Crewing the Type-46 AAW Destroyer

The MoD used to have some excellent hospitals. But they’ve mostly been sold for other uses, or demolished. The one at RAF Halton served as both a military hospital (& one which trained nurses) and a local hospital. My sister was one of many non-military births there. Closed in 1995, & just (complete May 2008) demolished. To be replaced by houses – during a slump in the housing market.

A better bet would be:

– Improve the pay and conditions for those serving
– Decrease the rate of deployments (i.e. more time between deployments)
– Allow people from allied countries to join if they want to
– Improve the public perception of the forces (better publicity – not spin doctoring, but genuinely just making sure people know about the positive things the forces do)
– Boost funding for cadet and university schemes (these are very effective recruiting tools, giving people a positive perception of the roles of the forces – but G.B. has basically been cutting funding again and again, meaning they get less and less money to fund the better bits, i.e. range time and exercises for Army guys, and flying time for the air guys)
– Provide the troops with a personal equipment budget to allow them to get their own gear, e.g. the best boots, ammo/gear pouches, cooling gear, clothing etc…
– Replace the current shocking hospital facilities for recuperating soldiers! Say, three or maybe four large facilities, on the site of existing NHS facilities (saves money, and allows them to share facilities/staff as needed – e.g. MoD-owned CT scanners and MRI machines could be rented out to the NHS when available). These facilities would have MoD staff, and be properly equipped for the job, with genuine rehab facilities.

Basically, just give the troops what they actually need and deserve! The happier the current troops are, and the better the perception of the military, the easier it is to recruit. If people see troops dying because of pure penny-pinching and inadequate equipment, they will not be very quick to sign up!

Mick,

the more we argue, the more we agree. I don’t think we should be setting up recruitment offices in Riga, Sofia, etc. But I do think that if a Pole (or Italian, or Portuguese) walks into a recruitment office here in the UK he (or even she) shouldn’t automatically be rejected. i.e. no active recruitment campaign, but change the rules to permit someone who is legally here, who is a citizen of an allied country (NATO and/or EU, perhaps), & who applies in person, to be recruited.

There’d probably have to be some rules about other commitments, e.g. anyone who is officially in the reserves of their own countries armed forces, or whose home country forbids its citizens from joining foreign forces.

I think it just reflects a difficult situation. Whatever they could do there are problems. If it was recruiting jobless Latvians directly from Riga, there could be a public outcry at home asking as to why taxpayers money was being spent on bringing immigrants in when there is high youth unemployment in the UK. And would the armed forces be actually successful advertising for foreign unemployed youths with the offer of a specific role that means being sent to Afghanistan or Iraq? They could spice it up with all sorts of gimmicks like offers of UK citizenship, etc but it might remain problematic to get sufficient recruits to show enough interest, much like the situation that there is now. As I said before, they would probably have to completely relax the entry requirements across the board to make it attractive, so any nationality could go and serve on a Type 45 or fly with the RAF, other than doing some of the more sensitive work. And that could bring up a whole load of problems that could change the UK armed forces beyond recognition. A foreign national then considering a career in his/her own armed forces might decide to choose Britain instead because of better pay and wider opportunities. These countries might then start having difficulties recruiting as they start facing the loss of high-calibre recruits that have come over to the UK instead. This could especially be problematic when many countries like Latvia have recently scrapped conscription in an attempt to develop more professional armed forces. Even Poland wants to scrap conscription.

If it was bringing in a limited amount of domestic conscripts, yes it might be difficult to motivate them and there might be political problems for the reasons you listed. On second thoughts, making 18-year old Brits or similar age by law have to take up education, work, training, community service or the services rather than claiming benefits might be more acceptable to the public than just conscripting them in. But it probably would still be insufficient to ensure that there were enough recruits coming in.

The question was “Why is there any debate about recruiting from abroad anyway?” I didn’t know that it was even being considered. Checking it up, it appears it came about because of the number of Poles going into Army Careers Offices and asking about joining up — Poles living and working in the UK showing an interest, not from abroad, which is completely different especially if they already have a number of years of living here under their belt. I don’t think that would be that would be too controversial and would only require changing the length of time for residency rules.

