General UK Defence Discussion

[The Armchair Soldier]

For the discussion of topics that are not covered by existing threads!

[bobp]

Thanks for this thread it was needed.

[ArmChairCivvy]

As per above, killing the Open Thread on TD killed the "liquidity" on the site, too.

As SDSR is not there, every year, to reference, I will be posting my ramblings about capabilities and capacity here, may be even with some international comparisons
- Defence Economics 101 in disguise, if you like

[ArmChairCivvy]

I have been extremely positive about Meteor, and have been wondering why we seem to be taking forever to get it (and the AESA) on our tiffies. However, I just came across this one, about AMRAAM design considerations:

AIM-120C7/D has only a booster and no sustainer which makes it possible to have a v quick engagement at near and middle ranges. This is the kind of situation where the other party is also likely to launch missiles, in the Russian AF case it is a salvo practice: firing both IR and radar guided missiles, to deal with counter measures.

Raytheon's Neil Jennings explains:
"Jennings said that he is currently unaware of plans to add ramjet propulsion to improve the range of the AIM-120D. "Raytheon, as well as some of the US government investigation agencies have continuously gone back and looked at how to optimise the range for AMRAAM, and there have been discussions of changing the propellants and doing other things in that area to increase the range. If we were to add a ramjet motor, would that solve all our problems? The answer is no."

Ramjet high up = extra weight to eat up v thin air, for no particularly good reason, including the time taken to accelerate (longer)

Jennings continued, "There are a very small number of long-range scenarios where a ramjet-equipped AMRAAM might be an advantage, but those scenarios are fairly marginal, and once you get inside a certain range as you are approaching a target, a ramjet motor on an AMRAAM becomes not an advantage, but a disadvantage: because of the weight [of the missile] and the time to get it going - ramjet motors are initially slower than an AMRAAM motor - you are not going to necessarily get the missile to the target faster and make the kill in the amount of time that you need for it to happen."

[marktigger]

it always amazes me that government don't make service in the military more appealing both regular and reserve.

I do wonder if Service in the military entitled people to a lower rate of income tax and national insurance for life or exempting reserve forces pay from benefit calculations would encourage more to join?

[LordJim]

More importantly specialists in all three services such as engineers should be paid al least the same as there civilian counterparts, as well has having the skills automatically recognised as equal to their civilian qualifications without having to take additional exams etc. Add to that that all pay etc. on deployments must be tax free.

Top of this list though is the treatment and care of veterans and families of those lost whist in the Military, whether on operation's or in a training accident. If you serve the Country it is in your debt full stop.

[arfah]

..............

[ArmChairCivvy]

As Babcock isn't exactly a "unit" in the defence forces, despite providing the initial flight training, I'll use this thread:

They are offloading 28 Grob G115E trainers to Finland. Makes me wonder what is coming in to replace them, or is the training pipeline being throttled? Without any announcements, as has become customary...

[arfah]

...............

[ArmChairCivvy]

Thanks,stupid me, checked under RAF
=> yep, that would be the right thread, should someone know more

[Jake1992]

Iv been doing some reaserch trying to find out where money is seemingly spent in our defence industry as we are meant to have the 5th largest budget in the world but have very little to show for it.

I was able to find a budget brake down of uk spending for the 2016/17 year, it showed the general spend in each department but have a more detailed break down of the denfence spend.
What I found shocking about this was that it seemed to say that we was spend 9.4bn a year from the defence budget on foreigne military aid and foreigne economic aid.
Can any one on here give me more imformation on this or tell me why we are spending around 20% of our defence budget in the way ??

[jonas]

Parliamentary written answers 2nd Oct. Is this a case of political correctness taken to a new height of madness.

Asked by Lord Blencathra
Asked on: 26 October 2016
Ministry of Defence
Army: Photographs
HL2682
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the deletion from Twitter by the Ministry of Defence of an Army photograph showing a soldier wearing black camouflage cream, what assessment they have made of the extent to which such photographs are racist.
A
Answered by: Earl Howe
Answered on: 02 November 2016

The tweet from 19 October included a photograph of a soldier from the Irish Guards practising camouflage and concealment measures during standard jungle training in Belize. We do not consider these types of photographs to be racist.

We can see, however, how the tweet consisting of both the photograph and caption may have been misinterpreted. It was immediately removed, and the Department subsequently released an apology for any offence that may have been caused.

