Re ; Paras

OK forgeting inter forces banter for a moment. The grape vine has it that the paras are to become para-less in yet more cut backs in the not too distant future. :x Next thing you know, you lot will be with out boats
Tanks are still in though :wink: ( My ex reg't )

More war........ Less logistical means, makes sence dunnit .... NOT :roll:

 

Only because Tanks cant be dropped by chute!(i dont mean toy tanks,but real big ines!)

There are soon to be lot of Red Berets up for grabs,all pristine,never been dropped!

 

They still drop CVR but not the 'Challies' as you say.
That's not my point though How long is it going to be before the Marines are equiped with water wings instead of boats! :?: :!:

 

Pongo I agree. Its a fckn joke that we will have a Parachute Regiment that dont Parachute - Only our goverment could come up with that one!!

Re your comments on Royal, it was already planned. Prior to the Falklands War, HMG was planning major cutbacks for the Royal Marines - it was only after the lads done the business on the islands that they had a re-think.

The main problem for the Paras will be Recruiting. Why would anyone want to suffer the pain of Pre-Parachute Selection (P Comany) if they dont get Airborne at the end of it? This will have a knock on effect to UKSF too, as the Paras supply more than 60% of Soldiers to the SAS.
When young lads pass P Coy and are posted to there Battalions, they will be Penguins (birds that dont fly) and will never have the full respect of the serving Paras who have earned their wings.

Does anyone else think disbandment/re-naming will be a possibilty? Maybe something along the lines of the Air Assault Regiment (operating purely from Helis)?
I mean if they are cutting costs by stopping all parachuting for 4 years, do you really think they will go to all the expense of re-training EVERYBODY in the Battalions at the end of that period? That would cost a fortune - they will look at it and say "well you havent jumped in 4 years and its had no effect on your operational capability, so why pay to re-train you?"

This is only going to get worse too. The Royal Navy has been fckd over severely - how many ships/subs etc do we have no in comparison to '82 when we sailed for the Falklands?
The Army cutbacks and Regiment amalgamations (particularly Scotland) and now the Parachute Regiment are being targeted too. Even Crab Air are losing Aircraft left, right and centre.

Its a disgrace that given our current operational tempo and how much our Forces are over-stretched, we are still being fckd over with cutbacks and ever de-creasing budgets.

Blair and HMG your all greedy, fat, spinless barstewards. We truly are Lions led by Donkeys.

Can you tell Ive been on the piss - Im fckn ragin' :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

And that quote by one "A. Hitler" reminds us of what happened the last time we cut the services back to the bone! 1937 wasn't it?

Remember the Invergordon mutiny anyone? (well OK not literally but you know what I mean), wages and conditions cut! hasn't happened recently has it? so our forefathers were braver than we (or 'you' I've been one rank higher than an Admiral for some 34 years [a Mr.] - yeah I can hear the comments already!!)

 

Nope! You sound more like Gen' Mike jackson right now! :wink:
Even in the 70s-80s we were canabalising our tanks for the benefit of other AFVs due to cut backs. What really jacks me off is the expenditure involved / alocated to a new generation of nuke that is less likely to be needed in future conflicts than now. Lets face it, if we ever had to launch such a weapon we will all be fkud anyway. :roll:
If the same £££s was to be alocated to the rest of the forces, then things could be different and tin pot oppressors could be deald with before any such threat could become a nucliar threat. Lets face it, a terrorist with a nuke capabillity wouldn't be arrsed about reprisals, as they would probably stay anon'

 

spenny - reading "lions. donkeys and dinosaurs" and i am as pi*ssed as you,

how many times have we (all the armed forces) bent bent over the desk and shafted that im thinking of recatting-wont say what to but you can guess the trade,

anybody got any suggestions for a brach change

as for Jacksonn - why not say it at the time - cant upse the pension can we - at leasst Dannat got some balls to pis* of the establishment a bit

 

Booties don't need boats they are capable of walking on water if need be!!

Regarding the falklands!!
Avro Vulcan B2 XM603, formerly of No 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron which was/is on static display at Woodford, was plundered for its inflight refueling probe for the blacbuck missions. Such was the sorry state of affairs.

 

Not quite. The 2 Blackbuck Vulcans each required 11 Victor tankers to accomplish their mission. The removed probe was used to hurriedly convert a spare Vulcan into a tanker which wasn't used on the raid but was needed elsewhere.

The Blackbuck Vulcan placed a single 1000lb iron bomb on the runway at Port Stanley. The V bomber force had consisted of 134 Vulcans, 107 Valiants and 84 Victors and over the 27 year life of the force had cost a cool 10 billion pounds so this was probably the most expensive bomb in history.

Suppose that it was lucky that the plan to sell Vulcans to Argentina had foundered a couple of years before.

