As news gradually slips out about how the Army intends to meet the SDSR and a half force reductions a couple of themes seem to be emerging, many of them widely predicted or stated in the SDSR so they should come as no great surprise.
- The Scottish regiments are highly politically sensitive and will distort/influence the final result
- A greater reliance on reserve forces for logistics, medical and cyber
- A greater reliance on contractors for engineering and logistics
- A greater reliance on allies for support functions
- Retention of combat capabilities to concentrate on areas that cannot be fulfilled by reserves or contractors, i.e. more teeth and less tail in the regular Army
- An inexplicable increase on civil resilience duties (I refuse to use the term ‘homeland’)
- Additional funding for reserve forces of £1.8m over the next ten years, this sounds a lot but divide by ten and then divide by 30,000
- Force groups involving artillery, engineering, intelligence and logistics will provide maneuver support and logistics
- Most changes to occur between 2014 and 2016
- Retention of an assault brigade equipped with attack helicopters.
- Three armored infantry brigades equipped with medium and heavy vehicles, including the Challenger tank
- Seven infantry brigades of various sizes made up of paired regular and reserve forces
Those last three bullet points are a straight lift from one of the article below, mmm, interesting!
Just to add an interesting point on the greater use of reserves, a recent Parliamentary answer revealed that only 66.5% received their bounty payment, 17,850 personnel.
The training bounty is a payment for personnel meeting the minimum training requirement.
As details become clearer I will do a more in depth post but for now, a handful of links worth reading;
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120607/DEFREG01/306070001 (H/T Sven)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9316678/The-Armed-Forces-Our-country-needs-them.html
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_06_07_2012_p0-465630.xml&guid=46608
And if anyone fancies a refresh from the last time we covered this in January this year…
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/01/multi-role-brigades/
Which includes a discussion on the Australian Army structure similar to the MRB, a prediction from me about concentration of reductions in the CS/CSS functions, economies of scale in the RA/FR ISTAR community, jointery, retention of combat elements and a worry about politics and vested interests being barriers to reform.
I don’t often do this but go and have a read of that post the comments!
Not too bothered about speculation on individual units, that doesn’t help those involved and I find it rather distasteful so can we keep discussion to general themes?
As soon as the details emerge I will do another post but until then can I ask that comments stay on this thread please.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that there is something inherently wrong with the concept of cutting back on the support arms? It just seems to go against one of the very few themes that has stayed consistent over the last 1000 years of warfare; that Logistics and support is vital if you’re to have any hope of the front line forces doing their job effectively.
Better use of Reserves is one thing, but you need to be vary wary about this teeth and tail rubbish and greater reliance on technical contractor’s.
Even with a small operation like East Timor the ADF had problems with contractor support.
First thing that happens in an AO with even a minor risk of metal flying is that the insurance industry chokes up either totally or in $ terms and you (or atleast you taxpayer) end up having to indemnify the contractors against injury, loss or damage until everything has pretty much calmed down.
Second thing is that unless you are prepared to go down the US route and have armed contractors (lots of issues there) you end up having to use serving members as nannies for the contractors. Picking them up at the airport, security briefings, escorting them to the hotel, to the work place, to the bar, and I meant the hotel, if you think aircrew are fond of their comforts you can add civilian tech’s and engineers to the list.
The third problem with contractors is cost. They might provide a nesessary skills supplement but they are not cheaper when you add in all the costs and politicians are so good at not considering all the costs until too late!!
It’s not cutting back on the ‘support arms’, its cutting back on the ‘services’.
Reduction in combat support is more nuanced and really depends on how 7 light infantry bdes are structured as combined arms formations mixing regular and TA elements. However, unless UK buys light guns ex Australia (which aren’t anywhere near the current UK build standard) there aren’t enough 105mm guns held to fully equip 9 regts (7 plus AA and Cdo), this suggest at least two classes of light bde, those that are combined arms and those that exist to perpetuate redundant infantry regts (notable Scottish ones).
Combat Support IS Services (CSS=Combat Service Support?). Just a different term with slightly different nuances.
Cough, all fur coat and no knickers, cough
@Chris.B. is spot on with logistics.
Is the approach going to be a series of UOR’s and bespoke solutions for each conflict we get involved in?
defiantly “all fur coat and no nickers” maybe even no skin or body, just a floating red fox fur coat.
