The Times reported that there were discussions in place to reduce the Army’s numbers to between 60,000 and 65,000.
Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace MP, responded:
“This is total rubbish. There are no plans to shrink the armed forces. There are however plans to increase army recruiting levels.”
For the record: there are no plans to shrink the Army. In fact my direction to the Army has been to improve recruiting and retention levels. In the Manifesto there will be new policies to help. This story is nonsense @Conservatives https://t.co/rGYZbheAW1
— Rt. Hon Ben Wallace (@BWallaceMP) November 24, 2019
“This story is nonsense,” Mr Wallace said.
Regarding recruitment, the Army needs 10,000 recruits a year to maintain a frontline strength of 82,500 but has had issues reaching this figure. So serious are these issues that the previous Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson had even went as far to say thatthe Ministry of Defence has looked at the possibility of taking the armed forces recruitment contract back in-house.
At a House of Commons Select Committee, after hearing that less than 60% of the target had been met, Williamson said:
“If it becomes apparent in the next financial year that Capita are continuing to fail in what they do, we are going to have to look at different options in terms of the contract. We have started to see a turnaround in the number of recruits and that is starting to head in the right direction. If it doesn’t continue in the right direction, they will have to be relieved of their contract and we will have to look at different ways to deliver it.”
A Capita spokesperson said:
“The Army recruitment partnership between the British Army and Capita was re-set last year to ensure a closer working relationship that will deliver significant improvements in performance. Indications of improved performance are good: applications are at a five-year high and the length of time it takes from application to starting basic training has reduced by 20%, with the quickest candidate receiving a job offer just 22 days after applying.”
I find it odd that recruitment has been handed over to a private concern in the first place. Just my back of a fag packet logic but apart from renting recruitment offices I wouldn’t have thought it was an overly expensive part of the budget.
The private sector requitors will be on half the pay and pension of the public sector requitors. The private sector recruiters should also be experts in their field. Someone is probably getting looked after on the back of tendering to the private sector.
Recruiters ffs
The recruiters themselves will be on half the pay and pension but I bet pounds to pennies that Crapita costs more overall.
Not to mention that the recruiters will be civilians with little to no knowledge of military life. Would work far better to put it back in house again, recruit from soldiers retiring from the army, who know the realities of army life. Technically they would be civilians but they’d have a strong link to the forces still. Could be overseen by a serving officer or senior NCO if needed.
When I went to apply in 2012 all my contact was in the Swindon AFCO and was with serving personnel who could straight talk the realities of service life. They estimated it’d be 3-6 months before starting training. Sadly I failed the medical due to a childhood hip problem so it never happened.
Could probably do that better, cheaper and more efficient than Crapita does!
This is not just an issue limited to the Military the whole of Government suffer from this dubious policy. The sooner they back to hiring companies who are experts in their field the better and cheaper in the long run for everybody.
Outsourcing was the work of some American economist who thought market forces and profit would drive down costs. His aim was through efficiency, however in the UK it seems to be about cutting jobs, pay and conditions. If you look at who has the shares and who has jobs- Lords, spouses, chums and where hedge funds have invested may be swaying policy in the direction of outsourcing. There is not money to be made in the civil service world and it suffered from old school tie running it, creating unnecessary jobs and excessive rules !
Don’t know if its still the same but the Navy had a ‘section’ that was basically a FTRS type gig that was just for recruiting. All ‘old and bold’ types. They certainly have their place but I think some young faces in the offices that young folk can relate to does help. Aye, that means they’re not off ‘doing their real job’ but recruitment has been a big balls up for years. Targeting whatever branch is short at the time telling guys porkies to get them into a certain shortage job and then these guys leaving as soon as they can because it wasn’t what they wanted to do and resent being lied to.
A long term strategy for what they claim is their biggest asset (their people) wouldn’t go amiss for all concerned.
They are all ‘purple’ now and have a bigger catchment area. Our local one is in a former TA building.
It was mainly to do with staffing, outsourcing it to a civilian company freed up the armed forces members for other duties. Of course now after such a large dive in recruitment they are talking about reopening recruitment centres and staffing them with serving personnel again.
One of my mates was involved in recruitment – now made redundant by the MOD for the 3rd time.
Its just farcical and he is less than complimentary about the whole set up.
A bit of clarity and leadership is required here, otherwise it will fail.
If ex forces are employed they can pay less because they have service half pension. Expect there are nice meeting lunches and after dinner speaking to be had ?
It’s VERY odd IMHO. Firstly CAPITA are not a recruitment company, they are a generic outsourcing shop. I’ve worked with them. They’ll run your call centre or your IT help desk. It’s a body shop pure and simple.
Secondly military recruitment is surely a niche skill. How many non military people really know what type of person the military needs.
There’s no special IT software needed. Background checks are already semi-automated.
The whole thing stinks of “excessive corporate hospitality” if you know what I mean….
You have to love policitical talk. No plans, doesn’t mean no discussions. Notice he talks in the past tense about recruitment drives. Sounds to me that they are playing silly git again and leaking fake plans to make the actual smaller cuts seem acceptable in comparison.
Saying that in an election period it could just be one of the other parities playing games but equally none of the others have mentioned military expenditure and for it to be a policitical game there would need to be a pay off.
I think the Daily Mail just made the story up to force Boris into confirming there would be not cuts. Not sure how much thinner they can be cut beyond their current size
The Labour manifesto is so full of heavy commitments towards the public sector, that defence reductions are a real possibility? I’ve watched a number of leader debates and have not heard much from Corbyn about defence, apart from welfare issues? Swinton does support our nuclear deterrent and Boris has openly voiced his intent to increasing defence spending.
>Swinton
Swinson? Lib Dem leader?
IIRC they do believe in a deterrent but using 3 boats and random patrols. IMO, that’s not a real deterrent, but it is better than no deterrent. TBH it’s my main qualm with voting for them this time. I don’t trust Corbyn to keep the deterrent, or on defence as a whole, and I’m sick of the Tories pretending not to cut the military while cutting the military. Doesn’t help that they’re turning into UKIP-light and BoJo is a massive dickhead even by politician’s standards.
It seem’s they leak a story about cuts to test the water, if it gets a lot of negative feedback they backtrack quickly!
Of course there are discussions regarding force levels. There are dozens of pages online with armchair generals and admirals discussing force levels, obviously the real ones are going to do the same.
