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RAF to shrink to World War One levels


Still Waters

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The RAF will shrink to its smallest size since the First World War, under unprecedented cuts being proposed at the Ministry of Defence.

In the most significant changes to Britain’s defences since the post-Suez review of 1957, ministers and officials plan to scrap large parts of the Armed Forces.

The Services will lose up to 16,000 personnel, hundreds of tanks, scores of fighter jets and half a dozen ships, under detailed proposals passed to The Daily Telegraph.

But the RAF will bear the brunt of the planned cuts. The Air Force will lose 7,000 airmen – almost one sixth of its total staff – and 295 aircraft. The cuts will leave the Force with fewer than 200 fighter planes for the first time since 1914. In addition, the Navy will lose two submarines, three amphibious ships and more than 100 senior officers, along with 2,000 sailors and marines.

The Army faces a 40 per cent cut to its fleet of 9,700 armoured vehicles and the loss of a 5,000-strong brigade of troops.

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I dont really a huge problem with such cuts.

We dont need most of it, we dont really fight big set-piece wars anymore, were not fighting huge head on armour engagements, so we dont need all the tanks, were not fighting anyone with air-power enough to hold a candle to the Eurofighter etc, so we dont need all the planes, Sea power is almost completely negated by airpower, so we dont need all the ships, only the carriers to project our airpower.

If our armed forces are smaller, we can spend more time and effort training them better and giving them better kit, i would rather have 20,000 men and women well trained, with the finest in modern combat tech available then 50,000 troops with poor kit, issues of supply, poor pay and bad morale.

The only nations in the world who have tanks, planes etc to fight the sort of war we fiught 60 years ago are.

UK.

China.

USA.

Israel.

India.

Pakistan.

Iran.

Germany.

France.

Russia.

I dont see the UK fighting any of them in the near future, certainly not alone and un-supportted by allies.

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Why has this nation put banks before our defence?

How about we send one or two of them bankrupt, stirp them of funds and use the funds on defence spending.

Edited by Power Lust
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Why has this nation put banks before our defence?

Like i said above, we dont need most of what we have for our defense.

Does Al-Quaeda have 300 main battle tanks? and a ship to land them on the South Coast? nope.

A tank is completly useless at fighting the sort of war we are fighting today, as are most of our ships and planes.

Its like complaining about throwing out the hand gun for home defense, when your home is being attacked by ants. Does the gun work against the ants.... nope. So there is no point having it.

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History repeating itself. we'll never learn. every war we have fought we've never been prepared from the outset. people and government have always said we don't need a big army no more. large scale world wars are a thing of the past. that's what they say until war breaks out then we find ourselves ill prepared and find ourselves in the **** upto our neck.

you can clearly see where the governments priorities lie. would rather spend £170Billion on social security benefits, than a measly £35 billion on Defence.

pull out of the European Union and the money saved would mean we don't have to cut any public services or Defence. why doesn't the EU freeze all membership payments. until governments finances are balanced. instead of doing what they are doing, the UK contribution to the EU went up in January by 60% B) stop the world i want to get off.

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History repeating itself. we'll never learn. every war we have fought we've never been prepared from the outset. people and government have always said we don't need a big army no more. large scale world wars are a thing of the past. that's what they say until war breaks out then we find ourselves ill prepared and find ourselves in the **** upto our neck.

you can clearly see where the governments priorities lie. would rather spend £170Billion on social security benefits, than a measly £35 billion on Defence.

pull out of the European Union and the money saved would mean we don't have to cut any public services or Defence. why doesn't the EU freeze all membership payments. until governments finances are balanced. instead of doing what they are doing, the UK contribution to the EU went up in January by 60% B) stop the world i want to get off.

Don't forget the Olympics.

The strangest thing is, they seem to have a complete blind spot about the pointless nuclear "deterrent". If there was ever anything more pointless, I'd like to know about it. But that seems to be sacrosanct, if that's the word.

Does Al-Quaeda have 300 main battle tanks? and a ship to land them on the South Coast? nope.

A tank is completly useless at fighting the sort of war we are fighting today, as are most of our ships and planes.

The point is that the government will cheerfully cut anything at all, even things that might actually be useful at some point. Tactical vehicles, helicopters, transport aircraft. And ships, now? Ships aren't useful? Ships are very useful if you need to import anything, like, i don't know, anything at all that we need anymore, things that we used to make ourselves, but governments decided that that wasn't important, and you need to protect the ships that we rely on to bring everything from piracy, which are basically terrorists at sea.

