What should a balanced UK armed forces look like?

[arfah]

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[shark bait]

For the last two budget years it looks like this (what can be allocated from the either side of £37 bn total):

Thanks, from that data the split looks like this;

Split between the 3 main branches


Split through the entire MOD


Quite remarkable the RAF and Royal Navy occupy the same percentage. If it were up to me, modest increases to the RAF and RN, keeping the army largely the same.

[WhitestElephant]

Budgeting for the Royal Navy and British Army should be switched.

[arfah]

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[andrew98]

Budgeting for the whole Armed Forces should be increased!

[arfah]

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[~UNiOnJaCk~]

@Pseudo, I think it does. Everything in Britain needs to be quality over quantity.

We cannot compete so well on scale, but we absolutely can compete on quality. I would always favour a smaller more credible armed forces, which is why a 2 tier navy with a light frigate, or 2 tier RAF with a Textron scorpion has never sat well with me. Any major campaign we get into will likely involve the Americans, and/or NATO. Let them supply the mass, we can supply the quality. (For that reason, I think it is important our army is structured to work well with the Americans.)

Quality over quantity is something I come across all the time in engineering. We will never match the quantity of iPhones china pumps out, but we sure can beat them on the quality of the cars we produce. We will do much better ensuring we keep that quality edge, rather than trying to match on quantity. I think the same is applicable to our armed forces.

It has historically been the role of the Army, more than any other branch we have fielded, to make up for quantity with quality. The only rare exception to this rule that i can think of would be in the later stages of the Great War where the British Army experienced something of a unique change in its historical dynamic; achieving both quantity and quality by November of 1918. That said, quantity often has a quality all of its own and whilst this is by no means suggesting we should field armies of multiple hundreds of thousands of men we must always be aware of the need for 'critical mass'.

As to whether or not the present Army can provide that i am not sure. Like i said earlier, much depends on the successful implementation of the theory behind Army 2020/JF2025. Cynically however, part of me feels that 82,000 Regulars, enlarged, more capable and more ready Army reserve or no, is cutting things awfully close. We have all heard stories of units being below strength or salami sliced to flesh out the more forward elements of the ORBAT. I believe i remember Arfah saying that the tail elements in particular are having manpower issues. Frankly, i would like to see some additionally headroom in the Army strength.

[andrew98]

Budgeting for the whole Armed Forces should be increased!

Alas, HM Armed Forces have to make do with what they have.

Unfortunately so, until once again it bites them/us the backside again, or they think they can buy votes with defence (will likely never happen )

[marktigger]

But we also need to look at the Broad spectrum of warfare. Over recent years we have allowed the armed forces to become very narrowly focussed on a particular type of warfare fought in a certain way and have sacrificed allot of things because it wasn't relevant to a particular type of warfare. Already the Army is finding out how expensive that is in the long term in terms of both kit and experience.

[jedibeeftrix]

that is a remarkable parity between navy and airforce.

a 30/30/40 split seems about right to me.

in terms of manning i'd like to see a 25/25/50 split, which in todays nymbers would equal 37,500/37,500/75,000.

[necessary evil]

I think it would look like the Future 2025 force, if it ever comes about. I don´t really have any reservations about this Defence Review, it seems to have struck just the right balance, not just in terms of army/navy/air force, but also in terms of quantity/quality. For example, the Army may now only have 5 deployable brigades, rather than 6 previously, but now those should all be ´proper´brigades, rather than the piecemeal formations that were supposed to be drawn from the Adaptable Force in Future Army 2020. To achieve this it looks like they will have to gut the Adaptable Force, making it pretty much a Home Guard, which I think is the right move. The Adaptable Force should now contain most of the reserves, and the Reaction Force most of the regulars. I think it was a mistake to mix the two, and it looks like this will be put right.

The whole emphasis of the review, as I see it, is on preserving/restoring the UK´s expeditionary warfare capacity. This is exactly what was needed, in my opinion, as I would much rather see a small but potent force being used (along with NATO allies) to deter an invasion of the Baltics by ´little green men,´ than see a larger but less potent force being used to bring democracy to Afghanistan.

