Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I think if a shooting war with Russia broke out on a scale that required large scale dispersal it's unlikely to last long enough to require a full service support before everything starts to glow in the dark
A lot of people on this thread are assuming that a "full shooting war" is what this is about. I'd argue there's as much validity for dispersal in "grey zone" conflict. Let's say for the sake of argument there's a large build up of troops on the border of a friendly country where UK PLC might wish to intervene. The same day all the lights go out at your military airfields/the fuel gets mysteriously contaninated - you won't be able to pin it on anyone but it'll definitely be the little green men with designs on preventing your interference/overt support for the friendly country, whilst also undermining your credibility.
The ability to disperse your forces won't necessarily prevent such a sub-threshold event but may make the task more challenging and retain you a credible deterrent in that grey zone.
If people start dropping nukes, all these bets are off