Britains Armed Forces too small?

OKay - here's the answer to a post I replied to. I hope this ansas the question. If not, plese U2U me for an explanation.

Quote, ' (My source is the in-house IDR magazine, prepared, edited and published by Strategic Studies Institute/DI5/DI6) ' End Quote

The British armed forces are fine.

We have well trained professional troops and good equipment.

We don't need a huge military force as we don't have a large empire to look after anymore.

At the end of the day, in peacetime, you only need enough troops to defend your borders and I believe we more than have that ability.

If anyone was to invade the UK (not likely) then the people would take up arms and be trained by the forces or ex-forces.

The size of the British military is perfectly ok for the size of country we are.

In my original reply to this thread, I agreed that small was best - at least a smaller armed forces is more professional.

But my main point was this.

Since Labour came to power, they have slashed efence spending in real terms by £3.5B in the 1st term and by £2.5B in the second term. Coupled with force reductions and cancelled projects, the total cut in defence spending is close to £10B.

Having said that, defence spending has risen this year by some £2.5B, but this is not for new equipment. This is to keep forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and the mounting costs in aviation fuel and ordnance and the spare needed for vehicles and a/c.

Whilst I agree that a smaller armed forces is required to protect this country in peacetime, this is not the case at present.

We are fighting 2 wars, one a low intensity counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan and the second, an almost full scale war in Iraq.

Please do not let the politicians fool you! They may have told you the war in Iraq is over but, from talking to those who have served out there, it most certainly is not over and in certain Iraqi provinces, it is actually escalating.

Coupled to this fact is that for whatever reason, Labour has increased
operational tours to 2 in 18 months for some units with even the part time Territorial Army having to undertake operations in either Afghanistan or Iraq in 2 years.

The unit I work for, came back from Iraq last April after a very hard tour and they are off to Afghanistan this November. So much for the Weekend Warriors!

And Labour also got rid of the Scottish regiments... Huge mistake for future recruitment.

The sooner we vote them out the better.

What use is an armed force in peace time, apart from taking over every time the fire-fighters want a 30% pay rise? It's not peace time that worries me, it's the lack of troops when war-fighting is involved (trust me, i've been in enough wars to know what i'm talking about).

As for training up a mass of new recruits when war comes along, I think that this is a daft idea. It takes 3 months to get a recruit through phase 1 (basic) training. For an infantryman, it's another 3-4 months for phase 2 (depending on role) before they reach their unit. This is when they start to learn their trade properly. What happens in the 3-6 months that it takes to train these recruits?

Cough 20 rounds per man cough.

Cough we're understrength for defending britain COUGH

Cough how we going to defend gib and falklands with less than 50 ship fleet cough

Conscription: near revolution.
Wouldnt make a diffrence.

So you think we should be sending our reserves to iraq because we are so low on troops?

Have you got a cold or somthing devilswap?

Wow DW you are a master at being inconspicuous when making your points, tell me, what’s your secret?!

He pretends that he has TB. No one ever suspects the sick bloke.

I DO agree with you that we have sufficient troops and a/c to defend the UK from hostile acts.

Whilst I am no naval expert [apart from contemplating my own], it appears to me at least, we do not yet have the quantity of warships to protect our coastline or range far from the shore - North Sea or Atlantic Ocean.

I think the argument about force reduction, mainly the brainchild of General Mike Jackson, is that it has gone too far. True we have enough troops to defend the UK - but who will invade us?

Where it has all gone horribly wrong is in the operational deployments and the strains placed on members of the armed forces.

There are too many places around the globe where British forces are involved and too few Battalions/Regiments to undertake them.

From April next year, there will be fewer units to take part in the UK's vision of the New World Order. Simple.

We dont, plain and simply we dont have enough ships.
We dont have enough people to man them and we dont have enough weapons to arm them with.

The RN is in a terrible state , at the mo we have no Air coverage for the task force except ship based missiles and side winders.

What world order, seems we'll become the 52nd state...



Easy...just train with the marines for a while and you soon learn when to be quiet and when to deafen your enemy.

[edit on 26/02/2005 by devilwasp]

Whos the 51 st state ?

Does canada not count lol?

I suppose so

Well more money may help but i think we should look at the Russians in respect of getting value for money from military weapons, just look at the infamous AK-47 or the cost of the Mig compared to the American Tomcat (ah I just awoke memories of Top Gun lol) of course there are those who would say the Tomcat could 'own' a mig of the same era any day!

In terms of threat analysis well WWIII could break out any day in the current world climate its sad to say - or at least thats the image projected in the media....

What's with all the coughing devilwasp? Do you need a halls soother mate?


We have well trained professional troops and good equipment.




Reply: I'm sure it's not that low and if it is really a necessity to defend our country we can manufacture it ourselfs or buy some if we needed ammo really quickly ie under 24 hours.



Reply: We've got about 400,000 forces personnel including reserves. That's quite a bit.



Reply: Planes?



Reply: Not conscription when you volunteer? also in reply to Paddyinf, i'm not and never have been in the forces, but I don't imagine it takes 6 months to teach someone how to shoot a gun. I imagine there would be a lot of inner city small arms fighting, so the fitness requirements of the british army wouldn't be required in my opinion. The people of Britain would just help as much as they could to aid the forces.



Reply: I think we shouldn't even be in Iraq in the first place. That's the result of bad government going against the majority of the people. Plus I think if you join the reserves you sign up to the possibily that you may be sent to war? I appreciate it's not ideal but if they are needed then there's not much we can do.

