Army 2020 Refine

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

dmereifield wrote:please clarify, does the reserve tank regiment actually have it's own fully operational tanks (and if so, how many?), or are they trained to be able to step in replace regulars
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Gabriele
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Gabriele »

A share of the tanks will be scrapped, probably. Army 2020 had a fleet of 227, the expectation seem to be for 167 / 170 now, at least that was the number that made the news. We'll have to see.

As for vehicles, i don't know if and how the Royal Wessex Yeomanry is allocated an appropriately sized fleet of vehicles. Keep in mind that no British Army regiment owns a full fleet of vehicles: even the regular regiments have only 18 or 20 tanks, which is RHQ + 1 Sqn worth, for low level training.
When they train at a greater scale, they pick up tanks from the Training fleet. Training fleet which includes the tanks in BATUS.

When a regiment deploys, it is supposed to be given the missing tanks through a reserve of "high readiness" vehicles in storage, either at Ashchurch or in Germany. This is what is known as Whole Fleet Management, although the results seem to be far from spectacular so far. To be fair, over a decade of Afghanistan-first has meant a rather dramatic neclect of everything else, which is hopefully being fixed now.

Under Army 2020 Refine the Royal Wessex Yeomanry is getting a small expansion to the number of crews, and it is taking on an Armour Replacement role rather than just Crew replacement.
That means it is supposed to generate not just personnel, but crewed tanks.

The rest is simple math: 56 x 3 = 168. If they keep 170 tank, the only way to see 3 complete regiments is by scraping together every last tank, bringing back those in BATUS as well. You can guess by yourself what scenario is implied.
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dmereifield
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by dmereifield »

Gabriele wrote:A share of the tanks will be scrapped, probably. Army 2020 had a fleet of 227, the expectation seem to be for 167 / 170 now, at least that was the number that made the news. We'll have to see.

As for vehicles, i don't know if and how the Royal Wessex Yeomanry is allocated an appropriately sized fleet of vehicles. Keep in mind that no British Army regiment owns a full fleet of vehicles: even the regular regiments have only 18 or 20 tanks, which is RHQ + 1 Sqn worth, for low level training.
When they train at a greater scale, they pick up tanks from the Training fleet. Training fleet which includes the tanks in BATUS.

When a regiment deploys, it is supposed to be given the missing tanks through a reserve of "high readiness" vehicles in storage, either at Ashchurch or in Germany. This is what is known as Whole Fleet Management, although the results seem to be far from spectacular so far. To be fair, over a decade of Afghanistan-first has meant a rather dramatic neclect of everything else, which is hopefully being fixed now.

Under Army 2020 Refine the Royal Wessex Yeomanry is getting a small expansion to the number of crews, and it is taking on an Armour Replacement role rather than just Crew replacement.
That means it is supposed to generate not just personnel, but crewed tanks.

The rest is simple math: 56 x 3 = 168. If they keep 170 tank, the only way to see 3 complete regiments is by scraping together every last tank, bringing back those in BATUS as well. You can guess by yourself what scenario is implied.
Thanks Gabriele, ca 170 is a better than I had expected. Disappointing to hear that the surplus tanks are (likely) to be scrapped - is there no possibility to sell them on (e.g. Oman) or mothball them? Do we not already have some mothballed (beyond the 227) from previous cuts?

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Lord Jim »

Under Army 2020 Refine I think the Army and MoD need to ask a basic question ( and I may have been here before but have a bad case of Man Flu!) Is the British Army going to maintain heavy units for deployment in Central Europe and the Baltics, or have light and medium units that can deploy on NATOs flanks and also further afield. Realistically the Army will not have enough money to do both effectively with the amount of new kit it is going to need over the next decade and a half. So pick one!

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

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Lord Jim wrote:Under Army 2020 Refine I think the Army and MoD need to ask a basic question ( and I may have been here before but have a bad case of Man Flu!) Is the British Army going to maintain heavy units for deployment in Central Europe and the Baltics, or have light and medium units that can deploy on NATOs flanks and also further afield. Realistically the Army will not have enough money to do both effectively with the amount of new kit it is going to need over the next decade and a half. So pick one!
Problem Lord Jim is they've lost the NSN for the crystal ball and the army have made some very wrong decisions in the last decade and a half.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Lord Jim »

Its not the crystal ball they have lost but hey need to grow a pair, admit the mistakes made and draw up a realistic plan to have an effective and properly equipped Army by 2025, even if that meats we only have one or two brigades able to deploy. The current plan is a total mess, being polite, And we either need to re equip our heavy formations ending up with two to three Brigades each with one Challenger 2 Regiment, one Ajax Regiment and two Warrior Regiments, this is thee easiest to achieve as nearly all the pieces are in place, or we go down the medium rabbit hole again. The latter is probably better for our long tern aims and aspirations but requires some very hard decisions now. If we try to do both we end up with unbalanced and not properly equipped formations. After some major heart search I think we should under 2020 refine concentrate on bringing our heavy units up to scratch and relevant for the next decade or so, retaining select UOR platforms for possible use as is already the case.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by marktigger »

i would agree the aim of army 2020 should be to generate 2 heavy (armoured brigades) and 2 medium (mechanised brigades) loosing light infantry or light protected infantry units to produce them.

have we still the Tank unit capicity to create square Armoured Brigades as options for change planned?

