10 Downing St Plan To Cut RAF By 50%

[Phoney Tony]

THE prime minister is threatening Liam Fox, the defence secretary, with a new round of cuts that would slash the RAF by half and the Royal Navy’s surface fleet by a third once British troops are out of Afghanistan.
Downing Street is considering plans for the RAF that would see its attack aircraft cut from 220 to about 80, and the navy’s surface fleet by a third from 19 destroyers and frigates to 12.
At least one, if not both, of the armed forces’ top combat brigades, 3 Commando Brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade, which have led operations in Afghanistan, would be axed.
The plans, which officials say are being considered by No 10, the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, would leave the RAF with only two frontline squadrons fully trained for immediate operations.
It now has eight, compared to the 22 it had when the Tories left power in 1997 and the 17 it had only 10 years ago.
The move would see both the RAF and the navy cut to their lowest levels in history and the armed forces reduced from one of the world’s largest to smaller than those of Greece.
“The ludicrous nature of these cuts is difficult to believe,” one senior defence source said. “The argument against them is obvious but the prime minister’s hatchet men don’t care.”
Officials said the plans were not designed to take place before 2015 and would be in addition to cuts already being devised as part of a “three-month review” designed to eliminate a £38 billion black hole in the defence budget.
David Cameron has sent in the cabinet office ministers Francis Maude and Oliver Letwin to ensure that the review, which began last month, is a “rigorous exercise”. An MoD spokesman said: “Work is still ongoing and no decisions have yet been taken.”

[sitigeltfel]

Source please?

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Absolute rubbish. It is probably the Army propaganda machine churning that drivel out. For they are the ones who are papping themselves about the next round of cuts in 2015 when they won't have Afghanistan to ring fence assets for. They are playing dirty and trying to shift the emphasis of cuts to the RAF and RN who have already been pared to the bone.

[VinRouge]

Is complete arse. Google news search reveals no articles out there whatsoever.

Looks like a complete wind up. If any service is going to get hammered post 2015, its not going to be the raf or navy.

[sled dog]

The "Phoney Tony" name says it all :rolleyes: :p

[H Peacock]

It now has eight, compared to the 22 it had when the Tories left power in 1997

Really! Have been away on ops almost non-stop for the past 2 years and didn't notice my Sqn was one of only 8 left!!

[Chinny Crewman]

This is an article in today's Sunday Times.

[ORAC]

Confirmed, Sunday Times, main section, page 2, byline Michael Smith (http://www.michaelsmithwriter.com/about.html).

The Times is subscription only which is why Google won't find it.

[Jimlad1]

Mick Smith traditionally does fairly poorly sourced drivel with some low grade sourcing. It sounds like someone has shown him the worst case doom and gloom cuts if everything happened all at once paper and taken it from there.

The biggest problem at the moment is that No10 is allegedly rejecting all guidance from MOD that the Army needs to be massively reduced in size (allegedly). If you believe rumours circulating, its mainly due to CDS's daughter working as a key Cameron aide and Cameron being brainwashed into thinking that reducing the Army to a level which the nation can afford would somehow be a bad thing...

[Chicken Leg]

Same old truculent Crabs. You don't like the subject, therefore the report must be crap!

[Willard Whyte]

Same old truculent Crabs. You don't like the subject, therefore the report must be crap! Au contraire, I'm a 'crab'.

It is inevitable that there is a 'nuclear option' on the table for all the services. Whether or not they are likely to be enabled is a moot point, that they are being discussed is not, we were told this last year.

[Melchett01]

Whilst I can't see a 50% cut in the RAF or the RN going through, as noted, it will be one of many 'nuclear' options being thrashed out. Unfortunately, whilst the 'nuclear' option might not be taken, that doesn't mean to say that the sub-nuclear option won't be taken with a view to then making it seem like we got off lightly.

Then again, the question of viability and numbers does come into it; it you chop the RAF and RN by 50%, both services will be combat non-effective, a bit like Belgium, and you are then into the realm of us becoming a heavily armed 21st century Home Guard; that probably sits well with the Europhiles, but would make us a laughing stock (even more so) with the US military and would no doubt breach our requirement for a minimum proportion of GDP to be spent on defence for NATO purposes. If UK defence goes down the tubes, that will have significant implications within NATO, and I really can't see Cameron wanting to be the man to go down in history as achieving what the Soviets spent half a century trying to achieve. Even Cameron isn't that big a muppet.

