reply to post by Itop1
Indeed. Most of the redundancies in the Armed forces are coming from civilian staff, which at the moment the MoD outnumbers the entire Army in terms
of manpower! Most Army redundancies are for long serving NCO's who have already exceed their 22 years and have stayed on as rolling contracts.
The RAF is slimming fighter squadrons because they simply are not needed. We have several, highly advanced UCAV programmes, including Corax, which
will provide strike capability.
The Navy is getting several new destroyers and bidding has begun on the Frigate replacement programme. The reason "some" bemoan the cuts is
A) They have been mislead by media hype
B) Don't understand our capability
C) Aren't aware of future procurement
The next 7 years will be a slightly dodgy time in terms of overlap between cuts and procurement, but the Government is still following the strategic
commitment of the UK being able to deploy forces the world over. What people also forget is just because ships and planes have been cut, they aren't
all binned or sold straight away. The UK has a massive fleet in reserve, just bobbing around in Portsmouth, massive amounts of reserve soldiers,
hundreds of aircraft and tanks are sat in storage and some of the world's most advanced weaponry.
The UK always has maintained the ability to deploy two brigade sized missions anywhere in the world. Combine this with our Allies and the fact we have
no Naval Air cover at the moment is irrelevant. We can, if needed in the case of Libya, fly Air Support from the UK, France, Spain, Cyprus or Italy.
No need for carriers where this is concerned.
EDIT: As for the whole "it's about the Oil" nonsense. So what if it is? Our military and Government are here to look after
OUR national
interest, not anyone elses. If a country that supplies a vast amount of our fuel suddenly cuts us off, then we should be prepared to
intervene.
edit on 25/2/11 by stumason because: (no reason given)