Armed Forces redundancies

Governments of all political colours have for the last 40 years been cutting back all 3 Services without regard to the happenings in the real world, until we are now in the state that we were before WWII. Then we had a under-equipped Army and Air Force, while the Navy only had WWI warships and we were lucky to get away with it.

Now we have lost ships of all classes and have no aircraft carriers for at least 6 years. We've lost the Harriers from the Navy, still one of the foremost ground support/air defence aircraft in the world. The Argentinians are getting bullish and noisy about the Falklands again, and they're not stupid, they're watching us cutting our Forces and capabilities to shreds and rubbing their hands. It was no thanks to Maggie Thatcher's government that we won the Falklands War last time. It was the real courage and ingenuity of the lads on the ground that won it. Her government had been cutting back the Forces just as severely then as this present government is doing now. With no aircraft carriers and no navy aircraft we won't win the next one.

The RAF has been forced to contract out privately more and more engineering front line servicing, and consequently there are less and less RAF engineers. We've lost the Harriers from the RAF as well. We've lost the Nimrod due to MOD stupidity and laziness. The Nimrod that was shot down in Iraq would have survived the hit if the MOD had spent money on foam filled fuel tanks as the Americans had over 30 years ago on their aircraft. That sort of financial meanness gets good people killed. We've lost certain electronic surveillance aircraft that we need to back up our fighters. The number of ground support aircraft have been reduced to a few old aircraft that are getting older. The defence of the UK is down to a small handful of aircraft that would have been laughed even in the 1930's

The Army as always is being asked to do more and more, and as always is being cut down in size, and as always is doing the job superbly. Army lads have been killed because of lack of equipment, while the Civil Servants push forms, have meetings that only concern themselves. We are now asking our Service men to go out and get killed or injured while we send them e-mails to tell them they're out of a job.

We are as much to blame as the Politicians - because we have let them do it time and again.

 

Was that good or Bad, Larkshall??

 

This is a sorry state of affairs, it would be better to get rid of the army of civil servants in the Ministry of Defence first. I think there are now more pen pushing civilians than servicemen

Another thing I heard today is that there are now more lawyers in this country than police. What crazy times we live in

 

The trouble is, Pete, in this country and our British culture the Armed Forces can't speak for themselves even in these "democratic" days. I served for 22 years in the RAF and despite all the cut backs we never once thought that it would be right to protest against what we saw as financial miserliness that was putting the defence of the country into danger.

What can we do to stop them? Well, we seem quite willing to sign letters in support of Saving Our Forests, the NHS, the Post Office, etc, but there's no campaign to save our Armed Forces!! The British Legion wasn't designed or brought into existence to campaign politically for the Services, only to care for personnel after leaving, nor is there there any other organisation in existence to do such a job. The British Public don't seem capable to work up any real anger or political will to actually stand up for the people who are dying in the service we ask of them.

You'll have noticed that Senior Military Leaders of all three Services never speak out until they are retired. Those that speak out while on active service can forget their career and get quietly pushed out of the service and forgotten. Believe me, I saw that happen, while I was in the Services, to members of all three Services who'd got so frustrated with how the Military was being treated that they'd thrown all caution to the wind.

The 3 Services defend us - but who defends them?