So is it all bluster? Probably. Is it worrying? Definitely. As Jimlad suggested, from a light blue political perspective, there are worryingly close links between the Army and Cameron through Dannatt and members of his family. Then again, given Jock's performance as CDS, maybe Cameron considers the RAF to be too close to Noo Labour and as such we have be tarred with our own brush and thus ripe for the chop.

[green granite]

would leave the RAF with only two frontline squadrons fully trained for immediate operations.

So, that'll be one defending the Falklands and one chasing away Bears then. :rolleyes:

[Archimedes]

In full, the report in the Times suggests:

1. Loss of GR4 in toto around 2015 (a reduction of FJ to about 80 from 220, which I've interpreted here as losing 136 GR4)
2. Disbandment of one or both of 3Cdo and 16 AA Bdes
3. RN DD/FF strength to 12 hulls

I've also seen a suggestion somewhere (have to find it, might have been JDW) that this review also proposes turning the Army into pretty much a COIN-only force, which would be ironic, of course, since the bid by certain generals to get the govt to focus upon COIN was to protect the numbers of boots available to go on the ground, not to actually convince them to turn the Army into a COIN-only force shorne of tanks, GMLRS, etc.

Another rumour I've heard from a reasonably decent source (if one can count a member of the coalition with whom one attended university as such) is a 'if it flies, it's RAF, if it sails, it's RN and if it fights on the land (bar protecting airfields) it's Army' approach has not gone away...

[Pontius Navigator]

Archimedes, well we got rid of the RAF boats a while back . . .

AFAIK the Army still has boats and aircraft and the Navy still has aircraft and boots.

[Squirrel 41]

Melchett wrote

would make us a laughing stock (even more so) with the US military and would no doubt breach our requirement for a minimum proportion of GDP to be spent on defence for NATO purposes

Ah, the famous 2% of GDP. Currently only the US, the UK, France and Greece meet 2%, and a rumour I heard (a rumour site after all, no?) was that the UK have only "met" the 2% over the budgetary period with some smoke and mirrors on operational spending in Afghanland being included, and this at the last minute before Hilary Clinton pitched up.

Retiring Secretary Gates is spot on in his criticism, as is the Economist this week:Charlemagne: On target | The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/18836734)

So let's see. I think that the idea that this will happen is unlikely. It must, however, be being considered, along with all of the other "impossible options" in PR11 / PR 12.

S41

[TBM-Legend]

The US should withdraw all support for NATO immediately and leave those in Europe to fend for themselves. They have blood sucked the USA for 50+ years...

Stand on your own two feet....:{

[500N]

"The US should withdraw all support for NATO immediately and leave those in Europe to fend for themselves. They have blood sucked the USA for 50+ years...

Stand on your own two feet....http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/boohoo.gif"


They can't, as has been so ably demonstrated with the Libya actions.

.

[Melchett01]

Ah, the famous 2% of GDP. Currently only the US, the UK, France and Greece meet 2%, and a rumour I heard (a rumour site after all, no?) was that the UK have only "met" the 2% over the budgetary period with some smoke and mirrors

Were we sitting in the same briefing per chance? I heard pretty much the same thing about 10 days ago from a chap in Town who shall remain nameless (largely because I have just about forgotten who he was).

I still think the US' reluctance to come and play in Libya was all about Obama making a point to Europe that they need to pull their finger out. It's frankly embarrassing not being able to stand up for yourself, smacks of being back in the playground and running off to teacher whenever someone does something you don't like.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

The chopping in toto of the GR4 is an Army led point. They are trying to protect themselves by suggesting other forces get binned first. This is from a trustworthy source.

[Melchett01]

Foghorn,

The reason the Army is on the offensive is because they are vulnerable ... very vulnerable. People are starting to realise this and there is talk about the number of Brigades being slashed down to 3 or 4 Multi-role Brigades rather than the 9 or so regular brigades that they have at the moment.

At the very least they are likely to drop to 5 MRBs, with the odds on another couple coming off that total. If you don't have the troops to equip, then you don't need an expensive equipment plan e.g. FRES or whatever it is called this week. And unlike the RAF and the RN whose equipment plans are locked into long term contracts that cost a fortune to get out of, the Army's are done on a more fund as you go type concept where there are few if any seriously big contracts for long term equipment programmes. So they will do whatever is necessary to divert attention from these vulnerabilities. When they get down to 85-90,000, then they might be in a position to start throwing stones at the other services.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I know Melchy, I couldn't be bothered to type it all out though!

