More troops to be cut as MoD gets its sums wrong.........................

[T_igger_cs_30]

The army may lose 20,000 more troops after it leaves Afghanistan because bungles by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have left the armed forces with a multi-billion-pound black hole on top of the cuts announced in the autumn.

The extra reductions in troop numbers, which will probably take effect by 2015, will follow a cut of 7,000 soldiers already confirmed. It will reduce the size of the army to 75,000, its smallest since the 19th century.

The warning of further cuts was disclosed by a source at a meeting of industrialists last month, where Peter Luff, the defence procurement minister, said another round of “major cuts” was inevitable unless more money was found.

George Osborne, the chancellor, cut the defence budget from £37 billion for 2010-11 to £33.8 billion in the next financial year, a fall of 8.6%, in his spending review in October.

Since then, however, the situation has become worse because of miscalculations by defence ministry officials.

Staff working out how to implement the review have found they must take into account a further shortfall of £2 billion this year and a total of £18 billion over the next decade.

One senior source who is closely involved said: “The costing of the defence review was not properly worked out. It was back-of-a-***-packet stuff with all three services fighting their corner. I don’t think anyone realised quite how bad it was.”

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said this weekend that the strategic defence and security review had significantly reduced shortfalls caused by “years of MoD mismanagement” and that officials were “continuing to develop and refine” plans for the structure of the forces after 2015.

The army fought off a 20,000-man cut during the defence review on the basis that it was still operating in Afghanistan. But it has already been told to cut 2,800 armoured vehicles, including those on which hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent in recent years.

The prime minister has insisted troops start winding down their presence in Afghanistan by the end of this year. Officials are working out which units to axe.

The army will be structured around five multi-role brigades, plus a specialist rapid reaction brigade made up of paratroopers and light infantry. Large numbers of headquarters and administrative staff are expected to go, along with armoured, communications and engineering units, the source said.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/...icle496371.ece

It just keeps getting better................

[S2]

I no longer really know what to say other than it seems a force adequate to defend the Falklands-if they can be transported. Beyond that...?

[T_igger_cs_30]

I no longer really know what to say other than it seems a force adequate to defend the Falklands-if they can be transported. Beyond that...?

If this happens it will make us no better than a militia, (less than 100k) humiliating, embarressing are just two words that come to mind.
Like you I am struggling to find words S.

[T_igger_cs_30]

‘We went to war to keep the Army busy’ senior diplomat says

The Times-Thursday Jan 13/11.
A furious row has erupted in Whitehall after a former senior diplomat accused the Army of sending troops to fight and die in Afghanistan four years ago simply to stop the Government from reducing its size as operations in Iraq dried up.

The allegation by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles was strongly denied by General Sir Richard Dannatt, who was head of the Army at the time. “It is a disgraceful set of comments,” Sir Richard said. “It is not his business to opine about the Army. He is well out of his lane and well out of order.”

Sir Sherard, however, who until last summer was the Government’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, stuck by his words. “He is lying, I am afraid. I can recall him saying it, sitting in his office in the Ministry of Defence,” he told The Times.

Sir Richard insisted that he did not recognise the quote. “He’s got the wrong person there,” he said.

The seasoned diplomat, with a reputation for being something of a maverick, also accused the top brass of being “misleadingly optimistic” in their advice to ministers, failing to spell out the potential costs and risks of what turned out to be an enduring and bloody commitment in Helmand.

In addition, he said that enthusiasm for the Afghan mission was in part fuelled by a desire to salvage the military’s reputation among US colleagues who were critical of Britain’s failings in the Iraqi city of Basra.

The explosive remarks, in a written memorandum to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, supported the findings of an investigation by The Times last year, which heard evidence that commanders and senior civil servants had ignored warnings that Britain was ill prepared to send troops to Helmand and had approved a deeply flawed plan.

Sir Sherard wrote that the escalating conflict in Afghanistan had presented the Army with a “raison d’être” that it had lacked for many years, and the opportunity to demand new resources on an unprecedented scale.

In one of his most stunning claims, he said that Sir Richard, then Chief of the General Staff, had told him in the summer of 2007 that the Army would lose the battle groups that were leaving Iraq in a future defence review if it did not use them in Helmand. “It’s ‘use them, or lose them’,” Sir Sherard quoted the former commander as saying.

