UK reaffirms plan to ‘double lethality’ of British Army

Thanks mate!

Your thinking is radical.
On crime, I presume you would take away crime investigation from the service police, and leave them to their other duties. Not sure what the advantages of that are. I see an advantage in service police investigating criminal activity by service personnel or that by intruders who have committed crimes in military locations – service police understand the military world, have the respect of the chain of command and have access to classified sites etc.

I mentioned the RNs operations against drug smugglers on the high seas. If we created a British version of the US DEA would they get ships and do that?

Intel. I understand the difference between SIGINT and Intel. Are you proposing that the army disbands its infantry recce platoons and armoured recce regiments and Intelligence staff at formation HQs and have a civilian company do that? Of course not. But what do you propose?

Hi RDM.
A few complications with that.
Crime:
MDP cover the civil side in the UK, for all three service. However, the uniformed RMP, RAF Police and RN Police all deploy as needed into war zones, which a civil force cannot.
Drugs:
The RN and thus wider military involvement in Drugs is minimal already. If a RN OPV detains drug runners as a part of its duties while deployed that is surely a positive. The SAS in the late 80s were directly assigned to Colombia but I don’t think that sort of commitment happens now in that sphere.
Intel:
Glad you don’t mean SIGINT, as the 3 services contribute directly to the take of GCHQ in terms of personnel and collection assets.
So what areas of “Intell” did you have in mind?
Battlefield intelligence for force and unit commanders is a large part of the Intelligence Corps work, 2 Battalions are assigned to our Field Army.
Civilians could not do this work.
HUMINT: The DHO / DHU is involved here and replacing it with civilian only assets, or just people from the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service is also a no no, as the DHU goes into war zones.
ELINT: See SIGINT.
MASINT: See SIGINT.
GEOINT: See SIGINT. ( 42 RE and the NCGI )
IMINT: See SIGINT. ( DIFC, JFIG, and so on )
You will find a considerable number of civilians working in DI back in London, but here again in the analysis and research functions there are tri service military embedded.

“MIx already have access to Mil Intel, but are out Military force!”

What do you mean by this please?

Cyber: Directly affects military operations and is being embedded at all levels going forward, it cannot be a simple case of civilian only effort through the Agencies.

“broken down to a number of smaller company’s!”

The units assigned to Cyber are small already, so what do you mean by this?

So, I do not agree with you.

It’s something I thought was likely. Never trust a Governmental politician, such as Reeves.

That’s ridiculous, very disappointing indeed.

Yes of course it included Ukraine money, they increased the overall budget and Ukraine money was part of the budget so obviously it includes Ukraine money.

Defence spending is getting real terms increases though and the last few years it’s been getting real terms cuts.

Painting that as we are all doomed or that we are some how a lesser power and an embarrassment to the USA as Paul T was doing is at worst inaccurate. Everyone in the world from the USA to North Korea, China and Russia are all economically f**ked just as we are. Most are cutting budgets in real terms or reducing planed increases like China.

We are in real terms doing marginally better.

It’s certainly nothing for us to be ashamed at like Paul is saying.

When Reeves said there’s going to be x amount of money which will keep Defence payments in line with the economy, it was pretty obvious the best we could expect was no change in terms of GDP over all. I didn’t know what the trick was going to be, but if she had planned to increase Defence spending as a percentage of GDP, that would have been front and centre.

I agree with you. This lethality aspiration needs some detail to be provided by CGS. The replacement of upgraded Warriors (enabling a 40mm stabilised cannon per section) by Boxer dramatically reduces the infantry’s lethality….unless the army staff really can a lethality of Boxer beyond a MG… but we have heard rumours only so far.

Perhaps You should go back and re read my comments because I have no idea how you picked up that I’m comparing the US and the UK defence budgets. Are you aware what the phrase real terms increase means?

Have you come across relative and absolute measurements before?

As for the manpower vs lethality debate.

Is an armoured vehicles more or less lethal than an infantry soldier ?

Is a multiple launched rockets systems more or less lethal than a shoulder mounted missile?

Are you aware of the process started in the army a number of years ago called mechanisation?

If you are not then let me explain. Machines can kill more people than people so if you spend more money on machines and less money on people then you generate a more lethal force.

This process worked out particularly well for the Germans in 1940 in France.

As it stands its all words.
I can only suggest he means in terms of response time by better ISTAR queuing precision weapons onto target.
Which although good, is not want most posters think of in those terms and without firepower or people, difficult.

Yep think were on 5-12 🙄

So would I, as I know the ORBAT and can see it for what it is.

I didn’t make the comment. You did. Take responsibility.

How would the British Army go to war with China?
Forget sizes, how would they be transported there and where would they land?!
The army needs to concentrate on Russia and organise itself to put SIX proper all arms brigades in the field, 2 Divisions, not the mash up that exists now of Brigades being in two places at once and without CS CSS.
The RN can do the China thing, though I’d hope we stay away and support the US by relieving US units from other areas and hold strategic points.

On the army, just to add to your morning pleasure, rumours on Twitter of a reduction to 63K floating around.