Complete and utter dimwits who have the total intellectual capacity of a squashed apricot.
I want to believe that its the politicians who are doing this cutting but knowing the army its probably the bloody Rupert’s
@ Chris B re Logistics
Yes you are right. You know my views on lots of ships and lots of big planes (and little planes) to move stuff. But I see it as a natural outcome of how the services think. What happens when the likes of you and me suggest spending money “on getting there”? We are politely told in couched terms we are talking tosh. “We have always got there!” “We always have bases!” “They cost lots.” “We can buy the capacity in if we need it.” etc. etc. and so on. We live on an island in a strategic back water thousands of miles from the most likely fields of conflict. It takes thousands of tons of stores a month even to furnish even the lightest useful formation for war. As I keep saying a battlegroup over the beach today will be more relevant than an armoured brigade sitting on Salisbury Plain months away. But heck I am just a civilian I don’t have the finally tuned military mind. And any lessons I have learned through my own reading and tertiary education on crisis and conflict don’t appear to count for much. Our only hope is we leave Europe and popular pressure on HMG to reverse cuts results in some of those Euro billions coming our way. Some hope.
Question copied from gabbies aus-mrb post:
“The notional phases of the british FORGEN are: Reset/Recuperation – Mission Specific Training – Unit and Battlegroup-level hybrid training – High Readyness/pre-deployment training – Deployment”
Cheers for that Gabbie, never understood what happened ‘inside’ the 4:1 roulement.
Given what was said a few months back about having more, smaller, brigades, along with the Aus enthusiasm for a 3:1 routine (which they cannot have), I am curious as to whether we might not end up with eight Oz style mini brigades.
With the intention of fielding two via a 3:1 routine (or 1 in 4 in your parlance).
Essentially nicking the US Brigade Combat Team idea, and having something akin to:
4x Armored brigade combat team
4x Stryker brigade combat team
Would they consider this for FF2020?
Relying on contractors to keep you going in a conflict zone is just a disaster waiting to happen. I predict a run of news stories of soldiers dying because contractors aren’t turning up to fix broken kit. It is also bloody expensive as they want danger pay and the insurance companies jack up the premiums to chronic levels.
There will always been a need for guys wearing green or blue to do the front level servicing and they can be augmented by contractors when there is a lot to do, particularly for the complicated stuff. When you are desperate to get something fixed, any bodge way you can, the last thing you want to have to do is be on the phone to an Indian call centre… There is also the small issue that service guys can grab their rifles when those annoying Taliban chaps sneak in past the wire. There is being lean and then there is taking risks…
Truthfully, I reckon those outsourcing companies have been bending the ears of the top brass and the politicians promising great and wonderful things. This is an issue that is already biting the MOD from behind in many areas and it is just going to get worse.
4x Armored brigade combat team =
1 Armoured
1 ArmInf
1 MechInf
4x Stryker brigade combat team =
1 FRR
2x MotInf
Uses twenty four principle fighting units, rather than 25 as per the five MRB’s (Arm/FRR/ArmInf/Inf/Inf)
Could as easily be 4x infantry bct,so instead of Stryker versions.
There does seem to be an implication that privatised CSS companies will somehow come into existance on a much greater scale than currently exist.
There will then be a threoretical saving BUT ONLY if we can hire these companies when we need them and find them fit for purpose at that time. In theory no reason why private companies cannot do trucking and truck maintenance into a warzone. Government will have to underwite the insurance but if its only every 10 years it might still pay its way.
My biggest question is how these companies are going to make their living during the 9 years out of 10 we aren’t hiring them for an op? Unless they can leverage a civil income using their paramilitary skills and kit then the plan falls flat. In works for the Point Class RFA but there is an established civil roro market to tap into. Not sure if the same applies to land CSS.
Maybe delivering charitable supplies (and DFID aid?) into unstable famine and civil war zones could be an area to generate peacetime income for these skilled private companies. Any other ideas?
“In works for the Point Class RFA but there is an established civil roro market to tap into. Not sure if the same applies to land CSS.”
Same thought; dfid.
