Not trying to steal the thread....but see this as a related issue. being reported on in the USA.

Recruitment this year by the Military is a failure....with varying shortfalls in the various Services.

Does our problems sound similar to those in the UK?

We are two societies that have some commonalities but also have some differences.

One thing we do share is the need to be capable of manning and sustaining a viable and effective military fit to meet our self defense needs at a minimum and to be able to field forces in mutual support when required.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...orm-of-events/

What we should be asking is how are we going to fight once the initial stages have finished and all the expensive weapons and equipment have been used or destroyed.

There is no way that replacement aircraft, ships, tanks etc. will be manufactured in quick time (like what happened in WW2). We no longer have the factories, infrastructure and skills to produce them in large numbers. Besides, it often takes several weeks just to get a washer...

Unless we can out-produce the opposition, we are likely to lose (especially as the likely candidates don't really care about their manpower).

Of course, that's for a conventional war. Once it goes the other way, all bets are off anyway.

If only we could be nice to each other...

You think that's bad, where are we going to house all the Russian prisoners? there are millions of them..:rolleyes:

Back in Russia, at their homes and farms. Probably where they were before being called up.

Todays "Times" says that BoJo has told Wallace there is no more money this year :(

Herod.....hang on a mo' will you? Would sending them back home like that be considered a Crime Against Humanity?

If large numbers of them refuse to be repatriated....what would we have to do in that case....keep them?

We’ll post WW2 they handed out a suit, perhaps give them a toilet as an incentive and send them home.

The massive difference there is…. An attacking force needs troops and to be able to recruit more troops quickly. A defending force needs less troops early on and let’s face it will get enormous troop strength quickly.

Russia can’t take Ukraine in a year. Does anyone seriously believe they have any further ambitions!? Their generals would be ****ting themselves with any escalation.

I would say if anything has been shown during this episode is that we overestimated our adversary.

I think we are passed the time when one country can militarily hold other western countries to ransom. I also think any pacts would not work as well. I can’t see any western pact forming for aggression on a superpower. I also can’t see a joint pact between China and Russia. They would rather fight each other than the west.

What the west does to non first world countries is a conversation for another thread.

You do need to balance an effective “defence force” against the economic reality. I think the US has got this wrong over the past couple of decades. They have funded an effective aggressive force and so found the means to validate this.

All those trillions, yes trillions of dollars spent
(2.3 trillion at last count) worldwide on Afghanistan over the past 2 decades would have been better spent on CIA operations to route out terror groups. Those actually responsible and planning rather than just sympathetic.

I would say Russia is screwed either way.
The west will keep pumping in what has now been shown to be vastly superior weapons and if things carry on as they have been, even more effective weaponry that Russia simply cannot match.

I can see the west supplying weaponry with even longer reach that can take the fight to the likes of the bridge and the fleet in Servastapol.

Even if Russia does advance, stretched out supply lines will be their death, just as they were for Germany at Leningrad and Russia at Kyiv.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, even if they took the whole Country they would never hold it, they would need in excess of half of a million troops and the west would hopefully keep supporting Ukraine and Russia would lose thousands upon thousands of troops through resistance.

Even the supply of munitions from Belarus shows a falling in the Russian system, these are not new munitions but existing stocks thus showing the Country’s inability to replenish their own supplies.

The Soviet Union eventually went bust over their ability to fund their military to equal the west, even allowing for oil, with the sanctions in place I can see Russia sipuffering the same fate.

I suggest that you expand your field of view. The Russians are already doing bigger energy business with China since a few years ago (see that pipline from the frozen north)
The Chinese will be the senior partner in any such partnership, yes, but Putin has been laying the pavement for that kind of thing, as has Xi, for about a decade.
Although they do have their differences.

There is a lot of talk about the impact of inflation on spending everywhere at present. This is a problem, however, if I recall early 1979 during the run up to the General Election which saw Labour and Mr Jim Callaghan replaced by the Conservatives and Mrs Margaret Thatcher, inflation was running at between 13 and 14%. I thought it was higher, I do recall Labour offering a 24% pay rise for HM Forces during the election run up.

FB

SASless,
my impression from the outside is recruitment numbers have improved but aren't high enough, the Covid year and IT problems may have had some impact. Finding people to recruit is an issue throughout the UK economy - the reassessment of what one wants from a job and work life balance etc. Those still in will obviously have a better and more informed view than mine.

I do wonder if the shrunken armed forces mean there is so little exposure in most of the country that young men and women don't even consider it as a career; and also the opportunities are much fewer than historically - stories about long holds for aircrew training can't help it that specialism. However, I think the UK would struggle to get the recruits to meet any substantial expansion; as for getting those who have left to go back, I'm sure some would but no where near enough. Surely, to be effective any large expansion needs large numbers of experienced NCOs and officers especially in the increasingly technical environment.

Figures for full time trained strength on 1 Jul 21 as published last October:
1 Apr 21 Navy/Marines 4.7% under strength (an improvement on -5.9% 1 Jul 20)
Army 5.9% under strength (an improvement on -10.1% 1 Jul 20) (the Army's strength is planned to reduce strength by 11% by 2025)
Air Force 6.2% under strength (an improvement on -7.1% 1 Jul 20)

There was a recovery in inflow in 2021 v 2020.

Of note is the fact that the Naval Service and the Army are far more understrength in ORs than OFs. The Air Force figures are pretty much even.

Nutty....Russia borders Ukraine....Germany was a very long way from Russia and in turn the Russian Supply lines were as long as the Germans but ran in the opposite direction.

The Russians received 400,000 Trucks and Jeeps from the United States....which allowed the Russians to supply its troops and move artillery.

I understand that, but the further they advance the problem compounds itself.
Kyiv isn't that far from the Belarus border, but their supply line struggled over that short distance, hence the deeper the go the bigger the problem.

Looks like 2.5% of GDP by 2030

Let's hope we are not speaking Russian by then Comrade.
The technical description is making a big show of it, all bluster and bullsh*t, BUT kicking the can down the road for whoever is in power then, and the chances are that will go straight out of the window, he is making promises he cannot keep.

As GDP is going south this might not be much or indeed anything at all.

Have a look at the sterling/dollar exchange rate then and now then do the maths again.

What is the conventional threat? If it is Russsia, haven't they just shown they are not quite the threat we thought they were? Do we really think they are capable of pushing further West?

With the best will in the world, and I'm sure nobody on pprune will be startled by my revelation, however, I doubt that Boris Johnson will still be PM anywhere near 2030. If we have any other government, unless we are blessed with a Tom Tugenhat, Oliver Tobias or Johnny Mercer type of PM, we will see defence spending fudged at best. That's imagining that the climate of a second cold war continues to prevail. If Putin is no longer President of Russia, his replacement will have to be particularly outwardly aggressive, with threats etc, to see western countries maintain any kind of pledge to a more realistic defence posture. We can be sure Boris and everyone else are sold on the panacea of cibre, AI etc rather than actual force expansion. Oh, and replacing Trident.

FB