Fox: Army to use more reservists

HAVE YOUR SAY

18 July 2011

I am all for increasing the number of reservists but the cuts to the regular army are wrong. The British Army needs to maintain enough regulars. In the end most wars require boots on the ground to win and reservists have day jobs they cannot be taken out for long periods. This is just trying to run the Army on the cheap and you get what you pay for in the end.
Graham - High Wycombe

18 July 2011

It is unclear why a decline in reserves is "deeply worrying" but a reduction in full time personnel is not. What will be deeply worrying is when the armed forces are too small to ensure economies of scale for British suppliers. Causing yet more industrial decay and a reduction of export capability. Forcing us to import more and increase our national debt... causing us to reduce our armed forces etc etc
Michael - Hertfordshire

18 July 2011

Utter folly.

The number of confrontations that require 'policing' activities is increasing. Making more cuts to regular troops to fund reserves is a plan born from desperation!

My understanding of 'Reserve' troops (be they TA, RNR, RAFR RMR etc) is that in times of war they can be mobilised to replace regular troops based in routine posts to allow those regular troops to 'do' the fighting. They should not be deployed into front line unless attrition and combat losses dictated it.

Unfortunately, due to the LACK of regular front line troops more and more reserve troops are being deployed regularly to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Cutting regular troops even more is not going to make it right! By all means get rid of multiple layers of senior managers (Wing Cmdrs, Colonels, Captains and above), but leave the more necessary 'war-fighters' alone!

This plan is doomed to fail, as increasing the number of deployments while reducing the number of regulars will erode the effectiveness of the troops, lower morale and make it less likely to attract the numbers of recruits required to sustain even modest force levels. Complete incompetance.

Even my 5 year old nephew understands that once batteries are exhausted, if you don't have a fresh set available, you must wait a while to recharge the originals before they can be used again. Sadly, I think Combat Stress is going to get very busy in the next decade.

AW Employee - Yeovil

18 July 2011

I agree with AW.

Sounds to me the Government are looking at a cut price army...Wow we can have soldiers that we only need to pay for 4 Tuesday evenings and one weekend a month during peacetime......utter folly!
James - GB

18 July 2011

liam Fox has lost the plot.
How can this work
Before a regular Unit is sent to Afgan, they have go through a couple of months highly intensive training.
it is obvious that a reserve unit at this present time, is no way near the fitness, mental or physical readiness as of a regular( no offence to the reserves).
To bring the reserves up to the same standard, they will need training in tatics and equipment etc, where are the reservists going to find the time to do all the extra training,will they get holidays?,will the Company's boss like the idea of giving time off for reserve training and hoildays, will a boss employ a reservist in the future? NO NO.
This is nothing but Penny Pinching,it will not save money Penny pinching always cost more, morale amongst the troops will go downhill drasticly.
A regular is worth his or her's money, tenfold.
KEEP IT THAT WAY.
I thought Mr Fox would be OK as Defence Minister, alas I am wrong.
same old politics, just the colour that's diferent.
John - GB

18 July 2011

John - GB

Generaly Reserve's are attached to Regular units as an individual reinforcement and will be mobilised well in advance of the start of the tour and I have found that in general the individuals that have been attached to my old unit on ops have been pretty good. Though as you quite rightly mention generally (because they are part timers), they are not as good as someone who trains to do the job day in day out, week in week out.

There are exceptions when whole composite Infantry Companies are formed from TA Infantry Battalions to provide manpower to base location force protection groups, again these guys are mobilised a couple of months in advance.

I completed two tours of duty as the Permanent Staff Instructor for two different TA Units and worked with some exemplary people, some of whom would have been outstanding Regular Soldiers if they had chosen to take that career path.

As to the comment the TA are not trained on the same equipment as their regular counterparts, they are when and if its available, I trained TA soldiers on Challenger 2 Tank Gunnery and some of them where absolutely superb.