And that is assuming that every conscript would be placed in harm’s way and packed off to Afghanistan and Iraq.

No, not every. Any conscript in harms way would be politically unacceptable. Even died in a training accident, or beasted too hard in the heat while still having ecstasy in his bloodstream from the weekend & dying from overheating would be political disaster.

Personally, I don’t think that the limited use of a limited number of conscripts for some roles or even used for deployments in less hostile areas of the world, therefore freeing up trained regular personnel, would be any different to the growing use of TA or other reserve forces to make up the numbers. Your’e not talking about the type of numbers that were needed during national service of the past.

As I’ve already said, this is, in itself, a political problem. Very selective conscription, picking out only a few, would be political suicide for whoever ordered it. “Not fair!” “Why’s my Wayne been taken, & not so-and-so?”

Also, if you use conscripts for the “safe” deployments, replacing regulars, the regulars will spend a higher proportion of their time in the unsafe deployments. What do you think that’ll do for recruitment & retention? To increase numbers of deployed troops, you need more deployable troops, not deploy the existing ones more of the time. The army is already overstretched in exactly that area.

And what’s the difference between saying to an 18-year old that they must be in education of some sort rather than being out of work to they must join one of the services if they are not going to do anything else where they can learn and do something constructive. Depends on what they are used for.

Big difference: they don’t get shot at in education. Also, you’d end up conscripting only the unmotivated & uneducated. Likely to make good soldiers?

If it’s a question of needing more infantry troops for Afghanistan and Iraq, however, that’s a different matter and I already said that recruiting EU or NATO nationals with previous military experience might be more useful. But to fill the armed forces with foreign nationals though just to make up the shortfall in general shortage in manpower seems a bit radical, especially when there is a percentage of the domestic population that could be tapped into. Maybe if some the other major NATO and EU states shared a bit more of the burden in places like Afghanistan, the UK would not have to look at recruiting from elsewhere.

We agree on a lot here. Experienced ex-soldiers would be ideal. The problem with tapping into the domestic population is that at the moment, they’re not joining up. Can you can think of ways to motivate them? Also, there’s a problem with retention, which I think is is partly due to pay & conditions, & partly due to the overstretch itself. The former needs political will to improve (& at least, the housing issue does seem to be being addressed now, though it’s too early to say whether enough is being done). The latter is in danger of getting into a rather nasty feedback loop. That’s why I think it would be a good idea to do something ASAP to boost numbers in the most stretched areas, such as infantry.

As for the burden sharing – absolute agreement. Some countries have more troops than the UK in relatively low-risk deployments, e.g. UN peacekeeping, but most could spare larger numbers. If every European NATO country matched our (& the Canadian, & Dutch) commitment to Afghanistan, we’d swamp the place.

So is anyone going to answer my earlier question then rather than picking out one sentence?

Sorry, which question hasn’t been answered?

And that is assuming that every conscript would be placed in harm’s way and packed off to Afghanistan and Iraq. Personally, I don’t think that the limited use of a limited number of conscripts for some roles or even used for deployments in less hostile areas of the world, therefore freeing up trained regular personnel, would be any different to the growing use of TA or other reserve forces to make up the numbers. Your’e not talking about the type of numbers that were needed during national service of the past. And what’s the difference between saying to an 18-year old that they must be in education of some sort rather than being out of work to they must join one of the services if they are not going to do anything else where they can learn and do something constructive. Depends on what they are used for.

If it’s a question of needing more infantry troops for Afghanistan and Iraq, however, that’s a different matter and I already said that recruiting EU or NATO nationals with previous military experience might be more useful. But to fill the armed forces with foreign nationals though just to make up the shortfall in general shortage in manpower seems a bit radical, especially when there is a percentage of the domestic population that could be tapped into. Maybe if some the other major NATO and EU states shared a bit more of the burden in places like Afghanistan, the UK would not have to look at recruiting from elsewhere.

So is anyone going to answer my earlier question then rather than picking out one sentence?

…Surely, there must be a better option like bringing back some form of national service.

And you think that some of the other options might meet political obstacles!

