Strategic Defence Review: MoD budget cuts of 8% by 2015

[Tezcatlipoca]

I've updated the Yoda-esque thread title, as it was really bugging me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11570593

Originally Posted by BBC

Harrier jump jets, the Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal and planned Nimrod spy planes are to be axed and 42,000 MoD and forces jobs cut by 2015.

Unveiling the strategic defence review, PM David Cameron said defence spending would fall by 8% over four years.

The RAF and Navy will lose 5,000 jobs each, the Army 7,000 and the Ministry of Defence 25,000 civilian staff.

Axing the Harrier and Ark Royal means no planes will be able to fly from British aircraft carriers until 2019.

(snip)

Mr Cameron also vowed to push ahead with replacing Britain's Trident nuclear missile system but said their replacement would be scaled back, with the number of warheads per boat cut from 48 to 40, as part of a £750m package of savings.

The life of the current Trident submarines would also be extended, with the final spending decision on their replacement delayed until 2016 - after the next general election.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ions-like-iraq

Originally Posted by Guardian

Measures announced today to scale down the budget included:

• A cut of 25,000 staff in the Ministry of Defence by 2015, the disposal of "unnecessary" assets, and a getting to grips with procurement.

• Cancelling the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft programme.

• Naval manpower to be cut by 5,000 to 30,000 by 2015 and the total number of frigates and destroyers to drop from 23 to 19 by 2020.

• The government to retire the Harrier jump jet and reduce RAF manpower by 5,000 to 33,000 by 2015.

• Tanks to be reduced by 40%.

• Half a billion pounds allocated to a national cyber security programme to counter unconventional threats of the future.

Outlining the backdrop to the cuts, Cameron said the coalition government had inherited a £38bn black hole in future defence plans – bigger than the entire annual defence budget of £33bn.

[SMG]

Nimrod should have been axed years ago, along with the crusty idiots in the Mod who decided it would be better value than the yanks airborne early warning system, the cuts need to be in the Mod where the rot is. When I think of the billions these Muppet's wasted on crap equipment it makes my blood boil.

When your forces need a particular piece of equipment, & its available to buy over the counter, only a complete idiot would opt for a different & inadequate version, then spend more billions trying to get the thing to work.

The Mod is as bad as the NHS for buying crap, then spending more in a vain attempt to get it to work.

I would double the number to 50.000 civil servants, & leave the forces alone.

Originally Posted by SMG

Nimrod should have been axed years ago, along with the crusty idiots in the Mod who decided it would be better value than the yanks airborne early warning system, the cuts need to be in the Mod where the rot is. When I think of the billions these Muppet's wasted on crap equipment it makes my blood boil.

When your forces need a particular piece of equipment, & its available to buy over the counter, only a complete idiot would opt for a different & inadequate version, then spend more billions trying to get the thing to work.

The Mod is as bad as the NHS for buying crap, then spending more in a vain attempt to get it to work.

I would double the number to 50.000 civil servants, & leave the forces alone.

I would like to know what exactly we may have lost by scrapping Nimrod - there must have been some reason for developing an ELINT system exclusive of that provided by the USA .

As I understand it the problems with the MRA4 were more to do with the airframe than the systems deployment.

Those systems will now, presumably, be deployed via the Sentinel R1 operating out of RAF Waddington.

As for the aircraft carriers, there seems little point, to me, developing one to handle catapult assisted take off & landings & the other to rely on VTOL aircraft - the VTOL option relies on US development now the Harrier is to be scrapped - if the US is late delivering the F35B, or cancels it, this variant of the ship is going to be severely compromised - the best option is to make both of them catapult capable, imo.

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by SMG

Nimrod should have been axed years ago, along with the crusty idiots in the Mod who decided it would be better value than the yanks airborne early warning system, the cuts need to be in the Mod where the rot is. When I think of the billions these Muppet's wasted on crap equipment it makes my blood boil.

When your forces need a particular piece of equipment, & its available to buy over the counter, only a complete idiot would opt for a different & inadequate version, then spend more billions trying to get the thing to work.

