UK Defence in Numbers 'booklet'

[Rhino power]

Interesting reading, I like the bit that says we still have 4 Wessex in the Combat Support Helicopter role!

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/467482/20151013-UK_Defence_in_Numbers_screen.pdf

-RP

[campbeex]

7 x Jet Provost as well.

[Pheasant]

....and only 17 Merlin. Page 7 is a bizarre page with strange groupings, obsolete aircraft listed and others completely missing - and that is just the aircraft.

[Arclite01]

It's absolute rubbish in terms of content.

Arc

[WeeJeem]

And I hope the Navy manage to find that seventh Fleet Sub - seems a bit sloppy to mislay something like that :=

[teeteringhead]

Teeny bit embarrassing to put in the SARbuoy Sea Kings too .........

What a feat of @rse.

[potter_bb]

It appears to be a direct copy and paste, without an iota of thought as to what is in and out of scope, of the headlines from the following report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/423149/CFE_2015.pdf

[CoffmanStarter]

They've also missed off 6 Spitfires, 2 Hurricanes, 1 Lancaster, 1 Dakota and 2 Chipmunks :E

[peppermint_jam]

Some thoughts and amusing comments here.

Spot the Mistooks - Think Defence (http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2015/10/spot-the-mistooks/)

Good job we've got plenty of Armoured Combat Vehicle Look-alikes on strength though..........

[Haraka]

Just remember one thing .
We rip this item to shreds because we actually know what we are talking about.

What about the other "facts" that we accept?

Gate Guardians as items :) ???

[GipsyMagpie]

7 JPs are for taxy training at RAF Cosford. There are probably 17 Merlin left... Some have been retired. Seen 117 recently? Also the bbmf are probably under some weird charitable ownership like the RNHF so off the books. It might be crap but its plausible crap

[GipsyMagpie]

The Wessex bit is definitely rubbish though

[mopardave]

Bae 125? I thought we'd binned those?


MD

[Lima Juliet]

I think they use Jaguars for taxy training at Cosford, not JPs...:ok:

[Tea White Zero]

for the C130 - nice photo of a K…. shame it retired several years ago!!!

(as did 125s)

[skydiver69]

4 landing platform helicopter/docks? HMS Ocean, Albion, Bulwark and...?

[Lynxman]

apart from errors previously noted. Under Attack Helicopters the only remaining Lynx are the AH9As and the Special Forces AH7s, nowhere near 47! The Gazelle no longer has an attack role. There are no Gazelles in Combat Support (looking at the source report these are RAF examples! I don't think so). No mention of the maritime Merlin HM2, Lynx HMA8, Wildcat HMA2 and Avenger T1 observer trainers. No mention of Army Defender AL2, T3 and Islander AL1, CC2B. No mention of MRCOA fleets in operational and training roles such as the DHFS fleets at Shawbury and Middle Wallop (Squirrel HT1, HT2 and Griffin HT1), Griffin HAR2 in Cyprus, Bell 212 AH1, AH2 and AH3 in Brunei and Kenya, and A109 at Northolt. King Air 200 trainers at Cranwell. Atlas C1 at Brize Norton. Dauphin for fleet support and AH1 SF. As for including 146 gliders!
Its all a bit of a joke.
Oh, and under Armoured Vehicle Launched Bridges, Chieftan should be spelt Chieftain!

[Courtney Mil]

Last page speaks volumes.

I'm seeing Work & Pensions as the largest spend, but I don't see benefits. Is there some clever wording going on here or does the UK really spend that much on benefits?

I'm seeing Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but where is England in all that?

Curiously, I see no mention of MPA in the future spend plan. I'm starting to wonder if there is any plot at all to regenerate MPA. It's been left so long now it can hardly count as a capability holiday, can it?

Love the Combat Air planned spend too: £10.6bn (e.g. Typhoon, Tornado, Lightning II). Now, can anyone here tell me how much of that is Typhoon and Tornado? A cynic might think that they've lumped the three types together to hide how much is being spent on JSF by making it look like it's just another little bit of the fast jet thing.

The Navy looks set to lose another thousand in the next five years despite the risk of having an aircraft carrier or two to think about and manning and some fixed wing aircraft. But at least they win the prize for the race to the bottom by being the first force to smash through the 30,000 mark.

[Ivan Rogov]

The Air Cadet gliders are listed FFS!

They are giving away all our secrets, if the Ruskies find out they are grounded we will be totally exposed :\

Operation BARRELSCRAPE go, go, go:ugh:

[Courtney Mil]

Oh, and...

