What could Her Majesty's Armed Forces afford with 3% of GDP?

[Lord Sovereign]

3% of GDP seems to be a bit of a magical number when it comes to modern developed nations and defence spending. Whilst 2% is the bare minimum (gold star for effort bullshit), 3% is very good and means you take defence seriously. However, I do wonder what a country such as my own, Britain, could afford with that level of expenditure. By my calculations, 3% of Britain's GDP=£60 000 000 000, which is roughly $75 000 000 000 in yankee dankee doodle shite money.

What sort of military could Britain field with this spending? As I understand it, the British Armed Forces would be beefed up to a strength they've not seen since the end of the Cold War (I'm hardly expecting the might they wielded during the days of empire. For better or for worse, those times have passed). In particular, I'm concerned with naval matters as the United Kingdom is an island nation and the Royal Navy should be our pride and joy.

As it stands, Her Majesty has 149000 men at her disposal with 44000 reservists at an expenditure of roughly 2% GDP. They are divided as such.

British Army: 75000 regulars, 27250 reservists. Roughly two thousand armoured vehicles and over two hundred Challenger 2 battle tanks.

Royal Navy: 32760 regulars, roughly 11000 reservists. 78 commissioned ships (including two carriers, two amphibious dock transports, four ballistic missile submarines, seven nuclear fleet submarines, six guided missile destroyers, thirteen frigates, thirteen mine-counter measures vessels and twenty-four patrol vessels), plus thirteen ships in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (people forget how important these chaps are, as without their tankers, replenishment vessels, dock ships and such, the fleet could not function. I'd put some money their way as a matter of priority)

Royal Air Force: 32940 regulars, roughly 5000 auxiliaries and reservists. 832 operational aircraft (157 Eurofighter Typhoons and 18 F-35s, with a total of 138 F-35s to be procured by the RAF. The old Tornados are fucking gone with no replacements. We have no dedicated air supremacy fighter. Given that the Russians are selling Su-57s on the cheap, I'm surprised no one has cashed in on that.)

Oh! And last, but most certainly not least, the Corps of Royal Marines (ship bound commando death machines that would send the crayon eaters crying home for their mommas): 7760 regulars, 750 Royal Marines Reserves. Not much in the way of armour aside from some jeeps with machine guns.

(No Space Force sadly. )

I may ask these questions again in the context of other countries, like France, Italy, Holland, Ireland and such. Should be fun!

 

[Harlock]

More people for starters to take the pressure off existing units and ensure full operational ability. After that? BaE has a nifty looking Stealth fighter which would be nice to have. More frigates also always useful.

 

[Bacle]

They could probably due with a couple more QE's so they can rotate them between deployment and refit without losing operation capability.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

More frigates also always useful.

Given the current state of the Royal Navy, I think we might need more of everything. I also reckon a fully fledged CATOBAR carrier (tentatively titled, HMS Duke of York) would be an invaluable addition to the fleet. Three super carriers would make the Royal Navy the third most powerful fleet on Earth.

After that? BaE has a nifty looking Stealth fighter which would be nice to have.

The "Tempest" is its name. It does look to be quite the aircraft, but given that it's BAE I am worried about the cost. Also that will not be around for a while, until at least 2035.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Well, here's a general idea of what I'd go for.

Overall, the British Armed Forces would be increased to approximately two hundred and fifty thousand men. Navy and Air Force would be beefed up to forty thousand a piece, whilst the army would have one hundred and seventy thousand men. So, you know, British field armies are back in business. More cash would be pumped into the individual soldier, including upping his wages a bit, but mostly I would be concerned with increasing our armour and heavy artillery.

For the Navy, I would attempt to get together a squadron of super carriers, four altogether (although two would be catobar carriers, tentatively named HMS Duke of York and HMS Duke of Edinburgh), around which a battle fleet of forty heavy surface ships would be built. Say ten destroyers and thirty frigates, although a good chunk of that frigate force would be the Type 31s whom would serve the role of gunboat for when shit holes like Iran get uppity. The nuclear attack submarine fleet would be expanded to ten, whilst a new class of diesel attack subs would be constructed specifically for the patrolling of our local waters so as to free up the more expensive subs for operations with the fleet. And of course, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary is going to get bolstered quite largely for a renewed Royal Navy battle fleet.

