Army 2020 – July 2013 Update

What an exceedingly glossy update. Love the buzzwords, no doubt dreamt up by some marketing goon who gets paid a wad and a half to brainstorm nonsense for a living.

Telling quote:

‘The Army must be able equally to react to an enduring stabilisation operation and engage with partner nations overseas to develop their military capacity to address causes of instability as demonstrated by the ongoing military training programmes in the Horn of Africa’…

Tell me that the army actually couldn’t do this five year ago, before the 2020 guff what first propagated? Absolute drivel. Tell it like it is Army chiefs, its going to be a Homeland Defence Force, with a micro-USMC brigade thrown in to allow us to partner US, France etc, for foreign intervention.

Not that to say we really need full on expeditionary warfare, big old army, lots of tanks and multiple divisions as in the past. But basically this means the only expeditionary assets the UK armed forces have will be in the RAF and RN. End of. No more invading, only stand off bombing.

That said, its certainly a very shiny package. No expense spared in trying to tell us why expenses have to be spared in all the fun and crucial departments.

Very nice. Almost makes you confident that the plans will deliver the expected force.

There’s a nod in there towards the uncertainty of vehicle programmes. Force troops supporting protected infantry in the AF left relying on unprotected vehicles.

– Some really odd things about that structure, like the imbalance in the size of the adaptable brigades. Presumably 1 of the brigades with a light recce unit will be paired with one without during their cycles, which begs the question as to why not just reduce the number of brigade headquarters in the first place?

– If we’re going with a fleet management system that only has a certain number of Challengers actually in use at any one time, then why have we cut the number of armoured regiments in favour of “Heavy Protected Mobility”, excepting of course the desirability of more infantry for COIN work?

– “Homeland Security”? Fuck off. Maybe Phil the spreadsheet has been working his way through the West Wing DVD’s or something.

– What was the point in rebranding all the Scottish regiments as the “Royal Regiment of Scotland” if they’re going to persist in using the old names still? What a pissing waste of money that all was.

– And on the subject of names, given how hard the army has fought to save regimental cap badges why was the fairly iconic 7th Armoured Brigade just dropped into an infantry brigade? There are three armoured brigades now, how much of a stretch would it have been to just use 7th armoured as one of them?

– 25% uplift in blank ammunition. So there’ll be almost three and a third magazines of blank ammo per man now.

– Is anyone buying the general “this had nothing to do with cuts in the budget, this was all about a long-held vision for the army” theme? Anyone?

I think the most telling line is the one that states the UK’s economic position is a strategic threat !

The one thing that confuses and annoys me is the virtual removal by stealth of a Battalion of the Parachute regiment into the “special forces support role”. With both the RF and the AF training and readiness cycles on a 36 month “rule of 3” – and of course with 3 x RM Cdo’s this also applies to 3 CDO Brig.

However instead of giving the third Para Battalion back to the Air Asslt, Brig for the exact same training and readiness cycle as everyone else, they have some weird 2 battle group “1 on, 1 off” setup !

I am sure we could have afforded 300 to 600 less redundancies across all the services with a tri-service “SF Support Group” being set up from those qualified.

@ Jed – “However instead of giving the third Para Battalion back to the Air Asslt, Brig for the exact same training and readiness cycle as everyone else, they have some weird 2 battle group “1 on, 1 off” setup !”

Agreed.

16AAB should have three principle maneuver units based on para’s so that it can work to the same routine as the other reaction forces: work-up / deploy / work-down.

The “Air Assault Brigade” originally had two light infantry, air-mobile battalions paired up with the two para battalions to make up a combat brigade.
It looks very much like that original idea is dead and buried. There’s no mention of battalions rotating through that role, and there’s specific mention of the on/off readiness between 2&3 para.
The brigade certainly seems to have changed from an “air assault” role to “rapid reaction” role. Less about parachuting and rough landing C130s into battle – more about having a lead company with their bags packed for the Voyager flight.

What strikes me most is that despite substantial cuts to manpower, we seemed to have settled for an army where such a big chunk (the AF) looks quite anaemic.
Half a dozen light protected (Foxhound and other bits n’ bobs) battalions, nine light infantry battalions, three light cav (Jackal) battalions. Three garrison battalions, and the reserve infantry battalions and yeomanry get Wolf and WMIK Landies.

