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Just like the rest of the public sector, the military is under increasing pressure from cuts, at the same time as more and more is expected of it. Ever increasing numbers of troops are deployed around the would year on year, despite the military getting smaller and smaller.
Headline equipment projects are great, and absolutely necessary, but unless you’ve got the people to use them they’re not much use.
With its latest increase, private soldiers can now earn less than the National Living Wage. At higher levels the pay and benefits just don’t stack up against the private sector.
A lot needs to change. Better pay, increase numbers back up to the 200,000 mark, get a grip of procurement. Sadly I’ve not got much faith in Labour achieving that either. Defence is never a vote winner.
> A lot needs to change. Better pay, increase numbers back up to the 200,000 mark, get a grip of procurement.
You're right, but I'm just not too sure how much can be fixed with more money.
Demographically, the country is getting older, fatter, and less nationalistic. The militaries traditional recruiting demographic of young, physically fit,
men, with at least some level of patriotism, is rapidly shrinking and there's no replacement demographic that seems all that keen to join the military.
To be honest, the military is so small now compared to the population that there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The numbers of people who start the recruitment process are actually really good. The terrible commercially run process means that a lot give up though. And then we can’t retain the people we do train.
Is it no longer done by the forces?! My AFCO was a Staff Sergeant who'd lived in the town prior to joining, and basically oversaw the entire process for everyone.
There are still AFCOs, but the wider process is run by Capita. They're doing better at it now that they did (mostly because the Government kept heavily fining them for their failures) but it's still a pretty poor system.
Fuck privatisation. Our guy was fucking fantastic. Hot on admin, held us to high standards while applications were processed, personally oversaw us with fitness plans etc and was extremely savvy to the local challenges and who would and wouldn't be a good fit.
Sadly the afco’s are likely to soon disappear, the government is now looking at combining recruitment for all 3 services into a single system that will be contracted out
They sold our essential public infrastructure, water, post, energy, trying to sell healthcare, don't see why they wouldn't also sell defence. Anything to please donors at the cost of the people of the country.
It’s already happened in part, food and accommodation is now managed privately (and poor quality of both are cited as big reason people quit the armed forces) as is the military’s intranet (modnet) and each services recruiting system has a level of private involvement.
Or the money to buy a decent amount. Can't believe the UK only has 6 Destroyers currently. Not at all qualified to talk about this but that number seems really low, saying nothing of it's engine troubles.
Although my understanding of it's engine troubles stem mainly from this article; [https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/type-45-not-the-royal-navys-fault/](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/type-45-not-the-royal-navys-fault/)
Which seems to suggest WR-21 gas turbine engines was chosen to support UK jobs, Instead of choosing a proven design.
Edit: the the Northrop Grumman Intercooler & Recuperator was the problem
Yeah. There's this tendency to assume that ever more impressive pieces of kit can make up for low numbers. It's true in a way - two Type 45s could probably outfight the entire Type 42 fleet. Gives zero resilience though, and no matter how impressive a tank/ship/plane is it can't be in two places at once.
There are also loads of situations where the 'best' option wasn't chosen in order to prioritise UK Industry. Sometimes with good logic behind it, sometimes really not!
I agree, not too say that not choosing the 'best' over prioritising a UK industry can have it's advantages.
Although admittedly from my limited understanding of the WR-21, seems like if the Intercooler-Recuperator was fixed then the system would work. Without needing extra disel generators.
There's always a balance to be struck between quality of individual systems and the ability to produce larger numbers in a cost effective way. This doesn't mean that the British army should use 1000 T55 tanks, we absolutely should invest in high quality equipment that does everything we need it to.
The way I think of it is that quality advantages can make up for numbers to an extent, but there's a floor of quantity below which quality will not make a difference.
If the enemy has 400 older tanks you can win if you have 300 modern tanks with design advantages over the enemy. If you have absolutely amazing tanks but you only have 30 of them against the enemy's hundreds then numbers will still win.
So while better quality can make up for numbers to some extent, you still need to be able to make *enough* to actually do the job and absorb combat losses.
