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Post by bancroft on Jul 5, 2023 17:09:57 GMT
Kind of bizarre, Prussia and its people were given to the Poles and no-one expected a war not to mention the military occupation of the Saar and Ruhr areas together with large reparations?
The US is still in post WWII mode in Europe with arm twisting to get Germany and others to stop Russian fuel imports they also helped with a coup in 2014 to get rid of the Ukrainian premier.
Geopolitics does not stop it evolves.
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 5, 2023 17:11:35 GMT
Personally I'd cut the welfare budget and expand the military (not the Navy) - having 5 million people on out of work benefits when we have a worker shortage is ridiculous.
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Post by sheepy on Jul 5, 2023 17:17:54 GMT
With the expansion of NATO and the use of multinational forces as has been seen lately, the British army doesn't need to be so large any longer, with decline of Empire and weaponry becoming more sophisticated the role of the British army doesn't exist in its old form. Then there is a global economy which can control whole countries and even whole continents. Then there is the rise of the EU which sees itself as the next global power and the next step in taking full control over military and economic means. A few reasons, why it is seen as less of an asset and more of a drain on resources. Sheepy, that is politically correct bullshit, it's exactly what politicians and civil servants have been saying for more than 20 years. In fact as soon as communism collapsed the government saw an opportunity to slash the defence budget citing 'peace in Europe' ha. We then had Gulf 1, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan while maintaining between 20,000 and 30,000 troops in Northern Ireland. Due to manpower shortages back to back tours became the norm and moral node dived, and recruitment and retention became a huge problem. Sophisticated kit and equipment does not mean less troops are needed, it's a mistake politicians constantly make in an effort to cut costs. 76,000 troops is not nearly enough, and don't forget of that 76,000 only about 20% are infantry and at least 10% will not be fit for duty at any one time. If Northern Ireland kicked off again the manpower required would be such a drain it would render what's left of the 'modern' British army pretty useless as a fighting force. The eternal problem is armed forces are expensive. The government should fund the armed forces adequately which is at least 3% of GDP and increase the regular army to an absolute minimum of 100,000, or be honest and rename the armed forces as 'The UK Defence Force' and withdraw from global commitments. The US general who said British Armed forces are no longer regarded as a top level fighting force is correct, anyone with any sense can see that. Fine it is then, but it doesn't change the fact the armed forces are shrinking at a rate of knots. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2023 20:54:36 GMT
Personally I'd cut the welfare budget and expand the military (not the Navy) - having 5 million people on out of work benefits when we have a worker shortage is ridiculous. The current unemployment rate in the UK is less than 4%, around 1,5 million people The total numbers of economically inactive people is about 8.7 million (ONS) "Economically Inactive" means people aged between 16 and 64 who are not working, and not looking for work, it includes students, people looking after family and home ( housewives or househusbands ), long term sick and disabled, short term sick and disabled and retired ( early retired ). |
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 5, 2023 21:28:07 GMT
Personally I'd cut the welfare budget and expand the military (not the Navy) - having 5 million people on out of work benefits when we have a worker shortage is ridiculous. The current unemployment rate in the UK is less than 4%, around 1,5 million people The total numbers of economically inactive people is about 8.7 million (ONS) "Economically Inactive" means people aged between 16 and 64 who are not working, and not looking for work, it includes students, people looking after family and home ( housewives or househusbands ), long term sick and disabled, short term sick and disabled and retired ( early retired ). which is precisely why I said 5 million on out of work benefits - didn't you read that?. With regards to job vacancies - your beloved Starmer is demanding more immigration to fill the gaps in the employment market. It's as though Labour hate the British working man...  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2023 21:52:20 GMT
The current unemployment rate in the UK is less than 4%, around 1,5 million people The total numbers of economically inactive people is about 8.7 million (ONS) "Economically Inactive" means people aged between 16 and 64 who are not working, and not looking for work, it includes students, people looking after family and home ( housewives or househusbands ), long term sick and disabled, short term sick and disabled and retired ( early retired ). which is precisely why I said 5 million on out of work benefits - didn't you read that?. With regards to job vacancies - your beloved Starmer is demanding more immigration to fill the gaps in the employment market. It's as though Labour hate the British working man... "The British Working Man" will not work in the care industry, will not pick the vegetables in the fields, or the fruit from the fields and orchards, and a multitude of other jobs, they simply do not want to do these kinds of jobs. This government has increased the number of worker visas in order to fill the gaps, this government is a Conservative government. I personally know of managers of care facillities here in NE England who are recruiting from The Philipines, North Africa and Thailand, and they are getting clearance .... from this government. |
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 5, 2023 21:57:23 GMT
which is precisely why I said 5 million on out of work benefits - didn't you read that?. With regards to job vacancies - your beloved Starmer is demanding more immigration to fill the gaps in the employment market. It's as though Labour hate the British working man... "The British Working Man" will not work in the care industry, will not pick the vegetables in the fields, or the fruit from the fields and orchards, and a multitude of other jobs, they simply do not want to do these kinds of jobs. And why do you think that is? |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2023 22:23:34 GMT
Simple - because these kinds of jobs either mean very labour intensive work, or what you may call "back breaking work", or they include wiping peoples bottoms and bathing people.