Thousands of redundancies, but we still seem to have been left with an overlarge army considering that the only bit that looks to have retained any fightiness are the three armoured brigades. Even 16AAB looks anorexic and past its best.

I think I’d prefer to see a bit of mechanization in that adaptive force. Six APC battalions – something that could at least support the armoured infantry. And perhaps three regular, and three reserve light protected battalions – which would give us a substantial pool of protected vehicles. The remainder in the light role, with the Air Assault roulement restarted. That’s a modest improvement, adding a bit of extra oomph. Not to drastic?

Another concern, the incentives for recruitment seem a little skewed.

Join certain regiments and you have an increased likelyhood of deployment to a “war”. Join others and the only fighting you’re likely to see is part of another Afghanistan/Iraq COIN deployment. Which one has historically been more successful and which has historically resulted in lower casualties? That’s a tough sell trying to convince someone to join the adaptable force over the reaction force.

Meanwhile the reserves have gone from “we’ll only call you when we really need you” to “we plan to call on you on a semi-regular basis to fill up the shortfall in regular manning, even for tasks like overseas engagement which probably don’t really require you”.

The whole thing looks like a plan drawn up on a paper napkin down the pub during someones lunch hour.

@ Mike W,

You’re right, the link is dead now. I saved a copy of the document to a folder though, so until the link comes back up if anyone has questions that need checking, leave it here and as I dip in and out I’ll have a ganders.

And just to spam the shit out of TD’s thread a bit more, a new transcript for an evidence session in front of the defence select committee has just been released. This would have been done last Wednesday I think, on army 2020:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmdfence/uc576-i/uc57601.htm

Just reading that house of commons session. It’s fucking hilarious. At some points it literally goes along the lines of “What’s your plan B if plan A doesn’t work?” “… we don’t have a plan B. We believe – despite any evidence or questions to the contrary – that Plan A will work. If it doesn’t, we’re fucked”.

cheers Chris:

“Q172 Sir Bob Russell: Is there anything the Defence Committee should be doing to help make sure that you have sufficient funding to implement Army 2020 or do you think everything at the moment is-

Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Bradshaw: The answer to your question is that there is sufficient risk in the programme for us to conclude that if the current resourcing were to reduce again we would be in the business of looking at whether these plans are achievable.

Q174 Sir Bob Russell: I am grateful for that as it leads me into my next question. What happens if you do not get a real-terms increase in your funding from 2015, in other words after the next general election?

Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Bradshaw: I think the degree of risk then increases and we would have to look at that stage at whether the plan was deliverable.”

@ Mike,

There’s no indication on that chart of a Household Cavalry presence in 16AAB, just the whole regiment as part of one of the reaction brigades. There could be a number of explanations for that, but it does seem on the face of it that they’ve been removed.

@TD
“The homeland bollocks is just a lifebelt to a drowning man, the civil resilience sector don’t need the Army”
That is a totally incorrect statement TD.
TRF are a key component to a multitude of scenarios that involve multi-agency tasking.
The military have specialist ability way beyond the capabilities of MAIAT. Your assumption that Ryton, the New Dimensions and HART programmes do provide certain assets for certain tasks that were bought at great expense and those assets are being re-evaluated, but for more than a decade the military has been entrenched to deliver critical First Response components.

I believe my comments ref Para Battalions and 16 AAB might have been misconstrued. It has been acknolwedged for some time that we no longer have a “parachute brigade” but with the removal of 2 x light inf battalions 16 AAB is no longer meant to deploy as a brigade with 3 to 4 manoeuvre units including Apache regiments etc, instead it is to generate a high readiness battle group, just as the 3 Commando’s of 3 Cdo Brig are to provide a single battalion sized battle group based on a single Commando and supporting units.

However with only 2 battalions surely only a reinforced Company sized very high readiness battle group can be sustained ? This may well fit in with the amount of personnel we can maintain as parachute trained, and deploy from remaining RAF fixed wing transport assets; BUT a full battalion would offer greater operational flexibility, particularly as we have enough Chinooks and Merlins to deploy them. Don’t forget the non-parachute, non-air assault role played by the Paras in the Falklands as elite light infantry deployed from the sea.