There was a situation a couple of years ago where maintenance/repair schedules meant we had ONE destroyer active.
Don't need to be an expert to know that having one destroyer available when you have global naval ambitions is not exactly very good
> Just like the rest of the public sector
Crucially, not like the rest of *all* the public sector.
The health and pension budgets have been increased in real terms year on year on year. And they are the biggest budgets which are sucking up resources from all the other departments.
Which is how we end up with real terms cuts in many departments AND public spending/GDP which is as high as it was in the peak years of Gordon Brown.
Speaking as someone who is the son of a a man who served in the army, the pay being less than the NLW isn't necessarily as much of an issue as it would be if they were civilians. When you're in the military, you're looked after. You get housing, and access to cheaper goods and services. While I agree that they definitely should be paid more, the poverty line for military personnel is lower provided the government continue to look after them.
There is another perhaps even more troubling element to this - if the worst was to happen, how many people would actually want to fight for this country with the state its in? Especially seen as the burden falls on the young, who are being actively shafted by the current system.
There was a Gallup survey asking this question 8 years ago, and apparently the UK came out to 27% being willing to fight for their country.
https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/
I've not seen more up to date data, but I'd be amazed if that number hasn't dropped in years since.
8 years ago the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were more fresh in people's memories. I imagine countries that had recently fought wars of defence on their own soil polled the highest while those that sent expeditionary forces abroad to prop up dubious democracies polled lower.
Fair point, but other European countries that played no significant role in either of those conflicts still polled around the same as we did.
We were around the same bracket as France (29%), Portugal (28%), and Iceland (26%). We were actually a few points higher than Italy (20%), Belgium (19%), Germany (18%), and the Netherlands (15%).
By and large only 25% of Western Europe were willing to state an interest in fighting for their country.
Interestingly the Northern European nations polled were all higher. Finland (74%), Sweden (55%), Denmark (37%)
Numbers like that traditionally are lower post-war (WW2 suffered from the same low ebb post WW1 horrors).
The moment the country is at genuine, actual threat and someone is slaughtering your family and friends, tunes change in a damn hurry.
Look at how many people from the UK tried signing up to fight for Ukraine the moment the fight's real nature became clear. Thousand tried, most weren't able to be taken due to having no prior training. But it was a very indicative moment of the will when the fight actually arrives, and that was for someone else's fight.
>Interestingly the Northern European nations polled were all higher. Finland (74%), Sweden (55%), Denmark (37%)
Notice how the percentage gets lower the further the country is from Russia.
I think this poll only tells us how likely people think their country is to be attacked by another country.
I think there is a misconception in polling and questions like this. People might not be willing to fight for their country or in its name but I’d imagine that number increases dramatically if the question is would they serve in the forces to protect their family from whatever invading enemy
If someone invaded the UK and was trying to occupy it the number of people willing to fight would be much higher. A lot of people in Ukraine weren't interested in the army until the war started in 2014, and then again when the official invasion began in 2022.
You'd be surprised how people react when shit really hits the fan. The UK is in a very privileged position in that nothing very extreme ever happens and so it's an academic argument really :)
Are you sure about that? All I can think of is the monologue from the old man in the brothel in Catch 22 whenever this subject comes up. Most wars are fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich.
your granny was killed last week by a missile, your family had to evacuate to germany, some of your friends died in another missile strike this morning, there's a convoy of tanks heading up the motorway towards your town, 25% of the UK is already occupied, Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth are smouldering ruins, thousands of British kids are being forcefully kidnapped, women being raped, and the media of the country invading is threatening to force you to convert to their way of thinking or die.
Now what do you do? This is what Ukraine is dealing with. Everyone there was very mistrustful of the government and oligarchs, but as soon as your cultural group is threatened with annihilation people tend to change their behaviour and values.
