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UK Armed Forces
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Thanks to everyone's input to my other question(s) in 'This country is sh*t' (18/02/05).
Should the government put more money into the defence budget? Do we really require an Air Force, an Army and a Navy? If so, what should be the main priorities for these forces? Where, and in what situations, should they be used? Any other thoughts on the MoD?
Should the government put more money into the defence budget? Do we really require an Air Force, an Army and a Navy? If so, what should be the main priorities for these forces? Where, and in what situations, should they be used? Any other thoughts on the MoD?
Answers
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Personally I think that the UK forces are a massive force for good. The amount of peace keeping work on land, patrolling waters and protection in the air that they provide has a major effect. The last few years have seen many defence cuts, mosts of which in my opinion simply hone down a force to a more useful size, and better focussed to the tasks in hand. Im not sure that government should spend any more on the forces (other than in emergency money to respond to events), but the very varied roles that we currently fulfil, and the people that depend on the work of our forces mean that the budget should not be further cut.
Governments (either Labour or Tory) shouldn't keep using the forces as an easy target for saving cuts, (taking advantage of military regulation against descent). The level of military medical support is especially a joke, reservist & TA personnel constantly being called up to cover the gaps. As for priority, both Gulf Wars have shown if you've not got air superiority you will struggle to move anything around by land or sea. The First Gulf War especially demonstrated you can smash an enemy to high heaven but you still need ground forces to finish the job. Iraq today shows you still need troops on the ground to stop insurgents moving freely around and engage them at every opportunity. The Navy need to priorities amphibious support from the air (e.g. the new aircraft carriers) and ground. This all comes at a cost. If the British Government wants to have a global presence and play with the big boys in world affairs they ( or rather we) have to pay for it.
I work as a civil servant for the MOD. Already there have been major cutbacks in all three services and the RAF alone is 1/3 the size it was in the early 90s. More and more bases are being closed, fewer aircraft, operational ability etc. and now aiming for a rapid reaction force rather than a full blown military force.
Put it this way, if the Falklands War kicked off again the UK wouldn't be in a position to do what they did in 1982. The only option the UK would have is park a Nuke sub off Argentina.
The Royal Navy is already removing the Sea Harrier and between 2006 and 2014 it won't have any air-to-air interceptor capability/defence until the JSF (if!) comes into service.
I agree that the services should be streamlined, most of the cuts made in the 90s were filled by low paid civil servants. Now the civil servants and more servicemen are being cut once again. Problem is when will it end? It's okay putting all your eggs in one basket (as in the case of the bases) but it would be very easy to ground the entire RAF that way (attack a few airfields and you've just defeated the RAF).
The 3 current aircraft carriers will be replaced by 2 larger carriers, but still only for STOVL aircraft. That means still no collaboration with other aircraft carrier fleets (i.e. sharing carriers with other countries in times of conflict).
Anyway, the main priorities are:
1. Depend on the US to back us up.
2. Depend on NATO to back us up.
3. Hope no one attacks us.
4. Deploy forces as world peacekeeping/rapid reaction force.
This government should put more into the MoD system - full stop. our boys and girls are getting the job done but they lack equipment that should be issued by their respective force. Its terrible that soldiers should have to go to army surplus shops to get combat uniforms, boots, and even bullet proof vests. Their rifles are useless unless mantained properly and they lack certain types of ammunition. what is going on?!
The Royal Navy took has lost 12 ships to budget cuts and they havent been replaced. Surelly they should be replaced first and then sold or scrapped. They lack adequate ammunition quantities for practice drills and there capability is limited by useless goverment officials who sit in �3000 office chairs in the new state of the art MoD building in Whitehall. Geoff Hoon has got it all wrong...this fella ought to be put in a pair of boot and a uniform and sent out to Iraq and see how our boys and girls manage with not just personal worries but with military trivia as well.
P.S. the Merlin "plastic" helicopter in use with the Navy is completely useless and a death trap to everyone who goes near one and why hasnt the Eurofighter come into full operational service...how embarrasing.
For the 1977 Queen's jubilee the Royal Navy mustered over 130 warships off the coast of Portsmouth. For the 2002 jubilee they couldn't even get 6 together. The current strength of the navy is 40,000 serving members. In the next ten years it will be cut down to 20,000. KebabMeister is right in that the three current aircraft carriers (one of which is in mothballs) are being replaced by two 'larger' carriers. Manwich is right about the Merlin helicopter. It has taken over twenty years to come into service and was already obsolete fifteen years ago. There is talk of mothballing the entire Merlin fleet because they are not up to the job, after billions of pound have been spent on the project.
Manwich, I work with the Eurofighter, there are many issues why it hasn't entered front-line service yet, although it has entered training service with 2 RAF squadrons.
With German reunification, they put the whole schedule back many years. That's the problem when you have to work in a consortium. However, when it does enter service it will be one of the best fighter aircraft in the world. Don't believe all the negative newspaper hype, much of what they publish is either not true or extremely misleading/out of context. Take it from someone that knows!
However, when it does enter service it will replace the Tornado F.3 and Jaguar GR.3 (which they only just upgraded at a cost of millions). Our government really sucks!
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