I just think when the whole of the rest of the Army (both RF and AF) and the RM is on a 36 month 1 in 3 cycle, the Paras are not, it just seems “cheap” as my son would say !

“I just think when the whole of the rest of the Army (both RF and AF) and the RM is on a 36 month 1 in 3 cycle, the Paras are not, it just seems “cheap” as my son would say !”

agreed.

What has happened to the link? Could someone point to a copy?

Thanks

http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/Army2020_Report.pdf

To me 16 x needs another regular battalion. I know they say para training is expensive, yet it would be very simple to convert one of the Gurkha battalions to a parachute battalion. Then 4 para could be used to reinforce in a more appropriate way. The training/deploy/rest cycle is critical even for paras.

As for 16X – you join the PARAS to get lobbed into some shithole on your own and with next to no support ala Market Garden or HERRICK 4.

Still depressed that when Stuart Tootal said this: “‘running out of supplies when surrounded was part of our history. When I talked of what conditions must have been like for paratroopers who held the bridge at Arnhem for nine days against ferocious German assaults, having only planned to hold it for two, in 1944, people got the point that I was making.’”

no one in the press conference stuck their hand up and said “Colonel, didn’t the Paras lose at Arnhem?

“… convert one of the Gurkha battalions to a parachute battalion. ”

Gurkha Para battalions date back to WW2, 153(?) Battalion serving with particular distinction and Imphal as I recall. Later, 2 Para had a Gurkha company as recently as 2001 (?, memory is getting worse) because of problems recruiting native Brits.

Might be a better idea to recruit a new Gurkha battalion, than convert an existing one. At least there will never be a problem with recruiting and the little buggers are guaranteed good in a scrap.

Good idea Llama, that is if their government was not cutting down on the recruitment of mercenaries to clean up their image internationally. There was a bit of a scrap a few years back on that.

BTW, image cleanup is not my idea, blame it on their government. Their image was never bad in my opinion.

Edit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9153296/Gurkha-service-in-Britains-armed-forces-under-threat-from-Nepal-government-bill.html

Found a link for that.

Their is a lot to commend in Army 2020 and I think in a broad sense they have tacked the severe manpower reductions and new strategic priorities well.

The one thing I still struggle to wholeheartedly get on board with is the presence of essentially 3 armoured brigades as the Army’s principle manoeuvre formations. They may be officially termed ‘armoured infantry’ but in composition they have a weight and structure which most would recognise as armoured formations through and through. If it were down to me I would have tried to have a single armoured brigade and generate 1 heavy battle-group at constant readiness and on rotation alongside 3 Commando and 16 Air Assault, with 3 more medium balanced, mechanized brigades to provide 1 at high readiness for operations in the same ‘rule of 3’ rotation.

I understand that circumstances have made it very difficult for the Army to get the right balance and structure that it needs to future operations, but I do despair a little at the continuing focus on heavier armoured warfare. A single armoured battle-group would enable quick reaction to any sudden crises that flares up, and the entire brigade could be brought up-to scratch and deployed with a few months notice. Considering we would only ever really want and need a single armoured brigade in action and those kind of Granby/Telic style operations have a fair amount of warning and build-up I fail to see a problem with the idea of a singular armoured formation.

P.S

I would definitely seek to have three manoeuvre battalions for 16 Air Assault.

Also I quite like the adaptable concept and see no real problem with a force split between a larger amount of essentially regional ‘static’ brigades but which can act as parent formations and generate units for active deployments, but also a couple of brigades earmarked to be larger and more comprehensive formations which could with sufficient notice work up and then slot in with the 3 regular brigades for a long enduring rotational operation (should we be as unfortunate as to get stuck in that situation again).

How long would it take to deploy the whole Rapid Reaction Armoured Division (3 armoured brigades) plus other support troops to the European mainland i.e. Poland for example?? should Ivan decide, however unlikely in the near/medium term, to pay an uninvited visit to Baltic countries or Poland.