I support the move to better integrate the reserve forces. I can see a need to better coordinate with allies on logistics. However I get really worried when I start hearing this teeth and tail bollocks. It sounds like punching above our weight and every other slogan the Tory’s come out with to justify more cuts. Given Europe has over 2 million men dressed in Khaki but nothing more than a handful of logistics aircraft I have to ask who will be providing the tail.
As per usual it sounds like it will be the USA effectively meaning the British Army will remain nothing more than an offshore subsidy for US foreign policy. Logistics are already pressed tight and UK forces have proven to be an embarrassment on more than one occasion for not having the right support infrastructure to carry out the operations that the politicians have asked for.
I also have to question the merit of moving intelligence to reserve forces. Surely something so vital to effective operation especially in the modern COIN conflicts should be firmly in the hands of the regular’s.
I would agree that we should look at shared logistics with the DFID. The only problem is that the DFID only spends 13% of its budget on aid. Not a lot to keep the skills basse for a private company able to supply and force of 30,000 troops.
I think a reserve force not part of the TA that could have civilian members like mechanics and medics who are paid a monthly fee but only avilable for a once a decade type deployment like GW1 or GW2 may be a better option. I don’t see why these types of people have to be in the military anyway and forcing them to join the TA may well put a lot of people off joining.
If these logistics companies are as efficient as Amazon or Argos we will be OK.
But I fear it will be more Voyager-meets-Steptoe-and-Son. I wonder how many MoD civil servants will jump ship (ha!) and make themselves a tidy packet a la QinetiQ…….
I haven’t read anything about the new improved TA yet. There is only so much rhubarb I can take.
Oops. I forgot to mention another big problem connected with ITAR. The US gets really shitty when people let non-government employees or dual nationals have access to their kit. Apache, C17s, NVGs are good examples of this. I am not sure the people at the top realise that if they go further down the contractor route, they will have no choice but to use US contractors for nearly all our US origin kit. UK companies will face big problems gaining access or sufficient technical knowledge. By contrast, a UK Service person or civil servant who has a security clearance is fine.
Because US kit comes with so much paperwork and restrictions thanks to ITAR, it can end up being cheaper to use service personnel to do the work as US rules assume they must be ok. If the kit is really sensitive, like Reaper, no non-US company will be allowed a look-in. And yes, this does mean they are not allowed to touch the thing even if to move it from one side of the hanger to another.
So, after spending about 2003-2013 constantly tripping over the PFI and contractorisation disasters and the last couple of years rolling some of them back, the Contractorisation Cavalry are back, riding on the Privatisation Pony?
@ Desk Jockey re US staff
Got the solution. I know who we should get to fulfil all these Army contracts. They could become the MoD’s Serco. This is pretty radical….
…….we pay the US DoD to fill all the contracts. Simples.
Actually we might as well bung them the whole defence budget as an uber-insurance policy. We must be a low risk. Safe neighbourhood. Been in residence for over 1000 years.
re the logistics,
We’ll see how it goes when the massive task of brining back the kit from Afghan… but I agree with Chris.B, seems these reductions goes on the basis that no one minds the second/third line being cut rather than front line, and that the contractors will be able to handle it… not too sure about that.
Better check up on our Merchant Navy (whats left of it…) and agreements with the likes of BA and Volga-Dnepr.
I doubt the logistics of the Ammo runs we did during Libya would have gone as smoothly with eddie stobbart trucks :S
@ x – maybe we should go further and just become the 51st state. If defence of the relm is the major responsibility of the government and ours seems content to contract this out I see little downside, we could rack up another 30% debt to GDP as well just to bring us up to parity with the other states.
Prediction: lots of back room support rationalised so kiss goodbye to random REME and RLC bods kicking around. Things will centralise.
The intervention Bde will keep a full regular log back up.
All other brigades will be stripped of CSS and instead expect modular support groups enough to support two or three regular tours before TA support groups kick in and continue the enduring operation. This can mean a lot of units can go down to two or three so three medical regiments for example. One theatre support group with the rest from TA. I expect that a lot of the TA units will have a strong regular core of about Sqn strength to give expertise and ease mobilisation.
When you realise that only a small proportion of the Army will be anywhere at once there’s scope to cut the tail and give it to the TA.
Phil said “cut the tail and give it to the TA.”
Ooh! Can we have the head for the cat?
No. The head is for KBR.
