UK military problems & policies

[Granite_State]

Naaah. A cock's still a cock, whether he's on operations or not. Individual's who are gallant in the field suddenly lose their backbones when they get back to staff. Gallantry awards will always occur, because the clarity of combat can bring the best - and worst - but usually the best out of people.

I'm being too blunt. It is indeed late (but piquet officer was many years ago). We breed and train superb combat leaders, but dreadful managers. Look at our personnel and pay systems. If Accenture buggered up its peoples wages on the daily basis that the army does, its HR people and accountants would be hanged, sacked industrial trialled etc. Meanwhile, we still pay full whack income tax despite being out of the country for over half the year (don't anyone dare say the operational allowance is a tax break - weighted at the bottom rate of a private soldier's pay regardless of how much one earns....). My Guardsmen on operations don't even clear £1000 a month ($2000). We can't field anything swiftly unless the minister says 'effing do this now' because our bureaucracy is dreadful. I've worked in the Centre, and can play management speak bull#### bingo with the best of them - but this is not the place for that. Our % GDP is at an all time low - comparable with the interwar years when we hedged our bets until it was too late to catch up with German rearmament, or a similar period under a Whig government during the Crimea. Senior Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen have to take the rap for how the money we get is spent - we can't hide behind Ministers' skirts once we get the slice of the pie. And still we piddle it all away on legacy clumsy expensive kit, when what we need are well trained and treated (thus recruited and retained and at the right quality) people - and enough of them. Not 232 uber-interceptors, or a make believe medium-weight euro trash capabilty that fits in a C130 but has the protection of a Warrior.

Nah....I got it right first time. Pricks.

I may have posted on this before, curious if you've read Lewis Page's Lions, Donkeys, and Dinosaurs, polemic from a former RN officer about BAE, the MOD, and the many disasters of British defense procurement. The handful of British officers I've talked to in my three years in the UK say many of the same things you do.

[Coldstreamer]

Good book less one disappointing strand whereby he repeatedly attacks the Household Division from a position of conjecture rather than experience.

[Paul Smyth]

I would be more careful. Do check his logic. He gave an interview in 2007 on TV where he said Typhoon is responsible for casualties in Afghanistan. His logic trail ran something like this:

we're taking casualties because troops are having to move by road - because there aren't enough helos - because the RAF hasn't funded its SH Force - because its spent its money on Typhoon. 2+2=5.

PS

[William F. Owen]

I would be more careful. Do check his logic. He gave an interview in 2007 on TV where he said Typhoon is responsible for casualties in Afghanistan. His logic trail ran something like this:

we're taking casualties because troops are having to move by road - because there aren't enough helos - because the RAF hasn't funded its SH Force - because its spent its money on Typhoon. 2+2=5.

PS

I know Lewis Page quite well, and have talked to him a fair deal. I agree his logic is not sometimes what it could be, but the fact that the RAF has consistently under-funded and under-developed its SH fleet is pretty well proven in my eyes.

The initial buy of only 22 Merlin was woeful, and done in spite of the evidence we needed 32+, and the failure to create a 1:1 replacement to the Puma fleet is almost unforgivable.

[Norfolk]

Found this interesting a little while back:

It Just Can't Get Any Worse: The British Army as Seen from Russia, by Keir Giles (CSRC, April 2006)

Oh, but it can, and has...

[Paul Smyth]

Agreed, the SHF is suffering. A situation not helped by the period when 8 SF-bound Chinooks were left sitting in hangars (now being modified for 'normal' use). I suspect that if two enduring COIN campaigns in arduous regions had been part of the 1990s calculations on future Force requirements (Cf SDR Planning Assumptions!) the 'answer' might have looked different. We perhaps shouldn't be surprised that a cab with substantially greater performance (e.g. 24 vice 16 tps) wasn't procured on a one-to-one replacement basis.

P

[William F. Owen]

@ A situation not helped by the period when 8 SF-bound Chinooks were left sitting in hangars (now being modified for 'normal' use).

@ I suspect that if two enduring COIN campaigns in arduous regions had been part of the 1990s calculations on future Force requirements (Cf SDR Planning Assumptions!) the 'answer' might have looked different.

@ We perhaps shouldn't be surprised that a cab with substantially greater performance (e.g. 24 vice 16 tps) wasn't procured on a one-to-one replacement basis.

@ Unbelievable stupidity. Agreed!

@ Any campaign. The numbers don't differ that much. Look at the sortie rate on Corporate. Look at the sortie rate in NI. The RAF does not and never did want the SH role, yet wanted to deny the Army the same. Remember the Chinooks were procured to support the deployed Harrier Force. The OA of the day said we should get CH-53.

@ Ah yes, the old 528 troop force lift. I wish life were that simple or there was any compelling evidence to suggest this was the case.

[Coldstreamer]

These people responsible for poor decisionmaking.....I think some of them may be gay as well. I'm sure one of them followed me into a lavatory once, and hung around hopefully. I just handed him a point brief and said I wasn't that kind of staff officer, but I felt used and dirty nonetheless. Then, our pay rise turned out to be less than the rate of inflation. How does that equate to a rise?

I'm off to get TRIM'd. I am clearly riddled with PTSD.