Army, Navy, RAF severe cuts

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No idea what some of you think you have just read.

None of this new money is being invested in our conventional forces. Nor is it plugging the still rather large black hole in the defence budget.

The RAF, Navy and Army still face severe cuts.

No idea what YOU thought you just heard!

Did you listen to the PM's speech? The speech in which he specifically referred to such conventional weapons as the new Type 32 Frigate, confirmed order quantities of 8 for the Type 26 Frigate and the 5 for the Type 31 Frigate, confirmed the new Solid Support Ships and new multi-role research vessels, confirmed permanent forward basing overseas?

For some reason Enobob, the PM only decided to mention the positive news. The newspapers had a more balanced view:


Defence analysts have welcomed the settlement as more generous than expected. However, given the parlous state of the ministry’s finances, including a funding black hole of up to £13 billion in its current ten-year equipment plan, the money will not plug all the gaps and cuts are expected.

Ben Zaranko, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the economic research institute, said the prime minister’s presentation of the deal was “misleading”.

He told the BBC that it was better described as £7 billion of new money for the annual defence budget by 2024-25, rather than £16.5 billion.

Military insiders say that the army will lose out in the overhaul, with biting cuts expected for heavy armour programmes, including tanks, and a drop in personnel numbers that could result in fewer than 70,000 regular soldiers.

[RubyRoo]

Thanks, page_verify.

That answered most of what I would have responded to Enobob with.

The hope is that the Type 32 frigate will eventually bring escort numbers up to 24, but this is at least 10 years away, by which time there will have been withdrawals of quite a few Type 23s already as well as multiple other spending reviews.

Beyond the next 4 years which are expected to see the jump in defence spending, nothing is assured at all.

And the news conveniently omits the fact that the MoD still has a huge hole in its current defence spending plans, to which some of the new money is expected to fill.

There will still be severe cuts seen across all of the armed forces before you should expect to see anything invested in our conventional forces.

Also:
- The Type 26 and Type 31 frigate quantities had already been announced and confirmed.
- The Fleet Solid Support Ships had already pretty much been confirmed to be built in the UK after the initial contract was pulled.
- The permanent basing overseas is already happening.
- The new multi-role research vessel is good news.

Whilst new money is of course welcome for the defence realm, please don't get carried away by the smoke and mirrors act.

[Enobob]

No idea what some of you think you have just read.

None of this new money is being invested in our conventional forces. Nor is it plugging the still rather large black hole in the defence budget.

The RAF, Navy and Army still face severe cuts.

No idea what YOU thought you just heard!

Did you listen to the PM's speech? The speech in which he specifically referred to such conventional weapons as the new Type 32 Frigate, confirmed order quantities of 8 for the Type 26 Frigate and the 5 for the Type 31 Frigate, confirmed the new Solid Support Ships and new multi-role research vessels, confirmed permanent forward basing overseas?

For some reason Enobob, the PM only decided to mention the positive news. The newspapers had a more balanced view:


Defence analysts have welcomed the settlement as more generous than expected. However, given the parlous state of the ministry’s finances, including a funding black hole of up to £13 billion in its current ten-year equipment plan, the money will not plug all the gaps and cuts are expected.

Ben Zaranko, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the economic research institute, said the prime minister’s presentation of the deal was “misleading”.

He told the BBC that it was better described as £7 billion of new money for the annual defence budget by 2024-25, rather than £16.5 billion.

Military insiders say that the army will lose out in the overhaul, with biting cuts expected for heavy armour programmes, including tanks, and a drop in personnel numbers that could result in fewer than 70,000 regular soldiers.

Well of course he only mentioned positive news, this was only a financial headline around a multi year settlement, with some added Naval detail, mainly around UK shipbuilding, the real meat of the review is to be published in January. Do you honestly think that if the review is ALL bad news then he wouldn't have saved up some, if not all of the good news to sweeten the cuts pill? He is a politician after all. You claimed that none of this extra money would go on conventional forces. I think you are wrong. As to the papers having a "more balanced view," how on earth do the papers know what is going to be in the actual review document? As for saying that it is "only £7b" I am afraid I am at a loss as to how on earth you work that out. It is in fact an increase over the next four years of £24.8 billion, as the increase over and above inflation and the 2% is factored in as well. Under the circumstances this is an astonishing result, many observers expecting a cut in expenditure not the largest increase in decades! Of course some older equipment will go, that is kind of the whole point of a modernisation plan. I think it interesting to see that the actual review document is delayed mainly because the Army modernisation plan as submitted was rejected twice for being "Not radical enough."

I expect we will see some Type 23 Frigates retired early, maybe the Warrior CSP reduced or scrapped, and to be honest the Army deserves all it gets with the chaos and total waste of billions over years on its armour and artillery replacement programmes. Not sure how the RAF will be affected, Puma and Hercules are the rumoured reductions but the MoD has just signed up for a 5 nation medium rotorcraft replacement and the Atlas is not ready to take over all of the Hercules roles yet, and a long term maintenance programme has just been signed for the C-130J fleet, so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

I am not saying that there will not be cuts, as in retiring ageing and obsolete equipment, and maybe a reduction in Infantry numbers, as the Army does not seem to know what to do with all 36 infantry Battalions, only having artillery, Air Defence and other supporting arms for a much smaller number, I was just challenging you on your statement that none of the extra money will go on conventional forces, where I think an awful lot of it will.