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by marktigger »

marktigger wrote:i would agree the aim of army 2020 should be to generate 2 heavy (armoured brigades) and 2 medium (mechanised brigades) loosing light infantry or light protected infantry units to produce them.
With the next step to generate a 3rd Armoured and 3rd Mech Brigade

have we still the Tank unit capicity to create square Armoured Brigades as options for change planned?

Clive F
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Clive F »

Not sure if this is correct place to make my point/ ask question so apologies if not.

Reduce RM's to "one Commando" plus the other current responsibilities. Do something clever with RAF regiment (one regiment for protecting all MOD establishments?
Replace 16AA with a new formation that has RM's as "action ready" 1 in 3 years with Paras covering the other two years (could even change the names (heresy).
Use freed up manpower to man ships
Could even put some of the "Spare Battalions" manpower from the army in it.
At same time change all the names of army infantry battalions (reduce number of battalion but increase manpower in each( more heresy)). Re distribute spare man power around army (or where required).

This is probably "b****Ks, but if this was a commercial organization something drastic like this would happen.

StrategyTed
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by StrategyTed »

Regarding the Army Air Corp....

I was hoping people might have an insight into the new round of cuts that has supposedly been signed off as part of the 'Army 2020 Refine' re-organisation project.

So far we now know that;

- Disbandment of the Army Air Corps (AAC) Regiment in Northern Ireland
- Early Retirement of the entire fleet of Westland Gazelles AH1 Ob's Helicopter

Do we know anymore ?

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Gabriele »

As far as i know, some 25 Gazelle are actually going to stay, unless new decisions have overtaken me.
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Lord Jim
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

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If we are still retaining a number of Gazelles, they will be relegated to secondary duties such as communications flights. Their recce and other front line roles are planned to be taken on by the Wildcat. I do know a large percentage of those remaining are up for sale in the latest money raising drive by the MoD.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

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The Gazelle has been covering those secondary roles for a while, that is not a change at this point. BATUS Flight, some Northern Ireland tasks, and not much else. Yet, none of those requirements is going away, so they were working on the assumption of keeping some 25 helicopters kicking for quite a few years more. Hopefully that has not changed.
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Aethulwulf »

Jane's reported on 28 Sept that the plans are to disband 5 Regiment and retire the entire fleet of Gazelles in 2018. Also, plans to reform 669 and 672 Sqn to fly Wildcat have been scrapped. The AAC will now only have two operational Wildcat units, 661 and 659 sqns, along with the training conversion 652 Sqn. There is not expected to be a reduction in Wildcat aircraft numbers.

The claim is that 5 Regiment's UK based work has now been taken over by police helicopters and their Islanders/Defenders work overlaps with the RAF's Shadow R1.

Overall, the AAC are losing 400 direct posts, plus another 200 posts in REME, RLC, etc.

I've not seen a word of this reported in the mainstream media - an interesting contrast to the media reaction to suggestions of cuts to infantry regiments.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Gabriele »

Well, that's quite an extraordinary massacre, then.
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Aethulwulf »

The Jane's article comments that the loss of 400 posts from a total of 1700 raises questions about the ability of AAC to create career structures to sustain enough subject matter experts to fill HQ and staff posts across MOD. As such, it faces an uncertain future.

Could Teeny Weeny Airways have the same fate as Monarch Airlines?

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Gabriele »

Carter clearly believes the Army doesn't need anything other than filling Rheinmetall's pockets with money for Boxer APCs for four battalions to spread on two confused half-tracked mechanized brigades which will be the weakest in the world.

That's a revolution in warfare, you know. STRIKE, we call it. The second coming of Jesus.
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Lord Jim
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Lord Jim »

I'm beginning to think the "Strike" in Strike brigade refers to the term in base ball

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

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Its about time the umpire raised his finger.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by benny14 »

Saw this today. Helps explain the situation to all those people constantly complaining how top heavy the army is.

"Britain’s army is getting stronger because it has nearly halved the number of generals, the head of the armed forces has said.

Responding to criticism that the army is top-heavy, General Sir Nick Carter said that the total number of starred officers — brigadiers and generals — had been reduced by nearly 40 per cent, from 141 to 85, during the past five years.