Sir Sherard added: “In my view, the Army’s ‘strategy’ in Helmand was driven at least as much by the level of resources available to the British Army as by an objective assessment of the needs of a proper counter-insurgency campaign in the province. Time and again, ministers were pressed to send more troops to Helmand, as they became available from Iraq.”

Sir Richard told The Times: “I have great respect for Sherard Cowper-Coles as a diplomat but believe that many of his comments with regard to the military are somewhere between misjudged and mischievous.

“His most distressing comments relate to the suggestion that the Army wanted to become increasingly involved in Afghanistan. Any soldier who has seen any action and the casualties that result does not go looking for more.”

The general added: “The decision to go to Afghanistan was taken by the Government in some haste in 2004 and announced by Tony Blair at a Nato summit after he had turned down a request by the Americans for the UK to do more in southern Iraq. From that moment on, we were committed to two campaigns, while only resourced for one. From 2006 to 2008, this was a major juggling act.”

Bob Ainsworth, a former Defence Secretary and a member of the committee, which is conducting an inquiry into Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that he did not know which version of events was correct, but said of Sir Sherard’s claim: “If it’s true then it is of concern.”

In a staggering attack on the heads of the Armed Forces, Sir Sherard, who said he wanted a “proper equlibrium” for civilian and military oversight of the war, criticised the policy of rotating brigades through Helmand every six months, a strategy which he said had led to campaign plans changing every half-year and a lack of continuity in the overall mission.

He also said that the military had blamed ministers unfairly for a shortage of helicopters and armoured vehicles — a problem that blighted the Blair and Brown years — with the families of servicemen who died in Afghanistan and Iraq blaming the Government for their loss because of inadequate kit.

“Those ministers could not possibly have been reasonably expected to have known the details of logistics needs associated with a particular deployment,” Sir Sherard said. He claimed that in 2007, when there was a helicopter shortage, more than a quarter of helicopter movements were for giving lifts to VIPs. “And most of those VIPs were senior military tourists from London!” he added.

A source at the Ministry of Defence played down his comments. “Sherard has always been a maverick. He is entitled to his opinions but this is a scenario that we would not recognise,” the source said.

However, a former brigade commander in Helmand, who declined to be named, said: “Much of \ analysis of the military is correct and is representative of an organisation that has been unable to adapt to the circumstances it has found itself in. There has been too much willingness by senior officers to give hapless ministers a good kicking rather than being prepared to have a good hard look at themselves in the mirror.”

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/w...cle2873975.ece

And so the ducking and weaving begins........

[T_igger_cs_30]

Defence equipment and jobs at risk as MoD set to cut an extra £1bn

The Times - February 22 2011


The Tornado could be retired early.

The Ministry of Defence is having to find an additional £1 billion in savings after cuts to personnel and equipment in last year’s defence review failed to plug the department’s financial black hole, The Times understands.

Dubbed “SDSR 2” — Strategic Defence and Security Review No 2 — the ministry is looking at proposals to balance the books by the end of March, which could result in more equipment and jobs being lost. Among the options is the early retirement of the RAF’s Tornado fast jets and an additional cut in non-frontline forces. “The department is skint and cannot make the numbers work,” said one source.

Worries about further cuts were enhanced by a report by MPs, published today. The members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that the MoD had yet to explain how it would afford the fast jets, aircraft carriers and personnel that survived the review, and that more cuts in equipment would be necessary. The PAC also said that a “cycle of failure” in defence procurement would continue unless the Government took action to change the culture of delay and poor accounting that has wasted billions of pounds.

The harsh words supported an investigation by The Times in December which examined the inefficiencies and equipment delays within the MoD that have ultimately led to scores of lives being lost on the front line.

“The MoD has to demonstrate the discipline in its defence procurement that it demonstrates on the front line,” Margaret Hodge, chairman of the committee, said. “At the moment it doesn’t.”

In an interview Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, outlined his plans to tackle the ministry’s “endemic” procurement woes and promised to name and shame defence projects that fail to deliver military projects to the Government on time. He said that the ministry would publish a quarterly list of “projects of concern” highlighting equipment programmes that were running over-budget or behind schedule.

Mr Fox also told the Financial Times that he had asked Bernard Gray, the Chief of Defence Materiel, to ensure that when any new defence programme was commissioned, it could be funded from start to finish. He said: “The failure to be clear about this in the past has created a bow wave of overspending that is crashing over our heads right now. What I want to ensure is that another bow wave never builds up again.”