[green granite]

The chopping in toto of the GR4 is an Army led point. They are trying to protect themselves by suggesting other forces get binned first. This is from a trustworthy source.

Thus forgetting of course that air supremacy is necessary for a successful ground operation. Whilst that doesn't apply to the Stan, it would almost certainly apply to an invasion of somewhere like Iran, or defence of the Falklands.

[Sven Sixtoo]

Actually the requirement for air supremacy does apply in afg. It's just that we have had it for free since day one.

[glad rag]

Yes greeny, but that will be "someone else's" problem :ugh:as far as present incumbents are concerned.:ugh::ugh:

[green granite]

Actually the requirement for air supremacy does apply in afg.

I was thinking in terms of keeping the opponents air force away from the invading troops rather than the ability for ground attack, hence my comment about the Stan. Ground attack, or rather lack there of, can be got around using artillery, but it's nothing like as effective.

[Jabba_TG12]

I just sincerely hope that it is PR11/12 nuclear option bluster or ill informed press invention. Any politician of any flavour that would countenance such an unbalanced set up should be immediately disqualified from ever holding public office. I've rarely seen anything so stupid in all my born days.

[Widger]

Hmmmm,

Interesting to see the howls of derision from people about Phoney Tony's post. He is quite clearly well informed.

With the UK owing about £2 Trillion pounds and in an economic situation worse than Greece only attenuated by the ability to set our own interest rates and print more money, it is hardly surprising that the CONDEMn coalition is putting pressure on the MOD.

Because of the years of underinvestment by the previous administration, previous leaders of the department who would not make the difficult decisions, political interference and what some could say, was financial incompetence by the procurement system, the MOD is now in a similar position as the PIGS (Portugal Ireland Greece Spain).

The Government gives the MOD money (ambit of the vote) and expects the MOD to deliver against the money allocated. If that means the MOD selling off some crown jewels to balance the books then 'so be it', is their attitude. Costs over and above the ambit, for efforts such as Libya are met from the reserve.

SDSR, PR11, redundancy and the allowance package reductions are only the start. People cost money and so people will have to go, along with some big projects. The MOD has been served notice by the Bailiffs. For years it has lived beyond its means and set itself off down the road of agreeing to projects it could not afford. It now has to sell the telly, the sofa, the washing machine, the cars, the ipods etc in order to keep a roof over its head.

I can only see more pain ahead. PR12, (Huge) manpower reductions, cancellation of (big) projects, (unpopular) changes to harmony rules, loss of families housing, pension changes, personnel spending more time on ops so that fewer people are needed etc. Anything that will save money will be on the table. People will leave in droves, you can see from recent media reports that it has already started.

It will unfortunately, only be another tragedy (thinking of the likes of Nimrod here. (RIP)) that will make Joe Public wake up and see the threadbare nature of what we think of as world class forces. A ship sunk, an aircraft shot down, a company overrun, will be the events that ask serious questions of where our politician's priorities lie and what the taxpayer is prepared to pay for. Tony's Afghan campaign, has, whilst I understand its aims, totally skewed where investment has gone over the last decade and has broken the MOD. The UK has many interests around the world that will be the bedrock of the UKs future wealth. It would be negligent to forget about and fail to defend those.


Sad Face!!

[Wyler]

Excellent post.

[Tourist]

Apart from

"an economic situation worse than Greece "


Which is absolute rubbish, of course.

[DITYIWAHP]

Widger – some good points but “an economic situation worse than Greece” is a slight exaggeration (maybe that was your intent – I’m getting too old to pick up on these nuances)....

Anyway, you got me thinking: and it all depends on whether you are concerned about how much each person in your country has to work to pay off the debt or if the total debt figure is all that matters. All amounts are UK pounds sterling (data from Wolfram Alpha):

UK:
National debt: £585.3 billion
Debt per head of population: £9450
(Population 61.9 million)

Greece:
National debt: £148.5 billion
Debt per head of population: £13250
(Population 11.2 million)

Thus by inspecting the back of my yellow sticky (no cigarette packets to hand) I work out that the Greek tax payers will have to pay approx 40% more tax than their UK counterparts (ignoring employment rate variations etc). Ouch!

[Widger]

I admit I am no economist however, rather than looking at the headline figures, one should look at the projections. The UK will likely overtake Greece this year.

