The Status of His Majesty's Armed Forces....

[MikeKozlowski]

...Money quote:

Britain’s armed forces are so depleted that the country is not ready to fend off an invasion, the defence secretary has warned.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... D=ref_fark

Mike

[David Newton]

That isn't Labour's fault. It's definitely an inheritance from the morons in the Conservative party.

However, I'm sure Starmer et al are thinking up ways to make a bad situation even worse!

[Pdf27]

In other news the Treasury is currently holding a spending review, the results of which will be announced at the Budget on Wednesday. Stories such as this (as well as leaks about the disbandment of high-profile units) are something of a UK tradition immediately before the Budget.

[Zen9]

...Money quote:

Britain’s armed forces are so depleted that the country is not ready to fend off an invasion, the defence secretary has warned.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... D=ref_fark

Mike

HMG has already facilitated the invasion by mass printing of visas
The invasion is going well, the natives kept passive and the quislings administrate the process with gusto.

Seriously more illegal immigrants arrive over the course of two years than hit the beaches of Normandy.

HMG has no intention of defending the UK.

[Lukexcom]

HMG has already facilitated the invasion by mass printing of visas
The invasion is going well, the natives kept passive and the quislings administrate the process with gusto.

Seriously more illegal immigrants arrive over the course of two years than hit the beaches of Normandy.

HMG has no intention of defending the UK.

So there is a way to make Unternehmen Seelöwe work!

[Zen9]

HMG has already facilitated the invasion by mass printing of visas
The invasion is going well, the natives kept passive and the quislings administrate the process with gusto.

Seriously more illegal immigrants arrive over the course of two years than hit the beaches of Normandy.

HMG has no intention of defending the UK.

So there is a way to make Unternehmen Seelöwe work!

It's always been the way.
Caeser had local chiefs assist and obviously Claudius did. Both essentially invited Rome in.
The 'Saxons' (it's complicated) were hired to fight the Picts....which we did, so never let it be said we didn't stick to the contract

The 'Vikings' (also complicated) got stuck into dynastic politics in various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. They lost (won) by being converted to Christianity (actually to being English).

The Normans got lucky and found enough quislings to show them the ropes that they entrenched themselves, married (by force) enough of the old aristocracy they couldn't be ejected.
The Stewarts were invited in to avoid another civil war ......never let it be said life isn't comedy!

The House of Orange was invited in to remove the Stewarts.

The Huguenots just bribed their way in.
The Jews got lucky because Cromwell thought doing so would bring the Kingdom of Heaven about. .....and less about the first time the better.

[Craiglxviii]

The Army is way too small. 80k, with 30 infantry battalions and an under strength armoured division.

The Navy isn’t in a bad place with the T26s and T31s building. It’s worth pointing out that a T26 is roughly twice as effective as the old T42 batch 3- and it’s not a dedicated AAW ship.

We have two major fixed-wing carriers, really good design, crews love them and we’re kicking off MRSS, the new amphib class (6 ships).

Submarines- we could do with another 4-5. Luckily someone in Whitehall had an attack of common sense around 4 years ago, recognised that the Astute programme hadn’t been… optimally run, that the Dreadnought programme had gone much better and decided to run the Astute replacement (SSN-R) directly following on from SSBN builds. So whilst we aren’t there yet, we should be in about 12-15 years.

The RAF is taking delivery of its Fat Amy’s/ Battle Penguins and has enough Typhoons to reenact the Battle of Britain at 1:1 scale. The A400M has evolved finally into an excellent bit of kit and the A330 MRTT has massively improved our tanker transport capability.

So, more kit? Yes please. Tanks, helicopters and more helicopters. But we we really need more personnel.

[Zen9]

The really good news is connected to AUKUS, and the increasing educational throughput for nuclear. Frankly a derth of staff is worldwide and the concern is even this isn't enough.

Considering the rumblings over nukes from all sorts of European states. The best way to constrain them is UK and France expanding our arsenals. Not the US which irrespective of Trump or Kamala is less and less viewed as willing to defend Europe.