Basically, I think, i'm rapidly coming to agree with the American right who argue that we'd be better off with no government at all. They're all terminally incompetent, egotistical and just basically and at a very fundamental level, stupid. How would the forces be organised and commanded, then, you ask? I say cut out the government, the here today gone tomorrow politicians; let the power lie in someone who can think in the long term, because they don't need to worry about the next election and vote-winning gimmicks. So i say, give power back to the monarchy. I have no doubt whatsoever that the queen (and the next king, if Charles was to step down in favour of William) could look at things a damn sight more sensibly than the latest ego-driven batch of politicians. I'm sure that she has more political nous and far, far more experience than any politician could ever have. Oh, you'd have to modify the rules of sucession to be sure, to make sure that someone competent is on the throne, certainly; so let's make William next in line (with Harry as military advisor; he has combat experience, after all.) Let's just make sure that Charles sticks to designing hideous toy villages.

**message ends**

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Don't forget the Olympics.

The strangest thing is, they seem to have a complete blind spot about the pointless nuclear "deterrent". If there was ever anything more pointless, I'd like to know about it. But that seems to be sacrosanct, if that's the word.

**message ends**

It states there getting rid of two subs, those are part of our nuclear deterrant as they can launch nuclear warheads, thier scrapping two of them.

Once again i will say it.

Tanks - have no place in current warefare.

Subs - Have no place other than cruise missle platforms, which we can launch more of, more cheaply from ships.

Fighter Planes and bombers - Are mostly innefective, we can drop all the laser guided bombs we need with a small proportion of planes, we dont need then all.

Ships - Most we dont need, as gun-platforms in they are worthless, they are expensive and not kitted out to carry frieght, want to guard our shipping? fine, can still do that but we dont need a mssive fleet to do so, all we need a bit more coperation with other nations, so we look after each others shipping.

Troops - we dont need them all, and we dont seem to be able to equip the ones we have very well, if we have less onf them, the ones we do have can be given better gear.

The ONLY thing i dont think that should be cut is helicopters as they fit in perfectly with the sort of wars we are currently fighting.

There is no point keeping all the above "in case we need them", who are we gonna use them against? all the old enemies are long gone a buried, or are now our friends, none of our cuirrent enimies fight in a manner that needs all of the above. If, in time it seems we might need to fight a big old fashioned war then we can simple build some more ships and tanks, we only have like 450 Challenger II's anyway, if we were in a war we would be building them by the dozen every month.

Seems to me people cant except the world has moved on and we dont need most of this gear anymore. Its a like an obsessive that keeps everthing, old boxes from 30 years ago, a broken lamp from the 50's and is to scared to get rid of them because they "might need them".

In regards to the pirate thing, if we wanted we could, for example wipe out 90% of all Somali pirates in an afternoon, we know where all thier camps are, all it would need is a series of air strikes baked up by a helicopter landing of a few hundred paras and SAS and they would all be dead. We dont because of politcal issues.

Edited by Wyrdlight
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I think this UK decision is wise and very practical. It reflects the existing reality of the day - the era of small aggressive and well-armed countries is over. Japan in 1945 was the proof to this. Since then the actual landmass is determining, is a country a capable player or not. USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, India, Brazil - these are the only countries to consider in the epoch of nuclear weapons. All others are simply small fries. Britain is great, but one only needs a single missile cruiser or a single strategic bomber plane to wipe it off well before it decides to use its tanks, ships, planes etc. Keeping them in numbers and producing them in series is only a reminiscence of Aesopus' fable about a Frog, inflating itself to become equal to a Bull. No advantage except the extra burden for the budget and the pleasure of keeping the potential foes angry.

Realistically speaking UK only needs a few hundred ICBMs - not to defeat anyone, but to threaten to damage the future foe. This deterrent would always keep anyone from trying to attack it, while it is not supposed to be on agenda anymore for UK itself to attack anyone. With its current population density UK cannot afford this anymore, as it is excessively vulnerable to WMD response.

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It states there getting rid of two subs, those are part of our nuclear deterrant as they can launch nuclear warheads, thier scrapping two of them.

No, the one thing that the New Conservative goverment says that they must keep is the Nuclear Dtyerrent, they'e told the MOD that they must develop a new range of new & improved missiles, but they must do it out of their own budget and not expect the government to give them any more money for it. This is what I mean by stupidity.

Ships - Most we dont need, as gun-platforms in they are worthless, they are expensive and not kitted out to carry frieght,

no, to protect the ships that do carry the freight. Which, as i've said before, since we import everything now, such as oil, and coal to provide electricty, is rather important.

