Thin Pinstriped Line

The First Sea Lord has confirmed that the Royal Navy will be reducing the number of Admirals it has in the Service, scrapping several 2* posts and seeing a drop to 1* roles instead. This is part of a wider reorganisation that will see more staff pulled away from NCHQ (fleet HQ) as the RN looks to reduce the number of Admirals it has. The tired cliché of ‘more admirals than ships’ has been trotted out with tedious regularity for many years. There is no direct link between ship numbers and senior officers, and those who trot out this line forget that the RN has to fill a great many purple roles too, providing senior staff for other jobs. On paper the RN usually has somewhere between 30-40 Admirals/Generals (of 2* rank and above).  Of these, some 15 are usually in the direct line of Naval interest, filling roles that would usually form part of the Admiralty Board. So, in corporate terms, you’ve got a combination of senior heads who are responsible for HR, engineering, logist...

Christmas may be drawing near, and the Armed Forces preparing for a well earned short pause, but already it is clear that next year significant challenges lie ahead for the military as it prepares to fight at home for funding in what is likely to be a painful Strategic Defence Review. The news that cuts to the military seem almost certain to go ahead were signalled this week by an interview with Ben Wallace, who made clear that the armed forces need to cut their cloth to match reality. This was coupled with confirmation that there is a funding challenge at the heart of Defence, and that also the armed forces have each been asked to demonstrate progress on a core issue, to prove their credibility. What is clear is that the British Armed Forces are probably approaching a point where with a £15bn hole in the equipment programme, an SDSR on the scale and ferocity of 2010 is going to be required to cut back force levels, programmes and aspirations to make the military affordable. ...

A Strategic Defence Review is coming. The rise in leaked options to the papers, purporting to represent current thinking is now being joined by the next stage in the campaign, articles by senior but not necessarily completely credible, individuals who want to push their party line at any cost. The latest entry in this campaign is by the well-known journalist, Sir Max Hastings. In his article for the Times on Saturday he attacks the Royal Navy for procuring the two new aircraft carriers as a ‘colossal embarrassment to the Royal Navy and the armed forces’. He goes on to write at length about the vulnerability of the carrier force, how smaller cheaper conversions would be better, and some interesting and historically incorrect assertions about the role of airpower and the Royal Navy before WW2 coupled with a general sense of ranting angrily about how the UK is an irrelevance now and how we don’t actually have any military power. Frankly its all a little bit tedious – the same a...

The Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter delivered his annual lecture to the RUSI last week. In a wide ranging speech he explored what the British armed forces have been doing over the past year, and set this in the context of a changing global environment where the tools of political warfare is increasingly driving the operational world. The speech is lengthy and worth reading in full. As a timely reminder of the scale of UK military operations, and the reach of our interests it sets the scene well. It also explores in depth the increasing focus on NATO commitments, and the direct challenges posed to national security by Russia and other competitors. Finally the speech recognises that much of the security threats facing the UK comes not just from traditional military organisations, but also from issues like cyber crime intellectual property theft and ‘fake news’ among other challenges. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright It is on th...

The RUSI has published an excellent and extremely thought-provoking report into the challenges facing the British Army and its artillery capabilities, and the impact that this may have on operations. The report by Jack Watling is an extremely thoroughly well researched and comprehensive analysis of the challenges in this area, coupled with a good credible look at what this means for the British Army as a whole. It rightly deserves widespread coverage and analysis. The report was widely covered in the media in, perhaps, somewhat more sensationalist terms than the report itself reads. Widespread comments about how the British Army couldn’t defend itself against a Russian attack and how it was outgunned led to a perception in some articles that the UK couldn’t stand toe to toe with Russia in a fight. There are two very different issues here that need consideration – firstly, the issue of going head to head with Russia, and secondly considering whether the criticisms made and...