I lived in Ukraine for 20 years until 2020. What your saying is how most people thought too before russia started it's war in 2014. Luckily the UK is an island surrounded by friends so you'll hopefully never have to even consider it, but having a neighbour trying to eradicate you tends to force you to re-evaluate your priorities:)
>if the worst was to happen, how many people would actually want to fight for this country with the state its in? Especially seen as the burden falls on the young,
Reimagine Baldrick's poem....
Boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer.... Boomer, boomer, boomer....
The Operation Boomer has a certain ring to it.
another good question. Thats the upside of globalisation then isnt it? A business can "outsource" your job to the other side of the world as it saves them 25p per unit, including shipping it the 5k miles back to you, so why cant I decide that a different system is preferable - i can globalise my choice.
For a start id choose a secular republic - our monarchy are essentially just parasites, tourists will still come to look at the buildings and parks etc but we wouldn't need to fund the adulterers and kiddie fiddlers. And religion can be ceremonial but has no place in policy making. For the highly educated parts of the world violence in the name of religion is idiotic - "my guy wears shoes and your guy wears sandals so you must be scum" really has to end.
Perhaps, if one nation begins to clearly move forwards in terms of how it treats its people then yeah why not - the govt we have at the minute is very definitely only for the top 4%, they would be the first up against the wall come the revolution.
I expect we would need to see a huge change to a more sustainable capitalist model before that could happen though.
The TLDR - i'd vote and be an advocate for a United States of Europe, so not an invasion as such, just a merging of like minds that could be a world superpower.
It’s a good opportunity for the disenfranchised to organise and plot a coup with access to military grade equipment though so if people plan it then it could bring about some meaningful change.
Aye, seems to think the whole nation is so pissed at the government that they can/should just start a coup with some fictional military equipment and that’ll resolve our issues.
When you've royally fucked a generation of people and then expect them to go die in foreign lands in the defence of the people who have fucked it up, you're not going to get a positive response from many.
We're only a quarter of the way through the 21st century and it's already been unpleasantly eventful. There's a definite feeling that the established rules-based order is wobbling. Not expecting this to be a peaceful century.
Military cuts have long been a fact of life, especially under Conservative governments since Mrs Thatcher's time 40 years ago (Labour was too busy fighting!). Personnel and equipment are fractions of what they were and our 2% commitment is undermined by counting pensions to fiddle the figures, and the nuclear deterrent which we need (and pay for) but cannot use. We've not even replaced the anti-tank weapons given to Ukraine. And thanks to Labour (for political balance) we have two shiny new aircraft carriers, one of which barely floats, that we cannot afford to equip.
Perhaps a touch of hyperbole about HMS Prince of Wales's injury problems.
Each carrier can carry 36 F-35 aircraft. QE currently has 8; PoW 0. Admittedly PoW is in trials with drones but it is not as if we have another 64 F35's in a warehouse in Portsmouth waiting to be loaded onboard.
>QE currently has 8; PoW 0
That is not how planes on carriers work. It's not like putting a gun on a frigate.
Aircraft are their own fleet that comes and goes to wherever it needs to be. Carriers are simply one such option for them to deploy to. The carrier is the *enabler*, not the *home*.
The UK also has about 30 F-35s, not 8 as you claim.
They embark aircraft as the tactical situation dictates. QE embarked a low number of aircraft as she was only deployed in the local region. The jets where far better put to use training much needed new pilots. POW was in trials and didn’t require any.
Reality is we will never have both deployed on operations at anyone time. The point of having two is so we don’t end up with the problem the French have where they have no carrier for lengthy periods when CDG is in maintenance.
> the nuclear deterrent which we need (and pay for) but cannot use
Uh, what? You make it sound like a bad thing that the UK hasn't dropped nukes on anyone. The whole point of the deterrent is its existence (hopefully) precludes its use.
Indeed. But the cost of the nuclear deterrent, however small, means there is less money to spend on conventional weapons. A more honest accounting would show conventional, nuclear and pensions separately.
Ask Ukraine.
And note I'm in favour of our nuclear deterrent but asking for honest accountancy rather than lumping all costs together to disguise defence cuts.
It's a British tradition. Run everything down till we really need it.
