"Designing The Military" Topic

Right, lots of threads here bemoaning the state of various European militaries in the current geopolitical environment.

Myself included.

So – ladies and gentlemen of TMP – how would you organise the military of, say, the UK (or any European nation of your choice), and why?

For myself:

British Army:

1x Armoured Division – 2 Armoured Brigades, 1 Mechanised Brigade
1x Mechanised Infantry Division – 2 Mechanised Brigades, 1 Armoured Brigade
1x Light/Expeditionary Division – Paratroop Brigade, Royal Marine Commando Brigade, Brigade of Ghurkas

Overseas Defence 'Division':
Garrison troops on British Overseas Territories – Falklands, Gibraltar, etc. Ideally recruited and maintained from local population, or from personnel within the UK who are posted to the units.

Army Air Corps assets to be held centrally and distributed as necessary depending on operational requirements.

Royal Air Force:

Return of Transport and Fighter Commands, creation of Tactical Command.

Fighter Command to have responsibility for air defence of the UK and British Overseas Territories.

Transport Command to work with the Royal Logistics Corps and Royal Navy to provide logistical and transport, er, support, to all three branches of the Armed Forces.

Tactical Command to maintain ground-attack and tactical strike aircraft to operate in support of the Army.

Royal Navy:

Scrap Trident. Utilise Faslane naval base for Submarine force – split between cruise missile boats to provide tactical/strategic non-nuclear strike capability and hunter-killer boats.

Add one more carrier to produce three carriers, resulting in:

Three carrier groups, each with:
5+ frigates
5+ destroyers

Three assault ship groups, each with:
2+ frigates,
2+ destroyers.

Note that these surface vessels should carry a mix of SSMs and SAMs. Destroyers to be optimised for anti-submarine warfare.

RN Fleet Auxiliary to be expanded to provide logistical support etc for these groups.

General Task, or, reason for this force:

To provide defensive protection for the UK and its overseas territories.

To enable rapid response to humanitarian disasters, e.g. major natural disasters.

To fulfil demands of NATO alliance.

To provide UN peacekeeping troops when requested.

You can have as many carriers as you like in the RN if you save the money and effort of putting any damn planes on 'em!

Grrrrrr

John T

No nuclear capabilities at all?

When even the Japanese are wanting to field nukes, you may want to re-consider the idea of getting rid of your own nukes.

Ukraine did well giving up their Nukes – NOT

Glad I don't have to play for real, since that is truly demoralizing.

Perhaps scrap everything to save even more money, give the foreign relations ambassadors a nice bonus if they can actually keep the peace, and hope for the best.

What could possibly go wrong in our more "enlightened" age, with peace breaking out everywhere?

If that doesn't work, just say "I told you so", and lobby for as much as you can, all the while hoping the major mistakes don't cost too much in blood, and/or the loss of national sovereignty, and the need to learn a new language and culture rather quickly.

Might want to distribute pitchforks (do they still make and use those), brooms, and cricket bats to the Home Defense reserves (What, those have been eliminated too? Might want to reinstate volunteer units of those at a minimum, just in case, like back in 1940.).

There's always Kickstarter, or GoFundMe too.

Worth a try, since I've seen far less deserving uses for my money.

@ Lion – yeh, I don't see the need for a nuclear deterrent that isn't actually fully independent – I'd scrap it and use the funds for the conventional military. Britain isn't in a position to be threatened by Russia or China in terms of territory, and America and France are nuclear capable so NATO's overall nuclear threat isn't noticeably impacted by the loss of Trident.

@ John – yeh, I rather thought it went without saying that the Fleet Air Arm would actually have STOVL capable aircraft for their carriers, not to mention helicopters!

Ditch the Division HQs and their expensive overhead, and plow the extra resources into more robust brigades. Everything is Brigades these days, however maybe keep one Div HQ for expeditionary purposes since how often is UK ever going to deploy more than one division overseas.

Keep the nukes…its keeps your enemies honest.

First of all I doubt the Royal Marines will enjoy being forced into the Army…

Secondly the nukes are independent is as much as the Americans can't stop us firing them.

Secondly the nukes are independent is as much as the Americans can't stop us firing them.

