SAVE OUR SERVICES (SOS) _ SDSR 2015
 

During his recent visit to Scotland, the Prime Minister indicated that the MOD would not be exempt from the next round of cost cutting, which is apparently due in two years time: SDSR 2015?

The Defence Secretary has stated that he will fight this but presumably in a post-Afghanistan era, it will be argued that the forces are still too big and need further trimming against their future perceived role – whatever that might be.

Although the armed forces are generally well regarded by ‘Joe Public’, I don’t believe the regular bleating which follows changes/cutbacks etc will ever really strike home unless the general populace are made to see the dire state of the forces. That might come if the services were to suffer a major setback on operations but it also might come from the MOD taking an axe to some of its scared cows. What might those cows be? I offer some thoughts but there must be others if not aplenty, certainly worth looking at.

1. Disband the Red Arrows or transfer their funding to somebody else.
2. Withdraw the Household Division from all public duties, disband the mounted regiment, withdraw all horses, scarlet uniforms etc and guns and limbers.
3. Sell HMS Victory and failing reaching the reserve price, remove all funding and scrap the vessel.
4. Disband all service bands.
5. Withdraw all support and any ‘hidden’ funding for charitable activities such as the Fairford show.
6. No public allowances for the purchase of service mess kit for officers on commissioning.
7. Disband BBMF and sell the aircraft.

Before I am lynched for this heresy, thrown in the Tower or struck from your Christmas Card list, it will be obvious that something has to give and if not the above, where will the cuts come from?

Thoughts on a postcard!!

Old Duffer

Cannot see why the BBMF cannot be independant like the Royal Navy Historical Flight.

Mine are car tax on petrol, wipes out those avoiding it in one swoop. Then make the car tax office redundant.
Replace tax disc with insurance one.

Referendum's for all, those wishing to stay part of the UK, scrap their assemblies and all the civil service that support them.

Mad cap schemes such as bin tax, tax the producers and companies using excess packaging, cuts waste, reduces landfill and all those trees that are cut down to produce paper etc are saved, additionally you cut the need to waste money recycling plastics, as you haven't made as much.

Make companies clean up their act, those drawing water from rivers must draw it downstream of their outflows.

Full unemployment benefit for 3 years reducing until cease at 5 year point. No benefits until 5 years tax paid.
No council houses the same 5 years tax paid.
Child benefit capped at 3 kids.
Instant deportation for all illegals etc coming from France as no persecution in France, those that destroy their docs would be housed on deserted Scottish island about 10k off coast, be given sheep, cow, basic shelter and tools and left to get on with it.

Tri-service training?

(No bollox about Service Traditions etc that comes later)

In fact tri-service everything as much as possible with the same T&Cs for everyone.

How about a recorded message.

"Thank you for calling Search and Rescue at RAF Valley. This is an emergency number and your call is important to us. We shall shortly be connecting you with one of our operators. Please have the following details ready: your name and telephone number, the nature and location of the emergency, the budget code or details of the credit card you wish to use to pay for this service. This call may be recorded for training purposes!

I thought that had been tried by one of the Commonwealth countries?

Get rid of all uniforms except for the Camo kit. Do away with PEd branches; make everyone responsible for their own fitness. Stop all ceremonial. Close all officers' messes, especially Army regimental ones. Introduce 48 hr passes and confine everyone to camp until morale improves.

I am a firm believer that MoD, in fact all Government departments, should be required to avoid waste, as far practically possible. Only from that baseline can their true financial requirements be established. In effect, each year MoD is given a huge “float” in their budget as it is not policy to avoid waste. They act like a restaurant and build wastage into their costings. Worse, this includes conscious waste.


I have long held the view that MoD’s budget is pretty generous were it not for this policy of condoning, in fact encouraging, waste. Recently, when asked to confirm (or otherwise) that this policy remained extant, both Minister for the Armed Forces (Andrew Robothan MP) and the Head of the Civil Service (Sir Robert Kerslake) stated, in writing, that it remains an offence in MoD to refuse to obey an order to knowingly waste money.


That is a huge elephant in the room.


On top of this, and with increasing frequency, along come minor hiccups like Nimrod MRA4, which poured well over £4Bn down the drain. The reason why it was cancelled was advised to the programme’s “management oversight” team during the programme initiation process in the mid-90s and was the subject of a damning report in 1998. Yet it took another 13 years. Why? I have always suspected MoD waits for those involved to retire before acknowledging such things. The evidence is pretty compelling.