Over the same period, he said, the proportion of generals to troops had improved to about 1 to 2,400, and the number of two-star headquarters staff had fallen from nine to five"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top- ... -j9sj6b2kp

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

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Lord Jim wrote:admit the mistakes made and draw up a realistic plan to have an effective and properly equipped Army by 2025, even if that meats we only have one or two brigades able to deploy. The current plan is a total mess, being polite, And we either need to re equip our heavy formations ending up with two to three Brigades each with one Challenger 2 Regiment, one Ajax Regiment and two Warrior Regiments
Starting here with a quote from exactly a year back (and, why, did the author have to pass the "man flu" to me, I thought the germs would die over such a long period!):
- looks like two bdes
- to make up for the loss, army railway corps to be reincorporated
- meaning that we will never again deploy tanks outside Europe
- we can't do proper readiness/ training/generation cycles with two
- so the railway corps is there to ship out the 2nd Rgmnt by the time the 1st will have been attrited
- and then you call up the reservists (and more tanks from BATUS) and ship/ railroad them over, too
Clive F wrote:Reduce RM's to "one Commando" plus the other current responsibilities. Do something clever with RAF regiment (one regiment for protecting all MOD establishments?
Replace 16AA with a new formation that has RM's as "action ready" 1 in 3 years with Paras covering the other two years (could even change the names (heresy).
- not to forget the "Arctic" responsibilities, so "the other" proper Cdo for that
- airpower in inpassable terrain (exc. by sea) is everything. So make sure the RAF Rgmnt has enough furry hats issued so that they can go "OpNorth" with those F-35s that are not travelling on the carriers
- Yes, Paras and the RM: from 3 Bns, one company (of each kind) always "at the ready" as in 24 hr readiness... the rest will be down to the kind of situation at hand
Aethulwulf wrote: The AAC will now only have two operational Wildcat units, 661 and 659 sqns, along with the training conversion 652 Sqn. There is not expected to be a reduction in Wildcat aircraft numbers.
That tallies with the number of Apaches (to be) and how they are (already) aligned:
- a rgmnt for action from the sea
- another to go with Strike
... well, one could go to Norway, the other to the Baltics... rather than to "Ougadougou" which must be the present-day Timbuktou :wtf:


There we go: BEF is one bde now, one later, plus some attrition reserve :clap:

The Baltics not being in Europe, in the same way as we are not :crazy: , we will use the Strike formations either there or in Africa (hey! we will have two, so may be in both, concurrently :lolno: ) and as the Gurkhas (the half that is in Europe-not) will be very good as a delaying force in the Baltic countries: lots of trees and them being small in stature, easy to hide behind the trunks and ambush the advancing "red" menace, so them, too.

Sorted. There is the mini-review, to come out in Feb.

Message: We have done a massive recapitalisation of the RAF and the RN. Unfortunately it ran over budget, so we have to find the manpower (the money for it) in other ways.
- Now, in our brilliant review that has been done by utmost stealth, it has been decided that the army is really, but only after doing some hard prioritisation, surplus to requirement.
- However! We are a great power, so will need to carry on with some tokenism (and we will also need to maintain a NEO capacity as, after all, the ones we would be rescuing are not only citizens - others to be onboarded only if space will be available - but, more importantly, tax payers without whom this whole macabre merry-go-round and misallocation of resources could not go on for much longer
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Lord Jim »

Trouble is what is meant as a bit of fun could end up nearer the truth. Anyway all these retires scrambled egg wearers are being kept in the reserves on great pensions in case we need them to command the countries rapid reaction force or police a Milwall game.

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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by Gabriele »

If any of you is a Gunner Magazine subscriber or has a way to get a copy, there seem to be a little update on Army 2020 Refine in the december 2017 edition. I would absolutely love to get to see that. Maybe there is someone who can get a scan of the page?
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benny14
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by benny14 »

So Royal Wessex Yeomanry (AR) will be getting one additional troop of Challenger 2s per squadron. 4 more for each of the 5 squadrons, it gets a total of 20 extra Challenger 2s. Is this simply a measure to keep more Challenger 2s active with the reduction of an armoured regiment, and are they taking on an increased role?

Losing a tank regiment is -56 Challenger 2s. By giving a squadron of 18 plus the 2 vehicle command element to RWY, it means that we only lose 2 squadrons of tanks, rather than 3.

At this point we are losing 2 squadrons, so 36 Challenger 2s. Do any of you reckon that there is a possibility that we will beef up the two remaining regiments by one squadron, meaning that we lose no tanks? Or at a minimum, add an extra troop to each of the remaining two regiments squadrons, so +24. Meaning that we only lose 12 tanks?

Then in regards to the paired (AR) Armoured infantry battalions, how exactly does this work. Do they have their own dedicated vehicles, and if they deploy, how do they operate with or integrate with their paired regular battalion? At the moment the two (AR) 12 Bde battalions are 4 Mercian and 3 R Welsh, which are currently light infantry. Surely they transition to armoured infantry rather than remain light infantry?

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Army 2020 Refine

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

benny14 wrote: By giving a squadron of 18 plus the 2 vehicle command element to RWY, it means that we only lose 2 squadrons of tanks, rather than 3.

At this point we are losing 2 squadrons, so 36 Challenger 2s. Do any of you reckon that there is a possibility that we will beef up the two remaining regiments by one squadron, meaning that we lose no tanks?
Does it come down to the question: Tanks+crews
... or
Replacement crews?

Anyone thinking in terms of replacement crews, to a depleted unit, having their knocked-out tanks coming back from the work shop and re-crewed is not thinking "properly" for the type of speed that warfare of this day will have (?)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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