I think this UK decision is wise and very practical. It reflects the existing reality of the day - the era of small aggressive and well-armed countries is over. Japan in 1945 was the proof to this. Since then the actual landmass is determining, is a country a capable player or not. USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, India, Brazil - these are the only countries to consider in the epoch of nuclear weapons. All others are simply small fries. Britain is great, but one only needs a single missile cruiser or a single strategic bomber plane to wipe it off well before it decides to use its tanks, ships, planes etc. Keeping them in numbers and producing them in series is only a reminiscence of Aesopus' fable about a Frog, inflating itself to become equal to a Bull. No advantage except the extra burden for the budget and the pleasure of keeping the potential foes angry.

Realistically speaking UK only needs a few hundred ICBMs - not to defeat anyone, but to threaten to damage the future foe. This deterrent would always keep anyone from trying to attack it, while it is not supposed to be on agenda anymore for UK itself to attack anyone. With its current population density UK cannot afford this anymore, as it is excessively vulnerable to WMD response.

besides the fact that you could develop unlimited free energy for the cost of even one of these shiny toys, what on earth use would a few hundred IC bloody BMs be in any possible way whatsoever? Who would they deter? Iran? North Korea? They're supposed to be mad and evil, aren't they, so they wouldn't be likely to be deterred by anything. China? Like they'd take the slightest notice. What use would ICBMs be against the taleban? Or Somali pirates? Unless the recommended practice for everywhere is just going to be to plant a nuke on somewhere if they cause any trouble. the Dr Strangelove approach.

Edited by 747400
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besides the fact that you could develop unlimited free energy for the cost of even one of these shiny toys, what on earth use would a few hundred IC bloody BMs be in any possible way whatsoever? Who would they deter? Iran? North Korea? They're supposed to be mad and evil, aren't they, so they wouldn't be likely to be deterred by anything. China? Like they'd take the slightest notice. What use would ICBMs be against the taleban? Or Somali pirates? Unless the recommended practice for everywhere is just going to be to plant a nuke on somewhere if they cause any trouble. the Dr Strangelove approach.

No, but UK sleeps well only because it has this deterrent! Otherwise Argentine would be already owning the islands. Conventional forces are adequate to a ww2 style war, but even the end of WW2 was not already conventional! Any politicians simply calculate pros and contras in their actions to defend national interests, and sometimes these interests may require to invade or attack some country - but if this country has nuclear arsenals, this option would not exist at all. This was practically discovered in the second half of 20th century.

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No, the one thing that the New Conservative goverment says that they must keep is the Nuclear Dtyerrent, they'e told the MOD that they must develop a new range of new & improved missiles, but they must do it out of their own budget and not expect the government to give them any more money for it. This is what I mean by stupidity.

--> I did not state they were getting rid of the deterahnt only reduceing, which they are doing. Developing new missles costs less than keeping two subs up and running, the cost of cutting the subs would cover the new missles, which are a short term investment, spend a few billion to build them, once they are bult they are built, no need to inbvest any more money, the subs cost several billion every year each to keep running, thus in the lonf run, cutting two subs saves a LOT of money.

no, to protect the ships that do carry the freight. Which, as i've said before, since we import everything now, such as oil, and coal to provide electricty, is rather important.

--> As i stated in the second mpart of the sentence you are quoteing from, we dont need ships, do you honestly think you need a desroyer to hunt a speedboat with 6 armed pirates in it? massive waste of resources, dozens of ships get attacked in the Gulf dispite a large naval presance, what you need is a few ship with helocopters/planes to fly out and simply shred the little boats from half a mile out, you could get away with half the ships we currently have, with ease.

I dont see the problem, their cutting things we dont need to save money, to reduce debt and spend money on things we do need, every KNOWS that we need hard, painful spending cuts to fix the problem, we could do things in half measures but would be in debt for ages and ages, i would rather have a 10 year period with reduced public spending and a slightly reduced military than a stunted fragile economy that lasts for 40 years.

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I dont see the problem, their cutting things we dont need to save money, to reduce debt and spend money on things we do need, every KNOWS that we need hard, painful spending cuts to fix the problem, we could do things in half measures but would be in debt for ages and ages, i would rather have a 10 year period with reduced public spending and a slightly reduced military than a stunted fragile economy that lasts for 40 years.

just a point about the spending cuts. Lets not forget the government lent money to the banks that money will be paid back with interest. lets not buy into we need to make cuts here there and everywhere. government is using it now and then as an excuse to reduce government involvement. yet rake in even greater taxes.

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just a point about the spending cuts. Lets not forget the government lent money to the banks that money will be paid back with interest. lets not buy into we need to make cuts here there and everywhere. government is using it now and then as an excuse to reduce government involvement. yet rake in even greater taxes.

