Senior defence officials have told MPs that the UK must learn lessons from Ukraine’s war without assuming Britain would fight in the same way, stressing NATO integration, supply chains and rapid readiness rather than replicating Ukraine’s battlefield model.
Giving evidence to the Defence Committee, Lieutenant General Anna-Lee Reilly said comparisons with Ukraine needed to be treated carefully, warning against drawing the wrong conclusions from a conflict fought under very different conditions.
“You always hear that we talk of not fighting the last war and preparing for the next war,” she said. “It is important to say that, as laid out in the strategic defence review, we operate in the UK under the NATO umbrella and there is a NATO first philosophy.”
Reilly told MPs that Ukraine’s armed forces were fighting an existential war in circumstances that do not translate directly to how the UK and its allies would operate.
“We would fight in a very different way from the Ukrainians,” she said. “They are fighting an existential war and do not operate in the same way that we would if we were fighting. We need to be careful to learn the right lessons.”
That distinction, she argued, shaped how the British Army should be structured, balancing high-end capabilities with systems that can be produced and replaced at scale.
“That brings us back to the way the Army will be structured, with the exquisite capabilities and then the more disposable capabilities off the back end of it,” Reilly said.
Pressed by MP Fred Thomas on concerns that the UK would struggle in a peer-on-peer land war similar to Ukraine’s, Reilly framed the issue less as doctrine and more as industrial capacity. “From my perspective, sitting where I do, this is about supply chains,” she said, quoting a warning from her US counterpart after Russia’s invasion. “‘Our supply chains are at war. We just don’t know it yet.’ Our procurement agencies are as well.”
She linked that assessment directly to current defence planning. “That is what you see with the strategy on munitions, what you saw in the strategic defence review, and what you will see in the defence investment plan. It is about being ready as quickly as possible and being able to respond.”
The session also touched on readiness beyond weapons and munitions, including equipment for serving women. Reilly said progress had been made on combat clothing but acknowledged ongoing shortcomings. “Women are not small men, as it turns out,” she said, adding that the most difficult challenge remained body armour, particularly ballistic plates.
She highlighted work with NP Aerospace, which is developing female-specific armour plates now being tested for use by Ukrainian forces. “If they pass the testing, this will be a global game-changer,” Reilly said, noting that success could ultimately feed back into UK procurement.
Do I think the U.K. army is ready to fight a war even as a NATO member , absolutely NOT. One clear lesson from Ukraine which does apply is that artillery is king. We just give Ukraine all of our AS90s , where are we in procuring a replacement , other than a pitful 14 Archers , errr we are thinking about it, really hard HONEST.
Where are we in making 155mm shells, we have narrowed the new factory down to four location , still thinking about it Really Hard. The Challenger 2 has been remarkably successful in Ukraine , shrugging off hits that destroy Russians tanks, status getting there at a snails pace, storm Shadow FINALLY restarted building more. F35 procurement .
Fleet subs stuck in port due to lack of dry dock resource.
There is absolutely ZERO URGENCY . Our supply chain is already at war supplying Ukraine while rearming ourselves.
Its utterly depressing. Whats the point in increasing the defence budget if its just goingto go to more projects that will be shelved and countless meetings?
They keep telling us we need to prepare for a war in at least Europe, maybe the Pacific within three to five years. But what is the MoD doing about it, to sum it up, they are thinking about it “ Really hard”
Yup, I’d hate to be a high-ranking officer in the military. Trying to improve the military with both hands tied behind your back.
Its utterly pathetic. The opposition should challenge Labour and threaten some form of penalty for endangering the UK when they come to power nothing else will shift their inactivity.
We cant allow this to continue.
Absolutely, we should be building up our military and civilian infrastructure rapdily, i.e, more shipyards, ports, factories etc. Not just in Scotland but spread out and I’m aware there’s skill shortages but again, that can be solved to.
Its going to take a ruzzian missile to hit a British town or city, with casualties for something to be done, when in reality we can do it now. We have the brains, the resources and despite what people say there are people willing to fight for the country.
I would be happier if the person giving evidence had knowledge of commanding frontline troops and had come up through the infantry or armoured regiments.. I don’t believe that the army is capable of much anymore, more’s the pity. Infantry decimated, no arillery to speak of and a couple of undersized armoured brigades with old tanks. We would be hard pressed to fight on the beaches and in the hills……
They put on a world class parade though, they excel at ceremonial duties. They have more horses than tanks come to think of it!
