UK Defence budget
Discussion
Given that our defences are negligible and the country is broke, what could be done to free up funds to improve our defences?
I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
Mothballing a carrier is a very bad move and sends out a terrible message.
Cut foreign aid. I read somewhere we’d given away £230bn since 2014.
Stop this net zero nonsense, it’s crippling us and we can’t affford it. US not doing it. Look at what’s burning in Ukraine and Iran. It’s a stupid, virtue signalling joke.
Cut foreign aid. I read somewhere we’d given away £230bn since 2014.
Stop this net zero nonsense, it’s crippling us and we can’t affford it. US not doing it. Look at what’s burning in Ukraine and Iran. It’s a stupid, virtue signalling joke.
We're not broke, our Govt prefers to spend the money on other things.
The cuts/savings to the defence budget over the past 30 years have been allocated elsewhere, so the question is more which budgets should now be cut in proportion to re-allocate that money back to the defence budget, as it was done before 1990, not make further cuts to something that has already been cut too far as it is.
That is not a decision that is going to be made by this Govt during its term (they've already been kicking that can down the road for the past 12 months in that regard) and likely it won't be made by the next one either......
(chopping the Reds however would only save about 1.5m a year, but it's going to happen sooner or later anyway as they won't have anything to fly after 2029)
The cuts/savings to the defence budget over the past 30 years have been allocated elsewhere, so the question is more which budgets should now be cut in proportion to re-allocate that money back to the defence budget, as it was done before 1990, not make further cuts to something that has already been cut too far as it is.
That is not a decision that is going to be made by this Govt during its term (they've already been kicking that can down the road for the past 12 months in that regard) and likely it won't be made by the next one either......
(chopping the Reds however would only save about 1.5m a year, but it's going to happen sooner or later anyway as they won't have anything to fly after 2029)
Dog Star said:
Cut foreign aid. I read somewhere we d given away £230bn since 2014.
Handing over what soft power we have left to China, India et al could cost a lot more than that in the long run. Cutting our social care bill maybe but that is impossible now as no party successfully doing so would get re-elected.aeropilot said:
We're not broke, our Govt prefers to spend the money on other things.
The cuts/savings to the defence budget over the past 30 years have been allocated elsewhere, so the question is more which budgets should now be cut in proportion to re-allocate that money back to the defence budget, as it was done before 1990, not make further cuts to something that has already been cut too far as it is.
That is not a decision that is going to be made by this Govt during its term (they've already been kicking that can down the road for the past 12 months in that regard) and likely it won't be made by the next one either......
(chopping the Reds however would only save about 1.5m a year, but it's going to happen sooner or later anyway as they won't have anything to fly after 2029)
I find £1.5m a year difficult to believe, I appreciate they charge for displays and get some additional income, but even so personnel costs alone must be much more than that.
The cuts/savings to the defence budget over the past 30 years have been allocated elsewhere, so the question is more which budgets should now be cut in proportion to re-allocate that money back to the defence budget, as it was done before 1990, not make further cuts to something that has already been cut too far as it is.
That is not a decision that is going to be made by this Govt during its term (they've already been kicking that can down the road for the past 12 months in that regard) and likely it won't be made by the next one either......
(chopping the Reds however would only save about 1.5m a year, but it's going to happen sooner or later anyway as they won't have anything to fly after 2029)
I find £1.5m a year difficult to believe, I appreciate they charge for displays and get some additional income, but even so personnel costs alone must be much more than that.
Yes, sorry that the BBMF annual budget I had in my head, not the Reds.
The Reds are substantially more than that.
Back in 2014/15 it was £9.1m to run the Reds for 12 months.
Probably double that now, if not treble that, with the huge increase in maintenance for the Hawk T.1 now its only operated by the Reds.
The Reds are substantially more than that.
Back in 2014/15 it was £9.1m to run the Reds for 12 months.
Probably double that now, if not treble that, with the huge increase in maintenance for the Hawk T.1 now its only operated by the Reds.
Edited by aeropilot on Tuesday 10th March 09:15
Austin Prefect said:
Given that our defences are negligible and the country is broke, what could be done to free up funds to improve our defences?
I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
Make the Navy smaller and take a way one of its outer layers of defence and air cover?I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
The Reds have a lot of value too though, and those top fast jet pilots on rotation with them would be flying much more expensive kit otherwise. Same for the maintainers, etc. - although I'll absolutely concede that with the massive, massive reduction in training jet use across the wider RAF the value has eroded significantly.
Dog Star said:
Stop this net zero nonsense, it s crippling us and we can t affford it. US not doing it. Look at what s burning in Ukraine and Iran. It s a stupid, virtue signalling joke.
The costs of net zero come from energy bills, not general taxation, and so if you scrapped it tomorrow it wouldn't free up any extra money for defence. Also, the cost of gas doubled over the last week, but the cost of wind and solar hasn't changed. By wanting to stay locked into fossil fuel prices you're always going to be at the whim of dictators, geopolitics and gulf Emirati.
Such a stupid idea, pushed only by those who are dinosaurs from the 20th centaury.
Dog Star said:
Mothballing a carrier is a very bad move and sends out a terrible message.