One might make a case for Sweden and more NATO siting of joint US weapons. But these moves stir the pot a bit too hard and will see pushback.

[Straker]

In terms of the army it is probably a fair description.

Essentially we don't have any artillery capability outside of towed 105mm light gun, GMLRS and Exactor both which we don't have a huge stock off. Apparently the introduction of Archer to cover the AS90 given to Ukraine is taking longer than expected.

Although Challenger 3 is going to be a good tank its years away and not been purchased in sufficient numbers. The introduction of the Ajax family into service is hugely over budget, behind schedule and not that technicaly ambitious e.g. no mask mounted sights or tethered drone which was proposed as far back as the mid 1990's on a cut down Warrior chassis (and arguably a vehicle of almost MBT size for recce in the drone age isn't a great plan longer term.)

We don't have an IFV capability any more and the Warriors that remain in service are being used as a armoured recce vehicle substitute for Ajax that when the programme was proposed years ago was firmly stated as being too large for the role...

Frankly the army has squandered huge amounts of money for very little output as of yet, even simple programmes like the introduction of Boxer have taken over 10 years after we decided to leave the project and looked at Piranha 5 instead.

The elephant in the room is around numbers of infantry battalions vs other capability. By far the majority of our infantry is light role and arguably less mechanised than the BEF units that deployed to France in 1939. They are frankly a speed bump in modern armoured warfare especially if the complex terrain they need to survive armoured attacks can be bypassed. We have some good anti tank systems but they aren't at a low enough level e.g. NLAW which was intended as a squad or platoon level weapon are normally only used as a Javelin alternative by the battalion level support company. The 1980's airmobile infantry battalions had a far better anti-tank capability against the threat of the time vs a light role battalion today.

Some battalions are also massively under manned from poor recruitment and frankly have been for the past 15+ years (especially if you discount Commonwealth recruits.)

Battlefield medium lift helicopter has been repeatedly kicked down the road from a lack of funds and is being cut down by penny packet purchases to cover things like Cyprus and Belize of cheaper platforms. A decent argument could be made for the army to lose Wildcat entirely in exchange for more medium lift but it won't happen despite the Joint Helicopter Command (joint until budget time...)

Edited to add: Losing 2 light role infantry battalions manning and giving them to the navy would essentially solve its manpower issues for no noticeable loss of army capability. Then just to actually pay the RFA enough so they don't stay on strike.

[Pdf27]

The problems the Army has are fundamentally self-inflicted, over a very long period. Ajax for instance has been in the works for over 40 years, with hundreds of millions being spent on projects which were later cancelled. Even Ajax - which finally seems to be more or less working - has had a pretty cursed development programme with lots of problems deeply redolent of the Nimrod saga.

Just in the past few years, it's hard to see what has gone right:

1. Challenger replacement is going to be a dead-end vehicle with no export potential and limited numbers. Far better to have taken Leopard 2, upgrade it with UK systems/armour package, and do a deal with the Germans to allow us to export it free from German export controls.
2. Boxer appears to be an excellent bit of kit, but of course we screwed up by leaving in 2003, nearly re-joining, spending a load of money developing something "special" under FRES, scrapping that, doing nothing for ages and then eventually re-joining Boxer in 2018. At least we're finally getting it, even if only in some variants.
3. Ajax is the latest iteration of a badly mismanaged programme which started in the 1980s, demonstrated some phenomenal potential along the way (VERDI-2 should have been bought to replace CVR-T in the mid-1990s from what was still a hot production line) and still isn't working fully.
4. AS-90 would have been fine if maintained properly - bit of a theme here with the other vehicles. The replacement plan is reasonable, but being done on the fly largely due to the lack of spares forcing it out of service early.
5. Warrior CSP wasn't nearly as well managed as people trying to keep it going have claimed. Cancelling this and keeping Ajax was probably the correct decision.
6. The various MRAPs are sticking around, mostly as a Saxon replacement (4 tonner in a tin). Only OK if they're cheap enough to run which they probably are.
7. Units are almost procuring their own rifles - the Marines and Rangers ran their own project to buy M-16 derivatives (Project Hunter), at the same time as the rest of the army is looking to replace the L85A3 with something similar to it (Project Grayburn). Special Forces already use something else, meaning three manuals of arms, three supply chains, etc.
8. Speaking of the Rangers, what is their actual war role apart from pretending to be Special Forces a long way away from anything dangerous?

