Army Reserve grows by just 60 despite aggresive recruitment push

For starters that's the Navy, so nothing to do with the Army Reserve which is the subject of the thread. But disregarding that we're fighting piracy very effectively with the size of the armed forces that we currently have so why expand them? Numbers are not the winner in conflict now, technology and training are, two things that can be done far better with money saved from not having more people in the service.

I'm sorry but the bit in bold is complete bull ****.

So we should increase the Navy then? Our current Navy has not eradicated the piracy threat because it is not big enough and can't cover all affected areas, so it would be intelligent to increase the Navies capability.

The Army was overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq (politics are irrelevant here, I am not talking about the justification of the war, and talking about the military capability). We could not effectively fight in both theatres. Shortage of ammunition, shortage of vehicles, shortage of men. For example, it was not uncommon for sections to be made up 5 men, not 8 which is the standard and most effective. This made it harder for platoon and company level attacks to be their most effective, since there was not enough men to carry a) spare ammunition b) medical kit c) communications kit d) put down effective fire. So the bit in bold is complete bull ****.

I don't see us coming to any agreement here.

Because as I said, you have very little understanding of the military. You are just a civilian. You know very little on how to conduct military operations.

Numbers mean a lot. There is a reason why we have 8 men to a section.

Sorry Kitchener.

Just saw you're a UKIP supporter. Oh dear. Explains a lot.

Lets stick to the military debate if you think you know what's best. Mr Armchair General.

Who wants to fight for corporate interests for 16k per year?! whilst watching morally bankrupt MPs destroy the country, no thanks.

I support defence cuts. The fact we have the 4th largest "defence" budget in the world is ridiculous. Who's going to invade us?

This.



And this.

You have not given me an argument. You wanted one.

I actually really fancied doing somthing like this in my spare time, but all my local stations do somthing im not remotely interested in, dont get me wrong some of them do some really good sounding stuff but yeh, if I was gonna join itd have to be to do somthing I find interesting.

Pretty sure you cant be a PTI in reserves (could be wrong) if you could I'd be rushing over head first to sign up lol

Fact of the matter remains we simply don't need a large armed force. Nobody is invading us. Nobody will even if we shrink the armed forces further.

We should NEVER have been in Iraq nor Afghanistan, that was not defense, that was an attack on something we had no right to fight over. I'm not talking about oil.

Nobody is arguing that, and that is not a valid argument either.

I am not arguing the politics either, so you can take that elsewhere too.

I am talking about capability and funding and the governments neglect of it.

There are some nationally recruiting branches, you can have a look at them? Everything from Infantry to doctor.

You sound paranoid. Who are you afraid of?

How can you not argue the politics? It's intrinsically linked to your argument in more ways than one.

Underfunding of the armed forces which is an obstacle to getting the job done. It costs lives.

My argument is not whether we should go into such conflicts, its the funding and equipment that is given when we do.

Personally i'd rather the money went to important things like healthcare. I don't want to increase spending on our special forces world police team. I'm not interested in killing members of the taliban or any nonsense like that nor are many people in this country anymore. Why should the majority of us support increased spending and recruitment on something we don't support?

So basically you have a warped sense of morality and want people to die? You don't care if they are British or foreign.

And you do know we can spend money on healthcare and defence right?