The UK presently has 227 Challenger II tanks and will soon have less. 148 of the current tank fleet will be upgraded to Challenger IIIs, with improvements to powerplant, gun, communications and targeting; a vaunted "digitization of the turret" will allow "us to deliver immense warfighting capabilities in battlespaces filled with a range of enemy threats".
So says UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, and perhaps he's right, we'll wait and see if these produced in Shropshire Rheinmetall engines of war produce the goods, all 148 of them. Pause for a moment and ask yourself if appx. halving the UKLF's tank fleet will "deliver immense warfighting capabilitities."
I'd argue no, it won't. This tiny hi-tech, complex, opposite of mass-producible force wouldn't last long on the battlefield and couldn't be replaced quickly enough to make up for inevitable losses. The Germans, when you think on it, had similar issues in WWII viz a vis the Tiger and Soviet T34s.
Immense warfighting capabilities? Or a so-called Conservative UKGOV gaslighting the nation on its defense while they continue to cut actual fighting strength to save money. Hey, all that welfare ain't cheap and odds on, we'll never have to fight another major conventional war again, ever. Right.
Odds on? I'll leave you to throw the dice, and Guinea on everyone's favorite monkey that Whitehall's cost cutting mandarins have backed the wrong dog. But that's as maybe.
In the meanwhile, the UK's sending 14 of its 1998 vintage Challenger IIs to the Ukraine. Rishi Sunak's also sending 30 self-propelled guns to Zelensky. By way of context, the UK has 89 of these tracked howitzers.
Make of this what you will,
LSP
12 comments:
Quantity has a quality all its own. But you'd need trained crews in addition to the hardware itself and none of that buys as many votes as the dole does. Does Rishi Sunak have more of an affinity to India or Old Blighty?
Your remarks could easily be applied to US Armed Forces. Too bad "woke" isn't battlefield tested.
I'm not sure, LL. If I was being kind I'd call "intermarriage." That said, I don't see anyone from the UK ruling India. How that worm's turned.
Good call, WSF, and it's all fun and games until the beast actually has to fight. The UK seems to be wagering on never ever having to do that again bar low intensity police actions. The US? Good question.
It’s much like the always quoted “gun lobby” or “big tobacco” both of which have/had, in comparison to the government and ‘charity’ funded opposition, pennies in comparison to billions.
The vaunted “military-industrial complex” (at least what few remnants are left in The UK) is a pitiful pauper in comparison to the (communist/globalist) “green movement”. The ‘watermelons’ hate and despise the military and defence, so take any and every opportunity to attack, undermine and destroy it. Throw in the fact that, despite the “well funded” rhetoric, more is spent on benefits for immigrants than on defence (and a tiny fraction of what is spent on the whole benefits scam and the ‘sacred’ but utterly useless NHS).
It’s never been my area (riding around in a big tin-can seemed too much like painting a big ‘shoot me’ target on my backside) but the Army has only four armour regiments left (3 regular, 1 reserve as far as I recall. I'm too lazy to look it up) fielding 56 Challenger 2’s each. Let that sink in, an ‘allegedly’ still first-world nation of 70 million has an army (in its entirety) of under 74 K men, only 18 K infantry and … 224 tanks and … they want to halve even that pitiful number (there are, literally, more diversity advocates/grifters in Britain than soldiers, and they’re paid many multiples what any squaddie or trooper ever is).
Now tell me how the much touted military-industrial complex is deliberately destroying their income, and our ability to defend ourselves, with this idiotic war. Like everything else about the whole sham, it’s being used as an excuse to undermine and destroy ‘every’ institution western civilisation relies on to survive - but ‘especially’ its ability to defend itself. (As in all things, those most ardent in calling for war, are those that know that they themselves will never be put at risk. And are usually already lining up their new jobs for the enemy, and divvying up the spoils).
The faceless mandarins, the real power (it’s now irrelevant which ‘party’ is ‘elected’ since the bureaucracy only ever does what ‘it’ chooses to), forced the navy to buy two white-elephant ‘carriers’, they neither needed or wanted, to use up the entire budget for decades. The RAF to buy only enough exorbitant F-35’s to make a single squadron, but again use the entire budget. Now the Army will have its own “high-tech” pasty-pachaderm to further its destruction too (getting rid of half of them, and the regiments they come from, like destroying Enfield was, is merely seen as a bonus).
[I keep re-watching "V for vendetta" with a dreamy wistfulness. Now why would that be?]
They might hold back the Scots for a day or two.
Not sure if field testing "woke" military has ever been tried in real time, but in a way, it kinda-sorta was when all those hollow divisions were scooped up and dumped into Korea with obsolete anti-tank weapons and ill-trained occupation army troops, and short-handed outfits at that. Never mind watching things go side-ways then kinetic in Europe and most of Asia in the run-up to The Big One we got dragged into in '41, all the while whistling past the graveyard thinking those two big ponds would keep us out of it.
Kinda sound like Rodney Daingerfield ranting to Sam Kinnison in Back to Skool, don't I?
I bet they're a lot of fun to shoot!
Anon, it's a strange and awful thing to watch Great Britain dismantle itself. And what did Bonaparte say, "a nation of shopkeepers." Well, the current crop of cost/benefit managers might want to look a little more closely into that equation.
On topic, imagine how long the UK's armour would last on the Ukrainian battlefront, as I know you have, and when it's gone, what next? Serious question. And the answer's terrifying.
Btw, have you noticed how the German Greens are baying, bellowing even for war? Raytheon/Lockheed Martin et al are glad to oblige with the very greenest, eco friendly munitions ever produced. Such is the US MIC.
What an utter crock and in the meanwhile we've got trans bathrooms. And that's just USN.
Kyrie.
PS. Please bring back County Regiments, thx.
That's an interesting point, pewster. Will the Scots invade England, again, and will 140 or so tanks be able to hold them back?
I'll warrant the Scots will be riding on fast ponies which will swiftly outflank and surround what few few tanks England has left. And then? They'll close in, it'll be a slaughter.
Well, that's one scenario.
Very good Korea call, Wild.
And yes, there seems to be a blindness or naivety on our part over the decades. But is this true now?
Serious question and I don't know the answer. The woke garbage argues your point but on the other hand, we have a large, professional, motivated (?) force that's unparalleled anywhere, I think.
And it's backed by trillions of imaginary dollars. My question is: What will the boys do when they're not paid, trans bathrooms notwithstanding.
DOS, you know it's true.
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