BillHicksRules,
Pretty impressive stuff from a mobile, and not a trace of yoof speak to be seen!
Let me clarify one thing about the Defence White paper, I only took umbrage at the biased and inaccurate reporting of "Labour cuts in defence expenditure" when that is the exact opposite of what was happening. It was the political opportunism and hypocrsy of Tory supporters that riled me.
I thought the whole point of the white paper WAS to bring about a rebalancing precisely because OP tempos are up and are also of a very different type.
If these cuts in numbers are to enable the forces to be reshaped then they have to be a good thing, if they are merely to cover up procurement mismanagement then they are very bad. The forces are, by their very nature, very resistant to change and quite genuinely conservative (with a small c) in habit and outlook. This makes any radical reshaping very hard to achieve.
If the Support Helicopter situation is as bad as rumour has it, then this white paper has indeed been very very BAD. Only time will tell.