There’s a good chance our chiefs are just playing the same game the Americans do: propose massive, unacceptable cuts that grab headlines and force politicians to acquiesce to demands for more funding. It’s a bold move given the state of parliament, but it works for the Yanks
I didn’t read any of these news rumours directly but from the second-hand mentions of them that I read the fresh rumours from last week also included some negative stuff about PoW’s future (mothballing? Lease to another nation?). I saw no debunking of that rumour. Even if denials of rumours are no guarantee given that they come out of the mouth of politicians I’d still like to see a denial of those most recent PoW rumours too.
It’s horrible to have to live in constant fear that at any time an announcement might come that even significant already-built and almost-new assets might get taken out of UK service.
I don’t think it will be mothballed. It would be completely stupid to train the entire crew only to moth ball her. I do think they will be closed integrates with the US though. It was a decade since the RN operated a carrier a fraction the size of this one. They prob need expertise from the US to conduct large scale flight operations.
It needs a lot of support ships to protect it, we have not enough for both carriers so would make sense to lease one to the Americans. Believe they looked at cancelling the second ship but braking the contract would have cost more than delivering the second carrier!
Michael Gove ruled out all these rumours on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.
He’s a trustworthy chap !
Your right H F . He is.
If he told me today was Wednesday I’d check a calendar.
I thought you found him trustworthy..
Apologies, the sarcasm in my original reply obviously didn’t transmit itself clearly
Rumours. Nothing more.
Cuts are a constant threat while the virtual and self inflicted black hole exists in the budget.
I will take the Tories version of defence over Labour or the Lib Dems thank you.
I don’t trust any of them with defence. For all 3 of them it’s an afterthought at best.
Tories will be so obsessed with Brexit that not much else, including defence, will get a look in. Best case is the odd cash injections we have seen to stave off further cuts.
Labour under Corbyn will slash defence because of his peacenik ideology. He will cut back on all power projection capabilities and reduce our armed forces to a purely defence force, for which he will say our budget is more than adequate. So goodbye any international standing or influence in world affairs we might have.
“So goodbye any international standing or influence in world affairs we might have.”
As far as politics, the UNSC, and the military, I agree with this. I fear this is their form of left wing ideology, actually ashamed of what the UK is and its place in world affairs.
Several years ago I believe the Guardian actually suggested disbanding the armed forces. That is the sort of mentality we may be looking at.
Soft Power would remain, and rightly so. The RFA and Amphibious ships have some utility in humanitarian roles, as do the RAMC, RE, the RAF’S Chinooks force, that sort of thing I would have thought to be safe.
People talk about cuts to numbers. There may actually be little of that. Army personnel numbers might stay roughly the same. Same with RAF personnel and RN personnel.
But cutting the SSNs, T26, T45, Carriers, and ASW from the RN, Armour, Artillery and Apache from the Army, Offensive weaponry from the RAF, Predator certainly, and restricting UKSF to a home defence against terrorists force will totally neuter the armed forces.
As for bases oversees, would their ideology realise what an asset the SBA in Cyprus actually are, regarding their importance to strategic intelligence, on the Middle Easts doorstep? Or see them as another hated left over from Empire?
The “Special Relationship” with the US? How would that survive? I believe they loathe it. I myself often disagree with US foreign policy and dislike how our policy is directly influenced by theirs, but I value the benefits it gives the UK and our Intelligence Community, which must be protected.
Trident I make no mention of, as I believe that would be retained. They have declared as much and it has had endless publicity.
But who has asked the right questions of them concerning the rest of the military and its place as a Tier 1 military? No where I have read of.
There is my fear.
Completely agree Steve. It’s a shame, the Tories (and labour until fairly recently) used to be pretty supportive of Defence. Now they’re either too busy pissing about with Brexit (Tories) or basically full blown pacifists (Labour/Greens).
The irony is that even if this was true, it would make very little difference to the armies ability to deploy our single Division, the 3rd, and support it with the enablers of the Combat Service and Combat Service Support Arms.
Lets assume the manpower lost is just Infantry. Has anyone looked at the Orbat of 1 ( UK ) Division lately?? There are more Battalions there than in 3 ( UK ) Division, with not a single Artillery, Royal Engineer, Royal Signals, REME, RAMC, RLC unit supporting them. They are undeployable as an all arms brigade without robbing units from elsewhere.
Looking at 1 ( UK ) Division –
2 Battalions are needed for Public duties at any one time, with another 2 to subsequently relieve them, so that is the Household Division taken care of.
Another 2 are as garrison in our vital SBA’s in Cyprus, about the most strategic bit of oversees territory the UK has, with Gibraltar.
Those battalions rotate with others in the UK every few years, so that is another 4 or 5 accounted for.
5 Battalions have been cut to ribbons as “Specialised Infantry.”
An important role also involving CT, but nothing new as oversees forces were trained by the British Army for decades.
The two Gurkha Battalions garrison Brunei and support 16 AA Brigade.
The 3 Parachute Regiment Battalions need no explanation.
That leaves 5 doing what exactly? Garrisons in the UK, helping the civil power with floods if needed?
Supporting assets for the bulk of our Light Infantry have already been cut to pieces, the latest courtesy of A2020 Refine, which removed the enablers that enabled the army to use the rule of 5.
I’m not justifying cuts, no. Cuts affect morale, affect the pool of soldiers that could go on to UKSF, and reduce the national footprint. As a nation of 60 million plus the army is ridiculously small already.
But if the army was reduced by that number, say those 5 battalions, and the RN increased using the funds saved – more people, more T31, another Astute, another Merlin Squadron, more RFA ships, as just examples, would we be more inclined to accept it?
The RN and the RAF should be priority, with UKSF, Marines, Paras, the Intelligence community, and varied enablers like the RFA giving the UK reach and an expeditionary capability from our Island home.
Not the army, which should be organised on 1 deployable Division, as it is already, for use in all out war.
Again, I am not condoning cuts, I hope these are just rumours leaked like the others.
Well rumour mentioned those numbers in Spring, because as I have already mention:
Under recruitment
Phase 1 recruits
Phase 2 not really ‘trained’ at all
Med downgrades.
You are now at 60k but the army won’t release the PIDs to the Royal or the RN, both of which could recruit the bodies.
(The RAF didn’t get a look in).
I think this is the Army rattling sabrrs not the pollies.
You might well be right David.
I would personally jump at the Army cut by 5000 and the corresponding increase in personnel for the RN and the RAF.
Which is what they are already under-recruited by… the Army are playing games.
I just found an interesting commentary on ThePinstripedLine blog (found via a link in a SaveTheRoyalNavy tweet). I’m reassured, subject to not really trusting any potential government to manage defence spending well. Here’s the blog post…
https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-ship-of-state-leaks-on-defence.html
Just read. As always an excellent article.