As for the RAF, aside from procuring some 5th generation stealth fighters and beefing up the already existing Eurofighter and F-35 numbers, it is relatively alright.

Does any of this sound reasonable? It would be a rearmament plan carried out over the course of a decade if it were done.

 

[Senor Hortler]

Just money? Or the mindset that would go with the money? Because if it's the latter as well then I guarantee that they'd drop capita like a bag of burning lice infested shits.

I'm going through the application process for the reserves and it's like pulling teeth to do it through capita. Having a direct recruitment process may bring in an immediate influx of manpower if they don't have to work through a company that can take anywhere between 1-3 years to sort through people.

 

[Harlock]

Yeah, those guys were an absolute bag of shite

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Just money? Or the mindset that would go with the money? Because if it's the latter as well then I guarantee that they'd drop capita like a bag of burning lice infested shits.

I'm going through the application process for the reserves and it's like pulling teeth to do it through capita. Having a direct recruitment process may bring in an immediate influx of manpower if they don't have to work through a company that can take anywhere between 1-3 years to sort through people.

Oh of course. We need to bring back the walk in recruitment centres of old so as to help fix our recruitment issues, because Capita have been a disaster. Yet another attempt to "modernise" where it really wasn't needed.

 

[PsihoKekec]

With that much money they could actualy afford recruiting. Right now they are paying a lot of money to private firm to cock up the recruitment, so they can save up a little bit of money by having fewer recruits than planned.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

With that much money they could actualy afford recruiting. Right now they are paying a lotg of money to private firm to cock up the recruitment, so they can save up a little bit of money by having fewer recruits than planned.

In the grand scheme of things they hardly save anything as well. For a country that gets eight hundred billion pounds in revenue and borrows billions more, a few hundred million here or there really is nothing. I feel like, in order to save peanuts that just get eaten up as tiny morsels by our behemoth social programs, they've crippled our armed forces. I really am not sure why, because if being fiscal is the concern of the state, there are vastly more expensive things than our relatively inexpensive military.

 

[PsihoKekec]

To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, they are saving pennies and wasting pounds.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Oh of course. We need to bring back the walk in recruitment centres of old so as to help fix our recruitment issues, because Capita have been a disaster. Yet another attempt to "modernise" where it really wasn't needed.

What's this capita thing a website?

 

[Senor Hortler]

What's this capita thing a website?

Capita is an outsourcing company that handles the paperwork of recruitment, callbacks, and dates for assessment. Imagine a call centre, but all the 'people' have been replaced with clones of a scottish man with memory problems, a drinking problem and a crippling addiction to heroin that is only satiated when they get a callback from the same person who has had their medical delayed for the 7th time.

That is capita. I would wish that they were in hell, but that would be a step up from whatever sweatshop computer hive that the staff are surgically implanted into.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

To parahrase Solzhenitsyn, they are saving pennies and wasting pounds.

Pretty much.

Why do government's have to be so brain dead? They're hardly uneducated.

 

[Airedale260]

Pretty much.

Why do government's have to be so brain dead? They're hardly uneducated.

qqq

Probably because cutting the safety net is something that no politician really wants to do lest they get hammered in the press (even if the country is going bankrupt). I get the impression certain segments of British society would be fine with abolishing the thing completely because they see it as a money sink pulling funds away from their social programs, etc.

 

[Yinko]

Maybe you should start up the shipyards again, turn around the depredation of the former dock yards. Just a thought. I recall seeing some comparitive maps of areas that were historically full of drydocks, and currently abandoned. It was a proposal I once saw to help the British economy, in fact. By bringing back the navy you bring back the infrastructure that supported it.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Maybe you should start up the shipyards again, turn around the depredation of the former dock yards. Just a thought. I recall seeing some comparitive maps of areas that were historically full of drydocks, and currently abandoned. It was a proposal I once saw to help the British economy, in fact. By bringing back the navy you bring back the infrastructure that supported it.

