MoD Cutbacks statistics (all forces)

[Razor61]

http://www.dasa.mod.uk/natstats/ukds/2004/chap3.html

Interesting perspective of what we 'had' in 1990 through to 2004. It's surprising how much our armed forces have actually 'lost' due to defence cuts.

[hyd3failure]

Interesting reading. The RN seemed to have faired quite well and indeed we have more aircraft now than we did in 1990 (Mainly due to the arrival of 30 Odd Merlin)

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Perhaps more interesting now would be details of the size of our forces in 1997, after the SDR, then after last July's (and other cuts)......?

And statistics on operational deployments.

[tucumseh]

Any comparison would be more meaningful if it dated from 1988/89 and included funding allocation.

This is because the RN suffered the Halifax Savings (passed in 87, effective 89) which reduced in a single hit all aircraft support funding by 33%. As support is reckoned to be 70% of through life cost, that's 33% of an awful lot.

They suffered a double whammy a couple of years later. By this time the RAF had largely taken over RN aircraft support and had to find their own savings. Guess who took the hit?

Due to the typical length of postings, no-one could remember Halifax and so the RN couldn't argue their case effectively. Result? Perpetual spares and funding shortages, which have never really recovered.