[Calder]

Personally, as the selfish American here I would rather GB focused on their Navy and Air Force and let their Army wither somewhat of the 3. I don't think you have the economy to fully support all 3 so I rather you focus on what you have historically been great at. Besides the Navy and the Air Force would be VERY useful against China who I see as the bigger enemy.

[Craiglxviii]

Personally, as the selfish American here I would rather GB focused on their Navy and Air Force and let their Army wither somewhat of the 3. I don't think you have the economy to fully support all 3 so I rather you focus on what you have historically been great at. Besides the Navy and the Air Force would be VERY useful against China who I see as the bigger enemy.

The silly thing is that there is plenty of economy to support all 3. There’s plenty of economy to support all 3 at twice the size of we wanted to. There’s enough ridiculous fat in enough areas of public spend never properly scrutinised to cover that. Put in context the total defence budget is £58bn. For example, the agreed Civil Service wage rise for 2024/5 cost £9.4bn… around 20% of all public spending (low value contracts) is automated from “spend catalogues” to reduce delays in acquisition time, usually with lip service paid to cost effectiveness. To give you an idea, I have recently had personal sight of enough public spend waste to pay h to e wages of ten battalions per year. So, the money’s there, just being wasted.

[Simon Darkshade]

What is the purpose of a nation’s armed forces? To defend their own interests or to act as an expeditionary adjunct to a foreign semi-friendly power? I would say the former.

The argument that the British economy is not large enough to fund all three forces, as well as being rebutted by Craig, can be further disagreed with on grounds of the size of that same economy. With 3.34 trillion USD, the cupboard is not bare. Funding each with 30 billion quid/39-40 billion USD would need 3.5% of GDP, or a huge jump from the present anti-defence policy, but it would not be physically and conceptually impossible.

Britain barely has an RAF useful for any actual shooting war with China, and has a deliberately small RN that would not be useful short of doubling in size, getting back more than one FAA fighter squadron and more unlikely events.

[kdahm]

Has there ever been a time, outside of Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution and the short period after a major war, where it is commonly agreed that the English or British defence establishment is widely accepting as being sufficient? I mean, where the major parties agree that it's enough without being excessively large.

[Pdf27]

What is the purpose of a nation’s armed forces? To defend their own interests or to act as an expeditionary adjunct to a foreign semi-friendly power? I would say the former.

<snip>

Britain barely has an RAF useful for any actual shooting war with China, and has a deliberately small RN that would not be useful short of doubling in size, getting back more than one FAA fighter squadron and more unlikely events.

Uh... you're contradicting yourself here. What national interest does the UK have in getting into a shooting war with China? They're a hell of a long way away and the Empire is long gone. If we're fighting there the only realistic scenario is as an adjunct to the US.
An additional note is that given the long distance between the UK and any potential point of conflict (Europe is very much at peace right now), any forces that are of use to us need to be of an expeditionary nature. Which rather blurs the distinction between the two in practice.

The argument that the British economy is not large enough to fund all three forces, as well as being rebutted by Craig, can be further disagreed with on grounds of the size of that same economy. With 3.34 trillion USD, the cupboard is not bare. Funding each with 30 billion quid/39-40 billion USD would need 3.5% of GDP, or a huge jump from the present anti-defence policy, but it would not be physically and conceptually impossible.

Again, what interests are served by doing so? Fundamentally we don't have a dog in any of the current or potential future flashpoints with the arguable exception of Ukraine where the aggressive power (Russia) borders onto countries with which we have a treaty alliance (Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, etc.)
The net result is that we're using what was in olden times referred to as "The Golden Cavalry of St George" to support Ukraine and cripple Russian offensive capability without the need to fight ourselves. This has been British policy for centuries, and allows us to play to our strengths as an industrialised trading nation without needing large or powerful armed forces.