[marktigger]

As Babcock isn't exactly a "unit" in the defence forces, despite providing the initial flight training, I'll use this thread:

They are offloading 28 Grob G115E trainers to Finland. Makes me wonder what is coming in to replace them, or is the training pipeline being throttled? Without any announcements, as has become customary...

Grob 120tp

[ArmChairCivvy]

Thanks, could explain why the Grob 115 spares are not forthcoming (from the manufacturer; if they want to discontinue the product line?)

[inch]

does anybody think uk defence will get an increase after the trump win ,or at least make them have a rethink about things ? .I think Europe going to a serious debate about increasing their budgets .I think our gov will just think its ok we already spending so called 2 percent even though were just playing slight of hand with the numbers to make it look like we are ,but you never know with trump playing the nato withdrawal card

[dmereifield]

does anybody think uk defence will get an increase after the trump win ,or at least make them have a rethink about things ? .I think Europe going to a serious debate about increasing their budgets .I think our gov will just think its ok we already spending so called 2 percent even though were just playing slight of hand with the numbers to make it look like we are ,but you never know with trump playing the nato withdrawal card

I hope so, Hammond's autumn statement is just 2 weeks away so we should get a better idea then.

Here's a couple of questions for the guys on here:
1) how much of an increase would be required to get us to where we should be? 2.25%? 2.5%?
2) if there is a modest increase in defence spending, what should the additional monies be spent on?

[RetroSicotte]

Increase spending spending?

Manpower.
Retaining what already exists for longer.
Keeping existing programs stable without delays, or even speeding them up.

"Extra" is not something we need to think about right now. Stability is the goal.

[Cooper]

More Navy 1st, 2nd and 3rd and RAF 4th, Army 5th

History has shown without a properly funded Navy, we would have been toast on more than one occasion.

Extra spending should ensure the following

RN
1 Extra QE class Carrier & 24 extra F35B
12 Type 26's instead of 8
12 Type 31 instead of 5
5 Extra Astutes (build new capacity at Barrow to build alongside Successor Class)
2 New Ocean class Amphibious Assault ships

..and anything needed to support the new extra fleet size.

RAF
2 Squadrons of Tranche 3 Typhoon
2 Squadrons of F35A
2 Squadrons of F35B

Army
Increase manpower to 120,000
Challenger II replacement (x250)
New Wheeled Infantry fighting vehicle.


All of that could be achieved easily over the next decade by increasing defence spending from 2% to 3%.

Not going to happen of course.

[marktigger]

they will increase to 3% but it'll be by cutting things out of other budgets like intelligence and adding those things and its funding to the defence budget. So more money but more responsibilities but no new additional money

[dmereifield]

Fiddling figures again?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11 ... army-rese/

[Jake1992]

An increas to 2.5 % would be enough if done right. The current defence budget is at £45bn a year according to the government website, an increas to 2.5% would give just shy of an extra £13 a year

For me if done right in a sence that £6bn a year of that goes in to percurment and £7bn in the everyday cost we'd be able in increas this 10 year percurment budget to £238bn.

For me that extra £60bn in the percurment should be split like this:

Royal Navy - £30bn extra
RAF - £14bn extra
Army - £10bm extra
Royal Marines -£4bn extra
Special Forces - £2bn extra

This would allow every force especially the RN to be expanded to a very capable level and could all be done by 2033 with out stress or strain

[Frenchie]

The £ 45 billion includes pensions or not ?

[Jake1992]

From this information I saw it didn't say it only gave a slight break down of the defence budget
But I believe it does as it had been said by the chief of staff that pensions and intelligence have been included to get to the 2% mark

Even so a rise to 2.5% would still be just shy of £13bn a year increas

[ArmChairCivvy]

The £ 45 billion includes pensions or not ?

£38,783m according to standardised NATO definition... and that includes pensions. Sorry, Frenchie, we dont do euros and NATO translates that to dollars for comparisons.

No wonder the Defence Committee is working on the "cooking the books" case.

[Frenchie]

http://www.janes.com/article/56251/uk-s ... e-increase

From an article in Jane's 360, the budget of defence, there is one year was around £34 billion. France also according to NATO has a huge budget, but the truth is that it is not higher than £28 billion currently, or € 32 billion, If I do not make mistakes of course.