Considering
(a) British treaty/political/unofficial commitments to defence and deterrence in NATO/EU.
(b) British heavy forces are not expected to be used in UK territory but to be deployed far away from home.
(c) the inevitable future creation of EURO armed forces due to budget cuts, European political integration, etc.

wouldn’t it make more sense to leave the Armoured Division forwardly deployed in Germany? where it could train in state of the art facilities/camps with the old masters of armoured warfare and other EU allies. leaving the light infantryand 16th AA in UK territory they are easily deployed anyway.

Integrating the armoured infantry divisions/brigades of Germany, UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland now that would be a force to be reckoned with.

Mr Observer,

From that article you quoted:

“Padam Lal Bishwakarma, chairman of Nepal’s Parliamentary International Relations and Human Rights Committee, last night told the Daily Telegraph he wanted the recruitment to end but not until the country could offer the men alternative jobs which matched its pay.”

I don’t think the UK need worry yet about the supply of Gurkha recruits drying up. There are some other social issues that the UK needs now (since Gurkha soldiers were granted full UK pension rights and the right to remain) to think about, but really they are trivial compared to the continued immigration of people who have never and never will contribute to the common good. Not many Gurhkas living in self-imposed ghettos and planning terrorist attacks in the UK.

Sgt Pep,

Leaving British Armour in Germany to contribute to a counter to a possible Soviet thrust into Poland or the Baltic States, would be eminently sensible, but only if the UK had any intention to go to war to protect Poland etc.. We did that once before and it didn’t turn out too well. We will never do it again. NATO is now a nonsense, a paper tiger, a talking shop. at best an over-arcing HQ for out of area operations by coalitions of the willing.

What’s the point of retaining an armoured division then?! if not for conventional warfare and defence/deterrence.

So Britain has absolutely no geopolitical/economic interests to protect in Europe then? good to know.

Sgt Pep, not that the UK doesn’t have interest in Europe, but that there are very little problems that can be solved with the addition of a sabre squadron. Now if only parking tanks on the front porch of the Greek parliment can get people to see sense (for both sides, politicians and protestors), then that might be a good idea, but as getting people to see sense is about as likely as Her Majesty adopting me as her long lost son, I’d give that idea a miss.

More likely usage areas for them are Africa and the Middle East. Still a bit of a Wild West frontier over there.

Llama, just pointing out where the winds are blowing. Might be a future problem.

And quit calling me Mister or I’ll return the favour and make you sound like a character from a children’s book. :P

“Look!! It’s Mr Llama!!”

Mr. APATS,

Never have I said we would discard Article 5, I said we (the UK) will not go to war if Poland, the Baltic States or, come to that Bulgaria were to be attacked. Do you think we would? What about some of the other NATO countries? Belgium, for example, think they would join in?

Do, please, read again what Article 5 says. There is no actual requirement to go to war, only to take such action as each member state deems necessary and to jolly well tell the UN Security Council. The days when it was all for one and one for all (if they ever existed) have long past.

You cite the example of three members moving anti-aircraft batteries to Southern Turkey under NATO command. Suppose, in a year or two, Syria decided to attack Turkey. Local attacks, you understand designed to drive “rebel” elements back from the border regions. Which NATO countries do you think would send in troops/planes in the spirit of Article 5?

In 2006 the NATO countries agreed to keep their defence spending at at least 2% of GDP. How many have done so?

Sorry, old boy, but NATO is now a paper-tiger.

@Observer

Fair go, on the Gurkhas, Mr. Observer (bugger; sorry, I forgot – I can only claim a lifetime of being polite to officers, at least I don’t call you, “Sir”) , but I don’t think we need worry just yet.

As an aside have you seen this article:

http://thediplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2013/07/16/the-submarine-race-in-the-malaccan-strait/

All about submarines in your back yard. I’d be interested in your views.

“Ourselves, the US, the Dutch, the Italians and others”

Wishful thinking there, in my view. However, aren’t there 28 members of NATO? What will the others be doing? The same as the UK will do if the Sovs steam into, say, Bulgaria – making speeches at the UN, calling for a cease fire, issuing press releases and generally giving every support short of actual help.

Have you seen that Georgia has today declared that it will join in NATO reaction force from 2015. Silly sods. If they think that will save them the next time Russia wants to give them a slap they are in for a disappointment.