We currently have around 4,000 men and women deployed on 21 operations in 19 countries around the world.

Out of 233,540. That's hardly a stat that's going to make the public think it's money well spent - B£34.4 . I hope the great unwashed don't realise that all that money ends up with 1.7% deployed on ops. I hope they don't wonder what the rest are doing. Of course, if that number were greater they'd be shouting about why the UK is involved in so many ops, so there's no way to win that one.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Bit confused by the Defence budget figures as well. P.1 says £34.4 billion but the penultimate page claims circa £50 billion, which is it? (Rhetorical question, I know it's not £50B) :(

[Heathrow Harry]

they're probably using it for the SDR..................

[Lynxman]

I emailed the head of the department responsible for production of the booklet today pointing out the number of basic errors and omissions. I wonder if he'll reply?

[Easy Street]

CM #20

Maybe, heaven forbid, some politicians will be prepared to make a public case for a well-equipped military whose primary function is to deter adversaries and be ready to fight for the genuine national interest, rather than insisting that it be fully stretched on strategic irrelevancies in the name of "sweating the taxpayer's pound" and shedding capability for its core purpose in the process. And maybe the service chiefs will stop pressing to deploy their forces at every opportunity in misguided attempts to demonstrate relevance, ceding instead to the operational chain of command, of which they are no longer part. We can live in hope!

[Heathrow Harry]

"Maybe, heaven forbid, some politicians will be prepared to make a public case for a well-equipped military"

Don't hold your breath - I've been trying to remember who last did make such a case and mean it - Churchill probably

[longwings]

So we spend roughly the same as the Russians...h'mm ...6 combat squadrons, 19 frigates and destroyers..200 tanks..of which 50 odd are front line serviceable in one regiment?..vrs....??? ...bit embarrassing really.

[WhiteOvies]

Sea King Mk 4 Unarmed Transport Helicopter? Apart from the GPMG and M3M that can be fitted. There's a lot more than 17 Merlin, where did they get the info from??

[Whenurhappy]

To be fair, at least there are some statistics available. I work in a country where everything and anything to do with the Forces and the Interior Ministry troops is a state secret. I was given when I arrived a glossy book about the heroic and glorious forces of this country; pages are blank, detail blacked out...and this country is regarded as an Ally...

[Lima Juliet]

Longwings

we spend roughly the same as the Russians...h'mm ...6 combat squadrons, 19 frigates and destroyers..200 tanks..of which 50 odd are front line serviceable in one regiment?..vrs....??? ...bit embarrassing really.

I've been saying this for years. We spend nearly 2/3rds of our budget on infrastructure and equipment - both of which we are NOT getting value for money from.

At a local level on a station/base if we were allowed to get local contractors in then we could save at least 50% rather than going through DIO and their single-source regional prime contractor. Furthermore, whilst the R&D costs are 2,9% of the budget for equipment, this is an out-and-out lie; the reason why our defence equipment is so expensive is because we don't buy much off of the shelf and end up paying for the R&D costs in the procurment costs - that's why Typhoon, Astute, Watchkeeper, L85 rifles, A400M, Voyager, Type 45, etc... all cost well over the odds for what we pay for them. Whereas Reaper, Rivet Joint, etc... which were bought off of the shelf come in on, or under, budget and on, or under, agreed delivery dates, offer far better value to the defence budget. That is why we have 6 combat squadrons - dumb ass procurement with industry fat cats lining their pockets.

IMHO of course...

LJ

[thunderbird7]

Spin document to make Joe Public believe they are spending enough on defence. Total b******s.

[pr00ne]

longwings,


You clearly have trouble counting...

[Mick Strigg]

Don't knock this document, accept it as factually correct, so that the current SDSR can get rid of the JP's etc. and show that a saving has been made!


I think it's called creative accounting.

[Melchett01]

Seems Pruners aren't the only ones to have difficulty with this latest bit of spin

MoD under fire for listing retired jets and grounded helicopters in new list of military assets - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11938920/MoD-under-fire-for-listing-retired-jets-and-grounded-helicopters-in-new-list-of-military-assets.html)

[BATCO]

…And then the DT err by referring to the RAF's Watchkeeper fleet.

Batco

[Heathrow Harry]

looks like the Telegraph have a Prune account.............

makes life easy for the hard working journo's - find a story on here and then call up a rent-a-quote in their address book and voila! An article!!

the Times is as bad - they seem to plunder the "Economist"