The Army most certainly will be reduced in size as will the other Services if Mr Corbyn gets into Downing street to a point where the defence of the Nation will be non existent, SO BEWARE
If Mr Corbyn gets into Downing St he will have to go some to match the slashing of all the services inflicted for ideology’s sake by the tories. If a labour government had made such cuts the tory press (which is most of the press) would be howling – rightly – from the rooftops. They are strangely silent.
They did HF, between 1998 and 2010 when the RN shrank from 35 escorts to 23, half the RFA vanished, the RAF went from near 20 combat squadrons to 12, the 3 Sea Harrier Squadrons 800,801,899 were axed, and much more I cannot be bothered to list, including numerous weapons programmes.
The only reason the army manpower survived during that time was Helmand and Iraq. The Army’s equipment was slashed, 19 Mechanized Brigade became 19 Light Brigade, 4th Armoured became 4th Mechanized, and 3 Armoured Regiments had Tank squadrons removed and replaced by Scimitar in “Medium Armoured Squadrons” Those changes enabled the then labour government to cut Tanks, APC’s, IFV’s, and artillery.
I remember those dark days, I also remember the shock at how the Tories acted once assuming power, so, I know you’re a Labour man and I respect that mate.
But please, all parties have been as bad as each other since the Cold War ended, and the current leaders of labour are just a tad more to the left than New Labour of the 90’s and 00’s who made those cuts.
Thus the dread many feel, myself included, at the thought of Jeremy Corbyn and his nearest acolytes being the PM of Great Britain.
Fair enough, Dan. But Trident renewal is Labour policy, amongst other things. I’m no Corbyn supporter and there are still plenty of us who believe in the need for the forces. Despite the Momentum attempt to deselect mps they deem not left enough the majority of mps are not, nor will be, Corbyn supporters. In the unlikely event he forms a majority government he will not have the support in Parliament to do anything drastic, re Trident, for example.
As PM, Corbyn doesn’t need a majority of MPs to neuter Trident. He’s already said he’d never use nuclear weapons so we know what his Letter of Last Resort will say. Previously he’s suggested keeping the Vanguards but just not having them go to sea carrying any Tridents. He can do all that with the executive power of the PM.
The most cowardly option available for the PM on the letter, which rumour states has been used believe it or not, is to leave the choice up to the boomer’s skipper. Maybe Corbyn would go for that ‘neutral’ stance as well.
I’ve heard that is one of the options that has been put in the letter but isn’t the first option – 4th or 5th, I believe.
One of the reasons he’s unlikely to be PM. As he has no PAL or direct physical control over the system the uncertainty will still be there. In any case if he does become PM his party will bring him down one way or another if he tries to neuter the military – I think !
Agree. I re read my reply after and hope I did not come across as scathing of your view. That was not my intent.
Just adding some balance to your point concerning the Tories.
No problem, Dan. You always post interesting and well informed comments, even if I don’t always agree.
For gods sake why on earth are we even risking any further cuts. The cuts have gone far enough already. HMGs primary number 1 responsibility is defence of the realm.
I think it is worrying that military senior officers are prepared to break ranks and go to the press about this. Maybe during purdor they have heard from Corbyn Labour that this is exactly what is expected of them should labour get in a coalition government? Or classic Tory party BS deny deny deny cuts then low and behold huge cutbacks.
We are a wealthy nation and can easily afford the QE class, a fleet of 26 frigate/ destroyers, more than 7 SSNs and a nuclear deterrent. How to afford all that? Keep benefit cap in place, stop the pensions escalator as why on earth are we funding disproportionately the only section of society with any free money/ spending money? The only people I know regularly going on holidays are the pensioners.
If that isn’t enough put up income tax by 1 or 2p to fund NHS , schools, roads, public infrastructure (stop the ridiculous waste of £120 billion for HS2) I would happily pay more for a country I can be proud to live in.
Wouldn’t even have to defund HS2. Adding a couple of pence to income tax and/or NI, stop increasing pensions disproportionately, and making businesses and the wealthy actually pay their fair share of taxes, especially tech like amazon and the likes. We could more than afford to actually meet the 2% commitment without any dodgy bookkeeping, we could have fully functioning, world class police and NHS, schools that do their jobs right and teach kids, and roads that don’t look like they’ve just been hit with a JP-223!
The Army is just about the right size. What it lacks if vehicles and firepower. There is no real vision from Main Building just ‘jargon’, ‘doctrine’, and ‘cap badge mergers’.
We needed to model the Army after the USMC. We needed an agile force that can be stuffed in ships and aircraft.
The Russian aren’t coming chaps.
Agree.
“What it lacks if vehicles and firepower.”
Spot on.
Adding to my point above on the many Light Infantry Battalions. Excluding Foxhound, which I’m unsure current status of as the 6 battalions with it were meant to have the vehicles withdrawn, of 33 Infantry Battalions just 8 will have armoured vehicles.
Even if the Russians do come, and I agree they probably won’t, the mass of the British Army under equipped and with no transport beyond MANN trucks is not stopping them.
I’m currently biting my lip off to hold back a career ending rant about cap badge mafia and how completely F**ed we are.
” “What it lacks if vehicles and firepower.” ” +1
If you are not mounted on Warrior, Challenger 2 or dare I say it CVR(T) you are not a fighting force, you are support/mentors. I get all this soft power, it really makes a difference but a Warrior battalion can dismount and de-escalate for softer roles, a light Inf battalion can not escalate. unfortunately, light is cheaper than heavy, its been the same for hundreds of years, where do you think Light Dragoons come from.
BV
The era of industrial war is over. Unless as you say you are equipped today you won’t be ready for the fight which might quite literally be tomorrow. It isn’t the 1930s we won’t have years to re-arm. Being strong now stops situations escalating.
Sad to say BV is right! Heavy in the centre, the stopping power, light role to the rear, security and “temporary gap fillers” and Airborne/Marines to the NATO flanks! Simple but the way it’s always been.
Battalions mounted in Foxhound will only see their vehicles before they are deployed. If is a good vehicle but not the best as it is just an armoured lorry / truck after all.
I like Boxer it is an awesome vehicle. But we needed an IFV version.
Saying that if we wanted an APC then the French Griffon may have been better a choice if we had purchased Jaguar for the cavalry.
Or perhaps SuperAV which we could have had in 8×8 and 6×6 versions…………
With Ajax regiments 3 troops with 30mm / electronics version and a fourth troop with a vehicle 105mm or 120mm low pressure gun. ATGM’s through out the formations couple with integrated automatic mortars (taking the place of the old ATGW troop in the FFR).
Its all a bodge. In an era of drones a huge vehicle like Ajax makes no sense. And in the age of extreme lethality any formation that can’t hit hard and hit first is a sitting duck.
