The Student Room Group

What are your thoughts on Army 2020?

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Reply 40
Three big problems with defence for me:
1) A lot of people simply don't realise just how much the military does. The RN's the Service I know best, so a couple of examples from there - Caribbean patrol (regularly doing disaster relief ops during hurricane season), anti-piracy patrols (90% of our imports are sea-borne), Fisheries protection. Also a little known fact - counting the Marines, as they're part of the Naval Service, the RN has had the largest service presence in Afghanistan more than once.
2) There's an assumption that the forces scale linearly, so you can do the same things with a smaller force, but not on as great a scale. Unfortunately that's not the case, any further reduction in spending will lead to loss of capabilities, such as amphib landings. Once lost, those capabilities cannot be easily regenerated if needed - one of the reasons it was such a dumb reason to scrap the Harriers when we did (we have a few pilots with the USN operating F18s, but we're haemorrhaging experience and F18 experience is not particularly relevant).
3) The Service ethos is to get things done, and will stretch and stretch and stretch. That's good, to a point, but when you rely on things at full stretch they will inevitably go bang sooner or later, and often spectacularly...
Reply 41
Original post by Clip
I would:

Get rid of the RAFRegt and RAF Police and shore police
Scrap the Army Air Corps and transfer the entire role to the RAF - even attack helicopter
Mothball HVM - it doesn't work anyway
Have only 2 MBT regiments - all the rest FR. I think we're long past the stage where we are going to be deploying a division. We're looking at realistically putting two reinforced brigades out if it came to a big fight and probably only in the same theatre.
If we're rolling the dice on anything - my big one would be Trident. I'd scrap it in favour of something cheap and air launched.
Get more destroyers and frigates.


Agree with all except RAFRegt. But only an addendum. Drastically downsized, but core elements retained in order to keep skill levels and specialised knowledge and experience that the Army units that would take over don't have. As much as on the surface it appears noddy, what they do is important and different to roles the Army fulfills.

Definitely agreed on Trident. Nuclear deterrent yes, but no need for it to be sub-launched. But we do need MPA back.
Reply 42
Then the RAFRegt has to go on the arms plot like everyone else. (And yes - there is an arms plot - it's just not called an arms plot). Otherwise, they're just airport security guards. Otherwise, I suppose they can take air defence back.
Reply 43
Original post by Clip
I would:

Get rid of the RAFRegt and RAF Police and shore police
Scrap the Army Air Corps and transfer the entire role to the RAF - even attack helicopter
Mothball HVM - it doesn't work anyway
Have only 2 MBT regiments - all the rest FR. I think we're long past the stage where we are going to be deploying a division. We're looking at realistically putting two reinforced brigades out if it came to a big fight and probably only in the same theatre.
If we're rolling the dice on anything - my big one would be Trident. I'd scrap it in favour of something cheap and air launched.
Get more destroyers and frigates.



Original post by Drewski
Agree with all except RAFRegt. But only an addendum. Drastically downsized, but core elements retained in order to keep skill levels and specialised knowledge and experience that the Army units that would take over don't have. As much as on the surface it appears noddy, what they do is important and different to roles the Army fulfills.

Definitely agreed on Trident. Nuclear deterrent yes, but no need for it to be sub-launched. But we do need MPA back.


Why would you want to replace Trident? No other weapons systems offer the protection Trident does. Any other type of nuclear weapons are generally vulnerable to a first strike weakening the deterrent.
Reply 44
Original post by Aj12
Why would you want to replace Trident? No other weapons systems offer the protection Trident does. Any other type of nuclear weapons are generally vulnerable to a first strike weakening the deterrent.


And no other weapons system costs as much to maintain and operate.
And you make the assumption that we will have a single location for this newer deterrent, and locations that would be disclosed. All of these are avoidable and the costs substantially lowered. The added bonus then being the assets we use can be multirole, rather than focussed on one mission only.
Reply 45
Original post by Drewski
And no other weapons system costs as much to maintain and operate.
And you make the assumption that we will have a single location for this newer deterrent, and locations that would be disclosed. All of these are avoidable and the costs substantially lowered. The added bonus then being the assets we use can be multirole, rather than focussed on one mission only.