[marktigger]

would agree with 6 deployable Brigades if it didn't include 16 AA & 3Cdo with 2 light role brigades configured to work closely with 3 & 16 and then 2 armoured brigades and 2 mechanised brigades with the aspiration to build a further 1 each of armoured, mech and Light role brigades at the next review.

[necessary evil]

I wasn´t counting the Marines, but I was counting the Paras. With 3rd brigade added we should have the ability (if it is ever needed) to eventually deploy a corps in the field, although the review didn´t mention this as a possibility (I guess they don´t plan for World War 3-type scenarios much these days). The review also didn´t mention whether the Adaptable Force would have any deployable brigades. If it does, I think it will only have one, as we only had five deployable brigades (not counting the Marines or Paras) before, and there won´t be any increase in personnel numbers.

[arfah]

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[arfah]

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[ArmChairCivvy]

A Corps is 3 Divisions. To give that a sense of scale, in the 1991 Gulf war the UK deployed 42,000 soldiers. That was classed as a "Light" Division.

Good that terminology was put right. And the French turned up so "light" and only as a bde that they were given flank guarding duties.

But back to this day, or actually to a distant future when the Strike Bdes will have been formed: How much (as a fraction) of the quoted 50.000 to be deployed as a max effort do you think would be Army?
- support (CS at least) won't be cut further, but there ever was only enough for 5 bdes
- assume that forming the 2 Strike Bdes will eat up one AI (in whole, or nominally by gutting out infantry strength from the existing formations)
- these bdes (here 2+2) tend to be of not much more than 5.000 each
- so add to that 20.000 the 8.000 that 16X maxed out at (now 3 bns instead of 4, and a lot of the aviation is directly under "Land" but we can assume that all of the package would be used anyway)

Then you can round up with parts of the RM; do we get 50.000 with this count?

[Pseudo]

I still think the British Army is too big. Cut another 20,000, be ruthless with cap badges and bring commonality to the vehicle fleets. Huge savings to be made there... reinvest it all in the Royal Navy.

Yes W.E., we get it. You like sailors.

Thankfully, your fetish doesn't drive Whitehall.

The army is too small, now! Just like the RN & RAF.

Why is it too small? What's the largest realistic unilateral deployment that we might require and how long might be need to sustain it?

[arfah]

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[~UNiOnJaCk~]

^ We don't have enough personnel to properly flesh out our mandated formations and on top of that you can argue that we don't have enough formations/units, full stop – certainly capabilities are either wholly absent (or have been until the very recent past) or are severely lacking in mass.

IMO, we were at our most credible in terms of conducting independent action when the Army hovered at or around the 100,000 personnel mark. For a nation of our international standing and ambition it was not an unreasonable ambition. The problem we have today, whilst theoretically doable, is making our 82,000-man Army as effective (preferably more effective) than the 100,000 man one we had in '10’ across the whole range of operational scenarios.

[Pseudo]

Why is it too small? What's the largest realistic unilateral deployment that we might require and how long might be need to sustain it?

2. This question cannot be answered without the specifics of whom we are to engage and where? Size, strength and location?
"From the middle to end, twice!"

That's the question I'm asking. Who are we realistically likely to have to engage on our own? What size force would we require to defeat them?

[arfah]

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[marktigger]

exactly the army is to small and has been since the 1990's even before that there wasn't the political will to recruit never mind retain the numbers needed. to do that would have required competitive rates of pay and good terms and conditions of service.

[necessary evil]

we should have the ability (if it is ever needed) to eventually deploy a corps in the field, although the review didn´t mention this as a possibility

A Corps is 3 Divisions. To give that a sense of scale, in the 1991 Gulf war the UK deployed 42,000 soldiers. That was classed as a "Light" Division.

So a Corps is upward of 120,000 soldiers.
That's larger than current manning, including training establishments.

Not gonna happen.

Not according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps

[marktigger]

no its not a "light" division its classification is Div minus or Div light.

Light division was the administriative division that contained the Light Infantry and Royal Green Jackets

[arfah]

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