The Army seems to be following the RN along the all electronic gizmos, no firepower route.
NOTE: before people get excited, he has not mentioned one of the other items flagged in the London media – notably the leasing out of the second RN aircraft carrier to the USA.
Nor does he mention the fact that the wee army is thousands understrength already. No one is that interested in joining.
So at least two things to celebrate.
The leasing of the carrier isn’t really a bad thing. Since it would make some good money for the MOD and since the crew would be British it would make for an excellent opportunity for training to bring the carrier up to operational status, while QE is in the south Pacific.
Surely the crew would be American with no doubt a few Brits to keep skills up?
No not really. If the Americans where to lease it. Then they will do it as a short term study of the concept. Much like how they did it with the Swedish sub. Wouldn’t make sense for the Americans to assign an entire crew to a single ship not equipped for their supply line.
Harry it is a bad thing. It is a terrible, terrible thing and a huge embarrassment on our country. End
Sweden leased a submarine to the Americans. Look at how that worked out.
I think it was to learn to defend against small diesel subs as they were able to get inside a CSF. It included the crew, I believe. How did it turn out ? The chances of the USN leasing the carrier are zero.
The sweids defeated the Americans on several occasions, and returned home a year later full of knowledge and experiences they over wise wouldn’t have. The USN isn’t interested in the QE class itself. It makes no sense it’s a major ship built abroad, with only 1 type available and built almost totally outside of their supply and logistics chain. There interested in the concept. It’s that which they want to assess and have. Not the physical ship.
Absolutely agree on the interest in the ship. They are very impressed by the weapons handling which has helped reduce the crew hugely compared to their ships.
Think the Americans are interested in the concept of functioning with a much smaller crew!
Definitely. Although i also think their interested in the use of F35B as a long range strike aircraft along with the use of ramp instead of catsandtaps, the smaller size and perhaps the idea of inter service use of the carrier. I think the USN is trying to achieve a similar thing with its new American class LHDs.
Mike your a strange wee man , why are you even in here if you have such Negative feeling towards our armed forces .The hilarious thing is your pipe dream of having a wee Scotland defence force of a few hundred souls and a couple of helicopters will never ever be reality ? The British army is and always will be up there with the best and the union will continue. It will be even more hilarious on the 13th Dec when the realisation that wee jimmy crankie isn’t getting her way and that U.K. plc is sailing on out of the Eu once and for all. Can’t wait ?
Just the latest 5th Columnist after TH got banned.
Maybe TH under a new name?
It’s fun watching the UK implode. We are doing very little to help it. It is no longer viable. As for independence, that for Scottish decide and unless you live there, there is nothing you can do about it. As for the size of a free Scotland’s military, one like Eire would be more than acceptable. Why should be wish to swagger around pretending we are something we aren’t? We leave that to England. Our referendum will surely come and this time, the electorate will vote for freedom.
Yaaaaaaaawn, sorry did you troll something son?
Unfortunately Scotland can’t actually afford independence and the SNP haven’t proved very good at governing. I think most Scots will realise that. Not that I blame you for wanting to avoid Brexit for Scotland – that’s quite understandable. But the day a Scot isn’t a fellow citizen of mine will be a very sad one.
They probably told that to lots of other places too – Malta, Eire etc.
Time will tell as they say and worth remembering that it’s not only the SNP seeking freedom for Scotland.
It’ll come.
I don’t know about the other places, though Malta wanted to become part of the UK under Dom Mintoff in the 60’s. For Scotland it’s a fact – GDP won’t be big enough to maintain current spending. If Scotland keeps Sterling it won’t b e independent anyway – though I’m not sure if the SNP have changed their minds on retaining it.
Boorrriing actually there is plenty the rUK can do about it. Like not actually provide the legal powers to allow a 2nd referendum. Or if a referendum does happen just cut the purse strings immediately the day Scotland votes for independence and pull out. Rebuild Hadrians wall and put import taxes of 40% on all good coming from scotland through rUK.
Wee little jimmy crankie lady seems to be underestimating the strength of feeling south of the border. Rest of the UK I would hope will treat Scotland very sternly the minute they vote for independence. Brexit has proven you cannot have your cake and eat it.
I never voted for Brexit, nor would I never like to see Scotland leave our union of nations. That would be a very sad day, driven by a sad deluded lady who was raised on hatred and scorn of all things British. The key thing is for the Scots to be clever enough to notice the SNP for what they are. Sad deluded liars.
Our carriers were always going to be tied into USN / USMC operation and not USN CBG ones. Not a bad thing really. But we could have doubled down on it and set about procuring new LPD’s and keeping the RM up to strength. I like the news re RM but it is needs to be able to be deployed as a battle groups. If not the Army needs to fill the breech.
And that comment shows your total lack of knowledge and experience on the subject matter. However sad trolling with a lardy fat chip stuck in your shoulder, is it seems what you get off on. Each to their own I suppose, very sad however.
Alba gu brath!
Still no subject matter knowledge no matter how much phlegm you appear to be coughing up!
Lofl ye daft twat there is no way you are a Scot , I’m betting your actually English like rod stewart and your just pretending ? and no idea why you would post a post in a dead language (even more credence to the fact your a twat) ? newsflash son nobody speaks Gaelic up here in Scotland !
The Thin Pinstripped always gives a unique take on these matters which ought to be included in any balanced blogscan we partake in, though perhaps more so when Humphrey was directly employed within the MOD. Still noted how often the words ‘defence review and cuts’ were twinned, like it’s the norm. I do wonder to what extent regular headlines of armed forces cuts, whether real or imagined, set back the cause of recruitment by their very nature, as in: “looking for a long and rewarding career, anyone?”
Certainly on a wider front the current international situation does not countenance any such talk, which should at the very least set out determinedly to maintain currently promulated plans, themselves not overtly ambitious in the circumstances.
We hear now how the UN wants us to hand over the strategically crucial BIOT in short time. I have sympathy with the Chagosians, but deliver them to the corrupt nepotistic chancers that control Mauritius without a very clear political way forward for the control of Diego Garcia? No thanks. The Chinese could very likely be in there like Flint, despite the efforts of India to prevent them.
Combine that with the disastrous direction in which South Africa is heading, including of course their military, with the increased influence the Chinese are already applying and that clearly threatens access to both the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. Thankfully we still have a clear moral mandate for administration of the Falklands and thus the Cape Horn routing. Can you imagine where that strategy would have ended up in the long run if Argentina had gained ‘control’?