P.S. Sorry if you found the “Old Boy” condescending. I didn’t mean it to be. Observer found being called “Mr” objectionable too. Guess I am getting too old for the internet.

“at least I don’t call you, “Sir””

That’s even worse. :)

As for the arms race, well, welcome to the war. It really has never ended, just cooled down and went a bit shy.

As for locking up the Straits, possible, but the shallow waters will really cripple the sub’s abilities. You want them to play, look at the other side of the countries. Surface ships and preferably ground artillery can lock up the Straits of Malacca at the choke point, the sub/surface ship playground is the entrance and exit. Look at where Malaysia based its subs, Sabah, not the mainland.

Not to mention you want to keep the lanes open, not interdict them, so a sub/surface fleet to keep the South China Sea approach open as a deterent is needed.

You got to remember that to the countries in the area, there are 2 enemies. China and their neighbours. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. Diplomatic ties have improved a lot, but all it takes is one racial riot or international incident to screw up the whole deal. Which means keep your friends close, and your possible enemies within smacking range army wise. Hence the arms race.

As for more subs, not likely. All the countries involved are still digesting their aquisitions and formulating tactics and doctrine of usage, logistics and maintanance. Apparently, one of the Malaysian Scorpenes have a bit of a diving problem due to defects. They will sort it out in time, but this is the kind of problem that illustrates why time is needed to digest aquisitions.

@Observer,

Thanks for that. I had thought that the local countries wanted to subs etc to ensure that the Straights stayed open am I right in thinking that they do, but also want the ability to close them?

@APATS

I repeat what I said earlier, I don’t believe the UK would ignore an attack that would invoke Article 5, any more than any of the other 27 countries would. I just don’t believe that the UK would go to war over an attack on Eastern members of the alliance, firstly because there isn’t much we could do and secondly I don’t think the UK public would stand for it.

Please do re-read Article 5, it does not commit any member of NATO to go to war in support of another. As I said, it does commit all members take whatever action they deem necessary to support the attacked party and restore the integrity of the NATO area, and, of course telling, the UNSC. Should the Russians go into Bulgaria the UK would join Belgium and others, including, I suspect, Germany (your 3 star boss not withstanding), in calling for a cease-fire and possibly tabling a motion at the UN, every assistance short of actual help.

If all those members of NATO took their commitments so seriously as to be prepared to go to war why have so few honoured their commitment to maintain defence spending at a minimum of 2% of GDP?

Sorry Llama, no one wants the Straits closed. No one benefits from that. Just because the equation works in one direction does not imply it works automatically in the other.

As for NATO, I think you might be a bit too hard on it. NATO is primarily a defensive alliance, why it had no chance to show off recently is due to the lack of aggressors, hence lack of focus. An attack on any member country will be having the whole lot very, very focused on a target and drooling to show off. Like pit bulls, if they are sleeping, they don’t look that impressive but if you disturb them, expect big bites. Any chance for action will have officers all dreaming of promotions and raring to go. For now though, all they have are COIN-like bushfire wars.

@observer

Thanks for the clarification about the Straights.

As for NATO, sorry that my views differ, but I see nothing to persuade me that all members of the Alliance would do more than honour the letter of the treaty.

@APATS,

We are going around in circles here. You believe that if the wheel falls off, everyone will muck in and go to war to protect, say, Bulgaria, and I don’t. Let us leave it at that because to continue we would be wasting each others time.

Proposing scenarios of an invasion of NATO is simply being over-dramatic.

NATO is a defensive organisation. When Austria or Ireland begin massing their armies against NATO’s borders, then NATO would deploy the relevant force package to deter the threat. Just like sending Patriot batteries to Turkey, when a possible threat emerges NATO positions itself accordingly.

BB, most likely. And proves that an ounce of prevention is better than tons of MBT “cures” moving around, though much less spectacular.

@x

Have you recently taken upon yourself the role of resident devil’s advocate? :)

X, I didn’t really follow the point you were making on 16AAB earlier. Seemed to poo-poo the idea of parachuting and air assault generally, but ended with a call for more parachute training.
Smaller aircraft are already used for various parts of jump training. But falling out of little aircraft half a dozen at a time does nothing to prepare aircrews, for whom airborne operations apparently become very complex very quickly – multiple aircraft, multiple waves of aircraft, low level tactical flying, night flying, field landings; I can imagine it’s quite tricky stuff to pull off.