Consider . . . the services don’t want conscripts, thinking them unreliable, & too short-term, needing troops who stay for long enough after being trained to be deployed usefully. What would happen the first time a conscript dies in Afghanistan, or wherever? The quantity of faeces impacting the rotating device would make any fuss over “foreign legions” seem utterly trivial. Since it’s therefore politically impossible to deploy them into harms way, what use would they be? Since the forces neither want nor need more than a small fraction of the eligible youth, it would be seen as grossly unfair to that fraction actually called up. Calling up enough to eliminate that problem would be insupportably expensive (all the housing, trainers, equipment etc), and would actually cause a new recruitment crisis, as we wouldn’t have enough officers & NCOs to boos ’em around.

It’s a complete non-starter.

Surely, there must be a better option like bringing back some form of national service.

Why would that be better?

Why is there any debate about recruiting from abroad anyway? Other than recruiting people within the EU or NATO already with previous military experience, which could be a pretty cost-effective way of getting troops that only need training to get them up to British procedures, etc, I can’t see why it is even being considered. Are defence chiefs that concerned that over the long-term, recruitment is going to get harder that they think they need to start recruiting abroad. Is it to meet the current shortfall in personnel? Surely, there must be a better option like bringing back some form of national service.

I don’t think there would be anything wrong with having Poles serving in the Army, and it might be better to not have a separate Brigade. As long as it is a modest number of Poles, serving in a British unit, then it is difficult to portray it as a foreign legion. On the other hand, if you go creating a Polish Brigade or similar, you could run into problems. During WW2, it wasn’t a problem, because they were Polish, French, Norwegian (etc…) units that were parented by Britain. They had their own way of operating, even though they generally used British equipment and training. After the war, those units went home – look at the Dutch Air Force, which still uses its RAF squadron numbers.

The big problem I can see would be with the actual nations you are recruiting from! I suspect the Polish forces would be pretty annoyed at having some of their best and brightest potential recruits signing up with the British forces because of better pay (hah!).

I also fear that this sort of ‘solution’ would allow the government to ignore the real issues, i.e. pay, accomodations etc… If you can just get in ‘cheap’ recruits easily enough, you will be less likely to properly invest in keeping them in the service long term. The old hands are some of the best resources we have – they have the training, experience, and can impart this onto the more junior personnel. If we keep losing them en masse, then standards will fall, which risks costing lives!

I agree that we shouldn’t have unrestricted overseas recruitment, & that the Gurkhas, by almost 200 years of tradition, have become safely ensconced as a special case. But let us consider the current situation, & the proposal to open up to either NATO, EU, or some combination, of nationalities.

In 2005, we had 2000 Fijians, 1000 Jamaicans, 700 South Africans, 600 Ghanaians, 600 Zimbabweans, & 335 Irish in the British armed forces, in addition to smaller numbers of several other nationalities (ca 100 each Canadian & Australian, for example), & the Gurkhas. We’re getting concerned about the numbers of troops of particular nationalities (especially Fijians) in some units, & some of that lot are from countries with which we have no alliance, & which were glad to get shot of us.

It’s suggested that we might broaden the scope of recruitment to include allied nations. Concern has been expressed that certain EU & NATO nationalities might pose security risks, with particular concern being expressed with regard to ethnic Russian Latvians & Lithuanians. For the record: only a small proportion of the population of Lithuania are ethnic Russians. Latvia & Estonia have large ethnic Russian minorities, but in both cases, many of them do not have full citizenship, as both states require considerable evidence of loyalty, & intent to integrate, before granting citizenship to their Russian minorities. This should greatly ease any security concerns.

I would not expect a flood of applicants. They’d have to pass language tests, & we should impose restrictions on employment in particularly sensitive areas. Europeans (mostly Christian, if religious) could actually be easier to integrate than many of our current overseas recruits. It shouldn’t add much to the cultural diversity we already have. That horse has bolted. What we might gain isn’t so much many more soldiers, as an opportunity to thin out of the undesirably high percentages of particular nationalities in some units.