This has probably been discussed before but ‘if’ your army numbers are to be reduced, is it worth doing away with separate army, navy and airforce command structure and do unified structure like US marines? That would save some money to reinvest in equipment or something. You are part way there in concept with F35 anyway and from what I have seen in comments many want priority to Navy and airforce
I couldn’t agree more, I believe a single force structure must happen to save the required money that we can then put into front line equipment.
1. The USMC has audited accounts that show they operate on around £20bn pa.
2. Even with the requirement to fund a navy, civilian mod etc etc. there is still a lot of wastage in the MOD and the USMC have better kit than us.
3. It would stop all of the infighting.
4. especially if each division has the same organisational structure.
5. It would increase inter divisional rivalry and make the UK a better force.
6. It would give the UK more deployable forces.
7. It would give personnel better work life balance.
8. It would make us a more lethal force.
I agree there’s a tonne of wastage in the MoD, and audited accounts could be a good idea, but the USMC gets to use the economies of scale provided by the USAF, USN, and the US Army, and they regularly get supplemented by personnel and kit from those forces too.
It’s a good idea, but I’m not certain it’d work in practice.
I think a Unified Command structure is bad for morale. It failed in Canada and I doubt if it would result in any significant saving. I see no mention above of the Reserve forces. I know the original plan was to recruit 30 000 “Territorials” but that this target has not been achieved which is a pity as a well motivated Reservist including retired Regulars, I believe can be good value for money. I was involved in the old Natal Parks Board structured along quasi military lines and our Honourary Officer Units were hugely effective being drawn from ex Game Rangers, Policemen, the Military and specialists in various branches of conservation at virtually no cost to the organisation. Also,
very limited conscription is an idea worth considering.
Hi Geoff
I think the USMC has great morale and it works for the IDF as well
What really blows morale is all this infighting across the services, poor accommodation and work life balance, and the lack of new equipment that means our guys have to make do and mend constantly.
Put simply we have too many chiefs and they are not playing well with each other and as a force of similar size to the USMC why not take their lead.
I think there is a place for limited national service (it should be a badge of honour instead of something to avoid) and there is a good article on this on Sky News.
I don’t agree on a unified UKDF Pac, for the usual traditional reasons, affect on pride in the service, espirit de corps, ethos, identity, and the big one being I do not see the savings needed being realised by removing the 3 separate commands. Where is the saving?
I do not see billions saved by having one logo, and one set of corporate communications on a single service put out by the MoD.
The NADOC at High Wycombe will still need a commander, and will still need to watch the skies and space. That is where the Air Command is situated. Army personnel cannot do that, even in one UKDF uniform.
Com Ops at Northwood will still need to run that command centre and oversee the RN’ SSN, Deterrent, and home waters.
Removing Whale Island and the Fleet HQ does not do away for the need of the people running those directorates and our ships deployed.
The army will still need deployable commanders. Andover and Land forces will still be there and needed.
Even closing all 3 and putting all on one site, just saves the cost of 3 sites but gives a huge outlay in establishing those outputs somewhere else.
The forces will still need their bases, and the huge logistical footprint. Training will still be different and require separate pipelines.
MoD Head Office, the varied MoD directorates and the DES will still be there. The deterrent will still be there, a huge cost placed on MoD in 2010.
And finally much is purple already.
I agree though that the inter service rivalries and in fighting do not help.
And we think if they were one service it would stop? The chap in charge of air might still want the money to defend his fief over that of the chap in charge of Land. What difference is there apart from the uniform? Their domains remain.
The way I see it, their enemy is HMG, not each other, and they surely know that.
I agree on a limited form of conscription, but in no way mixing with the professionals.
But I must say I love the effort you’ve taken on planning the force structure.
And I’m pleased to see it has appeared again below!
Hi Daniele
what if we can have a unified command and still maintain all the positives you mention above.
I believe it is possible if we can find a new way of thinking about units and senior ownership really.
In truth its more about the top layer integration, a battalion will still be a battalion, but its air wing will be much closer aligned.
Lets take a fully loaded division of 27,396 personnel (inc civilians).
This has naval, air, cyber, special forces, ISTAR and any other assets needed to work autonomously.
And we have 8 of them – plus a slightly larger HQ
We give the *** in charge Total command of the assets and a set of standing tasks they have to complete and its up to them how they do it. As each Division is the same in terms of size and assets it means we have essentially 8 individual fighting forces that can self sustain if need be. but outside of that they can compete to amongst each other on a daily basis.
Lastly and really importantly a single division is refreshed with assets every 3 years, which means it takes 24 years to complete a fleet refresh across all divisions, with HQ refresh running ahead by 1 year and concurrently thereafter to create a 25 year product lifecycle that gives the required drumbeat to industry and allows us to smooth out our orders instead of this totally disfunctional procurement process we currently have.
I love the passion also, I’ve spent 30+ years with my own fantasy structures and following and being in the military. The latter has taught me a huge amount about how things really happen, that organisational structures on the ground are fluid, and to some extent, unimportant in comparison to the people you have and their interpersonal relationships.
However, I think your thinking is overly focussed on the combat organisations and not the mass of structure that sits behind them, but which is actually larger and far more dominant.
To many purposes, UK Command is already unified under JFC and CJO. What isn’t is the “generate, sustain” functions which are Air/Land/Navy and which retain some limited home focussed contingency/routine command.
Producing a Type 23 frigate that can deploy around the globe and operate takes a pyramid of people, infrastructure and equipment that consumes the entire Frigate force, the naval bases, the training schools and HQs.
Trying to penny packet platforms out to separate organisational structures would require replicating that mass in each one which would be lunacy.
Having 8x identical forces would be impossible to generate and a mess when you tried to deploy it as you can guarantee whatever portion of capability you’ve put in that 8th, it isn’t enough or is too much.
Look at our Ops, each is different.
Afghan – Land led, large ground component. Supporting air, no navy.
Kipion – Navy led with significant naval assets, supporting air, no land.
Shader/etc – Air led with some supporting land (SF), no navy.
The most suitable structure is one where we try and maintain a balance between centralisation to give scales of economy in generating a capability (e.g. Fast Jet Force, SH Force, Frigates), a routine/training command that puts the constituent bits together to learn how to integrate (with standardised/assumed tasks and other systems/platforms) – and an operational one that then takes the units, their interoperability experience and tailors that to what is required on the ground.
A UKDF does nothing for any of that, and nothing that isn’t being done already. The first thing you would do in a UKDF is re-create the split between Air/Land/Sea as domains for people to work in. It also ignores that underlying all of this are human beings, and that ultimately it is all about having those human beings motivated, happy, determined, innovative, team working and so on. We all know that conflicts are decided by the culture of the humans fighting them far more than the equipment – as Napoleon said, the moral is to the physical as 3 is to 1.