Despite my support for the TA as an organisation, I agree with all of the previous comments that the size of the Reserves should not be increased at the expense of the Regular forces, it is trying to get Armed Forces on the cheap.
Rob - Telford

18 July 2011

It also seems that the 'TA' will be trained and expected to deploy as a Battalion or formation rather than acting as piecemeal reinforcement of regular battalions. Rob-Telford is correct. I was talking to a keen young man from 6 Rifles on Armed Forces day who had two deployments to AFG with 1 Rifles under his belt. These guys are, in the main, pretty good. It sounds as if our leaders will have to totally re-think training and equipment??!!
Norman - UK

18 July 2011

fao Rob
I served in the Forces,in the 80's,I was not impressed with the TA then. RMR were spot on, as with the TA Parachute Regiment.
During that time the TA received equipment,at the bottom of the supply chain.Mrs Thatcher changed that, I am aware that there was a vast improvement of the TA in readiness and equipment.
I came out in 94 things have changed since then for the better, down to the UK involvement in Bosnia, Kosovo the Gulf etc.
in the 80's to mid 90 the Army had 180,000 and the TA was 75,000,
remember the huge NATO exercises Purple warrior and Ocean safari.
We are going in the wrong direction, there is more, fighting on foreign soil, to come.
Appeasement is a very costly exercise
John - GB

18 July 2011

Great, we are cutting our forces to the bone (& beyond) just in time for the next major war.
The Regular Army needs to be at least 105,000 strong.
John Hartley - Woking/Surrey/UK

19 July 2011

I agree with Graham-HW yet again the government has done a half job and even messed that up.

The simple truth is if you want a workable defence that you have to pay for it. We all know these cuts have very little to do with strategy and everything to do with money. I suspect that there is also a war going on between the treasury and the MOD. Its about time the MOD spent money wisely and its about time the treasury learns that you can not have something for nothing.
tim dainton - romsey, hampshire

19 July 2011

If for a moment this meant politicians would stop meddling on the world stage I would agree.
But a suggestion may be.
Britain needs to have a referendum on the UN security council
If we want to continue being a world player then we reasses defence. If not we cut defence.
I feel this is "Crunch time", no longer Whitehall or MOD or parliament. It is time to educate the public, then ask them if they want to pay for defence and the responsibility of UN veto.
Currently we are the wrong way around. I am not sure we all know if the public want the Red Arrows\Pipe and Drums or GR4/Typhoon\1st Armoured.
Once we have determined this matter then the rest should be addressed. Gentlemen it may be time for us to stop playing with our toys. We maybe have to face up to an understanding that the public have no stomach for it.
Degradable - UK

19 July 2011

I wonder where the cuts are coming from? Germany?

The UK government are just doing a bandaid solution to fix their budgetary failings (as in the lack of supplementary funds for on-going operations). Apparently Fox has said the army cuts will make up the difference in the 36B black hole in the defence budget which the cuts in the pathetic 2010 SDSR did not.

I wonder if this cut was muted for the SDSR, but deferred because of the bad publicity this would have attracted. I note it has been released during the NoTW debacle, so it receives less media time...
Shaun - Ex-RNZN

19 July 2011

John - GB

I agree to an extent, my first contact with the TA was in the late 80's, Ex Keystone, Ex Iron Hammer and I didn't think much of them at the time, then I look back on the Regular Army at that time and we were not as proffesional as they are now, to much time in Barracks drinking, or on Ex Snow Queen, we really started to improve through out the 90's and as you mentioned being on Ops (Op Granby, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq etc etc) pretty much since then has produced a pretty good army. This has also had a similar effect on the TA as a high proportion of reserve soldiers have been on tours with their regular counterparts.
Rob - Telford

20 July 2011

@ Rob....Damn I remember Ex Keystone! Now I am getting old :(
James - GB

21 July 2011

James - GB

Those were when exercises were exercises, what a laugh they were.
Rob - Telford

21 July 2011

Time to swing the lamp....

Anyone remember Ex Teamwork in 1980, northern Germany & Norway? I was with 846 NAS on Rusty B (old HMS Bulwark). God what a heap that was! Very glad it stayed in Haslar Creek in '82!
AW Employee - Yeovil

23 July 2011

How can a reduction in the regular army be justified, in the first Gulf war Britain committed 30,000 troops we could never do that again with these proposals.
Government wake up cut overseas aid and benefits make the right decision not the easy one!
Richard Wakefield - Tamworth

01 August 2011

What happens to the Regular Reserve?...i.e. those that have left the regular army?
John W - Bromley,Kent

03 August 2011

John W - Bromley,Kent

Apparently, according to my discharge paperwork (after completeing 24 years adult service) I am a Regular Reserve until I'm 55 . . . . 13 years to go then.
Rob - Telford