Note that some of our allies, e.g. the USA, have different restrictions. The USA requires legal residency, but does not care about citizenship, & has 30000 non-citizens in its forces. I know of an Irishman, for example, who has served with the US army in Iraq. No previous US connection before he got a job there, & now a captain.

BTW, I wish we could find a way to use the West Indian troops as role models for British youths of West Indian ancestry, to encourage them to join up.

The Commonwealth nations have a genuine link with the UK, and, of course, share a common head of state! On the other hand, recruits from within the EU are not going to have the same kind of ties to Britain, and will generally be joining due to the opportunities it offers. There is nothing wrong with non-Commonwealth people signing up, but it has to be understood that there will be concerns as to loyalty.

As for the concerns expressed about the increasing percentage of non-Brits in the forces, this is for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is simple concern about the falling numbers of Brits joining, threatening the long term numbers (since political or economic reasons could potentially suddenly decrease the numbers of non-Brits joining). Secondly, there is concern about the identity of the Army, since it does decrease the ‘Britishness’ of it.

Don’t take this wrong but I think you are over-estimating the degree of patriotism/allegiance the commonwealth countries have. Even in British military I wouldn’t be surprised if many new recruits only develop their strong sense of allegiance to the Queen after deciding to join.

Allegiance can be indoctrinated especially to impressionable young men away from home. I’m not meaning to be offensive to any servicemen here but that, objectively speaking, is how militaries, para-militaries, terrorist organisations, religions, pyramid schemes and cults work the world over. I never thought I’d list those organisation types in the same sentence.

Can someone objectively tell me why a Latvian cannot have the potential to develop as much loyalty to the UK as a academically underachieving PlayStation addicted Sun reading 16 year old chav from Bradford?

A good military doesn’t recruit soldiers, it makes soldiers out of recruits.

Agreed that many British young people don’t want to join up, but they still account for the largest percentage of new entrants into the UK armed forces and overall manpower, even if it is short of its required intake at the moment (and this isn’t just restricted to requiring more infantry).

I suppose you could recruit restrictively (ie. Poles and not other nations), but that would open a whole can of worms. Would these Polish nationals have extremely restricted opportunities? These nationals won’t be used to British culture having not lived here even if they can speak English. Then they’d come into a pretty entrenched system that is steeped with British history, regimental traditions, etc and be expected to fit in. There would have to be a bottom-up review that would allow the armed forces to be more flexible with multiculturalism and nationalities then there presently is (because for sure, I can quite imagine you’d get thousands of other nationalities applying to join up if it was open to everyone). The only other option is that they’d have to create a Regiment that was purely restricted to a nationality similar to the Polish Squadrons during WW2, thereby creating a British Foreign Legion. It would also be a nightmare putting all these recruits through security screening prior to joining. And how would they be able to guarantee that someone from outside the UK was in fact not who they said they were, even if they were registered in their own country as a national of that country. Even with Commonwealth citizens there are stringent security requirements for officers, while some can’t serve in certain roles without long-term residency. Ireland I agree is an odd case and may well be something that dates back to when the country gained independence, while the Gurkhas are completely different matter as there is a particular brigade that has been recruiting from Nepal for over 200 years and the brigade follows Nepalese customs and traditions. And as for the non-Commonwealth countries there are close links as former colonies, while I believe Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth since its 2006 coup. Other than the Gurkhas, I would guess they probably only account for a small percentage of the UK armed forces strength anyway. The citizen requirements for service are those that I detailed.

I just don’t think it would go down all that well in this country if there was an announcement tomorrow that they were going to open the armed forces to anybody just because they come from EU or NATO member states. The headlines would probably write themselves.

But those unemployed youth don’t want to join the army! Nor do they want to pick fruit, or any of the numerous other jobs which are going begging, but that’s another matter.

We never stopped recruiting Irish citizens, right through the Troubles. The average Pole is not exactly pro-Russian. Why more of a security risk?

The majority of the overseas recruits to the British armed forces at present do not have British citizenship, have never lived here, & have English as a second language. Almost half are from non-Commonwealth countries, which have no military alliance with us. Why apply different standards to our NATO & EU allies, such as Poland?

Sorry Swerve, my mistake! I forgot that a number of the Commonwealth nations had switched away from having the Queen as head of state.