Old-Duffer, I strongly agree with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. No comment on 6, as I don’t know the details. As for BBMF, I’ve often wondered why the RN Historical Flight did not enjoy the same funded status. Having said that, I plead guilty to unofficially helping them out whenever I could.

Introduce two tone uniform, dark trousers, RAF blue Jacket, this getting rid of the need to replace both at once.

Those of us drawing a service pension should have it severely cut. It's far too big as it is and this would really save money.

Well apart from the fact that BBMF have more Spitfires than the RNHF have aircraft. I am not convinced that anyone would have the capacity to operate the entire BBMF as a going concern without starting to asset strip and selling off of aircraft to pay for the running of the rest. After all, if we carry on as we have in the last few years, in a few years time the entire RAF will consist only of the BBMF and some UAVs.

As a sign of the decline of the British military I would say losing the Reds to, say, BAe control would place us well down the league of global air forces. If it has to be something the public will really get behind, I would say its the scrapping of the Reds.

But then whatever government is in power, left, right or centre, will bow to public pressure and direct keeping the Reds but we will just lose something else (like maritime patrol aircraft, or SAR helos, or tankers, or the entire military flying training system). :uhoh:

OD,

The first two things on your list I would definitely choose as they would strike home on the public conscience far more effectively than the rest. So, yes indeed, Disband the Red Arrows (they've become far to commercialised in any case) and also withdraw the Guards and Household Divisions from Public Duties, that'll get the tourist from hither and fither asking where the Soldiers? and do you mean to say we've come all this way for nothing? etc etc.

But while they would save buttons, it would have the greatest impact on Joe Public's perceptions, for once!:E

FB:)

A bit of thinning of the upper echelons might not go amiss - do we need quite so many "stars"?

I personally know of a 2*, a 1* and 2 Grp Capts that have recently retired of their own choice, and I don't move in senior officer circles.

I don't know if the "system" replaced them, but some of our supposed high flyers have seen the way the wind is blowing and elected to leave and make their own way in the world.

That doesn't alter the fact that as a service we are massively "over ranked"!!

O-D
HMS Victory is already in the private domain, having been transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Some of her funding, however, remains from the public purse. Wikipedia says:

Centralised Messing. After all PAYD is virtually a cafe now anyway.

Approve self-help T&S. ie lastminuteroom dot com instead of HRG or whatever they call themselves this week. Better still, use a flat rate for T&S and if you want a five star hotel or the ability to take the wife/girlfriend, you pay the difference. HRG charge the military £10 for every telephone call they make and are usually more expensive than last minute rooms. Put the onus for value for money on the individual rather then a monopoly that lines the pockets of former senior officers.

Do something with Defence Housing, because it is a royal mess at the moment and is unlikely to be competitive in comparision to an independant tender.

However we can prophesise all we want to when in reality, pulling the plug on Afghanistan alone will save multi millions of GBP. The care and welfare for the hundreds traumatised by conflict will be a hidden financial burden that will be evident for decades.

Why does nobody ever hear about the Police, Fire and Ambulance T&S taking a kicking. They always did leave the MoD in the shade when it comes to allowances.

Hmm, USMC has ~195,000 serving personnel + 40,000 reserves, with land sea and air forces.

We have, what, 185,000 serving personnel + 36,000 reserves across all three services?

I have no idea how many orifices there are of star rank in the USMC, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near the combined total of our three services.

I'm sure a major platform is going to be cut, very probably from the raf - along with associated redundancies.

How about:

1) Follow the Swiss example and having a 5% professional force with the rest conscripted, and like them, don't get involved in armed conflicts but instead just 'do' peace keeping.

2) Stop funding/buying absurdly expensive kit, buy off the shelf stuff that works and do as the Israelis do and modify/upgrade in house.

3) Bin the reds and keep BBMF. :ok:

Civilianise the military:uhoh:

WW- 1000 posts! Not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

So I am interested what major platform you think is in for the axe?

Save the tourist traps
 

Keep the Reds, BBMF, Changing of the Guard etc.

De-centralise: it doesn't work.

Bring in someone from the LO CO airlines and examine cost savings.

Single source training, PAYG.

Buy your own bullets: you can have as many as you want but you have to buy them.

What is the kill to weapon ratio? If its 5:1 make 4 weapons inert and have 1 that works ;)

Been done. Real gate guardians were exchanged for Airfix kits and some cash to maintain others. I think they still do a certain amount of trading.

Trading with Rolls Royce (a BBMF PR.19 Spitfire) helped to fund the re-build of a Hurricane.