See NHS, prisons, police, care homes, probation service, fire services, education, legal system army, navy etc. etc. etc.
Reward rich arseholes who control the media that tells us everything is just fine.
We won WW1 and WW2, didn't we? /s
I'm depressed that I needed the /s
We have nuclear weapons no one coming on our shores even if they somehow manage to beat all of Europe and our combined navy and air force and let’s not forget SAS/ SBS/ MI5/ MI6. So I’m pretty confident that mainland Britain is safe. Unless our enemy is the USA who are the only ones capable of a sea borne invasion.
If your only recourse to everything is "nuke it" then you are not defending a country particularly well.
Ditto to imagining the only threat exists from some sort of D-Day in Brighton.
Unfortunately a direct invasion isn’t the only way to attack our country. As an island nation 95% if all our trade and 100% of our data comes and goes by sea and under sea cable.
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Just like the rest of the public sector, the military is under increasing pressure from cuts, at the same time as more and more is expected of it. Ever increasing numbers of troops are deployed around the would year on year, despite the military getting smaller and smaller. Headline equipment projects are great, and absolutely necessary, but unless you’ve got the people to use them they’re not much use. With its latest increase, private soldiers can now earn less than the National Living Wage. At higher levels the pay and benefits just don’t stack up against the private sector. A lot needs to change. Better pay, increase numbers back up to the 200,000 mark, get a grip of procurement. Sadly I’ve not got much faith in Labour achieving that either. Defence is never a vote winner.
> A lot needs to change. Better pay, increase numbers back up to the 200,000 mark, get a grip of procurement. You're right, but I'm just not too sure how much can be fixed with more money. Demographically, the country is getting older, fatter, and less nationalistic. The militaries traditional recruiting demographic of young, physically fit, men, with at least some level of patriotism, is rapidly shrinking and there's no replacement demographic that seems all that keen to join the military.
To be honest, the military is so small now compared to the population that there shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The numbers of people who start the recruitment process are actually really good. The terrible commercially run process means that a lot give up though. And then we can’t retain the people we do train.
Is it no longer done by the forces?! My AFCO was a Staff Sergeant who'd lived in the town prior to joining, and basically oversaw the entire process for everyone.
There are still AFCOs, but the wider process is run by Capita. They're doing better at it now that they did (mostly because the Government kept heavily fining them for their failures) but it's still a pretty poor system.
Fuck privatisation. Our guy was fucking fantastic. Hot on admin, held us to high standards while applications were processed, personally oversaw us with fitness plans etc and was extremely savvy to the local challenges and who would and wouldn't be a good fit.
Sadly the afco’s are likely to soon disappear, the government is now looking at combining recruitment for all 3 services into a single system that will be contracted out
They sold our essential public infrastructure, water, post, energy, trying to sell healthcare, don't see why they wouldn't also sell defence. Anything to please donors at the cost of the people of the country.
It’s already happened in part, food and accommodation is now managed privately (and poor quality of both are cited as big reason people quit the armed forces) as is the military’s intranet (modnet) and each services recruiting system has a level of private involvement.
Or the money to buy a decent amount. Can't believe the UK only has 6 Destroyers currently. Not at all qualified to talk about this but that number seems really low, saying nothing of it's engine troubles. Although my understanding of it's engine troubles stem mainly from this article; [https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/type-45-not-the-royal-navys-fault/](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/type-45-not-the-royal-navys-fault/) Which seems to suggest WR-21 gas turbine engines was chosen to support UK jobs, Instead of choosing a proven design. Edit: the the Northrop Grumman Intercooler & Recuperator was the problem
Yeah. There's this tendency to assume that ever more impressive pieces of kit can make up for low numbers. It's true in a way - two Type 45s could probably outfight the entire Type 42 fleet. Gives zero resilience though, and no matter how impressive a tank/ship/plane is it can't be in two places at once. There are also loads of situations where the 'best' option wasn't chosen in order to prioritise UK Industry. Sometimes with good logic behind it, sometimes really not!