Adding further couple of light infantry battalions to the para battalions would not make it a UK 101st Airborne, which is a division. And having four battalions is not a result of the Afghan war; 16AAB was formed in the 90s, years before New York exploded, with the Paras, Gurkhas and Royal Irish.

In relation to the 101st, their brigade combat teams consist of two rifle battalions and a light cavalry battalion (and a support battalion with artillery, HQ, medics etc). Despite several units disappearing, and several thousand redundancies, someone somewhere determined that the Army should maintain an ‘air assault’ brigade; so is it wrong to expect it to be capable of air assault? In an army where there is an apparent requirement for an air assault brigade, an army of 112,000 warfighters, I don’t see how a brigade on the scale of a 101st BCT would be disproportionate. As it is, 16AAB is not keeping the infantry and cavalry that it used to hold.

If there isn’t a need for an air assault brigade (there’s plenty of light infantry that can ride the Chinooks, and perhaps with modern helicopters parachuting has become a niche special forces technique) then why keep this unremarkable little half-brigade. We could cut one expensive Para battalion at least, shift the remaining to the SFSG, JHC retaining the attack helicopters.
I don’t understand what the Army’s idea is, and why it isn’t either beefed up or gotten rid of.

As I said BB, he’s just being a devil’s advocate :)

“I don’t do pedestrian thinking.”

No, I dare say you would probably be the reckless driver, as opposed to the wreckless driver.

“you would never have coped with the younger mentally healthy me”

No worries, as far as I know, no one has ever met a younger, mentally healthy you either.

A400m can transport uk helicopters and uk helicopter forces have shown self deployment capability to both operation highbrow and pallister if I’m not mistaken.

ACC, but most war tasks are not “warry”, you don’t do an assault every day followed by dinner and repeat the next. Most of the time, it is simply patrol, patrol, patrol and that is what light battalions do best. Patrol and defend sensitive areas while the razor sharp teeth of armour and mechanised infantry go bite into the enemy.

There are units for attack and units for defence. Light infantry are defensive units usually. And no. Urbans are best dealt with by mechanised infantry, not pure infantry. They need the firepower to blow through strongpoints or the armour to push past MG chokepoints.

Is there not an opportunity here? Build up the surrounding area around Marchwood a little, park a battlegroup in hangars nearby, claim a chunk of the new forest for the high readiness battlegroup to do troop level exercises on? Just a thought.

And I can’t see major Syrian aggression against Turkey going unpunished, if it ever comes to that.

x, if you are talking about logistics, then won’t the Chinooks of the USAF have the same problem if forward deployed beyond established logistical bases?

x

Funny enough we’ve done it now on numerous occasions heck we have even more than 2 or 3 right now in afghan. We deployed nearly twenty to the gulf. We will have a fleet of 60 chinooks and a similar number of merlins and apache I’m sure we could find one or two to use.

How do the maintainers spares arrive most likely how they always do by raf air transport.

@ X

I’m talking a 5 min walk on your doorstep. It’s also another excuse just to pinch a bit of real estate for military use.

“The UK being able to summon up two or three Chinook to move a company is hardly high end helicopter warfare” – x

The bumf mentions the Army’s plan to purchase an additional 14 Chinook (I guess that’s not the same 14 Chinook the RAF were getting…). As Mark mentioned, it’s been done before.

“In late June and July [2009] we took part in Operation PANCHAI PALANG. We landed in a one-wave assault with 350 men” – CO 3SCOTS

“Do you know how much a modern transport helicopter costs? And you want to expose it to mass fires?” – x

I don’t want to expose any British vehicle to mass fires. Are you suggesting though that we shouldn’t have any transport helicopters? Should everyone be driving everywhere?

“we don’t have the aeroplanes. How many C17 do the US have? 170 or something or more? Are we up to 7 or something? It is mass UK brigade or battalion sized operations that I question for the UK because we can’t do them” – x

What happened to the 22 Atlas? Or this release from this year’s Joint Warrior…

“1,300 troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade, the British Army’s rapid reaction force, and 300 French troops from the 11th Parachute Brigade arrived by air in the West Freugh area of Scotland.”

