True. Going all-volunteer should increase the number of deployable troops, even with a cut in total numbers.

That is the rumored new set-up of our combat forces in the Heer. (there is an additional support command)

Land Operations Command ***

Deployment Command 1 ** (provides a brigade HQ for deployments)

– 1 Panzer battalion
– 2 Panzergrenadier battalions
– 2 Jäger battalions (+ 2 assigned from French-German Brigade)
– 1 artillery regiment
– recon regiment
– Pionier regiment
– logistics regiment

Deployment Command 2 ** (provides a brigade HQ for deployments)

– 1 Panzer battalion
– 2 Panzergrenadier battalions
– 4 Jäger battalions
– 2 Gebirgsjäger battalions (?)
– recon regiment
– Pionier regiment
– logistics regiment

Deployment Command 3 ** (provides a brigade HQ for deployments)

– 1 Panzer battalion
– 2 Panzergrenadier battalions
– 4 Jäger battalions
– 2 Gebirgsjäger battalions (?)
– recon regiment
– Pionier regiment
– logistics regiment

Air Mobile Forces Command **

– Air Mobile Jäger regiment
– Fallschirmjäger regiment
– attack helicopter regiment
– light transport helicopter regiment

German Contingent French-German Brigade

– 2 Jäger battalions
– 1 artillery battalion

Special Forces Command

KSK

You can also mix compoenents of the deployment commands. So they could deploy 4 Jäger regiments (one fromeach command) or a heavy force 3 Panzer battalions and 4 Panzergrenadier battalions.

Good thing is no important weapon programs has been killed so far. Puma and Boxer will go ahead with limited numbers.

The MArine will see cuts to the Minesweepers and the FACs and some older frigates will only be replaced by corvettes but in the end they should end up with more deployable ships than today.

This is the source of your misunderstanding of British defence needs. What you say is entirely correct – for a land power. For an island state, the primary forces, those on which national security depends most, are those which stop anyone crossing the sea to that state, & enable it to reach out & touch across the sea.

An island state without a navy is at the mercy of anyone who has a fleet, however strong its army. An island state with a strong navy but no ground troops is disadvantaged, but can still defend itself while making good the deficiency.

I think that is a thinking of the past. In Western Europe there is no island state and no continental power any more, simply due to the fact that war within western Europe is extremely unlikely. All Western European states are extremely likely to use their military might in expeditionary operations. Nobody is going to try a blockade against the British isles.

The Navies in Europe have become very important to protect our interest in the world, as conflicts will be out of area in the future and we strongly depend on open sea lanes and free trade.

And because of the expeditionary nature of future conflicts the boots on the ground are important, even for an island state. It is not about defending the island, it is about defending the international interests of your country and that can only be achieved if you are capable of putting boots on the ground, when the need arises.

How many boots can be discussed.

Exactly. Some reports suggest.

To go from that and claim a false dilemma of either having CVF and no marines or marines and no CVF isn’t really accurate. As Liger quite rightly said, there are far better and more likely options such as cutting an armoured brigade or atleast saving a tad of money in the army.

Your point started out as saying the RN was effectively the least relevent of the armed forces and so, along with the RAF, should take the cuts if it meant sparing the army of them, now you’re using unsubstantiated speculations made by a few newspapers and dictating as fact in order to justify it?

The scenario you mentioned would be a disaster, but for that reason would be one of the most unlikely scenarios to actually emerge. I see the situation being pretty much what the Sunday Times reported a few days ago, I was pretty impressed with the plausbility of the report and it was far from disaster. If that’s a sign of the overall current consideration, I doubt they’re going to revert to something as stupid as forcing the RN to choose between the Marines and the Carriers.

No, I said the cuts must be balanced. It makes no sense to spare the army from the cuts and it makes no sense to spare the RN alone.
The end result must be a capable force.

I think the CVFs are needed, the amphibs are needed. This means a certain number of escorts are needed. Which also means you need the SSNs. You also need the Marines and they should have organic transport helicopters. The carriers also mean that they need aircraft, so Harriers until F-35 arrives in sufficient numbers are needed, as well as the F-35 themselves.

Considering how expensive manpower is, the army needs to be cut, although I am not convinced that turning it into an all light COIN force is a splendid idea.

The service which could take the most cuts is the RAF imho. Tornado should go, Typhoon limited to around 100 airframes. The F-35 could and should all go to the RN. Transport fleet should be saved.

This is your assumption.

If you ask France, Italy or Spain, they will answer you that they believe very firmly in power projection.
I don’t know who said you that power projection is no objective of European militaries anymore.

The Cavour and the Lagunari (italian Marines), the Mistrals, the Juan Carlos I and the Galicia ships and all the rest… They ARE power projection tools, and no one in Europe (apart from UK) is thinking about giving that up.
Italy dreams to build a new 15.000 tons LHD class to replace the San Giorgio ships, actually, and planning to buy Iveco 8×8 amphibious IFVs to create an amphibious armoured group and replace us-built AAV7. The US marines are looking at the same Iveco platform to replace their LAV vehicles. There is also an ambition to get Scalp Navale or Tomahawk at some point.
France is building a 3th Mistral and developing faster and bigger landing crafts. It also plans to deploy Scalp missiles on submarines and FREEM frigates.
Spain is getting into service the Juan Carlos I and recently bought Tomahawk missiles from the US.