RM

 

The "V" Force is rather like the SSBNs; there's no way of proving their contribution to winning the "Cold War". For that matter, there's no way of putting a price on it.

 

Bit of a fallacy this and a common but muddy line of reasoning used to justify an Independent Nuclear Deterrent. We had V Force and then SSBN's and therefore, according to this argument, we were never attacked by the Russians.

But then nor was Germany, Holland, Belgium, Australia, Spain et al.

British nuclear weapons are the last gasp of empire and a way of justifying Britain as a world power. Look at what this unbalanced defence spending has done to the social fabric of Britain and to the non-nuclear side of our armed-forces. We are in an era of 4GW and we are attempting to enter the fray with a Cold War mind-set and a belief that we are going to deter assymetric terrorist attacks with weapon systems like Trident. The real and present danger is being confronted by Special Forces and our light-infantry [Paras and Marines]. They are under-funded and under-equipped. We are logistically incapable of supporting these assets without US assistance and defence spending should be re-directed to airborne heavy-lifters and a navy capable of defending supply routes and supporting boots on the ground [Destroyers, Aircraft Carriers and Fast Attacks]. That is not to say that the UK will no longer have buckets-of-instant-sunshine; just that defence spending should be focused on present and emerging threats.

RM

 

Bergen and others of similar thought.

Arguably, the nuclear deterrent that underpinned the "winning" of the Cold War was the US one. The UK Deterrent provided the uncertainty element that was an effective force multiplier. Ivan may have made a fair guess at when the US may have put the keys in the slots but still wouldn't have known when ours were going in. The French Deterrent was another uncertainty but was never committed to NATO.

Is your point that the US nuclear deterrent, committed to NATO, was irrelevant?

As regards the other Allied Nations, they never developed a nuclear weapon and were never encouraged to. When we and the French developed these weapons, we both did still have Empires. When those Empires were dismantled, the weapons remained and in the face of the Warsaw Pact, it would not have been overly bright to give them up. Also remember that our initial weapons were home grown (and the bit that goes bang still is), albeit using shared information that we were entitled to.

The salient point is, can you prove that the British Deterrent had little or no value in winning the Cold War? This is miles from the original Thread but we did start discussing relative Force values.

 

PoL

I think that you may have missed my point. It isn't about whether nuclear weapons are irrelevant or not. To develop them takes an industrial society and the ability to pay enough of that societies GDP to finance them. In the case of the UK and France they were developed as their empires were waning. In the case of the USA just as it was becoming an Imperialist power.

In the UK we can afford a strategic nuclear force as long as we don't simultaneously need to commit conventional forces into long costly wars of attrition.

My point is do we use a finite pool of money to maintain a strategic nuclear posture or would we be better utilising the money on our conventional forces. My opinion is that a strategic nuclear deterrent is not required but a flexible tactical system is a better and more cost effective option.

RM

 

1. For Bergen and others: If I had been the top Ivan general I wouldn't have bothered with that thrust through central Europe. I'd have nuked the UK out in the sure and certain knowledge that France, Italy, Belgium etc would have said fait accompli and done NOTHING about it (except maybe moan about the fallout). For Ivan, the rest would have been easy. That's why WE need OUR deterrent. Look how Belgium refused to sell us ammo in the first Gulf war and how France and Germany have chiselled on their support to NATO in Afghanistan & how the Spanish packed up and went home after one railway bombing. NB Ivan is now building a new class of SSBNs.

2. Re Blackbuck. The Crabs nearly dropped us and the US in it when one of the Vulcans bent its refuelling probe & had to divert to Brazil. Under its wing, a little bird told me some years ago, was a Shrike with 'Property of the US Government' painted on it. But I'll bet those 17 bombs in the peat really frightened people. Expensive bit of landscape gardening.

 

Oh come on, when was the last combat drop?
40,50 years ago?
Parachuting into combat is not tactically viable and hasn't been for a long time.
There is no reason for a Parachute Regiment any more, is there?

Think of all the VERY old regiments that have ceased to exist in the past 10 years due to cutbacks or imposed mergers. Why should an outdated regiment get away with it when 300 year old regiments don't?

 

What? You mean there's no modern tactical use for someone riding into battle on an 'orse, armed with a cutlass, shiny breastplate & a pointy hat with a plume on it?

Scares the fcuk out of me, me hearty!

Surely al-Qaeda would "brick-it" if they parachuted soldiers on horses, as previously described?

 

There is a film though isn't there NS....? :lol:

 

Probably worth caveating that with massed.

I'd agree that tactically dropping in significant numbers isn't viable, but there is an ongoing requirement to insert small numbers into locations by parachute.

We do need to retain the skillset, but as I understand it the policy is now to train it as required. That seems reasonable, although I recognise the points above about the experience being part of the bonding within the Regiment.