You seem to suggest, x, that four battalions would have to go everywhere together either all by helicopter or all by parachute. Air assault can be any combination of helicopter, parachute or transport aircraft. And that’s what was envisioned for 16AAB from the moment it was conceived. Further infantry units would help with readiness and training cycles; cavalry would add flexibility. But just like the armoured brigades, you wouldn’t be obliged to take all of it every time you want to deploy.

You seem to suggest that as any fool can fall out the back of a Chinook, we don’t need any units specifically filling an air-mobile role. You can apply that simplistic logic to anything. Any fool can fall out the back of a MRAP, but we’re still going to have battalions earmarked as protected mobility. Why not scrap the Royal Marines, just get the handiest army light infantry battalion to chopper in from a spare aircraft carrier? We have rolled units to have them ready the moment they’re needed.

BB, x just acts as the voice of dissent here, don’t take him too seriously. He was being a bit tongue in cheek about scrapping the whole armed forces and pouring the funding into a supernavy somewhere earlier, so you can guess how serious he is about all this. Or not. :)

He is serious about the supernavy, Observer. We’d all be bobbing around in little boats if he had his way.

Obs, BB – not a term I’d noticed before but it does have a ring to it:

“is it a bird? Is it a plane?? Is it a Spanish fishing fleet??? Is it an elephant, white, ridicule, for the use of???? No! Its a SuperNavy!!”

The CH-47s are wonderful for basic parachute training though. No need to waste your time moving to an airbase to be loaded up for a single jump, just find an open field, climb aboard, pilot climbs to a decent altitude, jump. You can cycle a lot more training this way than waiting for a tactical lifter to be free or waiting for it to fly to the dropzone from an airbase and fly back for the next batch.

IXION, sometimes I really do think that having a long history can be a lot of baggage for an armed forces. Structurally resistant to change. FAA/RAF can be combined,but you will need a new name or they will start fighting to call themselves FAA or RAF :)

Marines, same thing, but much easier to work the other way, basic infantry skills taught by the army then subdivided into mech infantry, light infantry, armoured infantry, airmobile infantry and amphibious infantry (Marines) for subskills training, so it is actually easier for the army to absorb the Marines than the Marines absorb the Army.

x, problem is that you have a rather roundabout way of getting to a point and tend to argue both sides of an argument at once so people do get confused about what your point is.

I for one support the designation of “light” forces, it helps to tell at a glance what you can use the unit for. Once you see “light” you know it is infantry and won’t send it to attack a position unsupported thinking that it was mechanised infantry. Less chance of any “Light Brigade” incidents.

As someone who has been heli-trained, there is actually a subset of skills you need to be heliborne qual, getting in and out is a small part of it. There is Terminal Air Guidance, where your infantry has to learn to direct helicopters, basically something like a traffic marshal for aircraft. Landing zone clearing, cargo loading especially belly loading (don’t physically touch the hull of the helo before you ground it, the static charge can knock you flat). Safety proceedure. Rappelling/fast roping. It takes a bit of experience. You can probably load any Tom, Dick or Harry on a CH-47 almost literally as cargo, anything less like Puma, I’d advise against it.

As for peer to peer fighting, yes you WILL use helos in situations like that, that is what you got them for. HOW you use them is a different story. If you use them like a light brigade charge, then the officer formulating the plan should be in the first bird and get sent off solo. He would really deserve to die for gross stupidity. Helos are tools in a much larger plan, not a lone ranger unit. You would go in only after wild weasels, SEADs, air denial, and you go in low to avoid giving missiles a LOS. That was why US UH-1s in Vietnam liked to follow rivers, it let them fly below tree top level and avoid giving SAMs a target.

I think you underestimate the degree of difference between light infantry and air-mobile infantry.

“… not all Parachute Regiment soldiers are jump qualified …”

Why are such called parachute soldiers? Do those that cannot jump (I assume they have all done P Company) wear a different cap badge? Come to that if its members are not all qualified to jump what is the basis for retaining a regiment called the Parachute Regiment? Could not a more accurate name be found? Or even, I suppose, just retire the regiment and recruit for the SFSG from existing units. After all nobody found it odd to remove archer companies when the long bow became obsolete, why should parachuting en mass be any different?

x, ah, so that was what you were trying to say.