I’d like to know from where you are getting this absurd idea that power projection ambitions in Europe are over. Actually, the major nations are trying to INCREASE their capability in this sector.

You do not see the difference? Behind also those naval power projection are Marines and landing ships. -> Boots on the Ground.

Ask me if the amphibs should go with the UK and I say no.

I do understand the idea that the Falklands need a carrier for protection, but we will never know if Argentina would have tried it in the first place, with a serious garrison of ground troops and a flight of F-4s based in the Falklands. And that is the same situation I see today. Cutting every other commitment to get the RN save, might be not efficient.

Another thing I do not understand is the Power Protection thing. All countries interested in doing that in a serious way, apart from the US, have large armies and neighbours with large armies. Apart from maybe Argentina, I fail to see where the UK could need to project power alone. Sure you could do it in Africa, like the French,but is that worth the price?

Apart from that buying British was one of the reasons for todays problems. Just look at the Chally 2. Wonderful tank, to bad nobody else is using the same canon, so nobody else is using the same ammo, which makes it very expensive. Would the UK have decided to go 120mm smooth bore like the US, Germany, Italy and France, replacing the main gun of the Chally 2 would be no discussion today.

Or imagine instead of Type 45 the Uk would have joined Germany and the Netherlands in the development of F124 / De Zeven Provinciën or stayed with France and Italy in the Horizon project.

But if, as an island nation, we have a choice between what you call “an army strong enough to exploit the possibilities of the carriers”, & no carriers, or having the carriers, but a weaker army, then there is only one possible choice, & that is building the carriers.

There are two main reasons, each of which is decisive by itself.

Firstly, we need a strong navy much more than we need a strong army. For us, an army without a navy is pointless. It can’t be used. But a navy without an army is useful & very valuable. Not, of course, that either extreme is desirable.

Secondly, rapidly enlarging an army (especially a highly trained professional army, in which the troops can be cadres for enlarged units) is much easier, quicker & cheaper than rebuilding a navy. The latter requires not only the building of ships, but the reacquisition of complete capabilities. Scaling up from 100 tanks to 1000, for example, is a much simpler problem than scaling up from frigates to aircraft carriers. For the former, it’s more of the same. For the latter, you have to build entire skill sets (& not just individual skills, but institutional skills), from scratch.

In both cases a balanced solution would be better. Say 2 small carriers and 150MBTs. And as much as the UK is an island nation, I do not beleive that the Navy is still that important. You have no enemies in Europe any more. No neighbour is planing on blockading the British isles. Even Argentina is only a limited danger. While you have a strong interest in keeping the international sealanes open and secure, I think that this interest is shared by all industrial nations
On the other hand the UK participated in many peace enforcing and peace keeping missions in the last decades and for that you need boots on the ground.

Oh dear oh dear. I see a land-centric view from a citizen of a continental country, someone suffering from what has been called ‘sea blindness’. It’s a serious condition, one which has killed many armies, & lost many wars.

Who do you think transported most of the equipment & supplies used by the army in Iraq? Who transports heavy stuff to Pakistan, for overland transport to Afghanistan? Civilian transport can be used, but who protects it? Who put marines ashore in Iraq? One of my cousins was in the 1990-91 Iraq war – on board an RN destroyer. RN destroyers sank Iraqi missile boats which would otherwise have attacked transport ships & tankers. RN carriers (&, of course, other ships) were involved in Korea, Suez, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan (my cousin was on Illustrious in 2001, & got home 3 months late because of that one), etc.

As for the RAF & RN being support services for the Army – well, one could say that army logistics is ‘just a support service’, but the fighting soldiers can’t fight without it. There is no such thing as ‘just’ a support service. They are essential – or do you think that soldiers should carry all their equipment, forage for food, & capture their ammunition from the enemy?

How do you think the British army gets to wars? Does it walk?

[Edit]Ah, I see Liger has already said it all. Never mind.

It is about the balance. Obviously the Army needs the Navy and the RAF but it must be balanced.
One can not argue that the RN should not take more cuts, as their actions during the IPGW and IIPGW were a big success and then cut the army, as without the heavy battalions of the army the RN would have had no job in the first place. (or it would have depended on other countries supplying the boot and tanks on the ground)

You do not need a Navy able to protect the logistic support of the army on a far away mission, when the army is not able to do such a mission in the first place.

Imagine the Navy avoiding any serious cuts and the army being cut down to a few light infantry battalions. What would be the point of such a Navy. 2 carriers for 2500 Marines?

If the army is not able to fight high intensity conflicts against enemies with modern and heavy weapons, there is little point in having a Navy capable of fighting the Navy of such a country.

When I read this thread I always read about how important the carriers are and that they need F-35B to take on enemies fielding SA300/400 or SU-30/35+ type fighters. I bet that such a country would also field a healthy number of modern MBT, AFV and lots of modern AT weapons etc.

How would you win against them with a light army cut down to a few infantry battalions and some 2500 Royal Marines and Commandos?

The army, like the RAF, should be hard pressed to justify any big programs until both carriers are fully realized. Neither of the services has the capability to carry out the global missions that the RN is capable. The latter is the key to the UK’s economic prosperity.

Excuse me but, what?

Which global missions, apart from the Falklands and anti-piracy ops did the RN fulfil in the last decades?

What good can the RN do in Afghanistan? What did it add in Iraq, Bosnia, Croatia? In all those conflicts the Army was the major force. The RAF and RN are just support services for the army.