So they should never make cuts of any kind ever?

They are cutting things WE DONT NEED, why waste monney needlessly on things that have no use, the money we save can be spent on the NHS, schools or reducing debt etc, or developing new rewneable energy sources etc.

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just a point about the spending cuts. Lets not forget the government lent money to the banks that money will be paid back with interest. lets not buy into we need to make cuts here there and everywhere. government is using it now and then as an excuse to reduce government involvement. yet rake in even greater taxes.

Steve, but money by itself has no value. It is not a universal commodity, it is an agreed universal commodity! The value of money is in its regulating role within the economy, and any government is always in position to print as many as needed - but if they over-do, then money loses value and stops regulating the economy. This is why instead of printing more they have to cut the spendings, to prevent devaluation of the currency. We live in a bubble already - for the last 10-15 years many people made billions using the new marketing systems, and now a boy, selling t-shirts is earning more than a hard-working farmer which feeds a few hundred of such boys. If they continue issuing more billions to those developing defense systems, then there would be not enough goods and services to cover these billions, the farmer would get broke and the society would be left with useless defense gear and starving population, and the latter means a riot. So, the governments have to balance between the risks. The banks get richer when the money of some people remain unspent and can be turned over for profits, but these profits are fictitious in their principle, as there is no added value product covering them.

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Like i said above, we dont need most of what we have for our defense.

Does Al-Quaeda have 300 main battle tanks? and a ship to land them on the South Coast? nope.

A tank is completly useless at fighting the sort of war we are fighting today, as are most of our ships and planes.

Its like complaining about throwing out the hand gun for home defense, when your home is being attacked by ants. Does the gun work against the ants.... nope. So there is no point having it.

We need a diverse, flexible and adaptable military because we dont know who our future enemies will be, what weapons they will use and where the threat will come from.

If France decalres war on us tomorrow they can drive their tanks through the channel tunnel and find no resistance on the other side stopping them getting to London.

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So they should never make cuts of any kind ever?

They are cutting things WE DONT NEED, why waste monney needlessly on things that have no use, the money we save can be spent on the NHS, schools or reducing debt etc, or developing new rewneable energy sources etc.

We need cuts alright, but in the right places. the government is trying to save £6 Billion a year.

We will hand over £14 Billion to the EU this year. yet citizens like yourself would happily see public service cuts Here at home including to defence of the nation to prop up a corrupt political union and a foreign political union at that. at the very least all payments to the EU should be frozen.

that would mean you, me and the rest of the Great British public would not be facing any cuts of any kind.

Heres how the cuts for the 6.2 Billion is being done.

Dept business: £836m

DCLG: £780m

Dept Transport: £683m

Education dept: £670m

Dept work pensions: £535m

Chancellor's Dept: £451m

Local govnt: £405m

Home Office: £367m

Mins of Justice: £325m

Devolved admins: £704m

DEFRA: £162m

Dept for Energy: £85m

Culture dept: £88m

Cabinet Office: £79m

Foreign Office: £55m

Law officers' dept: £18m

Here is the same cuts but this time we've frozen our membership payments to europe and used the money to tackle the deficit.

Dept business: £000m

DCLG: £000m

Dept Transport: £000m

Education dept: £000m

Dept work pensions: £000m

Chancellor's Dept: £000m

Local govnt: £000m

Home Office: £000m

Mins of Justice: £000m

Devolved admins: £000m

DEFRA: £000m

Dept for Energy: £00m

Culture dept: £00m

Cabinet Office: £00m

Foreign Office: £00m

Law officers' dept: £00m

:tu:

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Think savage defence cuts are sensible?

Think all our old enemies are now our bosom buddies?

Google a historical speech that contains the phrase:

'Here is the paper guaranteeing peace in our time'

and see what happened shortly after!

and whilst your there, google 'Russian military modernisation' and see how much they are currently spending on 'Defence'

Edited by glyndowers heir
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The smart thing to do would be to build all the tanks and subs and boats and supply them to nations that will fight for us in stead of us having to do the ground work. Supply all these wanna be alliances with weapons to fight for us so we don't have to.

Oh crap we did that already, didn't work so oh well. Cut our military and arm the future enemy, good idea that has been in practice and has failed, miserably.

Private war mongers seldom have the people at hart when killing is there money maker.

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The smart thing to do would be to build all the tanks and subs and boats and supply them to nations that will fight for us in stead of us having to do the ground work. Supply all these wanna be alliances with weapons to fight for us so we don't have to.

Oh crap we did that already, didn't work so oh well. Cut our military and arm the future enemy, good idea that has been in practice and has failed, miserably.

