So with a little over a week to go until D-Day, what's the latest thinking on where the axe will fall and how deeply will it cut? Working on the assumption that Defence will be required to contribute to further austerity measures regardless of the party in No. 10, just where do we go from here?
Returning from a particularly tedious meeting, we decided to liven the drive back up by war gaming potential scenarios - not easy given that most of the fat has already gone! Working on the following assumptions:
No further cuts to regular manning (based loosely on comments reportedly made by the PM).
No immediate changes to the pension scheme given that we're just trying to implement the last batting and it was stated that AFPS would be a 25(?) year scheme.
As previously reported a 1% increase in the equipment budget but with no guarantee that we will meet NATO's 2% target.
No desire to reduce our footprint on the world stage.
Based on those assumptions, the sorts of scenarios we came up with included:
1. Sell second carrier as soon as practicable as we will never be able to equip it, man it or even afford to maintain such a large asset in care and maintenance.
2. Chop the Tornado Force early and move to the Typhoon fleet being the go to fleet until the introduction of JSF
3. Given the stage the project is at and we can't afford to change the carrier layout again, remain in the JSF programme, but for a significantly slimmed down buy of maybe 24-36 platforms.
4. No further CH-47 buys as replacements for the Merlin fleet given reduced size of Army. AH-64 replacement numbers reduced. Transform UK's airborne capability to Air Assault. Given the current limited airdrop capability and trg hours/frames combined with the experience of the Green Army in Afghanistan for whom air assault operations were the norm rather than a more specialised capability as in previous generations, many units will have experience and with continuation training maybe able to fill the gap
5. Look to rationalise bespoke/mission specific aircraft. Get rid of Sentinel and E3, move to a 737 NG based fleet of MPA and AEWC as off the shelf purchases. Review whether we actually need and properly understand the SAR/GMTI role and capability and if we decide we do need it, integrate such capabilities on future UAV platforms as funding allows.
6. RAF Regt numbers reduced given our reduced numbers of airfields and assumed minimal deployed footprint in short-medium term. Or even absorbed into Army entirely.
7. Officer training to be centralised along the lines of ICSC/ACSC with a common syllabus around which environmental specifics are taught to the single services, thus saving on real estate and engendering jointery from day 1 and setting conditions for the creation of a Defence Force in the medium term.
8. Reserves to be either scaled back or FF2020 slips to 2025.
9. Senior officer numbers slashed in a modern version of Night of the Long Knives (second order effects being to drive more people out as the career pyramid collapses, third order effects including reduced wage bill as those further up the pay scale leave and reduced immediate pension/departure payment bill as people go early).
10. Further pay freezes (both incremental mark time and 0% annual rises) or may be even cuts for all ranks above a certain level e.g. Cpl. Allowances cut further. Officers' uniform tax allowance scrapped. All specialist pay stops as soon as you leave a post where you are actively engaged in that duty - immediate loss on posting to ground tour.
I'm not saying any or all of those are sensible or likely to happen, it was just the musings of 2 bored officers on a long drive trying to wargame possible ideas given the lack of clarity and detail in any of the manifestos so far. But given that we've seen some rather insensible and unlikely decisions made in recent years, I guess in the absence of any hard evidence then any or all maybe just as likely to happen if the above assumptions hold true.
Last edited by Melchett01; 27th Apr 2015 at 23:29.