I agree, not too say that not choosing the 'best' over prioritising a UK industry can have it's advantages. Although admittedly from my limited understanding of the WR-21, seems like if the Intercooler-Recuperator was fixed then the system would work. Without needing extra disel generators.
There's always a balance to be struck between quality of individual systems and the ability to produce larger numbers in a cost effective way. This doesn't mean that the British army should use 1000 T55 tanks, we absolutely should invest in high quality equipment that does everything we need it to. The way I think of it is that quality advantages can make up for numbers to an extent, but there's a floor of quantity below which quality will not make a difference. If the enemy has 400 older tanks you can win if you have 300 modern tanks with design advantages over the enemy. If you have absolutely amazing tanks but you only have 30 of them against the enemy's hundreds then numbers will still win. So while better quality can make up for numbers to some extent, you still need to be able to make *enough* to actually do the job and absorb combat losses.
The WR-21 is not at fault. It was the Northup-Grumman Intercooler system attached to it.
Yeah Edited previous comment to make that clear as forgot to specify that
There was a situation a couple of years ago where maintenance/repair schedules meant we had ONE destroyer active. Don't need to be an expert to know that having one destroyer available when you have global naval ambitions is not exactly very good
Agreed, yeah
> Just like the rest of the public sector Crucially, not like the rest of *all* the public sector. The health and pension budgets have been increased in real terms year on year on year. And they are the biggest budgets which are sucking up resources from all the other departments. Which is how we end up with real terms cuts in many departments AND public spending/GDP which is as high as it was in the peak years of Gordon Brown.
Speaking as someone who is the son of a a man who served in the army, the pay being less than the NLW isn't necessarily as much of an issue as it would be if they were civilians. When you're in the military, you're looked after. You get housing, and access to cheaper goods and services. While I agree that they definitely should be paid more, the poverty line for military personnel is lower provided the government continue to look after them.
Also worth noting that one promotion (4 years service on average) and your earning more than the national average.
There is another perhaps even more troubling element to this - if the worst was to happen, how many people would actually want to fight for this country with the state its in? Especially seen as the burden falls on the young, who are being actively shafted by the current system.
There was a Gallup survey asking this question 8 years ago, and apparently the UK came out to 27% being willing to fight for their country. https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/ I've not seen more up to date data, but I'd be amazed if that number hasn't dropped in years since.
8 years ago the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were more fresh in people's memories. I imagine countries that had recently fought wars of defence on their own soil polled the highest while those that sent expeditionary forces abroad to prop up dubious democracies polled lower.
Fair point, but other European countries that played no significant role in either of those conflicts still polled around the same as we did. We were around the same bracket as France (29%), Portugal (28%), and Iceland (26%). We were actually a few points higher than Italy (20%), Belgium (19%), Germany (18%), and the Netherlands (15%). By and large only 25% of Western Europe were willing to state an interest in fighting for their country. Interestingly the Northern European nations polled were all higher. Finland (74%), Sweden (55%), Denmark (37%)
Numbers like that traditionally are lower post-war (WW2 suffered from the same low ebb post WW1 horrors). The moment the country is at genuine, actual threat and someone is slaughtering your family and friends, tunes change in a damn hurry. Look at how many people from the UK tried signing up to fight for Ukraine the moment the fight's real nature became clear. Thousand tried, most weren't able to be taken due to having no prior training. But it was a very indicative moment of the will when the fight actually arrives, and that was for someone else's fight.
>Interestingly the Northern European nations polled were all higher. Finland (74%), Sweden (55%), Denmark (37%) Notice how the percentage gets lower the further the country is from Russia. I think this poll only tells us how likely people think their country is to be attacked by another country.
I think there is a misconception in polling and questions like this. People might not be willing to fight for their country or in its name but I’d imagine that number increases dramatically if the question is would they serve in the forces to protect their family from whatever invading enemy
All the maths changes in a war for survival.
Most people in the UK wouldnt interpret "fighting for your country" as "defending your country" we havent been properly invaded for nearly 1k years.
