I am bored of hearing about harmony ratios. The army is 100k - if they truly operated anything like 1 in 4, then they would have 25k deployed. Clearly, some elements of the army hardly ever deploy and some go much more frequently than even 1 in 4. The same applies to the RAF. Much of this is unavoidable if we want to retain a balanced force mix - we can't just switch fast jet squadrons to rotary for a few months and vice versa. Both the army and RAF are doing what they can to introduce more flexibility. As for the Navy, I admire those who wish to join and are prepared to spend a great deal of time away from home, but it was ever thus and it is intrinsic to the job.