NutLoose, you have my vote. Also Nationalise the 'national-lottery' & use the profits for the defence of the Nation; the excess can used to pay off the National debt. That should get us out of trouble within 5-years, although profits may be affected in certain parts of the midlands and London

I'd be radical...

Shrink the Army to ~40,000 full time and then have a 50,000 Army Reserve to protect the UK both externally and within. No more expeditions like Bosnia, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Stop trying to put 'boots on the ground' in far away places and expand the RN and the RAF (to ~40k each) to take 'expiditionary warfare' to those international niggles that need our help but rely on that nation's 'boots on the ground' - a bit like Libya. Put anything that floats and or needs assault capabilities (ie. SF and Marines) into the RN and anything that flies into the RAF (along with Flying Ops Spt like RAF Regt, ATC, FC, Eng - Admin can be done out of the 40k Army). The Army become effectively 'Home Guard'.

Gaff off tanks and armoured vehicles unless needed for defence purposes and spend the money on aircraft (Combat, ISTAR, SH, AT/AAR and FL trainers) and boats (SSBN, SSN, DD, FF, CVF and support vessels).

There you go, rebalanced to global effect, cheaper and more capable. When do I get the job of SoS for Defence? :ok:

CPL Clott

Ever so slighly :}

I read last week, in a novel, that the reason we had never been invaded in over 900 years was because we waged war in other people's countries.

However today someone argued that the ability to retaliate was one thing but was pointless if it meant we could suffer an attack first. The solution was to build an anti-missile system to defend the UK rather than Trident replacement.

Interesting though that WEBF hasn't joined the debate.

Absolutely no idea old chap. But a 10% cut balanced against rising costs countered by a withdrawal from Afghanistan leads me to believe that 'something' must go.

If I had to bet a pound I'd put it on the E-3 for the chop. Whatever one may think of all the guff about network enabled warfare and all the other whizz-wheel management speak of the day, my gut feeling is that the powers that be will be of the opinion that Lightning IIs et al will be capable of 'looking after themselves' on the front line. It also means they won't be forced into making a choice between an expensive flight deck upgrade and re-opening one or more 'single wing' flight deck schools at cranditz.

Just my ha'p'orth. I know some still serving mates are looking forward apprehensively at the next few years. That and some 'star' chat overheard at the odd funeral or two over the last year or three.

So you would remove democratically elected bodies and the electorate's representation just to bolster military funding. Nice :D. Think there may be an opening for you in North Korea;)

How about remove flying pay and reintroduce non commissioned (RAF) aircrew (pilot) - more than enough military wanabe aviators out there to fill hole left by those who jump - good luck to them.;)

They probably p*ss the cost of running the BBMf down the tubes before breakfast, selling ones history off is a dodgy path.. Where next? Flat conversion of parliament? Windsor castle to some rich Yank? Auction off the contents of Hendon? Return the Elgin Marbles?

SNCO pilots has some merit as an idea........(Mk7 on!)

You're right, it does. For one thing, it would stop the idiocy of treating every new junior pilot as a possible future CAS, and moving him/her off the front line after 3 years so they can 'demonstrate their potential for broader employment'. At least with a SNCO you could leave them there forever to become the wizened old ninja...

Ref: SNCO Pilots

This is a great myth when it comes to savings. The approximate pay bands for a Fg Off are £30k-£33k and for a Flt Lt £38k-£45k. For a Sgt it is £33k-£37k and for a Flt Sgt it is £37k-£43k. For Master Aircrew (ie. WO1 equivalent) it is £42k-£47k. So no real saving in base salary.

Now assuming that notional RAF SNCO pilots are paid the same flying pay as the current Army SNCOs, then they are paid exactly the same rate (between £14 to £44 per day depending on their level).

So, I see no savings of any real amount. Also, the SNCOs get free uniform which costs more than the officers having to pay for theirs (excluding PCS and flying gear).

I invite the previous 2 posters to explain exactly where these massive savings would come...:confused:

LJ

Hate myself for saying this, but how about these for 'tough love'...

Bin the Reds, replace with either a dedicated team flying Extras (eg Jordan) or forget the idea completely (I doubt there's the scope for an MFTS run team...).

Turn BBMF into a heritage trust a la RNHF; does it really need so many Spitfires? The MkII, Mk IX and one XIX should suffice - sell the rest to invest into the long term future of the others. It would perhaps permit the organisation to look into broadening the flight based on commercial appeal - a Mosquito perhaps? Would also permit far more tactical freedom with sponsorship. Move the unit back to Biggin Hill or Scampton....