Of course you are going to say - its because of the wages
Ok, so we could at least try to attract our own people to these jobs, increase the wages for someone working on a vegetable farm from National Minimum Wage ( £10.42 ) to say £12.00 per hour.
Hey Presto - we just increased the farmers costs by over £3000 per year if they employ ONE PERSON, and guess what will happen ? .... the people who grow the same things in Holland, Ireland, France or Belgium will be rubbing their hands.
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 5, 2023 23:23:31 GMT
Simple - because these kinds of jobs either mean very labour intensive work, or what you may call "back breaking work", or they include wiping peoples bottoms and bathing people. Of course you are going to say - its because of the wages Ok, so we could at least try to attract our own people to these jobs, increase the wages for someone working on a vegetable farm from National Minimum Wage ( £10.42 ) to say £12.00 per hour. Hey Presto - we just increased the farmers costs by over £3000 per year if they employ ONE PERSON, and guess what will happen ? .... the people who grow the same things in Holland, Ireland, France or Belgium will be rubbing their hands. did i just see an admission from the left that the NMW is putting us out of business ? |
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 6, 2023 6:33:59 GMT
Simple - because these kinds of jobs either mean very labour intensive work, or what you may call "back breaking work", or they include wiping peoples bottoms and bathing people. Of course you are going to say - its because of the wages Ok, so we could at least try to attract our own people to these jobs, increase the wages for someone working on a vegetable farm from National Minimum Wage ( £10.42 ) to say £12.00 per hour. Hey Presto - we just increased the farmers costs by over £3000 per year if they employ ONE PERSON, and guess what will happen ? .... the people who grow the same things in Holland, Ireland, France or Belgium will be rubbing their hands. And there it is - Labour supporter would rather import cheap labour from overseas than get businesses to pay the wages needed to get British workers off of welfare and into a job. Labour the friend of the working class my arse... more the friend of big business.. |
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Post by Vinny on Jul 6, 2023 11:49:29 GMT
Rebuild the army. 1000 new tanks.
7.62mm LMT Sharpshooter rifles for all the infantry.
2000 MLRS systems. Give the Navy a couple more carriers and buy FA18 Super Hornets for them.
Get 40 more Wildcat helicopters.
Build a new generation of Sea King helicopters as well. Those were good copters.
Give the RAF F16s. 300 of them.
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 6, 2023 12:16:04 GMT
What do you see the realistic threats as to which we must defend against. If you want to massively increase defence spending, do you intend to fund this by spending cuts (on what), tax increases (on what) or more borrowing? Who knows? The government certainly don't. No one knows what's around the corner which is why our armed forces should be properly funded and prepared for any eventuality. This what insurance is for, preparing for any eventuality. As far as funding goes, the government are currently spending £3 billion a year on immigrants in this country, and £8 billion a year in foreign aid, or immigrants in other countries. There's an extra £11 billion and I'm not even the chancellor. There is an alternative to not having a properly funded armed forces. If the armed forces were suddenly needed for some large scale emergency, the money would be found. It would be borrowed at any cost, and we would spend the next 50 to 100 years paying it off. |
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 6, 2023 12:19:31 GMT
Rebuild the army. 1000 new tanks. 7.62mm LMT Sharpshooter rifles for all the infantry. 2000 MLRS systems. Give the Navy a couple more carriers and buy FA18 Super Hornets for them. Get 40 more Wildcat helicopters. Build a new generation of Sea King helicopters as well. Those were good copters. Give the RAF F16s. 300 of them. MLRS are brilliant bits of kit, the artillery fired them over us in Gulf 1. 12 missiles fired in pairs in quick succession and those 12 missiles completely devastated a 1km grid square in seconds. |
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Post by bancroft on Jul 6, 2023 12:21:17 GMT
Personally I'd cut the welfare budget and expand the military (not the Navy) - having 5 million people on out of work benefits when we have a worker shortage is ridiculous. The current unemployment rate in the UK is less than 4%, around 1,5 million people The total numbers of economically inactive people is about 8.7 million (ONS) "Economically Inactive" means people aged between 16 and 64 who are not working, and not looking for work, it includes students, people looking after family and home ( housewives or househusbands ), long term sick and disabled, short term sick and disabled and retired ( early retired ). Some people are cashing-in pensions early due to PC reasons stopping getting re-employed in their chosen fields of work, they are either the wrong colour or not LGBT. I don't blame them doing this. Another factor is health a lot of conditions are not recognised so it is catch-22. |