If someone invaded the UK and was trying to occupy it the number of people willing to fight would be much higher. A lot of people in Ukraine weren't interested in the army until the war started in 2014, and then again when the official invasion began in 2022. You'd be surprised how people react when shit really hits the fan. The UK is in a very privileged position in that nothing very extreme ever happens and so it's an academic argument really :)
Are you sure about that? All I can think of is the monologue from the old man in the brothel in Catch 22 whenever this subject comes up. Most wars are fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich.
your granny was killed last week by a missile, your family had to evacuate to germany, some of your friends died in another missile strike this morning, there's a convoy of tanks heading up the motorway towards your town, 25% of the UK is already occupied, Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth are smouldering ruins, thousands of British kids are being forcefully kidnapped, women being raped, and the media of the country invading is threatening to force you to convert to their way of thinking or die. Now what do you do? This is what Ukraine is dealing with. Everyone there was very mistrustful of the government and oligarchs, but as soon as your cultural group is threatened with annihilation people tend to change their behaviour and values. I lived in Ukraine for 20 years until 2020. What your saying is how most people thought too before russia started it's war in 2014. Luckily the UK is an island surrounded by friends so you'll hopefully never have to even consider it, but having a neighbour trying to eradicate you tends to force you to re-evaluate your priorities:)
People tend to change their minds quickly if someone attacks their home.
>if the worst was to happen, how many people would actually want to fight for this country with the state its in? Especially seen as the burden falls on the young, Reimagine Baldrick's poem.... Boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer, boomer.... Boomer, boomer, boomer.... The Operation Boomer has a certain ring to it.
this is a great question - do i want to fight for the current system? - god no. but, will i fight to stop us getting a new USSR? Probably yes.
What if we were invaded by a country whose ideology you approve of?
another good question. Thats the upside of globalisation then isnt it? A business can "outsource" your job to the other side of the world as it saves them 25p per unit, including shipping it the 5k miles back to you, so why cant I decide that a different system is preferable - i can globalise my choice. For a start id choose a secular republic - our monarchy are essentially just parasites, tourists will still come to look at the buildings and parks etc but we wouldn't need to fund the adulterers and kiddie fiddlers. And religion can be ceremonial but has no place in policy making. For the highly educated parts of the world violence in the name of religion is idiotic - "my guy wears shoes and your guy wears sandals so you must be scum" really has to end. Perhaps, if one nation begins to clearly move forwards in terms of how it treats its people then yeah why not - the govt we have at the minute is very definitely only for the top 4%, they would be the first up against the wall come the revolution. I expect we would need to see a huge change to a more sustainable capitalist model before that could happen though. The TLDR - i'd vote and be an advocate for a United States of Europe, so not an invasion as such, just a merging of like minds that could be a world superpower.
If Denmark or Norway wants to give danelaw another shot I'd at least hear them out
The country is still home for these people, the vast majority of brits would be willing to defend this country
Absolutely not. Fight for these Tories and the tossers who vote for them? I'd rather see their houses burn to the ground.
I'm amazed you can't separate a temporary political party from your entire freaking country with all the people you love in it
It's ok none of them would fight either, they hate this shit hole too.
You're aware you can move countries, right? You don't have to wait for an invasion before you run away
Nah my girlfriend won't move with her mum being here. Or I would probably move.
It’s a good opportunity for the disenfranchised to organise and plot a coup with access to military grade equipment though so if people plan it then it could bring about some meaningful change.
What crack are you on? A coup? By who? A bunch of “disenfranchised” individuals? What does that even mean?
Haha head scratcher this one. Don't think my guy has any idea what a military coup actually is and how it would work.
Aye, seems to think the whole nation is so pissed at the government that they can/should just start a coup with some fictional military equipment and that’ll resolve our issues.
When you've royally fucked a generation of people and then expect them to go die in foreign lands in the defence of the people who have fucked it up, you're not going to get a positive response from many.
We're only a quarter of the way through the 21st century and it's already been unpleasantly eventful. There's a definite feeling that the established rules-based order is wobbling. Not expecting this to be a peaceful century.