The statement that we need to be careful learning the wrong lessons is valid and so is that we would fight differently. However, what baffles me is it seems no lessons are being learnt. No new capability has been added or planned to be added, no real change in priority of purchases etc. Just more of the same, which I think is a huge mistake that will likely cause issues in the future.
Valid but just more talk. Not her fault, she was answering questions, but when are we going to do something useful.
Geoff, we used to call your perspective that of a ‘G3 snob’. I’m not being rude, honest. General Anna-Lee’s perspective from DE&S is worth having. [She served on operations in Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia]. Commentary from those in the Teeth Arms (serving or retired) has been heard before.
The General rightly cautions against assuming that the next war in which our forces fight would be a replay of the Russo-Ukraine war and also talks about focussing on industrial capacity and supply chains. Hitler did not appreciate that his country was inferior in that regard …and lost the War.
I’m not really having a pop at the lady in question. I’m just so fed up with the constant barrage of nothingness coming out of Whitehall.
Please, do tell about the Army structure, Lt General Reilly.
We’re establishing Divisions that have 2 manoeuvre Brigades, ( 12,20 and 7,4 ) where’s before they had 3, each also with a DRS Bde and the usual logistics Bde. ( 3 DRS,101 and 1 DRS,102 )
We’ve established a second Deep Recc Strike Brigade by stealing some of the assets of the original one. That’s not expansion, it makes the Army look bigger on an orbat diagram with a “new” Brigade.
Reported on X, which I follow closely, there is currently a lot of deck chair shuffling going on in the CS and CSS areas of the army, with little publicity. Regiments and sub units of said Regiments are apparently being shuffled about to try and give the impression the CSS exists to support the army we have, which clearly isn’t the case. 1 RLC has reportedly been moved from it’s Armoured Brigade to the 3 DRS Brigade, which has never had any regular CSS formation since its inception beyond 6 REME. In BAOR days, the Corps and Divisional Artillery had Regiments of the RCT to carry the ammunition. 3 DRS Bde had nothing until this change beyond a CSSG from reservists. Why?
Because the Army was happily cutting CSS elements all the way up to Strike 2015, while preserving Infantry Battalions.
In doing this, it seems that we now have an Armoured Brigade with no CSS as it’s been nicked to cover elsewhere.
I hope in due course a CS Regiment will be provided for it.
How about Lt General that the Army stop the smoke and mirrors can do bullshit, talking of disposable effectors as you’re doing and actually DETAIL the orbat for study and organise enough CSS to support what little we have?
Because till then, it’s spin of the higgest order just as the RN example concentrating on toy boats to deflect attention from the facts that there are too few real warfighting ships, subs, planes, and helicopters.
With talk of expanded recruitment, I hope to see our formations fully supported by CSS and CS RA Regiments in due course, because at the moment there are gaps all over the place and one Brigade doesn’t even have Artillery, Royal Engineers, or RLC regulars supporting it, yet it’s part of 1 UK Division.
Other nations would move to amend this idiocy, why is it ok for the British Army to put up with it?
Hi Daniele, this govt obviously keeps its cards close to its chest. Watching the media speculation feeding frenzy around the budget I have some sympathy. I do believe there is a plan and process: strategy first then equipment requirements > supplier selection > budget funding> orders and orbat. In other words, they won’t say anything about orbat until the budget for the equipment is approved and the deals for with suppliers are in place e.g. Babcock land and building a plant to assemble Patria 6×6 in Sherford. An awful lot of ducks have already been lined up. Ditto for Nurol Makina in Leamington Spa and the additional Babcock hall in Rosyth. So I reckon that come Jan 5th when the DIP is published they will hang the orbat decisions on the back of the equipment plan. We will know what future equipment is planned for each unit.
Hi Paul.
I always appreciate your posts, for your positivity.
Yes, I concede, stuff has ans is happening on that side.
My cynicism suggests the budget doesn’t exist for what HMG themselves accepted in the SDR.
Leaving the Army playing it’s never ending shell game, which I see through easily enough.
Well, Daniele, I admire your mastery of the Army structure and capabilities. I agree that the budget is likely to be insufficient to fund an ideal implementation of the SDR. We have to hope it is enough to deter aggression. The Army has the biggest problem. It’s going to be interesting to say the least what they come up with.
Danielle, you probably know that General Reilly is serving back-to-back tours at DE&S so Structure is ‘not her bag’. I find it refreshing to hear the view from a very experienced DE&S senior officer, looking at Industrial capacity, procurement and supply chains.