The redevelopment of our ship building capabilities is absolutely imperative to not just the Royal Navy but the British economy as well. We are an island nation, maritime matters should be our specialty. However, as you've noted, a lot of these old sites have fallen into disrepair and deprivation. Also, the skill sets once required for running these things as private entities has either withered away or been shipped overseas.

This can be amended however. Significant funding would be essential, along with some temporary state management to oversee the development, but ultimately we need people who know what they are doing to guide this, otherwise it'll be a total waste of time and money as incompetent bureaucrats turn the enterprise into a credit black hole. Or even worse, god forbid someone like BAE gets monopoly over it and we're back to the bad old days of the 1970s when everything was Nationalised.

So, I would take a leaf out of late 19th century Japan's book; if I want to build an industry up from scratch, seek the aid of those in the know. These days South Korea, and to a lesser extent Japan, have the best ship building industries in the world (I know China is good at it, but I don't want business with those red jackals). Offer them financial incentive and the like, but just get some of their experts over here to guide us, and to educate a new generation that would make these ships and run these docks. Then, when development has reached a sufficient level, remove government oversight and privatise these various dockyards into a multitude of ship building companies, so as to create and maintain the necessary competitive market for prosperity and quality. To sweeten the deal with our possible foreign friends, offer them stocks in these companies.

Then put this lot to work building a new, state of the art battle fleet for a resurgent Royal Navy, which will not only enhance Britannia's prestige and power, but grant these rebuilt dockyards renown as the constructors of one of the most powerful fleets on Earth. Roll on contracts both civilian and military.

 

[Aaron Fox]

You've got to remember, a lot of Britain's military problems stem from the fact that the Thatcher Government existed. She and her posse basically indirectly crippled Britain's military through their policies. Remember the L85 fiasco? It is because the Thatcher Government turned it into one via their policies (basically, the factories producing the L85 were told that after the production run, they'll be shut down and everyone laid off... and as you would expect, that made quality drop fatally)...

... so you'll be spending most of that money fixing that.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

You've got to remember, a lot of Britain's military problems stem from the fact that the Thatcher Government existed. She and her posse basically indirectly crippled Britain's military through their policies. Remember the L85 fiasco? It is because the Thatcher Government turned it into one via their policies (basically, the factories producing the L85 were told that after the production run, they'll be shut down and everyone laid off... and as you would expect, that made quality drop fatally)...

... so you'll be spending most of that money fixing that.

By the sounds of it, these problems have had thirty years to metastasize so we ought to fix them quickly, no matter how much it costs (although as I understand it, a fair bit of harm was already done back in 1966 with the "White Paper"). To an extent I can understand closing down the Royal Arms Factory, but getting them to make a new standard issue weapon just beforehand? Fuck's sake, you might as well have just bought a batch of M-16s from America.

What else is there that administration got wrong? I also understand that Thatcher did semi-bugger up the Royal Navy just before the Falklands War, but that was somewhat rectified throughout her government.

 

[Aaron Fox]

By the sounds of it, these problems have had thirty years to metastasize so we ought to fix them quickly, no matter how much it costs (although as I understand it, a fair bit of harm was already done back in 1966 with the "White Paper"). To an extent I can understand closing down the Royal Arms Factory, but getting them to make a new standard issue weapon just beforehand? Fuck's sake, you might as well have just bought a batch of M-16s from America.

What else is there that administration got wrong? I also understand that Thatcher did semi-bugger up the Royal Navy just before the Falklands War, but that was somewhat rectified throughout her government.

From what I can tell, you are better off trying to list what didn't go wrong in that administration. Think of the Thatcher Government as a British GOP without the explicit mustache-twirling evil that dominates the current crop of the GOP after they kicked out all the sane people (I distinctly remember a time where there were sane people in the GOP, but they got kicked out in the '90s and 1st decade of the 2000s)... although they do have some of those qualities as well.

I mean shit on a cracker, their actions did horrendous damage to Britain as a whole that you start to wonder if they're KGB plants or something.