[Enobob]

Thanks, page_verify.

That answered most of what I would have responded to Enobob with.

The hope is that the Type 32 frigate will eventually bring escort numbers up to 24, but this is at least 10 years away, by which time there will have been withdrawals of quite a few Type 23s already as well as multiple other spending reviews.

Beyond the next 4 years which are expected to see the jump in defence spending, nothing is assured at all.

And the news conveniently omits the fact that the MoD still has a huge hole in its current defence spending plans, to which some of the new money is expected to fill.

There will still be severe cuts seen across all of the armed forces before you should expect to see anything invested in our conventional forces.

Also:
- The Type 26 and Type 31 frigate quantities had already been announced and confirmed.
- The Fleet Solid Support Ships had already pretty much been confirmed to be built in the UK after the initial contract was pulled.
- The permanent basing overseas is already happening.
- The new multi-role research vessel is good news.

Whilst new money is of course welcome for the defence realm, please don't get carried away by the smoke and mirrors act.

Of course there will be withdrawals of the Type 23 over the next ten years, the Type 26 and 31 are destined to replace all 13 current Type 23's, with the new Type 32 being an addition.

And only 3 Type 26's have been ordered, and there were rumours of both types suffering a cut, so this WAS new news in that the totals have now been confirmed as 8 and 5. And the Government can only allocate cash over the next four years as that is the period it has a mandate for, it cannot legislate for any longer than that, after that will be a General Election. The increase was welcomed in the House of Commons by Kier Starmer so there is no immediate concern of huge cuts in year 5. Bear in mind what was strongly rumoured, a one year settlement at an increase of £1.9 billion, this outcome is a massive increase over what anyone expected.

I am not getting carried away, the MoD is THE worst of all the Ministries for value for money and spend control, but this increase gives them a chance to finally get it right.

[RubyRoo]

Of course there will be withdrawals of the Type 23 over the next ten years, the Type 26 and 31 are destined to replace all 13 current Type 23's, with the new Type 32 being an addition.

And only 3 Type 26's have been ordered, and there were rumours of both types suffering a cut, so this WAS new news in that the totals have now been confirmed as 8 and 5. And the Government can only allocate cash over the next four years as that is the period it has a mandate for, it cannot legislate for any longer than that, after that will be a General Election. The increase was welcomed in the House of Commons by Kier Starmer so there is no immediate concern of huge cuts in year 5. Bear in mind what was strongly rumoured, a one year settlement at an increase of £1.9 billion, this outcome is a massive increase over what anyone expected.

I am not getting carried away, the MoD is THE worst of all the Ministries for value for money and spend control, but this increase gives them a chance to finally get it right.

Exactly, only 3 Type 26 units have been ordered. They can announce any amount of new frigates they like, until official contracts are signed then the PMs statement means nothing, although I take your point about budgeting/cash allocations.

I specifically mentioned the T23 because whilst the current intention is to replace and withdraw them one by one from service, don't be surprised if some of the T23s are removed from service without an immediate direct replacement. The expectation is that some of the T23s will be removed early and/or sold off to the Hellenic Navy as a stop gap prior to them getting long term replacements.

The announcement is certainly far better than what almost anyone could have predicted, but there have been many who have seen the news and been completely carried away.

I would advise you and everyone else to read this excellent blog on the news:

https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com ... udget.html

I don't wish to be a doom monger, but I am fully aware that any new toys are going to come at the expense of current infrastructure, so whilst investment will always be welcome, severe cuts are still incoming.

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Puma, C-130J, E-3D, Sentinel are known or good candidates for the chop. But we have to sit and wait.

[TonyO]

Puma, C-130J, E-3D, Sentinel are known or good candidates for the chop. But we have to sit and wait.

Sentinel was already being cut end of March/early April 2021 anyway, even before the IR, that's already priced in.

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Puma, C-130J, E-3D, Sentinel are known or good candidates for the chop. But we have to sit and wait.

Sentinel was already being cut end of March/early April 2021 anyway, even before the IR, that's already priced in.

Indeed, hence the word known?

[thevulcan]

C-130J's are getting new wing spar upgraded should keep them flying till 2035 but then again look at the Nimrod MRA4.

[Finty]

C-130J's are getting new wing spar upgraded should keep them flying till 2035 but then again look at the Nimrod MRA4.

That was a rather more radical upgrade though? Still, your point still stands.

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C-130J's are getting new wing spar upgraded should keep them flying till 2035 but then again look at the Nimrod MRA4.

MR2, GR9, GR3, GR4, R1, PR9, VC-10 - all were receiving different types of multi-million pound upgrades when they were chopped. They all also provided capabilities no other platform could offer at the time either, often because their replacement (RQ-9, RC-135, P-8A, FGR4, F-35, Voyager, E-7 etc.) hadn't become operational in big numbers yet or had even been ordered.

[Yammer]

the future maybe just one aircraft of just one type that can do everything, will save heaps until it goes unserviceable or gets shot down.

Cut to the bone.