Hi Pigeon
The military is all about combat operations and we should focus on that. You are assuming I have concentrated on combat troops when the mix is probably 75% support to 25% front line, what I am saying is that I think we should replicate our organisation across 8 identical divisional commands.
One of the reasons for suggesting this approach is to stand up a sustainable force that balances work/life balance, is properly funded and can meet a range of tasking either as a whole or in isolation
I am not suggesting we strip out specialist corps, but as is today they need to embed with their divisions.
It should also be stated that the UK has a very good non military logistics infrastructure that we can and should leverage and also that if we deploy a full division the other 7 divs +HQ will support that division.
How would it be bad for morale? Because it is change and people don’t like change? Thinking of US marine type structure, rifleman, pilots, tankman, different job but same corp, same command, I don’t see them having bad morale. I am not familiar with Canadian experience so cannot comment. With my country, each military district has unified command for all forces, VDV, army, Navy etc, from my understanding it has been very successful, much better at working together and understanding and respectful of each other’s role
Going from three services to effectively one would be similar to what Canada did, and it destroyed their morale. All the friendly inter-service banter, and the unique identities of the branches and the units would be degraded or lost, and the pers in those units are rightfully very proud of their heritage.
It works for the USMC as it was never multiple different branches. If you took the RM, and gave them all the defence budget, a load of tanks, Typhoons, ships, etc, their morale would likely be high. But in practice you’d need to bring in all of the institutional knowledge in the rest of the forces, and many would either not want to transfer, or have very low morale after transferring. Maybe after 50-100 years or so the effects would fade away, but that’s a long time for morale to be down the toilet.
“But in practice you’d need to bring in all of the institutional knowledge”
Yes, you’ve explained it in a sentence that I attempted in several paragraphs!
Thank you for the replies, it has been interesting
You did a much better job than me at explaining all the finer points though!
There’s nothing wrong with purple in the armed forces IMO. The RAF doesn’t need its own doctors (as long as some of them are qualified in aviation medicine), and the navy don’t need their own dentists (on shore anyway).
I wouldn’t be opposed to DI going purple either – they all train in the same place, lots of them are based in the same place, and I assume there’s already blue-wearing IntOs giving army type briefs to the RAF Reg, and green-wearing ones giving RAF type briefs to the AAC.
Purple definitely has its place in the military, where things can be done just as well by someone from any branch of the forces. A doctor or a lawyer from the army is just as qualified as one from the navy or RAF.
But you got it exactly right with ‘espirit-de-corps’. A lot of people joined up because they wanted to be in a specific service, either due to family connections or interest. If everyone since your great-great-great-…..-great-grandfather who fought at Waterloo has been in the Army, you’re probably going to join the Army over the Navy. If your grandfather was one of the few, you’re probably wanting to join the RAF. If you love boats and sailing and the sea, you’re probably joining the Navy.
That would all be lost with a combined UKDF.
So what makes you think the Russian military structure has been a success Ulya, what examples do you have? or is this you doing your second job as Putins promoter? lol
Hello Dave, I have 2 brothers still in the VDV and 1 in the missile force, all with 20+ years service, my job means I have contact with military. I ask questions, they answer. I have breakfast with Putin later, maybe I will ask him also
Cool you can ask Putin for me on how hes planning to help rebuild Syria and where hes gonna find the money to do so lol!!!
I’m glad you find Syria situation funny Dave. Russia will give some money, China will loan some, let’s see what host nations currently with millions of refugees decide to do and how much pressure they put on the EU to help out, unless everyone is happy for them to stay or move further north
I dont find Russia carpet bombing Aleppo with cluster bombs and Russia using or allowing Assad to use sarin gas on the Syrian people FUNNY at all ,what is funny is a Russian ulya trying to get the moral high ground lol.
Russia’s not China, it has a economy the size of Spain so good luck with Russian loans to Syria and if China money is available say good bye to Russian influence.
I believe the Army should be reduced slightly with a rebalance of personnel to the other services and the creation of a single force structure for the whole UKDF.
The Army could have 16 Brigades of 4500 troops consisting of 4 deployable Battalions + 1 Combat Support and Logistics bn each Brigade). In this model 4 Brigades would be active, 4 at high readiness, 4 Training and 4 resting/ light duties.
This could also be seen in terms of 10 Regiments of 7380 personnel covering the 5 key capabilities within the main land force structure.
The aim should be to deploy fully functioning battalions of circa 900 personnel and all of their equipment, this model will allow the uk to deploy 18k troops on indefinite rotation if required.
Each pf the 16 Brigades would consist of the following battalions each holding 900 persons.
1 x bn Commando (900)
1 x Light Infantry (900)
1 x Strike (900)
1 x Heavy Armour (900)
1 x Combat Support (900)
*Each battalion has 4 deployable companies and 1 support company of 180 troops. With each company having 5 platoons of 36 personnel.
The above is augmented by additional air, sea, command, logistics and civilian resources as required from its Divisional and Force HQ’s
So I think we can move to a smaller more efficient Army and a more modular force structure that would actually make us far stronger overall.
We should also look at our heavy armour requirement, perhaps an all boxer force (with all the bells and whistles in terms of AAW, 155m, anti tank, etc…) backed up by an apache and Merlin/chinook/V22 force is preferable to our tracked heavy armour.
Given the state of our heavy armour, the price point we can purchase apache and Boxer. I am inclined to order another 100 apache and an extra 4000 boxers and move to a strike force.
Love this. I don’t agree with it but still love the thought that has gone into it.
No offence, but have you ever served in any military organisation?
Your structure is a logistical and equipment support impossibility. Training wise even more so!
The phrase “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics” could not be more apt.
You have completely missed just how many support people it takes to put the combat elements in the field, and that is in units and formations that as they stand, are quite holistic, i.e. an Equipment Support Bn supporting an Armd Bde is mainly tracked with the same 2-3 vehicles it is primarily supporting.
Your ES Bn would be tracked-wheeled supporting 4 major vehicle fleets. That requires many more people and more training (time, expense, people to cover those away training).
At the very least, 50% of your numbers need to go on support personnel: adminners, chefs, drivers, suppliers/stackers, maintainers – plus all their management. We haven’t even started on field engineers, communications and ISTAR and dozens of others.
Modular ideas are good, but we organise by trade/specialism because that is the only way to train people. A platoon with 1x signaller, 1x adminner, 1x mechanic, 1x electrician, 1x cyber warfare person, 1x driver and so on is literally impossible to generate or sustain. How do they develop? move on? who manages/checks them? (i.e. knows something about their trade having done the job themselves?).