Cut foreign aid. I read somewhere we d given away £230bn since 2014.
Stop this net zero nonsense, it s crippling us and we can t affford it. US not doing it. Look at what s burning in Ukraine and Iran. It s a stupid, virtue signalling joke.
This spend the money on the UKCut foreign aid. I read somewhere we d given away £230bn since 2014.
Stop this net zero nonsense, it s crippling us and we can t affford it. US not doing it. Look at what s burning in Ukraine and Iran. It s a stupid, virtue signalling joke.
untakenname said:
We likely just need to readjust what we spend the defence budget on.
Conventional warfare as we know it is now over, a $200 FPV drone can take out a $2 million tank and $20k sea drone can take out a $200 million warship.
bConventional warfare as we know it is now over, a $200 FPV drone can take out a $2 million tank and $20k sea drone can take out a $200 million warship.
ks can they.Please show an example of a "£20k sea drone" that can take out a warship.
Austin Prefect said:
Given that our defences are negligible and the country is broke, what could be done to free up funds to improve our defences?
I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
How would mothballing one of the carriers improve our defences?I'm thinking about:
Mothball one of the carriers. Maybe use it as a source of spares for the other one.
Disband the red Arrows, having a dozen or so jets 9 pilots and dozens of groundcrew allocated to a display team when the RAF is so tiny makes no sense.
What else?
That would mean that the UK would not have a carrier available for large periods of time as the active one undergoes refits or other downtime.
As it stands two carriers has inevitable gaps in availability - the concept being that we coordinate with the USA and France to ensure that when we're down a carrier there is capability from allies available.
To realistically have one asset available all the time you need a minimum of three (one available, one in reserve, one unavailable). Ideally you need four to bring the availability rate right up with redundancy (one available, one in reserve, one at short readiness incase something goes wrong with the reserve and one unavailable) - this is how the Trident subs operate because the deterrent only works if it's 24/7/365.
Having a single carrier is actually having no carrier for large periods of time, which means that the costs are all sunk into a single platform (at the moment many of the support costs are shared two ways) which won't even be able to provide capability - the RN (like any navy) doesn't think in terms of hulls but in terms of capability. One carrier is a very expensive way of providing extremely limited capability.
Without a carrier the UK loses its core ability to project power around the globe. More practically it loses a versatile, mobile and secure place to operate the F35 fleet from. So lose a carrier and you're already cramping the F35 as a capability as well.
It would be far less value for money than two carriers. And mothballing a ship isn't free - especially if you want to keep it in a condition where its parts and systems can be used to support the active one. Part of the issues with the T45 fleet is that the nominally active ships have been got into that status by having spare parts pulled from their sisters undergoing the long refit for their powerplant upgrades - and many of those parts are just not usable after years of idling and downtime in dry dock so the 'active' ships go non-operational too for want of parts (and people with the skills to fix them, but that's a whole other matter).
If - like a lot of government spending over the past 30-odd years - the issue is value for money rather than the spending in and of itself, then going to a single carrier would make the situation far worse - a massive degradation in capability for minimal savings. Which is exactly the sort of thinking that led to 2x carriers in the first place (put the bare minimum in place, assume nothing will go wrong in the world to disrupt the cosy post-1991 liberal order and if it does the US will have our backs).
Sway said:
bks can they.
Please show an example of a "£20k sea drone" that can take out a warship.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1pna40j/sbu_sub_sea_baby_underwater_drones_struck_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_buttonks can they.Please show an example of a "£20k sea drone" that can take out a warship.
Sea drone took out a $400 Million Submarine
Edited by Gazzas86 on Tuesday 10th March 09:48
Edited by Gazzas86 on Tuesday 10th March 09:49
Gazzas86 said:
Sway said:
bks can they.
Please show an example of a "£20k sea drone" that can take out a warship.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1pna40j/sbu_sub_sea_baby_underwater_drones_struck_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_buttonks can they.Please show an example of a "£20k sea drone" that can take out a warship.
Sea drone took out a $400 Million Submarine
Edited by Gazzas86 on Tuesday 10th March 09:48
Edited by Gazzas86 on Tuesday 10th March 09:49
Part of the problem is the government spent too much money on two large aircraft carriers when the Navy wanted three smaller carriers of a similar size to the retired Invincible class carriers.
I'd agree with scrapping the RAF though, the Navy can handle the fast jet side of things whilst the army can absorb the fixed wing transportation stuff. One of the benefits of that would be the parachute regiment would actually have something they could jump out of.
I'd agree with scrapping the RAF though, the Navy can handle the fast jet side of things whilst the army can absorb the fixed wing transportation stuff. One of the benefits of that would be the parachute regiment would actually have something they could jump out of.
Tango13 said:
Part of the problem is the government spent too much money on two large aircraft carriers when the Navy wanted three smaller carriers of a similar size to the retired Invincible class carriers.
The problem with that though was the Navy had already rolled over and let the RAF take all its fixed wing aircraft away from it, cos fast jet, so has to be RAF.Once they let that happen, they were out of the decision making game for anything else.
And it may not have been that good an idea anyway, as it looks like the Italians (which went that route) are maybe seeing the limitations regarding F-35B on small boats (because the B was designed for the USMC not anyone else)
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