort, that will not be too difficult.

Building Arctic Warefare expertise at Brigade or Divisional levels for 4 and 7 Brigades? Considerably harder, just due to the mass and out of area commitments.

Good point about the SFAB, if you wanted to make a head count raid to support core capabilities these would be the battalions to go for….it would be worth doing if they could use the headcount and budget to make 4th light brigade into something that can actually be deployed as a brigade combat team with all the support elements needed, as well as give 1st brigade some mech infantry ( I know I’m not giving up on the fact I think it’s stupid not having a couple of infantry battalions in 1st brigade).

good point on the northern flank..rapid deployment to the Baltic states is probably the core…but there is still Norway and now Finland to consider still.

Issue is, that the SFAB Battalions have already been much reduced in size. The exact composition/ORBAT I’m not aware of, and neither is Dern I recall.
They are not the full fat 600 headcount LI Battalions that together could find some thousands to go into the CSS area.

Yes, the only thing I could see is it being a problem of not a huge amount of headcount being released (the Irish Guards won’t go, so that means only 3 small infantry Battalions being released).

As for 1 Armoured Infantry and 4 Light Mechanised Brigade, I threw this up for Daniele the other day (remove the spaces to access the link:
https ://i.imgur. com/k7IE359. jpeg ). Adding Infantry to 1 DSR, or more realistically splitting 1 DSR into an Armoured Brigade and a Fires/Strike Brigade wouldn’t actually require more infantry (a slightly bigger boxer purchase), but it would require more enablers. Basically to put the British Army on a footing where it has 9+2 Brigades (1, 12, and 20 Armoured Infantry, 1 Strike Brigade, 4, and 7 Light Mechanised Brigades, 16 Air Assault Brigade and 19 and 42 Light Brigades) you’d need a grand total of 9 new CS and CSS units to make it work. (+2 Army Reserve CS/CSS units).

The thing with Norway on the Northern Flank is due to Geography now any attempt at moving south of Narvik would mean having to control Lapland and Northern Sweden. That didn’t matter pre 2024 because if Sweden and Finalnd where neutral NATO couldn’t attack from there. Now a Russian costal advance would theoretically be caught between NATO naval supremacy on the one hand, and any NATO battle groups in Lapland and Sweden that felt like driving North and dunking their feet in the sea.

(Honestly go to Lapland on Google Maps and look at the terrain through street view and photo spheres, it’s very vast, mostly flat, areas of sparse woodlands, clearings, and lakes. If I was the army I’d be asking for a brigades worth of light, low log burden vehicles with good heating and sealed cabs to equip 4th Brigade, definitely some cabs and sealed gunners positions for their jackals).

Viking?

An option for sure.

Given that Sweden and Finland are now NATO members, and have deep experience with FIWAF and the open landscapes of Lapland, why is that an RM responsibility?

Given that Norway was a NATO member and had deep experience with Mountain and Arctic Warfare in the Fjords of Narvik, why was that a RM responsibility?

If you can’t grasp the concepts of collective defence and why we’d send reinforcements to help our NATO allies instead of leaving them to fend for themselves then I’m not sure I can help you.

For Norway, there’s some history and relationship to encourage RM engagement. Presumably Norway wishes it to continue as they agreed to a training base recently.

For the newer NATO members who already have the relevant skills but no experience of Advanced Forward Presence it would be respectful to offer support and see what is welcomed. Whilst it may be consistent with their bilateral agreements with UK and with NATO membership, this is something that they fully expected to do themselves as neutral sovereign nations.

Okay wow, this is silly, and makes it clear you actually don’t understand mutual assistance pacts.

For starters Sweden and Finland are not Neutral. They’re in NATO, a multilateral alliance based around the concept of mutual defence. Which means that if Norway gets attacked, we go to their aid, as will Sweden and Finland. Which in turn means that any action in Norway will result in actions in Finland and Sweden. They also BY BEING NEUTRAL DID NOT EXPECT TO HAVE TO FIGHT EITHER NATO NOR RUSSIA/THE USSR.

When the possibility of actually having to deal with a Russian invasion raised it’s head they INSTANTLY joined NATO.

“The relevant skills”
Yes. That’s why I brought Norway up. They also had the relevant skills but when we drew up the plans to rapidly reinforce them had little experience with Forward Presence, same for Estonia. All of them have the relevant skills for fighting in their respective environments. (Never mind the fact that the British Army has already been exercising with the Finnish forces in Finland)

Let me make this clear:
THE REASON THEY ARE IN NATO IS BECAUSE THEY NEED ADDITIONAL HELP BEYOND THEIR SKILLS.

It’s beyond silly to imagine that these nations joined NATO and then would be like “yes but we don’t want NATO troops helping us.”

Edit: Further more this has little to do with Sweden and Finland wishes.
Norway, at least north of Trondheim won’t be somewhere you can hold if Sweden is captured by the Russians, just thanks to the Geography of the place. A defence of Norway, now, by necessity means fighting in Sweden and Finland.

test

“In a tangible way the labour government is a direct link to that high point of England and the core values of English culture.” Jeez you certainly have a strange sense of identity.

I strongly disagree considering the two tier nature of labours policing policies and large immigrant votership. I’ll tell you what is tangible. Immigrant rioters openly supporting terrorists receive police protection. While indigenous little old ladies peacefully protesting rape gangs and double standards, are bullied and arrested. Labour couldn’t be more anti-British if they tried.

Labour created the current crisis by opening the floodgates to rub the rights nose in diversity. Since then people like LCpl Lee Rigby and countless young children have paid the price. Welcome to 21st C Britain comrade. Where things are going to get much worse before they improve. I sincerely hope a peaceful solution can be found. We don’t need another civil war.

Your reference to labour’s policing policies is completely misplaced.
The police enforce the laws passed by parliament, which for the last decade or more has been dominated by a conservative government.
Notwithstanding occasional allegations of institutional racism and misogyny I believe the police do their job well and impartially.
Labour did not ‘open the floodgates’; Brexit did that, together with war and famine in Africa and the Middle East (fomented by Iran and Russia) and climate change. In leaving the EU we surrendered a legal right to return illegal immigrants crossing the channel to France. Brexit also and effectively expelled the European workers who were the backbone of our health service, our hospitality sector and large parts of our food and agriculture workforce. Bojo’s ‘oven ready deal’.
Like to try again?

I think you will find Tony Blair open the immigration flood gates.

Your whole comment is just fiction.

What drugs are you on? When they said don’t drink the kool aid they meant it.

What drugs am I on? Well, just reading the runes; In the elections result I see a country that has decided to face up to itself and work its way out of factionalism and chaos and knock itself into shape. Pragmatic decisions, effort, mutual respect and some sacrifice are the recipe.

It is no accident that Keir Starmer is a KC who specialised in human rights. In a tangible way the labour government is a direct link to that high point of England 

I can guarantee that nobody accidently becomes a barrister.
“I have stepped on a Lego brick and hey presto I have passed my bar exams!’ Starmer is a socialist. His mine polluted by his socialist parents. He doesn’t care about human rights. It is all about virtue signalling.

Labour is a middle class party and always has been a middle class party. The working class was a source of votes.

I have read some screwed up posts on sites like this one but yours is way out ahead.

PS: English identity has been extant since the time of Alfred. I am not sure whether you read history or creative writing.