If the basic organisational block is a combat one, where will the expertise to deliver and develop the specialisms come from if they are spread out penny packet wise? They will be nothing more than “here today, gone tomorrow” people at the whim of the combat commander who will always be focussed on their specialism. Imagine the Navy if only FAA pilots ran it? or the Army if only the Paras ran it? or the RAF if only multi engine pilots ran it? Without the hierarchy for specialisms (and there are so many more than 5!!) those specialisms die because there is no leadership, no innovation, no development.
The analogy is what the French did with their tanks in Ww2, spread out across their infantry formations and thus ineffective because they had no mass, no competent or senior leadership able to develop and use them to best effect.
This “everything has everything” is not efficient – it is the opposite and requires huge numbers of people to try and create organic capability in every unit. We’ve moved away and organised increasingly by specialism to try and get the benefit of economies of scale to generate forces (i.e. recruit, train, sustain), then bring them together under joint commands for training and operations.
As an example, RAF Squadrons used to have their own chefs, their own MT, their own Comms and so on. All of that is now centralised because by doing so some 30% of heads and kit can be cut because each Sqn rarely if ever needs all its capability at the same time as another (or rather, the Cold War assumption was they were, but not for long!). By centralising, the capability is better managed (the number of people justify a leadership structure comprised of people who are focussed on that specialism, thus offering a career path also) and the pain of dets is shared more equally. Downside is reduced ethos and the Sqn feels it loses service (as centralisation usually does result in) – but it is unarguably more efficient.
Interservice rivalry is self defeating, more so in the current political climate as it lets the politicians divide and conquer.
A proper process (if in a rather over simplied format) should be:
1. Decide strategicaly what you want to do (Political);
2. Develop realistic force levels to deliver stategic capability (Professional Advice);
3. Cost said force levels (Professional Advice);
4. Decide if it is affordable (Political);
5. Move forward with plans to deliver the required force levels or more likely re-visit your stategic aims and start again!
In other words defence is about where you want to be on the world stage and / or who is likely to threaten you and how.
One of the problems is defence reviews tend to lead to cuts and have done pretty much since the end of WW2. So not surprisingly the services get all defensive about their share of the budget. It is all very human, but it is also very destructive to long term capability planning – something I have been involved in the past in a very small way – and it leads to huge waste.
It is the human behaviour part of defence planning and procurement that always derails good decision making. We have had some pretty good logical process but the human element usually undid it. When I was involved there was a very sound and logical decision point where the requirements were frozen to allow the engineers to get on and design the system. I realised the wheels were coming off the system when a Main Building officer used the word ‘chilled’. I kid you not – chilled! If ever there was a move designed to undermine a process that was it. Change one word and everyone is given the green light to change the requirements whenever they fetl like it. I also came to realise that inter service rivalry is not the only problem, there are often competing cliques within a single service.
In the name of balance, I should say that there was also a lot of good common sense and hard work undertaken. It’s just that it could all be undone by one bad move along the way. With big complex and expensive projects to work well everyone as to get it right every day, for it to go wrong just one muppet in the wrong post or someone having one bad day at the office and it can all goes to rats…
It depends on what you mean by rivalry. Wanting to beat the Army at the Army-Navy game? That’s a good thing IMO. It helps foster unit and branch cohesion, provides some healthy competition, and at the end of the day everyone knows they’re on the same side really.
Actively sabotaging the other branch in order to secure more funding for your Typhoons/T45/Challenger 2?
Completely unacceptable and self-defeating.
Regarding services getting defensive, it does make sense when you think about it. The chief of staff is put there to ensure their troops get the kit and the money they need to complete the objectives government has given them. A CAS that was not fighting for the very best for the RAF would not be doing their job, and that goes for the other service chiefs too.
It’s the job of the Chief of the Defence Staff to make sure everyone gets what they need, or to balance who gets what to ensure the most effective military.
The whole procurement process is wrong IMO, and that’s a big cause of the issues. A more sensible process would definitely help reduce this.
I was not thinking about the sporting type of rivalry which, as you say, is a good thing and I’d agree with that completely.
As for the roles of the service chiefs I can pretty much agree with that, too. (Frankily, I was a million miles away from that level 😉 ) Hopefully their working relationships are good enough for them to sit down and thrash through a common position that does not tash our long term capability. All part of the process.
My point was more aimed those who lead the study teams. Those who do the main body of the work. They are often judged on the impact they had whilst in post and unfortunatly, the easiest way they have to make an impact is to get something added or changed in the requirements that they could point to when they got back to their units. I had a number of conservations with recently retired officers who had come over to industry, so were still ‘current’ at the time. One at least that I remember, agreed with me that the way in which serving officers operate in the procurement system is a significant part of the problem.
Again I am not getting at the individuals in the system. The vast majority are merely trying to do their best in a flawed system. Problem is that they are trained to fight battles, and whilst buying kit from BAES can seem like a battle at times, it ain’t. Someone, being in post for two years and trying to make an impact in that time is only going to muddie the waters, and they are not helped much by staff colleage training it seems.
Personnally, I would give an officer top marks to make no messurable changes i.e. holding the contractors to time, cost and quality. In fact, would give that officer a promotion on the spot because he or she would have achieved what view manage to achieve – keeping a defence project on the straight and narrow for real (i.e. not pretend / smoke and mirrors) and for longer than 5 minutes…
An example, I worked close to the HQ of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance and every I passed the building would wonder how they could sign up to a deal where the purchase price of a 65,000 ton Aircraft Carrier (complete with Highly Automated Munitions Handling system) was £1.5b ea – excluding support etc. We were paying £1b ea for the T45’s at the time (OK I accept those to numbers may include different stuff, but even so).
The realisation came like a bolt out of the blue when it was annouced that the carriers would be delayed for 2 yrs because the F35 was late. BAES was involved with the F35 and knew loonnnngg before the UK politicians / MOD noticed that the F35 would be delayed (again). Those grey haired, grizzled contracts people in industry saw the bright eyed bushy tailed staff colleage trained people coming (civil service staff colleage as well it must be said). Gave them a real nice deal knowing full well that there would be delays and very very likely a contract re-negotiation. Surprise, surprise the cost doubled and all because of a 2 year delay – yeh right!
I think it’s entirely possible. Historically (up until 2010 anyway), I considered the Tories the true custodians of UK defence and security. Now I don’t think the Tories are any more trustworthy than labour and based on today’s lib dem announcement, potentially less so than lib dems. Unfortunately, as usual, I spite of the world being a dangerous and insecure place, defence is too far down the list of people’s priorities. I agree on up lift of spending for universal public services but defence needs to be part of that and the portfolio balanced. By the time people realise that, it will be too late.