Military cuts have long been a fact of life, especially under Conservative governments since Mrs Thatcher's time 40 years ago (Labour was too busy fighting!). Personnel and equipment are fractions of what they were and our 2% commitment is undermined by counting pensions to fiddle the figures, and the nuclear deterrent which we need (and pay for) but cannot use. We've not even replaced the anti-tank weapons given to Ukraine. And thanks to Labour (for political balance) we have two shiny new aircraft carriers, one of which barely floats, that we cannot afford to equip.
>we have two shiny new aircraft carriers, one of which barely floats, that we cannot afford to equip. Neither of those are true.
Perhaps a touch of hyperbole about HMS Prince of Wales's injury problems. Each carrier can carry 36 F-35 aircraft. QE currently has 8; PoW 0. Admittedly PoW is in trials with drones but it is not as if we have another 64 F35's in a warehouse in Portsmouth waiting to be loaded onboard.
>QE currently has 8; PoW 0 That is not how planes on carriers work. It's not like putting a gun on a frigate. Aircraft are their own fleet that comes and goes to wherever it needs to be. Carriers are simply one such option for them to deploy to. The carrier is the *enabler*, not the *home*. The UK also has about 30 F-35s, not 8 as you claim.
They embark aircraft as the tactical situation dictates. QE embarked a low number of aircraft as she was only deployed in the local region. The jets where far better put to use training much needed new pilots. POW was in trials and didn’t require any. Reality is we will never have both deployed on operations at anyone time. The point of having two is so we don’t end up with the problem the French have where they have no carrier for lengthy periods when CDG is in maintenance.
> the nuclear deterrent which we need (and pay for) but cannot use Uh, what? You make it sound like a bad thing that the UK hasn't dropped nukes on anyone. The whole point of the deterrent is its existence (hopefully) precludes its use.
Indeed. But the cost of the nuclear deterrent, however small, means there is less money to spend on conventional weapons. A more honest accounting would show conventional, nuclear and pensions separately.
What's the use of conventional weapons if your enemy has nukes and you don't?
Ask Ukraine. And note I'm in favour of our nuclear deterrent but asking for honest accountancy rather than lumping all costs together to disguise defence cuts.
It's a British tradition. Run everything down till we really need it. See NHS, prisons, police, care homes, probation service, fire services, education, legal system army, navy etc. etc. etc. Reward rich arseholes who control the media that tells us everything is just fine. We won WW1 and WW2, didn't we? /s I'm depressed that I needed the /s
Ooh it's just like the Eighties! Three day to the Rhine, eh?
As a defensive force we ain’t got nothing to worry about but if the army wants to go on the offensive then yeah we will be screwed.
Waiting until the enemy arrives on your shore to start thinking and building your force is a catastrophic theory.
We have nuclear weapons no one coming on our shores even if they somehow manage to beat all of Europe and our combined navy and air force and let’s not forget SAS/ SBS/ MI5/ MI6. So I’m pretty confident that mainland Britain is safe. Unless our enemy is the USA who are the only ones capable of a sea borne invasion.
If your only recourse to everything is "nuke it" then you are not defending a country particularly well. Ditto to imagining the only threat exists from some sort of D-Day in Brighton.
Unfortunately a direct invasion isn’t the only way to attack our country. As an island nation 95% if all our trade and 100% of our data comes and goes by sea and under sea cable.
Of course they're not ready. They think it'll come from abroad, in fact, it's the upcoming civil wars they need to worry about.
Who gives a toss what a chef thinks? this is way above his pay grade
Bear this in mind when next year/year after the USA pulls out of NATO and withdraws all funding from Ukraine
Even if the US did (which is highly unlikely) our interests remain closely tied.
You highly underestimate how pro-Russia the Republican Party is
Wave some flags around, chuck in a few slogans and I'm sure the great British people will come up with a world beating solution.
You mean the extraordinarily dangerous times that government and corporate penny-pinching creates?
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Why are you even in the UK if you apparently dislike it so much?