I do wonder if the single-service staffs are working on respective Structures post-SDR. Not so long ago that work would have been published in a Defence Command Paper a few months after SDR. Now, will it somehow be crowbarred into the DIP?
Thank you, Graham.
If UKR had been rerun from t=0 then Russia would have faced an overwhelming UK/NATO response and the tank parade phase would have been mashed up by air power.
What happens when the high tech munitions run out and it turns back into trench warfare is something else entirely. Although it can be assumed the UK NATO would own top cover level what is going on at low level with MANPADs is a different story.
My concerns are more around the second part of this.
I totally believe that UK alone could degrade the Russian Air Force to such an extent that it no longer presented a threat.
I also believe that RN/RAF could deal with the Russian surface fleet.
My doubts are around Russian submarines and attritional long term warfare.
Of course we would fight different, it would last about 3 days and we would have lost! Ok a little tongue in cheek, but our only real strength now lies in the membership of NATO. As that member of NATO, we are now mostly relying on our hard earned reputation as opposed to our real time current capabilities. Yes we have a few niche platforms and capabilities but they are few and far between and like the rest of the military have absolutely no depth whatsoever. Nothing will be done, certainly for the next few years, aside from soundbites, bullshit and lies. These clowns in Government don’t really care about the UK, they are international no borders Socialist and defending and supporting your own country is not in their DNA or mindset. Also the Parliamentary Labour party are currently running the Government not the cabinet, and they mostly are more concerned with their tiny majorities, mostly held up by minority voting groups, who have their own off shore agendas!
Exactly.
Same was true of the Tories. Just big money looking after itself at everybody else’s expense.
The problem is The Ten Year Rule
The British government, first adopted in August 1919, that the armed forces should draft their estimates “on the assumption that the Britain would not be engaged in any war during the next ten years”. Unfortunately this has not been rescinded, especially in the Treasury and the Admiralty.
“nobody could say that from any one moment war was an impossibility for the next ten years. We could not rest in a state of unpreparedness on such an assumption by anybody. To suggest that we could be nine and a half years away from preparedness would be a most dangerous suggestion.
In 2010, the Royal Navy decided to retire HMS Ark Royal, Britain’s only aircraft carrier, in 2011. This was five years earlier than previously planned and up to ten years before the planned entry into service of the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. A group of retired admirals criticized the decision, calling it a new “10-year rule”. “No it the same one.”
You could not steam HMS Queen Elizabeth to Berlin in 1939, and today you still cannot send HMS Queen Elizabeth to Berlin, or Moscow or even Kyiv.
They counter this by saying on “Paper Britain has two War Fighting Divisions” “On Paper” they are not very good on Paper
We need two War Fighting Divisions on the GROUND, full manned and equipped to fight a peer adversary.
Damn right we would. We’d fight it without an army worthy of the name, with no heavy armour or artillery, no armoured recce, no IFVs to support the infantry. The 2 forces can’t be compared!
As regards the Russian threat, I think first priority after home security and resilience against grey zone attacks on lifestyle essentials – power, food distribution, transport, banking etc is a basic GBAD defence against cruise missiles and Shahed style drones using Typhoons, Sky Sabre and effective ASW. I think the Ukrainians are even using machine guns fired from helicopters. Maybe those Army Wilcats and Hawk gun pods will come in useful for something. Along with this GBAD we need the proposed UK- German 2000km ballistic missile to deter IRBMs.
China is a more subtle problem. They are infiltrating our universities and politics.
A sensible person would be looking at off the shelf options for use against drones. A buy of APKWS rockets at tens of thousands per shot v the million plus per shot of meteor or hundreds of thousands for ASRAAM would be a sensible option, they could even be used against anything on the ground or at sea that’s not heavily armoured. I hate the thought of buying American but right now needs must, we need to add bite to the handful of fast jets we have without it costing millions per shot. Bang for buck just doesn’t seem to be part of anyone’s thought process though.
Not an expert but you don’ t have to pay Asraam or Amraam prices. The Ukrainians are trialling their own night sight technology with m/guns. I think Martlets also work. APKWS on Wildcat might also work, fit them to Tucanos.