Do not get me wrong, I have no problem with allowing non-Commonwealth persons to join the forces! I think that a level playing field would be a good idea; my only concern would be the ‘risk’ of turning the Army into a form of foreign legion (which could raise serious questions in a future conflict). Remember the situation in the Falklands? The Argentines tried to make a lot of political fuss about the Ghurkas, arguing that they were effectively mercenaries!

I also didn’t mean to suggest that any Poles would be pro-Russian (I was actually referring to Latvians/Lithuanians, a number of whom are of Russian descent, and quite a few remain pro-Russian). It is just that it is a consideration – background checks are very difficult to do anywhere, least of all in nations with totally different systems.

Basically, I am just suggesting that we be a little wary of seeing the EU as ripe recruiting grounds, especially on a purely economic basis. This is especially because of the improving economies in many of these countries, making joining less attractive over time. There is no single answer to the forces recruiting problems – one of the biggest issues is actually retention! As long as retention problems remain, recruitment will struggle to meet demand. If we fix retention issues, i.e. housing, pay, benefits, pensions, injury settlements etc…, then we can finally get our house in order.

I relayed the arguments against increased non-British percentages because Planeman asked – I don’t happen to agree with them. Frankly, given the excellent work ethic of most of the Poles I’ve met, I would love to have them serving this country!

But those unemployed youth don’t want to join the army! Nor do they want to pick fruit, or any of the numerous other jobs which are going begging, but that’s another matter.

We never stopped recruiting Irish citizens, right through the Troubles. The average Pole is not exactly pro-Russian. Why more of a security risk?

The majority of the overseas recruits to the British armed forces at present do not have British citizenship, have never lived here, & have English as a second language. Almost half are from non-Commonwealth countries, which have no military alliance with us. Why apply different standards to our NATO & EU allies, such as Poland?

That just wouldn’t happen. There is enough discontent among some of the British population and the media about immigration without “jobless” Latvians using the UK armed forces to escape poverty in their own country. We have pretty high youth unemployment in the UK anyway and there seems to be a growing lobby that are trying to push for a return to national service (although seems pretty unlikely) due to rising youth crime. There’s also too much of a potential security risk. Commonwealth citizen, member of a British overseas territory, long-term residency, even someone protected under the British Nationality Act, however, is a different matter as it currently is. Spend a lengthy spell in the UK, gain UK citizenship, speak fluent English and it shouldn’t really be a problem whatever country the person is from.

The Commonwealth nations have a genuine link with the UK, and, of course, share a common head of state! …

Only 16 of 53 Commonwealth countries share a common head of state.
UK
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
Jamaica
Antigua & Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Grenada
St. Kitts & Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent & the Grenadines
Solomon Islands
Tuvalu

Most non-British recruits to the British armed forces are from states not on that list, e.g. Nepal (non-Commonwealth), Fiji, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, & Ireland (non-Commonwealth). Of the top 6 countries, only Jamaica has the Queen as head of state, & two – including no. 1 – aren’t even in the Commonwealth.

BTW, I’ve seen reports that Poles have been applying to join, but can’t be accepted under current rules.

Why so?

The Commonwealth nations have a genuine link with the UK, and, of course, share a common head of state! On the other hand, recruits from within the EU are not going to have the same kind of ties to Britain, and will generally be joining due to the opportunities it offers. There is nothing wrong with non-Commonwealth people signing up, but it has to be understood that there will be concerns as to loyalty.

As for the concerns expressed about the increasing percentage of non-Brits in the forces, this is for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is simple concern about the falling numbers of Brits joining, threatening the long term numbers (since political or economic reasons could potentially suddenly decrease the numbers of non-Brits joining). Secondly, there is concern about the identity of the Army, since it does decrease the ‘Britishness’ of it.

Britain already recruits in other commonwealth countries (though there is already a degree of concern being addressed at this, with the rising non-native percentage), but this is totally different to recruiting in the whole EU.

Why so?

Depends on how old you are I guess. Now, as a mid 30’s father of two and soon to be three, the nice cabins would not be enough to entice me back in to uniform.

WOW! CONGRATS sir…