Of all the nuclear armed nations … I see the UK as one of the last ones to fire nucs.

Why are three carrier air groups needed? Who is Britain going to engage with such forces? I would prefer to have three assault groups that included a next generation through-deck-cruiser design akin to the American MEU organisation. Smaller air wings mean you can afford them too! Find a common design for all of Europe and every navy can sign up to have a few such groups. It would enable each European country to be involved in intervention and relief work around the world without threatening to overrun other states. Soon it might be viable for much of the required airpower to be done using drones run off converted container ships.

@ hagenthedwarf – one CAG at sea, one in port, one training. Also to provide power projection for defence of overseas territories, e.g. Falklands, Gibraltar etc.

Ditch the Division HQs and their expensive overhead, and plow the extra resources into more robust brigades. Everything is Brigades these days, however maybe keep one Div HQ for expeditionary purposes since how often is UK ever going to deploy more than one division overseas.

Brigades are currently in vogue for a number of reason:

1. Most overseas deployments are extremely small – very often a reinforced battalion at most.

British contribution to Afghanistan maxed out at about 10,000 including all branches (including RAF).

For other countries even sending a single battalion is a massive commitment (especially when they often have only 5-6 combat battalions)

2. These overseas deployments often involve troops being scattered across large areas and operating independently. Operating at anything higher than battalion level is extremely rare. Most day to day actions are at platoon/company level.

3. Most NATO countries don't have a single division worth of troops. 2 brigades is common in the entire army (e.g. entire Norwegian army is 11,600 personnel). And they usually lack all the support required to maintain even an understrength division.

Most can't even deploy full brigades. They lack logistics/ISTAR/C3 and command structures.

And many can't even deploy a single battalion without putting a massive strain on their force.

4. Large scale operations such as invasion of Iraq still required divisional organisation (including UK 1st Armoured).

5. Larger countries still maintain divisions in case of return to conventional warfare:

UK – 2 divisions
France – 2 divisions
Germany – 3 divisions
Italy – 3 divisions
Spain – 2 divisions
Poland – 3 divisions
Romania – 2 divisions

Denmark has a division too but it is understrength with 2 brigades (1 understrength) and virtually no artillery save mortars and 3 operational M109 SPGs.

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I read an article a few years back about Russians adopting a brigade approach and ditching divisions. Interestingly it said that such a system didn't seem suitable for Russian conditions given large territory of Russia.

A division obviously has better ability to coordinate deployment over a large portion of territory than a brigade. It can focus effort a lot better too simply due to larger troop numbers.

Assuming that the UK Trident works about like the US version, they're as utterly independent as you can make anything in the military.

The crews and hulls are Navy because the Navy knows how to operate a submarine.

But the Navy has very little to say regarding actual strategic operations of the Tridents, it's all handled by STRATCOM. Operational Orders are cut from STRATCOM, not SUBPAC.

Before you design or redesign a military you must decide what tasks you expect it to do. You try to build in as much flexibility to deal with the widest range of possible threats but some priorities must still be established. What are the priorities for a modern European state or the UK from 2016 out to 2041?

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

@ hagenthedwarf – one CAG at sea, one in port, one training. Also to provide power projection for defence of overseas territories, e.g. Falklands, Gibraltar etc.

One does not provide enough strength against even modest air defence and a CAG is about offensive operations. The debate was well aired over the CVA-01 project and I fail to understand what UK governments now want to do with one. The only state we are likely to want to take on would be a weak third world country, probably in Africa, in which case massed airpower is unlikely to be necessary and would certainly be an expensive luxury. As with the Sierra Leone intervention an enhanced MEU would be a better fit.
In the modern world CAGs imply for Europe a pan-European defence force, which looks a step too far at this point. I would rather see navies for European states go with some carrier-lite MEU-heavy TFs and enhance drone capabilities.
Much harder to see is how armies are going to develop with the new drone-tanks that are emerging. The OP asks a good question but right now the real problem is a Europe-wide governmental lack of concern with defence: the Dutch have sold off their tanks and the Germans are spending 1.2% of GDP and even if they are increasing it getting to 2% will take many years and even longer for it to produce effective ,military strength.