Furthermore, who is it that holds all those Greek government bonds? The banks! The same entities that brought us to our knees in recent past. Our pensions, savings, GDP is all tied up in the banks. You only have to see the way the markets are getting jittery to see how vulnerable we all are. We make very little any more, a significant portion of our wealth(=debt) is linked to our financial institutions. I would therefore argue, that we are in greater danger than Greece who have the rest of the Eurozone to bail them out or they can withdraw from the Euro and devalue. We have no such course of action apart from going to the IMF!

Anyway.....thread-drift....my profound apologies!

[wokkamate]

"only 2 frontline sqns fully trained for ops" .........

Has someone fogotten about the SH force, or are we no longer part of the RAF! Reporting like that really P*sses me off

:ugh:

[SPIT]

The way things are going somebody at the MOD will suggest arming some of the BBMF ??? so they can do any defense of the UK if needed. :sad::sad:

[Two's in]

I would therefore argue, that we are in greater danger than Greece who have the rest of the Eurozone to bail them out or they can withdraw from the Euro and devalue. We have no such course of action apart from going to the IMF!

Widger, you are clearly not an economist as you seem to have identified the fundamental weakness behind the UK's economic crisis.

[Tourist]

Widger

"they can withdraw from the Euro and devalue. We have no such course of action apart from going to the IMF!"

Erm, yes we can. That is the main advantage of not being in the Euro. we can devalue at will.

We have many financial problems, but there is a reason we still have a AAA credit rating, and it is that we are not in major economic trouble. This the reason why the Military cuts are treasonous in my book.
If we were in the position of Greece, I would suggest that the military cuts were justifiable.

Do you want to borrow my "Penguin book of Economics" before you embarass yourself further?
Nice chap called Adam Smith wrote another one with grown up words that you can get your mum to read to you.

[Widger]

Tourist,

Now now, just because Andy Murray is not doing too well there is no need to take it out of me..........be civil!

On to the subject of our credit rating then as we have clearly drifted this thread. The UK's credit rating is provided by the likes of Standard and Poors, the very bodies who failed to predict the collapse of the banking system and thought investing in Iceland was a good idea!

I refer the honorable gentlemen to some posts I made some years ago on Jet Blast,

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/192114-uk-economy-you-thinking-what-im-thinking-4.html#post2395886

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/175602-house-prices-uk-economy-due-crash-2006-a-2.html#post1904320

[TheWizard]

"only 2 frontline sqns fully trained for ops" .........

Has someone fogotten about the SH force, or are we no longer part of the RAF!

:ugh:

Three words.
Joint Helicopter Command.

You know the rest!! :E

[minigundiplomat]

Wizard,

I don't think either of us thought there would be an occasion when my sole reason for logging on would be to agree with you - but hey, sh1t happens.

JHC - RAF, gone and long forgotten [unless they need some jazzy front-line pictures]

MGD

[TheWizard]

Tough times MGD, tough times. One common enemy in all of this. I'll leave it there.
Good luck in the real world.:)

[Biggus]

While I could be accused of thread drift I feel that I must correct some of the figures supplied by DITYIWAHP in post 32.

The size of the UK national debt is not £585.3 billion, as provided by Wolfram Alpha (whoever they are?).

As the following link shows...

National Statistics Online - UK Government Debt & Deficit (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=277)

The size of the UK national debt is now over £1100 billion and increasing.

(I can post other links to confirm this if required)


The previous Labour government had a plan to half the deficit in 5 years, but this was the annual deficit, i.e. borrowings. So by 2015 they would have only being borrowing some £60-70 billion a year, but by which time the overall debt would have risen to some £1500-1600 billion, and still be rising.

[VinRouge]

Correct. Alas, the bond market would have dropped us quicker than a prozzie with clap if we were still spending 10% of GDP in 5 years time. Why would pimco invest in a country that has no intent in repaying its loans?

[ghostnav]

I have given up looking for any "news" - all you read is speculation, dreams, crap!

I recommend anyone who wants a future to get out now. Then, like me, you will not care.

Cameron will be remembered for the exact opposite of Churchill, Thatcher etc!

[TaranisAttack]

Whilst I can't see a 50% cut in the RAF or the RN going through, as noted, it will be one of many 'nuclear' options being thrashed out. Unfortunately, whilst the 'nuclear' option might not be taken, that doesn't mean to say that the sub-nuclear option won't be taken with a view to then making it seem like we got off lightly.