*removed nasty comment*

(It wasn't that nasty, imo)

I just said if your going to reply devilwasp, would you please mind not to be so sarky next time. Thanks.

mod edit:

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[edit on 30-4-2006 by UK Wizard]

[edit on 30-4-2006 by Snoopdopey]

SA-80A2 is a decent rifle but frankly mate its a target rifle not an assault rifle, you can get a marksmen at 500 yards to knock down every target but it does jam and frankly the land rover fault finding system is....dodgy. If something isnt visibly or audibly wrong with the land rover DONT use it, aka if the windows dont leak then its probably got seomthing else wrong.



Then you obviosly never looked at news then did you?
Squaddies trade armour with off coming patrols to make do, we sspent less money on ammo last year than we did for anything else.


www.democracynow.org.../06/17/1425239

The above is concerning the RMP soldiers who died in iraq due to bad planning, overstretched resources and lack of equipment.


400,000 is only 4 times the number of the BEF in world war one they only JUST held the german army at bay with bolt action rifles, frankly we dont have the man power to defend the falklands or gibraltar. FACT.
The RN is only going to be using probably what? 9 destroyers? You count how many type 42's there are now and compare the numbers, no matter how powerful it is we dont have the ships to defend our coastline.
The RAF has no long range ability, if a country hit us beyond tanker refueling range we wouldnt be able to hit them, FACT.
The british army does not have the ability to fight a war away and defend britain , FACT.

Oh and one other note, the type 23's and 22's IE frigates are still in service and there is no plan to replace them as of yet.



You think we will defend gibralter or falklands with torndaos and typhoons? Yeah ok mate, just asking how you going to fly them to gib first BTW? VIA spain or ascension island?

Falklands has what? 4 tornados there....and imagine the logistical NIGHTMARE of sending any RAF squadron down there! Hell the navy has no air to air capbility anymore unless we're going to start using stingers.


Your telling me we will suddenly make everyone voluenteer for military service? No mate you seriosly overestimate how willing young men are to face death in the face. Young men will more likely think it smarter to either get on with thier lives best as they can or more precisley walk away.

Ha, it takes me like a week to teach a cadet how to fire a weapon and maintain it but that person will most likely not be a marksmen or be a decent shot I must say. First week I used the L-98 cadet GP rifle (SA-80A1 on single shot) I didnt even hit the target, hell I didnt even hit the sand!
In truth it takes about 6 or 7 weeks to make a basic soldier but in truth it takes longer to make a real soldier. Hence why the british army has probably the longest training time of any army.

Ever tried carry a bergen or an LSW during a fire fight with like 200 rounds of ammo?
Its heavy and it knackers me out and I used to paddle 4-8 miles twice a week for 4 years, I know marine cadets who carry less than that and have had one faint on me half way through section attack. You know carrying 2 rifles and half dragging a fainted cadet is not easy.


No they would do what any sane person would do: walk away and try to live thier lives, society now aday is cowardly and fearful.


Fact is we are there, no use griping about the who, whats and whys now that its over and blood is STILL being spilled....I reserve that until the last shot is fired.

Fact is reserves are there to support regular forces and bassically provide a standby emergancy reaction force and defend the country while most of the army is away. Theyare not there to REPLACE the british army when its manpower is axed.





Cant help it, its my nature.

devilwasp, your info man! - WHERE DO YOU GET IT FROM??

i'm not going to reply to all your post now because i'm off to bed, but you make out theres ONLY 4 tornadoes defending the whole of the falklands:-

www.raf.mod.uk... (scroll down to the bottom)!!

the mount pleasant base in the falklands isn't there to win THE WHOLE WAR if a falklands scenario happens again, its there to hold the argentines up until a further deployment is made by the british.

*waits for the whole what are we going to deploy with reply* - come on then mate feed us with more false information!!

say how the type45's lack in numbers

when just 'one' type45 destoryer = more firepower than all the fleet of the type42's PUT TOGETHER (i have links to back me up)!!

we've got 11 type42's in operation at the moment - 8 CONFIRMED type45's (with another 4 a posablity) on order.

me personally even though the type42 is a good warship, id rather have 8 type45's rather than 11 type42s (wouldn't you honestly)?

i also like the way you make out ONLY THESE will be defending out coast line

we have other ships dude!!!








[edit on 3-5-2006 by st3ve_o]

Not strictly true!

Many infantry regiments have been amalgamated into 'super regiments'.

The Scottish former regiments have been allowed to keep their regimental names in full - unlike the English regiments.

So would you rather be in The Black Watch, 3rd Batallion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland or 1st Battalion, The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire).

At least you know where 'Scotland' is I have mates who have no idea what a 'Mercia' is!!

Well mate I am right about the frigates and the ammo, I have links to validate both of them, the RAF tornado thing is something I didnt check up on.



What forces?
The 1 aircraft we will deploy?
The 5 or 4 destroyers and 7 or 8 frigates?




Mate the type 45 is a fine ship but frankly I'd like more than just 9, we wont get 11 you and I know that.



I would rather have 19 type 42's than 8 type 45's.


Well they will mate, we dont have cruisers, we dont have an air borne carrier group unless you think 1 sqdrn will be covering the entire of the north sea and the atlantic?

Not for long.....take a look at what ships we have left IE look at defence statistics and look at our numbers..
The RN is understrength, the army is understrength and so is the RAF.
The RAF couldnt afford to buy bullets for 1 sqdrn of eurofighters man!
The RN cant afford to buy weapons for the type 45 for another YEAR.
THe Army cant afford body armour for the troops man, the MOD is getting in a bad shape because of 1 thing: BUDGET CUTS.

If nelson seen our fleet now he would have probably cried!
The RN although still a force to be reckoned with is in no position to fight a war by itself, hence why it said that in the navy plan for 2005.