Contractors are here to stay. Professional armies need them. Simple as that. It is not economical to fill every support role with uniformed soldiers. There’s bloody loads of them in Afghan and Iraq getting on fine. I doubt very much they’ll have a huge role in contingency ops but in enduring operations we simply cannot do without them. I see nothing wrong with that. Are you going to use combat engineers to improve infrastructure in a big base camp or do you use contractors and push the engineers out on proper combat engineer taskings? Do you need REME to fix and support kit in a place like Bastion? No you don’t. And contractors will always be there like flies to shit. Contingency they are pants, enduring, they are the future. Suck it up.
And we mustn’t forget that HMG uses contractors for security work too.
@ Phil
You are right but there is always a balance. I have zero faith in this government to achieve that balance. Instead they will go for politically easy decisions to cut cost and save sacred cows
Well I don’t share that same level of cynicism. I am sure the solution will not be perfect but it never is.
Just so you lot are ready, expect a huge degree of ‘being a smug bastard again’ from me
As predicted and as thought would actually be sensible
Ho Ho Ho
@ TD re smug bastard
Anybody can point out the obvious. The real trick is to think outside the ISO container…
Well guys after many years of watching the usual inter-service infighting especially between the RAF and RN we are now going to watch something fairly spectacular in self defeating – THE IN-SERVICE BUN FIGHT BETWEEN CAP BADGES as the different regiments fight to save their skins!
The opening salvo have already started with a representative of the Royal Anglians publicly expressing disgust and surprise that the Gurkhas could be saved over them! The Welsh and Scots Dragoons are already circling each other knives drawn as it starts to leak out that they might well be merged…ironically the youngest but most deployable regiments like the paras will probably survive with some changes whilst the hallowed grounds of the Guards regiments feel the full bore of cuts.
As I said we will be able to watch the unique spectacle of in-service rivalry…rather refreshing…
has anyone checked if the ta is happy with army deployment levels for commercial pay?
Maybe i’m wrong, but, join the ta, you only have to fight when its all gone tits up, sounds ok.
Join the ta, your off to some shit hole you’ve never heard of to drive trucks over land mines because the army doesnt want to lose a real soldier, isnt a marketable phrase.
Real soldier? Gee cheers mucka.
TD, it seems a little premature for smugness. Personally, I’d rather agree with Hitler at an equality rally than the MoD at strategic decision-making.
*kicks over sandcastle because it’s better than mine*
@BertramPantyshield.
Careful.
All light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. I even put in a smiley.
@ Fedaykin
Re: Ghurkas
I always thought Nepal was nearer than Norfolk. Damn you Wikipedia!
Re: Guards
Is that true?
@ trt
If you come from the conurbation to my immediate east some shit hole you’ve never heard of is probably better than the shit hole you know.
Didn’t want you losing any debates by default!
Don’t worry I’m well aware of Godwin’s meme… er, I mean law. Perhaps we can have a rule that if the MoD agree with you on defence matters then you lose a defence debate by default.
Must burst TD’s bubble!
@ x
Well speaking in general really, the hallowed and sacred grounds of certain parts of the army like the guards regiments are for the chop or merging. Expect a very unseemly and public bun fight as every cap badge and its associated region fight to save their necks. Expect battalions within the guards regiments to loose their cap badge and merge or disband.
Gurkhas have been cut as far as you can without disbanding them, considering they serve some advantages when it comes to body bags and they have proven useful in Afghanistan plugging gaps in under manned battalions.
Actually the main threat to the Gurkhas now is the Nepalese communist government who want to ban British recruiting within the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9153296/Gurkha-service-in-Britains-armed-forces-under-threat-from-Nepal-government-bill.html
Not that it would be popular with the Nepalese general public as it would cut off the millions that veterans bring back into their economy.
@ Fedaykin re Guards
So nothing definite just your opinion? OK. I understand now. You do realise this is the Guards you are talking about? They could scrap the Army and they would still survive. I would expect the RAF Reg to be scrapped or the Corps to be given to the Army before I see the Guards merged or scrapped. In a Jubilee year too? Unlikely.
I’m sorry but if the Scottish regiment can’t make up the numbers then at least one battalion should go. Yes the nationalists will latch on-to it but they are always going on about something, if not this then something else.
