Stories like these, below, are really starting to worry me, my Grandfather, and uncle served in the Royal Navy and my Father in the army. Cuts to our armed forces really concern me. The loss of Ark royal and Illustrious and sharing French carriers are a real worry to me.
I wondered what thoughts other here may have on this subject.
The Ministry of Defence has been forced to deny claims in a leaked Army memo that many more soldiers faced the axe than previously announced - including personnel injured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
From here;
With the Navy's 7,000 Royal Marines and 4,000 men from the Submarine Service protected from cuts there will be only 19,000 sailors left to man the surface fleet.
Officers now believe it will be near impossible to adequately man all 19 frigates and destroyers plus 23 other ships including the aircraft carrier.
With the loss of the aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious there is little employment for highly specialised deck crew that safely fly and recover aircraft.
From here;
When not at war the country has always stood their forces down. Now we don't have an empire then the forces are not needed, especially since NATO is in existance and Britain can rely on its allies rather than itself to fill the gaps.
Our Navy has a role but not what it used to be in the 40's. It has to adapt and embrace the the new way forward
Dave_Notts
We relied on France once before sending the BEF to thier aid, we all know how that turned out.
There again the Government has for many years moved towards a policy of using TA personnel who they do not have to pay a full time salary, not such a bad idea, providing we maintain a fully trained professional force for our Army, Navy and Airforce and providing we have the equipment to supply them when they are needed.
So by all means form a good Territorial Army, Navy and Airforce, do not scrap our aircraft carriers but rather put them into drydock mothballs, lord knows we have space in our near empty shipyards, even old aircraft carriers can be deadly, just look at how effective some of the battleships that survived the attack on Pearl Harbour have been for the US since the end of WWII, the Arizona and the like saw service in both Gulf Wars and other conflicts around the world.
Remember the lessons of WWII and realise just how much use Vulcan bombers, Harriers, and type 42 Destroyers could be if held in mothballs, they also make excellent training equipment for a territorial force without even having to fly or put to sea.
Why did we scrap the SLR, why did we not just mothball them so Regiments could use them in Afghanistan where many soldiers would much prefer the weapon to the current weapon which is more suited to Urban Warfare, surely the option of choice of which rifle to suit the job would have been better.
T122 and T34 tanks are still in use in parts of the former Soviet Union and as the Russian proved during WWII inferior tanks in huge numbers can still win the day.
Cut if you have to but cut wisely I say and do not jeapordise the life of one single servicemen by cost cutting, life is priceless.
Our old, outdated equipment is still years ahead of many of the nations we might have to use it against.
Look at the Piracy situation off the coast of Africa, outdated old ships could do an excellent job in those waters freeing up the more modern ships to patrol areas where the opposition are also better equipped like the waters around the Falkland Islands, the replacement ships for the Type 42 is capable of dealing with the missiles that did so much damage in 1982 but not needed against the pirates of the carribean (did I really say that) where the old Type 42 could do the job just as well.
The Harrier is perfect in Afghanistan where short sorties are flown therefore an excellent aircraft in it's VTOL role where distance is not as big an issue as it was flying to places like Iraq. (VTOL role uses masses of amounts of fuel for those not familiar with the reason for my statement)
Does a ship have to be at sea patrolling all the time, that costs a lot of money, why not berth the Falkland based ships in harbour in case they are needed and use the fuel to patrol the pirate infested waters, don't sack the sailors and pay them unemployment benefit, use the outdated aircraft/ships to train a territorial force, they don't even need to sail or take off for much of the training.
