State of the British armed forces

[Wizeman]

Just wondering if anyone else is worried about the state of our armed forces?

The world seems like its on a knife edge and from my analysis we are not ready for war.

So TL;DR we've wasted 70 years of spending on nukes when we should have been buying better guns ?

Where did you get that figure from? It’s farcical.

Army cant do anything if russia sales upto us and starts launching missiles at us. Some of our ships will be in dry dock for another 5 years. One of our destroyers preparing to return to service was in dock for 8 years.

My cohort has left in droves. Many of us on extended engagements of 28yrs. The way we are now having to bow down to social politics of not being able to discipline for fear of discipline against ourselves due to the snowflake culture is astounding.

In my junior years i done 2 back to back of Iraq and Afghanistan, my 2 cousins and brother were back to back iraq at the height and our family were unhealithy obsessed with sky tv, terrified of a knock on the door.....

I would not want to go to war with today's army...... half of them would refuse to hold a weapon. 🙄🤣🫣

They should probably deal with the anti ballistic capability.

That could have been written in 1886 ...

Our army has been so depleted it’s now just a defence force. I feel so sorry for the staff now.

73k in the british army. Currently 19k are deployable. British army normally does 1/3 on rotation to rest, 1/3 preparing to return to battle, and another 3rd in battle. 19k divided by 3 is 6 thousand 300. Thats what's currently deployable. Assuming everyone is ready to fight including reserves we would be able to put 33k troops on the ground at an absolute maximum I assume, although not all of those soldiers will be combat, some will be medics behind the line, logistics, comms or administrative. So 33k maximum thats my guess. Experts put it lower at 15k as i said, atleast to commit to putting troops in Ukraine like starmer has said. 33k at war assuming we rotate and train troops.

Ye, we have more than enough to flatten the whole planet, so if you cut it in half you would definitely save money. Getting rid would be stupid though

Not sure yet. You wouldn't be silly though to deny the world isn't a very dangerous place right now.

although not all of those soldiers will be combat, some will be medics behind the line, logistics, comms or administrative.

That’s where you’re mistaken. All soldiers - except medics - are trained to be used in combat. And two thirds of the army wouldn’t be kept away from the front line in the event of a war situation. Do you seriously think more than half the armed forces weren’t in combat in WW2?

So you want the British Army to be able to fight 1,000,000 Russians anywhere on the planet ?

I'm not really sure you've grasped UK military strategy. Not unreasonable. It's hardly going to be circulated widely - nor indeed truthfully.

I dont want to fight but I want us to be able to defend ourselves. Your acting like its a joke jane, if someone entered your house with a knife god forbid wouldnt you want to be able to defend yourself? I would

Yes I known that but your not going to put specialists on the front line are you? You need them doing there job behind the line otherwise the army wouldnt function.

Im not saying we wouldnt put all our army on the ground im saying currently we use 1 on 2 off. Again plenty of ex senior officers have said this. Im sure it would probably change but we would still be against the odds.

Delulu if you think the army has the same manpower as back in the cold war.

your not going to put specialists on the front line are you?

Of course you are, that’s what they’re trained for. Logistics troops were on the front line in the Falklands.

i think more countries need to be self sufficient. able to defend itself and strong enough to not entice attacks. finland/sweden type
personally i would start by sending all us troops home, converting the bases to uk military bases. with the changing nature of warfare missile defense/drones and shelters for civilians. the civilian base also needs to shape up more pe in schools more online critical thinking. ranger status in remote locations (might already have that)
the us is too much of a red flag, i'd not be buying their kit and i'd be disassociating with them quickly.
why are countries sending money to the us supporting their munitions factories and not doing all this local. yes bring all that work home.

It's not so much an army as a militia.
You can only protect with drones and such to a point. We must keep pace, we must think forward, we must be able to deploy to any environment and any situation.

No one knows what shape a war would take, or any event which needs army support. Be it boots on the ground or air support. we can only use intelligence, guess work and exoerience to tell us abd prepare accordingly.

Training, recruitment, not making experienced army personnel redundant, is all really basic stuff. Building over barracks and selling off miltary assets is short sighted and incredibly foolish.

I worry because I rely on the army to keep the UK safe, when things go wrong, politicians are not the ones we rely on. After all, they are mostly all out for themselves.

Run those figures against what we did deploy in Iraq and then Afghanistan..... many regiments doing 6 months on, 6 or lucky 12 months off.....

I was a specialist, I was still used as driver for logistics.

Our military on the ground is nothing like we had in the 1990-2009.....like I said, the experienced of us have left because we cant be fucked with the politics of not being able to discipline soldiers for fear of reprisal. When you have a substantial pension at risk, its not worth it.

Let's pray the next war is ran by computers, drones, missiles 1000 miles away because we will never ever win on the ground.

You dont want your specialists on the front. Combat specialists like recce or armored yes. Specialists like logistics you dont want on the front fighting. They may go from the rear to the front and back to the rear or comms at the front, but a majority of your specialists will be in the rear. I dont suppose you would put a field hospitals on the front line would you?

You appear to be rather over anxious. Suggesting the enemy has already won.

The OP seems to be under the impression that more is better.

Even if the UK were able to deploy 50% of it's population, that won't make it 35 times better than a million Russians. In fact it could make it worse.

Specialists like logistics you dont want on the front fighting.

Then why train them to fight? They’ve been on the front line in every conflict so far.

They have in small numbers like delivering supplies, qarter masters, radio operators.

Im telling you now in conventional warfare you do not want RLC trucks Logistics near the front unless its delivering supplies.

Tell me why you would have Logistics trucks fighting on the front with their gpmgs, have field hospitals on the front giving aid to soldiers, water purification and large radio comms on the front line? It didn't happen in the past and it wouldnt happen today with drones in CONVENTIONAL WARFARE

In afghanistan it was different, logistics would often travel through hostile territory and would have to fight out sometimes.

Their is a quality in quantity. Jane you ain't go a clue. We couldn't deploy 50% of pur population and if we did with the kit we have we would destroy any army we face just with numbers. Look at the germans and Soviets. The germans had all the quality and lost to numbers. We need quality and quantity. Atleast 150k in the army.