The Mod is as bad as the NHS for buying crap, then spending more in a vain attempt to get it to work.

I would double the number to 50.000 civil servants, & leave the forces alone.

Agreed, this old beast should have been decommissioned years ago and replaced with the very capable US version, in this day and age with the extreme cost of modern weapon systems and hardware we literally cannot afford to design and develop a purely British version just for national pride.

[arcimedes]

Originally Posted by PeteL

a JOKE, scrap foreign aid instead ! the military dont have enough money as it is!!

We allegedley have the fourth highest defence spending after the USA, China and France and you think we should spend more

[chris9991]

Would these Defence changes affect our capability to defend the Falklands?

Oh and did I hear right that Trident is now part of the MoD budget? So other things in the MoD budget have to be cut more?

Originally Posted by chris9991

Would these Defence changes affect our capability to defend the Falklands?

No, because Argentina doesn't have anything like the military capability that it had in the early 80s and because the islands are now armed to the teeth, unlike 1982 (the dwindling military presence there being one of the reasons Galtieri thought invasion was a good idea ... he didn't think we had the will for a fight).

I'm really depressed today.Living where I do I have already seen a real decline in MOD places and jobs within this area .

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I'm really depressed today.Living where I do I have already seen a real decline in MOD places and jobs within this area .

Unfortunately, Maggy, the whole defence area has been similarly "right-sized" since the end of the Cold War; there were 100,000 personnel in the RAF when I was in (70's and early 80's) - 43,000 now (about to be reduced by another 5,000).

An 8% saving is really not that hard to make in our defence budget and is not something anyone needs to get upset about. As SMG said for years now we have been commissioning projects for kit where perfectly able and sometimes better kit is available to buy over the counter so to speak. We are not a major military power anymore like we once were and have to get rid of that attitude within too many of the desk warriors who feel we are. Not only could it save us far more then 8% it would make us a lot better then we are and despite the paper shufflers we are a damn good military who achieve great things far beyond the kit we have to use sometimes. Being honest i think there will be a massive cull in the public sector in terms of jobs and while i have every sympathy with anyone losing their job lets be honest we all knew it had to happen once labour were gone because they expanded the public side far more then the country could afford.

This article on El Reg makes for interesting reading

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/20/comment/

On section that stood out, in light of the cuts being made, is the projects that will continue

The idiotic, wildly expensive A400M transports will continue - when much more cost-effective C-17s and C-130Js are to be had for the asking. The expensive, useless Future Lynx (aka "Wildcat") light chopper, partly UK made, will live on. And perhaps the greatest boondoggle of them all, the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) deal, remains untouched.

- so that the final section in the article, regarding acquisition of Chinook helicopters, boggles the mind against that background ...

Prescient (made over two years ago) sketch by Bird and Fortune

Originally Posted by Hugh

Unfortunately, Maggy, the whole defence area has been similarly "right-sized" since the end of the Cold War; there were 100,000 personnel in the RAF when I was in (70's and early 80's) - 43,000 now (about to be reduced by another 5,000).

It's no consolation though and don't forget it's not just army,navy and RAF personnel whose jobs are at stake..It's the people who help to keep the services functioning in the immediate area of MOD properties.Plus all that MoD land that becomes available is prime building and development land.This means an even higher concentration of population in an already overcrowded corner of the South..and I can already point to several former MOD sites that have been developed already in this town..Shame we don't have the infrastructure to match and aren't likely to either in the future.It's even worse in a peninsular town..

[Derek]

An idea of where some of the cuts could be made.

when it comes to military procurement, Israel spends £9 billion a year and administers its purchases with 400 people. Britain spends £10 billion annually on procurement and has a staff of 23,700 to do it.

Fair enough it doesn't take that many people to phone Washington and demand some new weapons but it shows just what a monster the MOD has become and that level of paperwork and admin exists throughout the public sector.

[Tezcatlipoca]

There was a very interesting "Dispatches" on defence procurement a few weeks ago:

"Dispatches: How the MoD Wastes Our Billions"