Nuclear weapons sites aren't exactly easy to hide though. It would end up being a silo based deterrent since using the air force carries a huge amount of risk and those aren't easy to hide if a nation is determined to find them, which they would be. When it comes to long term nuclear security should costs be the deciding factor?
Reply 46
Original post by Aj12
Nuclear weapons sites aren't exactly easy to hide though. It would end up being a silo based deterrent since using the air force carries a huge amount of risk and those aren't easy to hide if a nation is determined to find them, which they would be. When it comes to long term nuclear security should costs be the deciding factor?


A valid question. But at the moment, every part of society is saying YES. If we're cutting the normal Armed Forces which are, to be honest, more important for our security, then why not the 'deterrent'?
Reply 47
Original post by Drewski
And no other weapons system costs as much to maintain and operate.
And you make the assumption that we will have a single location for this newer deterrent, and locations that would be disclosed. All of these are avoidable and the costs substantially lowered. The added bonus then being the assets we use can be multirole, rather than focussed on one mission only.

Has there been a recent-ish cost comparison?
One of (many) factors to consider is security - at present nuclear weapon safety is pretty easy, as they're either on a sub or at Coulport (arse end of nowehere and no-one has a good reason to be near there, so it's easy to protect). It gets a bit harder if they're on an RAF base.
Also given this is the MoD there is no way in hell they would manage to save money procuring an aircraft capable of launching a strategic nuke!
Reply 48
Original post by Drewski
A valid question. But at the moment, every part of society is saying YES. If we're cutting the normal Armed Forces which are, to be honest, more important for our security, then why not the 'deterrent'?

I imagine you know this anyway, but Trident isn't part of the Defence budget.
Reply 49
Original post by CurlyBen
Has there been a recent-ish cost comparison?
One of (many) factors to consider is security - at present nuclear weapon safety is pretty easy, as they're either on a sub or at Coulport (arse end of nowehere and no-one has a good reason to be near there, so it's easy to protect). It gets a bit harder if they're on an RAF base.
Also given this is the MoD there is no way in hell they would manage to save money procuring an aircraft capable of launching a strategic nuke!


There is also the side that Salmond and his bunch of arses have said they want all nuclear-related Forces people and assets out of the country as soon as possible. But that they want lots of Forces in the country to help the economy.

As for cost comparison, I don't know, either option would be expensive, goes without saying.

We've still got a Lancaster, that'll do :wink:
Reply 50
I'd dig a big hole in the ground and stick some bombers with air-launched nukes in there; and have the Navy deploy some nuclear warheads for the Tomahawks.

Is it as secure as Trident? No way. But I don't think we're in that place where it needs to be. We'll still have the capability to stomp someone with only a fraction of the costs.
Reply 51
Original post by CurlyBen
I imagine you know this anyway, but Trident isn't part of the Defence budget.


So why does that not warrant a cut in the same manner as the conventional Forces which are more important and more useful?
Reply 52
Original post by Drewski
A valid question. But at the moment, every part of society is saying YES. If we're cutting the normal Armed Forces which are, to be honest, more important for our security, then why not the 'deterrent'?


Because you can afford to cut the military if you have a deterrent. Either have a strong army or a strong deterrent, to an extent you can afford to cut either but you cannot afford to cut both, to do so is foolish and leaves the country at risk.
Reply 53
Original post by Aj12
Because you can afford to cut the military if you have a deterrent. Either have a strong army or a strong deterrent, to an extent you can afford to cut either but you cannot afford to cut both, to do so is foolish and leaves the country at risk.


Having a strong deterrent didn't stop Argentina trying to take the Falklands. Only strong conventional Forces were useful in retaking them.
Has having a nuclear deterrent actually deterred anything in the last 40years?