The Gurkhas have to go as well but for different reasons. They are a hangover from the Empire and it’s unacceptable to face the prospect of cutting British jobs instead of Nepalese, no matter how good the soldiers are or how illustrious their history is.
The Guards, well any whiff of change seems to have them up in arms, but I don’t think the rest of us would be particularly bothered if the English ones became the ‘Coldstream and Grenadiers’. They would get over it…eventually!
Ten Armoured and Cavalry regiments are far too many. Maybe some could be amalgamated as well to keep the historic names and badges.
Surely the Army only needs enough artillery, engineers and other support regiments to provide for each brigade. Most of the additional ones should be seen as superfluous and ditched.
I agree that private contracting is essential but that it is indeed a balance between regular assets, reserve assets and outside sources, hope someone has a clue as to how we get that right.
Overall these reductions can never be seen as a good thing, I do however feel it’s not all as terrible as it first sounds. Providing the right choices and changes are made we will hopefully end up with a leaner but meaner service.
I have a few questions as well.
The cheif one is what’s all this talk about three armoured and seven infanty brigades in the post? Does TD mean regiments? I am assuming this is something seperate from MRB’S and that five of them is still the plan for the future structure?
Will Cyprus based battalions come home after Afghanistan is over? It doesn’t seem like two are needed to garrison the SBA’S.
Also if the Gurkhas go will a British battalion replace them in Brunei?
Finally, with the end of British Forces Germany can we assume that some training deployments will still take place there as part of NATO?
I would say a Regiment of Foot Guards is a possibility.
Can I just address the issue of the 35% who did not qualify for bounty. In my Cold War days the TA had to recruit its entire strength every 3 years or in other words 33% per year and I don’t think that has changed.
You did not get bounty in your last year if you ran out before April, and many many recruits won’t have enough drill nights under their belt to get bounty in their first year, so voila the Treasury only needs to pay 65% of the reservist a bounty, of course that 35% includes a few pie eaters who failed the tests and those who missed camp through force of circumstances etc.
From what I read, retention may be an even bigger problem now then it was then.
@Challenger Do the US still part fund the Cyprus Garrison?
There’s a whole host of reasons people don’t get bounty, some years real life gets in the way and in anycase, you effectively have to qualify for bounty to get on a tour. If you habitually don’t qualify for bounty then thats a problem for the units leadership to sort out. Myself for example, I always qualified except last year I didn’t, because I had just come back from tour and wasn’t interested in playing soldiers for a while. A lot of blokes do that after a tour, they slink away for a year or so to get their civilian lives back on track.
Without context the figure looks pants, but with context bounty figures are the least of the TAs figures. Watch the bounty figures shoot back up when the constant tours dry up.
The major supermarkets chains used to have average staff turnovers of 33%
One reason turn over is so high in the TA is poor phase 1 training. I know some people, and this is not one single word of a lie, who have done their 2 week phase 1 charlie thus completing their basic training 4 years after first turning up. All down to poor paper work and constant course cancellations and movements and the 7 weekend thing being cancelled and then having to do the whole course from scratch again. An absolute nightmare. In fact, if you counted folk who walked through the door and left before they got a number the turn over would be huge!
@ Phil
When I was involved with cadets (in various capacities) our unit was “neighbours” with a TA unit. Over 10 years or so I got to know the OC’s, PSI’s and several of the more committed soldiers. Looking from the outside though the structure was professional the actual volunteer side, apart from those individuals mentioned, was a bit lacklustre. You would see individuals in green overalls running around our shared car park and then a few weeks later they weren’t to be seen. It was hard to see, given the number of cars on their parade night, how if these numbers were reflected up and down the country how the TA could generate much of a force. The money to keep the barracks open, pay the OC and the PSIs and caretakers, and other ancillary stuff like I don’t know having the armourer coming to do maintenance or those prats from RFCA buggering about, must have come out to a fair sum plus sundry other costs. Times that by 3 for the other units in our area and it costs even more. That’s why I believe anybody who says the TA could take on armour (setting aside the logistic problems) are talking rubbish. The TA works for certain specialisms like yours or comms or semi-professional-military-tasks (SAS, Para, Intel) even HGV. But the TA can only do so much to a certain extent or depth and I think it is already achieving that.