As grater minds than mine have pointed out above, the once proud British army is now reduced to (if they are lucky) a 2 week wonder and it is delusional that a high ranking army officer can defend this shadow of its former self. What she should be saying is that we (the UK’s Forces) should be looking at how the Ukrainians are innovating and inventing on the hoof (which use to be a very British way of fighting) to help fill some of the short falls we find our selves with due to 30 odd years of slash and burn to the UK’s armed forces.
I was going to say that the bleeding obvious might be needed to be pointed out for the public and we shouldn’t be too harsh on such obvious commentary, but I see I over estimated the comments section. No chance missed to rubbish the army these days eh?
If we where called up we’d give a good account of ourselves, it’s a small force, but people seem, as ever, to be keen to forget that the small force would be deployed on a small part of the front, not the entire length like the Ukrainians are. We are short on artillery, but not bereft, as we still have our 105’s, which have given a good account of themselves in Ukraine, an increase in MLRS, and the small number of Archers. Yes the RCH’s need to come off the production line sharpish, but that’s a mess Sunak left us with alas.
No one is trying to rubbish the Army, if/when the war with Russia dose darken out door steps then the British Army with do what it always dose and what the Ukrainians are doing at the moment “making do with what they have got” but with little to no reserve, little to no spear parts, little to no stockpile of ammunition and complete areas of expertise missing it will equate to a lot of needles extra casualties. We are having ago at the worthless SOB’s that have been responcible for the current state of not just the Army but the RN and the RAF from our political elite to the Civil Service and even some of the upper command elements in the forces over the last 30 years who’s short sightedness and/or corrupt practices has led us to this moment.
Absolutely. We just want the tools to do the job & not waste lives due to political incompetance. Even now there is I think 2.5 billion “savings”(cuts) demanded of the services despite the glib spin of more funding.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia has been able to gain anything resembling control of the air, which has resulted in a resemblance to WWI tactics that probably wouldn’t be applicable to other conflicts. Modelling of likely conflict outcomes during the Cold War looked nothing like WWI, but it did involve massive casualties and vast amounts of high-end kit being wiped out in very short order. A war of attrition was not expected because there was no possibility of replacing men and equipment at anything like the pace that both sides would be losing them.
Obviously! We’d start with a far tinier army etc, use under-25s, have little ammo & practically zero equipment reserves, a government that has virtually zero planning & successive governments that appear to aim to deliver the UK into authoratarian regime hands with minimal resistance short of Armagedden. Air/missile/drone defences virtually zero, no air/missile raid shelters. No Churchillian/Zelenski calibre leader & our main ally has gone over to the dark side.
Worse it seems we’ve forgotten most the lessons of the 1930s & WW2. We maybe should wake up to the fact that we probably should’ve intervened militarily to make damn clear to Putin that we never would allow UKR to fall & taking on NATO will only result in defeat & devestation for Russia. That is the way to deter authoratarian aggression, a lesson Trump needs too as he’s in the exact same mold proposing anexing Canada & Greenland while throwing UKR to the Russian wolf.
It is not just the lessons of previous conflicts. Between the 1st & 2nd WW’s they used the naval treaties of the 22, 30 & 36 to make some major cuts to the RN. but used them as excuse to cut the budgets of the Army and redistribute it to the RAF. They then did the same after ww2, cutting the army, yet not the navy of the RAF. The army has the biggest PAX numbers , yet the lowest major project cost. Army is the Treasuries’ favourite target for cut and burn. cut after ww2, cut after Korea, cut after Malaya, Cut after the withdraw from east of Suez. Occasionally the RAF gets hit, usually when the Americans are involved. Look at the Harrier and more importantly TRS-1. As soon as the project was officially cancelled all documents and drawings where brought together and destroyed. Next all production jigs were cut up and send for recycling.
what we need to do is learn from previously. first stockpile Ammunition: 5.56x 45mm ball, 7.62x 51mm ball, 0.5 cal, c4 and equivalent, demo kit. 60mm mortar + Ammo, 81mm Mortar + Ammo, , 120mm Mortar, Ammo. Hosko equipment field fortifications equipment and supplies, ie timber, steel sheeting RSJ’s. poly sheeting. PVC sheeting, medical training on defence equipment. tentage, food supplies , water treatment equipment. artillery, escort vehicles, service vehicles, water, fuel supplies MP. ____
Aggregate PVC sheeting , PVC concrete , sand, gravel. bricks. wood.
MBT’s. APC’s, fast air. transport. we must stockpile these items in numbers and quantities and quality. WE need to practice storing them, and supplying them i quality and in the quality needs and supply quality.