Then again, the question of viability and numbers does come into it; it you chop the RAF and RN by 50%, both services will be combat non-effective, a bit like Belgium, and you are then into the realm of us becoming a heavily armed 21st century Home Guard; that probably sits well with the Europhiles, but would make us a laughing stock (even more so) with the US military and would no doubt breach our requirement for a minimum proportion of GDP to be spent on defence for NATO purposes. If UK defence goes down the tubes, that will have significant implications within NATO, and I really can't see Cameron wanting to be the man to go down in history as achieving what the Soviets spent half a century trying to achieve. Even Cameron isn't that big a muppet.

So is it all bluster? Probably. Is it worrying? Definitely. As Jimlad suggested, from a light blue political perspective, there are worryingly close links between the Army and Cameron through Dannatt and members of his family. Then again, given Jock's performance as CDS, maybe Cameron considers the RAF to be too close to Noo Labour and as such we have be tarred with our own brush and thus ripe for the chop.It would certainly help the case of the Europhiles. If the British forces are stripped right down, then they can make the case that we must complete our integration with the EU for our "security". It's a classic line!

History appears to have taught us little:

The UK has historically never had a large standing army.
Large standing armies are expesnive and inefficient.
Better off having a power projection capability based on maritime ground forces.


The point about MRBs is spot on, they have been talking of FAS and FAS next steps for years without very little progress. Could easily reduce Land Forces to 3 MRBs and create another Cdo Bde. They say the arms plot, moving of units between brigades, has stopped which is completely untrue and continues to be wasteful to the tune of £8-10 million per unit.

They are now an organisation with no form (structure that is fit for purpose) and soon to be no function. There is only so long they can claim things are Defence best practise........History also taught us we need to be able to rapidly produce a large standing defensive army if needed. If going by history, we really should keep lots of gun and bullet factories in mothball ready in case we need them, though personally I think it could be a waste of money :)

I just sincerely hope that it is PR11/12 nuclear option bluster or ill informed press invention. Any politician of any flavour that would countenance such an unbalanced set up should be immediately disqualified from ever holding public office. I've rarely seen anything so stupid in all my born days. Or they will say they are going to split the saving half between rebates for high earning tax payers and half for aid to wherever the Lib Dems and Greens want to give it. Probably get more votes from it.

Widger – some good points but “an economic situation worse than Greece” is a slight exaggeration (maybe that was your intent – I’m getting too old to pick up on these nuances)....

Anyway, you got me thinking: and it all depends on whether you are concerned about how much each person in your country has to work to pay off the debt or if the total debt figure is all that matters. All amounts are UK pounds sterling (data from Wolfram Alpha):

UK:
National debt: £585.3 billion
Debt per head of population: £9450
(Population 61.9 million)

Greece:
National debt: £148.5 billion
Debt per head of population: £13250
(Population 11.2 million)

Thus by inspecting the back of my yellow sticky (no cigarette packets to hand) I work out that the Greek tax payers will have to pay approx 40% more tax than their UK counterparts (ignoring employment rate variations etc). Ouch! Don't forget, the UK has a lot more assets in other countries, as well as debt to other countries. Considering the debt without considering assets would be ludicrous, especially since those debts and assets are two halves of the same thing!

Three words.
Joint Helicopter Command.

You know the rest!! The W-Apaches have Starstreak right? :)

[Gnd]

Why are we still buying the Typhoon if the RAF is getting cut? (and Puma 2)

Sorry, thread drift.................:ouch:

[TaranisAttack]

Why are we still buying the Typhoon if the RAF is getting cut? (and Puma 2)

Sorry, thread drift.................http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/shiner.gif

We need new aircraft to replace the old ones. A lot of the aircraft being produced are going to be exported, and a portion of these may well take the place of our ordered aircraft allocation, so we will probably get far fewer than the original 232. They also may want to have the fleet made up of more newer aircraft with fewer hours on the airframes than is the case with the Tranch 1's, which may then be sold on for nothing to foreign countries.

It may seem like these decisions were made by someone with no idea, and well, they probably were :ok:

[Jabba_TG12]

Perhaps so Taranis, maybe you're right.

It sickens me as to how short people's memories can be if they can be bought off in such a fashion.

Still, what do I know, eh? :mad:

[Gnd]

Short memory or how excessively large some forces were to start with, actually the RN probably don’t fit into that bracket so let’s keep the aircraft carriers………DOHH!!!!!!!