Bin 100 Sqn (:() and outsource their roles to the likes of HHA/Cobham/2Excel. The requirement will continue to shrink given the likely numbers of Typhoon/F35 and the focus on synthetic training.

Scrap Sentinel, Air Seeker, Islander and Defender. Have King Air derivatives for all 'special mission' roles - accept that our Strategic Int days are over and tactical ISR (manned or unmanned) is the way ahead.

Scrap E3 and negotiate a joint UK/French E-2 fleet by purchasing a few-off new builds. Far cheaper to run than E3....

Sh*tcan the LTPA with QQ and have real competition in T&E. QQ have become a greedy monster that has, IMHO, lost sight of it's original remit - Independant Safety Advice - to spread into all manner of other areas for profit. They are overstretched and under resourced but continue to take on work they cannot deliver. The shop floor guys n gals are great, the management aren't. Bin ETPS and outsource - the UK needs few TPs these days or for the forseeable future.

Centralise the UAS's into regional centres, though I sense with the Wittering announcement that this is already on the cards.

Come clean about the Successor deterrent. The programme is all about maintaining a nuclear sub capability, not about Trident (we're keeping the same missiles...). Create a national shipbuilding strategy, like the US does, and have a pulsed programme that knocks out an SSN every 4-5 years, a redesign every 20. Do the same with DD/FFs and (perish the thought) carriers. Steel is cheap, technology continually moves on. It's often cheaper to incorporate at build than through refit. Enables the RN to sell-off/scrap older vessels earlier and keep a smaller number of more modern/cheaper to operate vessels in the fleet. Industry can order long lead items in confidence and the budget is easier to programme as the spikes are fewer and less pronounced. If the strategic threat changes you simply extend some of the older ships....With this policy we could become serious about exporting new warships again.

As for the army...where do you start? Like trying to reform the catholic church.....

I'm playing Devils Advocate - I'd rather defence went back to 3-4% of GDP and the UK Govt (of whatever hue) stopped using it as a benefits system for certain elements of UK Industry for political gain......

Bin the UAS system. are these really cost effective in a smaller airforce requiring less pilots and where competition is fierce?

It would be interesting to see them manage their own tanker plot when they are leaving the operational area!

Wensleydale, they won't need to as the loadie on board the Voyager will just punch buttons on the Mission Planning System and out will pop the answers and the jets will be on their way home.

Oh, silly me - I forgot that the MPS is not fit for purpose and Voyager isn't cleared to tank, but that doesn't matter because the Voyager can't go anywhere near an operational theatre as it has no defensive aids.

Never mind, Voyager will be a splendid transport aircraft - when it is eventually cleared for ETOPS!:ugh:

Come on! Can anyone explain to me why it would be significantly cheaper to have SNCO or WO Pilots rather than Officer Pilots in the RAF?

Before replying, check out the numbers/figures in the post above...

:confused:

LJ

Yeah you're right Leon, I concede.:ugh:

You'll be first up against the wall..... Ever played catch the mortar shell? :p

What i was trying to say was... If they do not want independence then they should, like England, recognise parliament as the central seat of Government for the Countries that make up the UK.. I could understand individual little countries each having their own Governments or assemblies as independent states, but if they do not wish to be independent then this little Country cannot afford to have four independent layers of political baggage.

The Spitfire wasn't traded with Royce's but sold at Auction in 94, the new owner was tragically killed when training to fly it, Royce's then bought the aircraft from his estate in 96, which makes sense as the engine is an oddball.

Oh yes Great and Glorious Leader, our day and night, father of our Great Country which will smite all that needs to be smited. Hail the best leader since our last best leader, wondrous leader etc etc. We are ever so sorry that we dared exercise a democratic choice - how foolish we have been your enlightened state has once again shown how maggotty we are . Hail our glorious one etc, etc. :ugh:

Yeah right - let me talk to your dad!

Easy Street,

... if only there was some system in place to leave JO aircrew in flying or flying-related posts through their careers, maximising their time on the front line... treating them like Professional Aircrew...? :E

Realistically though, most people of my vintage have managed 3-4 consecutive flying tours, often on the same types. Plenty of JO chums of mine have gone GR4 front line - GR4 OCU - GR4 front line for their first 3 tours. Some stepped sideways to RPAS or training jobs.

Where are we sending people to in order to demonstrate their potential for broader employment? Even the last couple of guys I knew off to BALO-style jobs were volunteers.

Courtney Mil: "Those of us drawing a service pension should have it severely cut. It's far too big as it is and this would really save money."

Courtney, have you been missing out on your meds again?:=

HB