The MPs on the PAC criticised an inability to ensure that programmes, such as two new aircraft carriers, a fleet of Typhoon jets and nine Nimrod spy planes, were affordable. It said decisions were made without full knowledge of the financial situation, resulting last year alone in a £3.3 billion increase in costs.

Facing a £38 billion black hole in its budget, the MoD attempted to tackle the problem in the defence review, which set out a plan to scrap the nine Nimrod aircraft and the Sentinel surveillance planes, resulting in a waste of almost £5 billion and the loss of two important military capabilities.

The PAC report said: “The fact that the department has been pressured to make [such decisions] offers a compelling argument why it must address the problems which have affected defence procurement for decades. If it does not, the cycle of failure will continue.”

The MPs told the MoD to provide details by the end of April on its forecast for the cost of implementing the defence review.

Also giving cause for concern was the change every two to three years of the military officer responsible for major projects — limiting accountability and hampering continuity of effort.

“The department should ensure that senior responsible officers remain in post during key phases of a project lifecycle,” the MPs recommended.

An MoD source said that no decision on further cuts had been made.

MPs report on Ministry of Defence major projects 2010 - UK Parliament

[tankie]

They should start cuts closer to home , like Westminster frinstance , one word describes this debacle , starts with W and ends in S , if in doubt insert ANKER in the middle .

[dave lukins]

If this happens it will make us no better than a militia, (less than 100k) humiliating, embarressing are just two words that come to mind.
Like you I am struggling to find words S.

How many Guards Regiments are going I wonder or will it be the usual riff-raff such as the RTR

[dave lukins]

And so the ducking and weaving begins........

Calling Dannatt a liar is a tad more than 'opine'. Cowper-Coles has done the rounds and I think his memory is better than Dannatt's who once retracted a statement (2006) saying that the British Army should pull out of Iraq as it "exacerbates the security problems for the United Kingdom worldwide". The former Home Secretary David Blunkett, has also criticised Dannatt for "interfering" in politics, saying it was a "constitutional" issue. Dannatt made remarks that, once again, seemed to put him at odds with the Army's political leadership:

Quote:
The militants (and I use the word deliberately because not all are insurgents, or terrorists, or criminals; they are a mixture of them all) are well armed – probably with outside help, and probably from Iran. By motivation, essentially, and with the exception of the Al Qaeda in Iraq element who have endeavoured to exploit the situation for their own ends, our opponents are Iraqi Nationalists, and are most concerned with their own needs – jobs, money, security – and the majority are not bad people.




Anyone who kills or maims a fellow Soldier, in my opinion IS A BAD PERSON. Anyone who supplies 'militants' with the means to kill/maim soldiers IS A BAD PERSON. Anyone who harbours a 'militant' IS A BAD PERSON......Sir.

[Bill]

It is amazing what a two bit second rate power the UK has become.

[T_igger_cs_30]

It is amazing what a two bit second rate power the UK has become.

We are not happy about it Bill................. we all have our problems......as a famous two bit over paid second rate actor said "we will be back"

[tankie]

We are not happy about it Bill................. we all have our problems......as a famous two bit over paid second rate actor said "we will be back"

Yea and aint he a 2 bit snd rate governor now , i feel a cake type fight coming

[Bill]

Honestly, the size of the US military is a pittance compared to when i served as well. Back then during the height of the Reagan buildup, the US Army alone was significantly larger than the entire US military is today.

[Officer of Engineers]

NATO was a two and a half war force during our times. And a war as defined during our service were the nuclear battlefield. Now, NATO defines a war as the Kuwait war which was not even a half war during our time.

Brigade for brigade, division for division, the boys and girls today can crush our equivalent blind folded but ask them to face 213 Soviet divisions backed by 30,000+ nukes, they haven't a clue.

[T_igger_cs_30]

A simple question

A simple question I have asked, both verbally and in writing to various people and departments in the last few weeks has been;

"With all the talk of waste we hear about, how come all we can seem to cut are front line troops, warships and aircraft?...................where is the waste being cut we talk about? Which positions and personel?

Of course I get answers, but not worth showing because its all bs that you get in response.

[dave lukins]

Yea and aint he a 2 bit snd rate governor now , i feel a cake type fight coming

Hi kant du it now but ...heil be bach