We can still have a deterrent. But a smaller one. A more mobile one. We have air- and sub-launched cruise missiles already in service. Finding small nuclear warheads to fit those would not be hard. We retain the ability to hit anything globally. We retain First Strike. We retain a lot of money.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 54
Original post by Drewski
So why does that not warrant a cut in the same manner as the conventional Forces which are more important and more useful?

I'm not saying it does or doesn't, but it's not a decision for the MoD - it's a political decision, and effectively separately funded. Conventional and nuclear forces aren't directly competing with each other in budget terms (which could, if the same structure was in place, scupper a multi-role argument for an airborne deterrent - you only need look at the daft things they do with kit acquired under UORs).
Reply 55
Original post by Drewski
Having a strong deterrent didn't stop Argentina trying to take the Falklands. Only strong conventional Forces were useful in retaking them.
Has having a nuclear deterrent actually deterred anything in the last 40years?

We can still have a deterrent. But a smaller one. A more mobile one. We have air- and sub-launched cruise missiles already in service. Finding small nuclear warheads to fit those would not be hard. We retain the ability to hit anything globally. We retain First Strike. We retain a lot of money.


Fair enough on the first point. I can't really tell you what it deters since countries don't tend to announce they have decided to not attack you. But you can't believe we would be less secure without nuclear weapons?

As for the cruise missile point the danger in this is that countries cannot tell if the cruise missiles we are firing at them are nuclear or conventional, say we ever used cruise missiles against a nuclear power or a nation closely allied to a nuclear power it could lead to a very dangerous situation. As well as this I believe the Americans are about to retire their nuclear cruise missiles so this would require developing our own, this is going to be hugely costly.
Reply 56
Original post by CurlyBen
I'm not saying it does or doesn't, but it's not a decision for the MoD - it's a political decision, and effectively separately funded. Conventional and nuclear forces aren't directly competing with each other in budget terms (which could, if the same structure was in place, scupper a multi-role argument for an airborne deterrent - you only need look at the daft things they do with kit acquired under UORs).


You say that... but it's the MoD who needs to buy 4 £1b subs in order to operate the deterrent, who needs to have ~8 sub crews trained in the sole purpose of launching nuclear weapons as well as all associated training locations and personnel. Think what the RN could do with that.
Reply 57
Deterrent is in practical terms useless. Unless it comes to a proper invasion or some other nation deploying WMD on us - we're never going to put the nukes on anyone. The Argentinians could do anything they liked, but short of dropping half a barrel of Anthrax on RAF Mount Pleasant, we're never going to go nuclear on them.
Reply 58
Original post by Aj12
Fair enough on the first point. I can't really tell you what it deters since countries don't tend to announce they have decided to not attack you. But you can't believe we would be less secure without nuclear weapons?

As for the cruise missile point the danger in this is that countries cannot tell if the cruise missiles we are firing at them are nuclear or conventional, say we ever used cruise missiles against a nuclear power or a nation closely allied to a nuclear power it could lead to a very dangerous situation. As well as this I believe the Americans are about to retire their nuclear cruise missiles so this would require developing our own, this is going to be hugely costly.


An hour after launching they'll see.

And considering this is such an abstract scenario anyway I really don't think it matters. If the world has gone as far as needing to use the weapons, then all other bets are off. Let's do what we can and be realistic about it.
Reply 59
Original post by Drewski
You say that... but it's the MoD who needs to buy 4 £1b subs in order to operate the deterrent, who needs to have ~8 sub crews trained in the sole purpose of launching nuclear weapons as well as all associated training locations and personnel. Think what the RN could do with that.

Only running costs were from the Defence budget, all capital costs were external (I say were as there was a major disagreement about whether the capital costs of replacing Trident would have to come from the Defence budget - I don't know if or how that was settled). Training costs wouldn't change much as it's almost all required for SSNs anyway, it's just a bit different for some of the greenies. I think there's a move away from P and S crews anyway, there certainly aren't 8 (no point being double crewed in refit!).

Call me cynical, but I'm sceptical that any money saved by moving away from Trident (either by removing all nuc capability or transitioning to a more limited delivery) would actually end up back in the Defence budget.

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