[Zen9]

This has been British policy for centuries, and allows us to play to our strengths as an industrialised trading nation without needing large or powerful armed forces.

One small problem with this.....we're no longer an industrialised state and hemorrhaging more industry as time goes on.
With increasingly expensive energy prices private investment in such is reducing and the state coffers to fund state efforts is small....and expansion is fraught politically.

We rely more on trade and this is centred in The City and Finance. Outside of which the UK is amongst the poorest in Western Europe.....

Considering the level of debts that the state has racked up, repayments now dwarf things like Defence.

And it's not as if we're "per capita" getting richer, quite the opposite in fact. So not much scope for private finance to come anybody's aid. In fact large numbers of millionaires seem to be leaving for some reason.

The Golden Cavalry of St.George isn't what it used to be......

Not that I'm sure we could expand the military anyway, even if we got past the Managerial Elite's opposition.

[Simon Darkshade]

What is the purpose of a nation’s armed forces? To defend their own interests or to act as an expeditionary adjunct to a foreign semi-friendly power? I would say the former.

<snip>

Britain barely has an RAF useful for any actual shooting war with China, and has a deliberately small RN that would not be useful short of doubling in size, getting back more than one FAA fighter squadron and more unlikely events.

Uh... you're contradicting yourself here. What national interest does the UK have in getting into a shooting war with China? They're a hell of a long way away and the Empire is long gone. If we're fighting there the only realistic scenario is as an adjunct to the US.
An additional note is that given the long distance between the UK and any potential point of conflict (Europe is very much at peace right now), any forces that are of use to us need to be of an expeditionary nature. Which rather blurs the distinction between the two in practice.

The argument that the British economy is not large enough to fund all three forces, as well as being rebutted by Craig, can be further disagreed with on grounds of the size of that same economy. With 3.34 trillion USD, the cupboard is not bare. Funding each with 30 billion quid/39-40 billion USD would need 3.5% of GDP, or a huge jump from the present anti-defence policy, but it would not be physically and conceptually impossible.

Again, what interests are served by doing so? Fundamentally we don't have a dog in any of the current or potential future flashpoints with the arguable exception of Ukraine where the aggressive power (Russia) borders onto countries with which we have a treaty alliance (Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, etc.)
The net result is that we're using what was in olden times referred to as "The Golden Cavalry of St George" to support Ukraine and cripple Russian offensive capability without the need to fight ourselves. This has been British policy for centuries, and allows us to play to our strengths as an industrialised trading nation without needing large or powerful armed forces.

1.) I’m not contradicting anything. It was Calder, not I, who conjured up the notion of British forces being a useful adjunct to the US over China. I was strongly disagreeing with that, with the second part that you quote being the supporting evidence for that - the British Armed Forces aren’t there for the interests of ‘selfish Americans’, and even if they were (for some reason), they are too small to matter, all other issues aside.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see that my point was unclear here.

2.) Again, I’m sorry, but I don’t see any advocacy for the example here. It is simply an illustrative example of how the British economy is not so small that it “can’t fully support all 3”.

The 30 billion quid was conjured not as a figure I was directly advocating here, but simply demonstrating that such a budget, which would be ~ 3rd or 4th in the world, is not physically impossible, as I viewed the implication of what Calder wrote.

I do believe you’re barking up the wrong tree here.

[David Newton]

Europe is very much at peace right now

Erm no it isn't. We're certainly not in a state of general war by any stretch of the imagination but the continent is currently experiencing by far its largest war since 1945. Only two European nations are directly fighting each, but add proxies and almost the whole continent is involved. Stick North Korea into the mix and Iran into the mix then it gets even worse.

[MikeKozlowski]

Europe is very much at peace right now

Erm no it isn't. We're certainly not in a state of general war by any stretch of the imagination but the continent is currently experiencing by far its largest war since 1945. Only two European nations are directly fighting each, but add proxies and almost the whole continent is involved. Stick North Korea into the mix and Iran into the mix then it gets even worse.

Very much concur. I think myself that we're at the Spanish Civil War on the timeline.

Which, with the entry of the Norks, is starting to look more and more like the original.

Mike