Your rambling sometimes goes into the opposite camp territory, which gets us confused on which side you are actually talking about. It ends up looking like you are actually arguing both sides of the situation and sometimes, people only caught the side that you do not support, hence the argument that you said the exact opposite.

Paragraphing for different sides of the argument might help a lot for us poor readers to keep straight.

What’s this obsession with air assault/parachute infantry?! It is a capability that should be retained for some special ops, absolutely, but it represents a tiny proportion of forces and possible defence scenarios.

Mind you, the Germans are also keeping only 2 parachute infantry regiments plus 1 attack helicopter regiment in their future force structure, and they are in far better economic shape than Britain. If 2 PARAs and 2 attack hel Bn’s are all Britain can afford so be it. There is no money for more. The Germans and Dutch are integrating their airborne/air assault forces in a unified command and Britain should consider it’s force structure in view of future integration with European partners in a EURO army.

@X

” … fusiliers to spend their day lighting fuses …”

*sighs*

Fusiliers were so named because they were equipped with fusils, a flintlock musket, rather than the more common, at the time, matchlock. The reason for the fusil was that the fusiliers job was to escort and protect the artillery and it was felt, not unreasonably, that having lit matches around kegs of gunpowder might breach health and safety regulations.

As a fine point of interest, the origin of the function of the fusiliers can be seen in the original name of the old Royal Fusiliers (7th foot, the City of London Regiment), which when formed in 1685 was called the Ordinance Regiment. If that isn’t as fine a point of interest as you require let me know; I can bore for hours on the Regiment’s history, including the disgusting merger of 1968 (posting a cockney into 1st Battalion of the RRF was cruel and inhuman punishment, who knew what the Geordies were actually saying).

Nothing to do with the point in hand of why we should keep the Parachute Regiment. I have this afternoon been reading up on the history of the Gilder Pilot Regiment. A very fine body of men, who in action performed superbly, but the Regiment was created in WW2 to meet the needs of the time; those needs went and so too did the GPR. Isn’t keeping the Parachute Regiment going just an exercise in military sentimentality?

” Many here don’t have an opinion and default to a simple tri-service model based on “the army shoot guns, the airforce fly stuff, and the navy does ships”

Might I point out that for them to have that stand is already an opinion? :)

And I do agree that air logistics makes them dependent on airbases, which is why airfields and airports are critical strategic targets. It is hard to find a place without even a small airfield nowadays.

Simon, don’t fall prey to those buzzwords. You “kick the doors in” against a decent enemy before any friendly force is in support range, your men had better be very well supplied and good or they won’t be coming back out. Stabilization, maybe. Assault/raiding? Wait.

I’m with Observer on this. also skeptical of 16AA or 3CDO “kicking the doors in” against a decent enemy or organized opposition. May work in some African crapholes like Mali but highly unlikely against even semi organized opposition. If you want to “kick the doors in” in most scenarios you need ARMOUR.

x, if the unit is self-supporting, 8,500 tons. Support is the same amount to an established airfield or darkest Africa.

Deployment time to new airfield is 2 days if in a hurry, 3 on average, stores and all. We cheat though, Polet air AN-124 rentals :) Germany does the same thing in a NATO structure though they have theirs on a 2 plane full time charter.

@X

Oh. no. Mr. X. You are not going to win me round by the use of logic, at least not on this argument. The Paras have been in existence since what 1941(?), most of the line infantry have been around for at least a couple of centuries. Now that the need for a parachute regiment has disappeared, or, at least, our ability to pay for one has gone, then lets get go for the old last in first out principle.

At the very least the Paras should be renamed the “Some of us can, probably, Parachute (if only the government would pay for it) Regiment” and, given the fuss they have made about “crap hats” over the years, those members not qualified to jump should wear a sand coloured beret (unit cohesion, be buggered, in every other regiment everyone has met the minimum standard).

My opinions about the Parachute regiment has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the third time my nose was broken, which occurred in that Salvation Army “pub” in Catterick (anyone know if it still exists) and the fact that the RMP intervened just as I was about to deliver the coup de grace to my assailant by kicking him in the fork.