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Post by thescotsman on Jul 6, 2023 13:19:22 GMT
The British Army is no longer considered to be a top-level fighting force following years of cuts, a senior US general has reportedly warned. Concerns about the strength of the Army have also been expressed by those in UK defence circles – with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the budget should be increased by at least £3 billion a year. It’s alleged the Armed Forces would run out of ammunition ‘in a few days’ if pushed into battle. The UK couldn’t defend its skies against the brutal number of strikes that Ukraine is currently facing, it’s also claimed. Add to this, the nation’s fleet of armoured vehicles were built ‘between 30 and 60 years ago’ – with the timeline to update them ‘too slow’ and devised before the Ukraine war. Rishi Sunak has apparently been told to take urgent action – including stopping a plan to shrink the size of the Army and easing peacetime rules that halt the country from purchasing weapons quickly. But the prime minister ‘wants the problem to go away’, one insider has claimed. The army is roughly 76,000 strong, less than half the size it was 30 years ago. metro.co.uk/2023/01/30/us-general-british-army-is-not-top-level-force-and-cant-protect-uk-18186918/Last year the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mark Alexander Popham Carleton-Smith, ordered troops to pause training and spend the day 'reflecting on inclusivity'. He said this will make the army a more effective fighting force. He sounded a bit muffled when he said this because he had his head up his arse. We have left wing politicians who's only interest in the armed forces is to continually cut manpower and budgets, and we have VSO's who for some inexplicable reason constantly push a woke agenda. I wouldn't be proud of being in todays army, and I wouldn't be confident about todays army going up against a moderately competent adversary, never thought I'd say that. And that's the governments fault. ...I think one of the issues is we've sort of lost track of what we want to be.... and what we think our role is in the world and then structuring not only a force but a policy towards that force in order to construct a viable doctrine for that force. For example, we are a nuclear nation...do we want to continue to be a nuclear nation? Do we accept the costs of maintaining a viable nuclear deterrent and the associated infrastructure needed to maintain its viability? Its a question of cost...we have people bleating about the NHS and wanting money for this and that....can we afford the men and equipment? The falklands expedition back in the day was a cluster fuck of monumental proportions but luckily we were up against a nation whose even more fucked-up military allowed us to come away with some semblance of victory. We couldn't do that today. We expend a colossal amount of the defence budget on Nuclear doohdads and monumentally useless aircraft carriers that seem to me at least to be a pointless waste of money. The Ukraine war will be a seminal moment in western military strategic thinking.
I don't suppose the Ukraine military have much time for diversity and inclusion training and even assuming they did then I'm at a loss as to how that would benefit some terrified squad of light infantry as it works its way through ditches and fields to interdict a Russian trench line in Bakhmut? Maybe if they flounced up in brightly coloured skirts and pony tails swinging Dior handbags the Russians would laugh themselves to death? Who knows. Point being if we are going to have a military then it has to be one which knows what it's there for, equipped accordingly and trained to do what's asked of it rather than in today's scenario where we're trying to be all things to everyone. We have instances of procurements for equipment which start out as simple requests, however, once a committee gets involved a simple fighting vehicle has to become some hydrid modularised bastardised multi-role system that costs a fortune and doesn't actually fucking work anymore. War is very simple and we can see in the Ukraine a small window of what is going to be the future of how war is fought and unfortunately that the UK is no where near up to it.
As always the British officer corps is concerned with career advancement built upon taking the right courses in order tick the right boxes so they look good to the right people; mirroring what they think the political will of the day is I suppose. Forget the fact they maybe complete morons. I don't recognise today's Army, I don't know about you but to me its all to pally and matey and worried about image. Back in the day the only person that called the RSM by his first name would be the Colonel of the Regiment (by invitation from the RSM) everyone else would address him as RSM but not today. There has been some high profile reports over the years of people being bullied and disrespected - I mean it's never good and I never had it done to me but in my simple mind the military is designed to go to war and fight....if they can't fight back in barracks....I don't know....maybe perhaps it's not for them? This is turning into more than I thought so I'm going to shut the fuck up now...hopefully you get my point...? |
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