Private war mongers seldom have the people at hart when killing is there money maker.

nations disarm during peace times. one of the reasons for the cold war.

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History repeating itself. we'll never learn. every war we have fought we've never been prepared from the outset. people and government have always said we don't need a big army no more. large scale world wars are a thing of the past. that's what they say until war breaks out then we find ourselves ill prepared and find ourselves in the **** upto our neck.

you can clearly see where the governments priorities lie. would rather spend £170Billion on social security benefits, than a measly £35 billion on Defence.

pull out of the European Union and the money saved would mean we don't have to cut any public services or Defence. why doesn't the EU freeze all membership payments. until governments finances are balanced. instead of doing what they are doing, the UK contribution to the EU went up in January by 60% B) stop the world i want to get off.

spot on chap, cant find fault with any of your points :tu:

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No, but UK sleeps well only because it has this deterrent! Otherwise Argentine would be already owning the islands. Conventional forces are adequate to a ww2 style war, but even the end of WW2 was not already conventional! Any politicians simply calculate pros and contras in their actions to defend national interests, and sometimes these interests may require to invade or attack some country - but if this country has nuclear arsenals, this option would not exist at all. This was practically discovered in the second half of 20th century.

nuclear weapons had nothing to do with our forces retaking the falklands from argentina, that was down to our armed forces

the navy & army predominently, believe me i was there, where you marabod?

how would we launch a similar operation today if argentina decided to retake the islands ( bear in mind buenos aries

has been rumbling now that oil has been discovered) nuke argentina no way would that ever happen, so what would our

response be ?????????????????

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I dont see the problem, their cutting things we dont need to save money, to reduce debt and spend money on things we do need, every KNOWS that we need hard, painful spending cuts to fix the problem, we could do things in half measures but would be in debt for ages and ages, i would rather have a 10 year period with reduced public spending and a slightly reduced military than a stunted fragile economy that lasts for 40 years.

but its not a slightly reduced military as you say its a decimated military,

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I dont see the problem, their cutting things we dont need to save money, to reduce debt and spend money on things we do need, every KNOWS that we need hard, painful spending cuts to fix the problem, we could do things in half measures but would be in debt for ages and ages, i would rather have a 10 year period with reduced public spending and a slightly reduced military than a stunted fragile economy that lasts for 40 years.

but its not a slightly reduced military as you say its a decimated military,

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but its not a slightly reduced military as you say its a decimated military,

Could Britain beat Argentina?

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=7006.5531.0.0

Argentina’s sabre rattling over the Falkland Islands brings attention to how much the Royal Navy has shrunk in just 27 years. In 1982, Britain dispatched a task force to defend the Falkland Islands against Argentina, but many fear that London could not do the same today.

Capt. Sir Michael Clapp, who commanded the amphibious assault against Argentina’s invasion in 1982, doubts that Britain could repeat the operation. “I’m not doubting the resolve of our armed forces—our soldiers, sailors and airmen have a long and proud track record of plucking success from adversity—but I’m sorry to say that we no longer have the ships and equipment to launch a sea-borne attack on an enemy on the other side of the world,” he wrote in the Daily Mail last Friday.

“If the Royal Naval fleet has shrunk spectacularly since 1982—it had 55 frigates and destroyers then; today it has 24—then the British merchant fleet has all but disappeared,” he wrote. “Who knows where we’d get the ships to support a war in the South Atlantic from now.”

In 1982, the Navy used Sea Harrier airplanes very effectively against Argentina. But now the Sea Harriers have been scrapped, and the Navy is so short on planes that it’s had to borrow some from the U.S. Marines for practice.

"Britain had 320,000 armed forces personnel in 1982; now we have 188,000. And with so many serving in theaters around the world, where would we now muster the thousands of elite troops it took to win the 1982 conflict?”

“And so it goes on. In 1982, we had 17 destroyers and sent eight to the Falklands. Now we have only seven—and many of them are engaged in policing waters elsewhere.”

Maj. Gen. Julian Thompson, a Royal Marine commander in the Falklands War, said, “We still have some excellent soldiers. The problem is getting them there.”

As Clapp points out, this weakness is dangerous. “[R]emember that one of the events that prompted the last Argentine invasion was the announcement of plans to withdraw the Antarctic patrol ship, hms Endurance,” he wrote. “That was just one ship; now it’s the woefully depleted state of our entire fleet that could be sending a similar message.”

And this is a message being received by more than just Argentina. Britain’s weakness is evident to the whole world.

After all, the European Union is just as likely to attempt to take over the Falkland Islands as Argentina.

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