Served in the late 1980s army was about 125k, I think the rot set in when they pared back the regimental system and came out with things like 1Scots instead of Royal Scots etc, I’m sure English reg fared as badly or worse, overnight it felt like family had been torn apart .butchered by bean counters at the MOD.If we have an army of this size 60k no Govt has the right to send these men on long term deployments as the turn around is to tight, Glad to see the kit improved we started on Saxon and went to fv432 mk1 petrol driven. Oh for the luxury of boxer .Armour corps is now a joke challenger 2 is great but numbers are a disgrace .This should not be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul All services should be funded, maybe should get lessons from Corbyn where he got his WASPI money
We lost our well recruited country regiment to preserve under strength, English officered, South Sea islander augmented Scottish regiments. 256 years of history gone in a blink of an eye.
Steve like I said history wiped out by stroke of the pen , can only speak of my experience well recruited All scots, mostly Scots officers some of the finest battle honours in the Army, name now footnote , and they wonder why no one wants to join
But no-one was joining those finest battle honoured Scottish regiments. That’s why they are stuffed with Fijians and English officered.
The loss of English units was a disgrace – but pure politics to appease potential SNP voters (wanted by both Tories and Labour).
Having said all that- names that many had strong affinity to RGJ, LI, KORBR, QLR, DWR and so on – within a generation becomes an affinity to YORKS, LANCS, RIFLES etc. Can argue whether doing that in a major shooting war was a good idea, but equally that then gave the new names some opportunity to build their identity whereas in peacetime it’d have been a stagnation – the pressure of Ops forces that melding and focus on what they are doing.
All of the 3 main parties have said they would maintain the 2% spend of GDP on defence — that is fact and is in all three manifestos. Consequently wholesale cuts like the ones mentioned in the Times & Mail are extremely unlikely. However what that 2% is spent on is unclear from the manifestos. Perhaps surprisingly, the Lib Dems are promising the largest defence spend (according to their maths) because the 2% would be larger because of the faster rate in growth resulting from not leaving the EU.
I think these leaks are just the 3 services getting their retaliation in first before the inevitable defence review. It is all a bit stupid because each of the 3 services depend on the others; the Army (for example) could have all the tanks in the world but without air cover or strategic maritime transport they are of no utility.
I want to know what policies he speaks about which will improve the recruitment numbers
British Army 2026
3 Armoured Division – 1/12/20 Heavy Brigades – each of:
1 Armoured
3 Mechanised Infantry
1 Heavy Reconnaisance
1 Heavy Artillery
79th Strike Division – 4/7/11 Strike Brigades – each of:
1 Light Cavalry Regiment
3 Infantry Regiments
1 Light Artillery Regiment
5th Light Division – 38/160/Gurkha/Guards Brigade – each of:
3 Infantry Regiments
1 T/A Artillery Regiment
– Guards Brigade has 3 Regiments 2 of which handle Public Duty
– Each Brigade takes turns to provide Infantry to Cypress/Northern Ireland/Brunei
16 Air Assault Brigade
3 Parachute Battalions
Territorial Army
2 Armoured Brigades – RWXY and conversion of QOY to armour – this allows the 1/5 armour rotation. Each brigade has – 1 Tank/3 Mechanised/1 Heavy Artillery/1 Heavy Reconnaisance (covert both SNIY and RY to Ajax)
6 Light Infantry Regiments provide support to – Guards/Para/Commando/38/160/Gurkha Brigades
3 Regiments convert to Boxer to provide support to each 79 Division Brigade
Disband 8 Rifles (there’s my cut lol!)
Vehicles:
Challenger 2
Boxer – IFV/CRV/APC/120mm Mortar/Engineering/Artillery – both gun and MLRS/Air Defence (CAMM module)/Ambulance/Command/120mm LP gun variant
Ajax – Heavy Reconnaisance platform
Griffin 3 – with 50mm auotcannon to replace Warrior
RMWIK/Cougar/Foxhound
Guns
Purchase next Generation US Army SP Gun for Heavy Regiments (100km + Range)
Mobile 105mm for Strike Brigade Artillery
M777A2 purchase so that each T/A Artillery Regiment has 2 Light/1 Heavy Battery
Chris
Yes please.
The problem the army has is it created a weak 1(UK)Div and dressed it up with the minimum of capabilities. An easy target for cuts perhaps? That said, if you need Light or Protected Infantry force it would be the MoDs first port of call. Given the need it could also be given the capabilities to fight a more conventional, high end, war fighting role. I say resource it a little better and give it a role or combination of roles like mountain, artic, air mobile, jungle or urban its brigades can hang their hats on. We all know they could do all of those things but giving them a speciality will make it a whole lot harder to cut them. Give a formation an identity beyond a simple number and suddenly its has more worth.
When it comes to cuts to the RN you could argue that they went too large with their Aircraft Carriers at the expense of the surface fleet. Such large ships and their escorts are costly to run. You could say that the RAF invest too much in high end airframes when simpler designs would have been as or even more effective in some of the campaigns we have fought.
I believe we need everything we have and more. You need a range of capabilities that can be mixed and matched to fight every fight. There is no way the Armed Forces would get away with saying we can’t do this or that. Our politician’s and our countryman would expect us to be able to do it all. At 2% of our GDP perhaps they would be entitled to say that, but only just…
Ah…1 ( UK ) Division. The Elephant in the armies room.
Could not agree more.
That formation needs, for its 3 main brigades, which seem to be the 7th, 51st, and 4th Infantry Brigades –
3 each of – Artillery Regiment, Engineer Regiment, REME Battalion, Logistic Regiment, Medical Regiment, Logistics Regiment. 18 units. Oh and we need the RMP too.
18 units. Just where do they come from. The army has preserved so many cap badges while scrapping the enablers.
As for Signals, could the lighter Brigades get away with just a Signal Squadron? There used to be Brigade Signal Squadrons, but now with the explosion of ICS we have Regiment sized units with the main deployable Brigades.
The only support immediately to hand are the 3 regiments of Light Cavalry on Jackal.
Promises easily made & often broken. It’s amazing how much money they can save by not doing stuff the nation’s relied on before, just so the richest can not be tired by taxes us plebs have to pay.
We must become stronger than we currently are as we’ve not been weaker for centuries.
They bloody better not reduce the numbers of regulars in the Army, it’s small enough as it is now.
Mind you…,with the amount of young, oversensitive soy boys and limp wristed liberals in the Armed Forces, I’m not even sure that they’d do well in a crisis anyway