Maybe Starmer, Reeves and Healey will wake up and pay attention when Trump asks allies to spend more in their own interest and own defence?
I’m sure he won’t hold back when the cuts come in.

Add GBAD and the comments on doubling MRAD and Tripling SHORAD
Add Drones in all forms.
Intelligence and technology, augmented by Drones and AI, is where we are heading.
Still need enough “deployable” mass though which is why im holding out in Wavell giving 2 Proper Divisions from the headcount we have, not the 80k or 90k the army wouid like.
Alongside this, the RN, RAF and intell community as ever remain the primary areas for me.

The As90 pot is just about empty only in Estonia now and Archer after what I have been told today it beggars belief

Indeed,job one role changes for some of the brigades

if we look at 1st division

11 brigade, what is the point of a brigade that is simply nothing more than 4 light role battalions..essentially get rid of 11 brigade entirely and use the manpower and resources to ensure other brigades are balanced and fully deployable.

Essentially anything 11 brigade could do 4th light brigade could do with large number of light role battalions..that’s all the light role ( excluding airmobile) that’s needed, infact if you needed the manpower you for other support functions you could drop a light role battalion as it has 6. But 4th brigade does need an organic artillery regiment and CCS.

7th light mechanised brigade, really needs a couple of its infantry battalions in proper APCs not just light protected mobility vehicles.

16air assault, could do with some more lethality around its fires.

With 3rd Division,

1st brigade, is essentially now simply cav and artillery that needs one of the 2 armoured brigades to deploy with it. I think the army needs to stop pretending it’s an independently deployable brigade, it’s not as it has no infantry. Personally I think they should keep three MBT regiments and give 1st brigade an MBT regiment and some armoured infantry or mec infantry battalions. If they think the modern battlefield needs more cavalry and artillery for the deep battle then they should ensure each of the deployable independent brigades has more fires and Cav..not shove it together in one brigade that has no heavy armour or infantry and reduce your deployable heavy brigades to 2.

so for me..scrap 11 brigade completely and us it’s manpower to:

1) turn 1st brigade back into a fully deployable heavy brigade…with heavy armour and mec or armoured infantry..use the excessive Cav and artillery regiments to bolster cav and artillery in all the deployable brigades ( if you need more cav and artillery for the deep battle then every brigade should have it, as it’s unlikely the British army will ever deploy a full division in one place again and almost all large deployments will be brigade level at best).

2) strengthen 4th light brigades support ( as well as some more artillery and cav) and increase its mobility with light protected mobility vehicles.
3) make 7th light mec a bit heavier with APC.

That would essentially give the army 6 deployable brigades, three heavy (1st 12th 20th) with MBT, armoured infantry or mec infantry and heavy self propelled fires. Then 3 infantry brigades, all air deployable if needed, with organic cav, artillery and CCS.

While I agree with the general sentiment, some of those numbers are REALLY optimistic:

Italy might have 10 Brigades on paper, but:
Pozzuolo di Friuli is basically a Marine Battle Group.
Granatieri di Sardegna is a non-deployable garrison unit for the Capitol
Sassari lacks any organic Artillery.

Germany has 8 Brigades but (depending on what you’re counting)
The Franco German Brigade is obviously a mixed brigade.
Panzer “Lehr” Brigade 9, Panzergrenadier Brigade 41, Luftlandebrigade 1, and Gebirgsjaeger Brigade 23 all lack any organic artillery (and the Divisional Artillery is limited to one Regiment for the 1st and 10th Panzer Divisions, and non existend for Division Schnelle Kraefte).
The KSK is a special forces formation.

Let’s do apples to apples then shall we? Because if you’re counting Italian Brigades that are basically battalion groups or fixed in the capital, then why aren’t we counting 11 SFAB and the London District, if we’re counting German and Italian formations that are lacking organic artillery, then why aren’t we counting 4 Brigade which at least has reservists aligned to it, or 1 DSR that’s lacking infantry?
If we’re counting the KSK why aren’t we counting UKSF and the Rangers?

Apples to Apples, while we are still small (and yes Spain has a large army, they just don’t seem to do a lot with it), but not as small as you are making out.

(Britain also retains overseas garrison units btw we just bury them within 4 and 7 Brigades instead of giving them their own commands)

Thanks for the detailed answer.

Options for Change cut the reg army from 160,000 to 120,000 following a considered analysis as to what the post-Cold War army required. We also ordered a mere 386 tanks for ops in the brave new world.

‘Options’ warned of the possible need to face a resurgent Russia but did not ‘predict’ the Gulf Wars which required a sizeable army commitment or anything remotely like Op HERRICK in Afghanistan.
Multiple cuts since to 102k, then 95k, then 82k and now down to 73k have all been to save money and not because the Threat possibilities have reduced.

Many, especially senior US officers and politicians, have said that our army failed in Iraq and Afghanistan – and that in part was due to our light troop levels (I firmly believe we needed an Inf Div in Helmand) ….and this was many years before before cuts to 73k.
If we really did fail on TELIC and HERRICK, might the army certainly fail in the next major operation with its even more depleted numbers?

Even if a Labour politician sometime over the next year shouts from the rooftops that we can contribute a Corps to NATO, we know the rather shocking reality.