and I gather foreign earnings from weapons sales barely cover the subsidy so it would be better to give up trying to make money out of violence
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Arms biz: Your taxes mainly go on our fat salaries! Ha ha! (The Register)
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Posted 2 years ago #
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That is interesting, but it is hardly surprising that our collossally mechanised and expensive armed forces have an enormous tail of people who aren't fighting and are paid a lot.
The really interesting question seems to be why US arrangements produce a better outcome in terms of fighting troops being sustained in theatre for their money. That piece doesn't answer the question. Now, US defence manufacturing is not nationalised, it receives (I believe) considerable effective subsidies and is expensive. Their defence budget, by the article's own admission, is 10x ours, but only produces an armed force 7x the size. But they are supposedly able to deploy a vastly greater number of fighting troops. That difference is interesting, and the article asks the question and then ducks it in favour of a long witter. Is the difference that the 10x budget for defence producing 7x number of troops simply includes more money for operational costs? Do they do defence manufacturing and procurement differently? Do they pay defence industry workers less?
Why does our defence pound buy so much less clout than a defense dollar?
Anybody know? because The Register doesn't actually seem to.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Efficiency of scale?
US armed forces are huuuuuge, I'd imagine an order for eleventy million pairs of boots that are used by Navy/USAF/Marines/Army is going to significantly reduce the costs. We do odd things in this country, the Navy insisting on having it's own Air Force and Army is one...which mean that we pay more than we should.
Posted 2 years ago # -
the Navy insisting on having it's own Air Force and Army is one
I thought the US did the same?
Posted 2 years ago # -
I am reliably informed that the problem lies with having three Chiefs of staff all pulling in different directions with traditional roles blurred. That and we insist on contacting out to UK companies to protect jobs, essentially writing a blank cheque to BAE every year. The money needs to be spent where it is needed, scrap; JSF,further Typhoon, carriers, T45, buy; helicopters, Arty, and minesweepers. Pay the soldiers a decent wage for retention of skills.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I want to know where my fat salary is.
Posted 2 years ago # -
scrap; ... carriers
I'm with you on the rest to some extent, and know they're expensive, but not having carriers would seriously limit our capabilities. I should point out that I have nothing at all to do with procurement of new carriers (though I suppose there's just the faintest possibility it might result in some work coming my way given there's a bit of kit I made on the current ones).Then again if we're getting new carriers, we kind of also need JSF... and also some destroyers as part of the battle group...
I'll let you scrap Typhoon though.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Does the spending pattern explain why we can't deploy troops? The US has hordes of carriers, submarines, main battletanks, supersonic interceptor fighters etc etc etc as well. And yet they get more deployable fighting soldiers than we do by a factor of 2.
And I don't believe for a second that the US defense department and the chiefs of staff don't have their own priorities and protect their own patches.
Posted 2 years ago # -
MTT, outside. Now.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I can agree on the BAE situation, it's a case of free market economics, competition between defence contractors for defence contracts, one eventually corners the market, buys out pretty much all the others and then blackmails Governments that if the contracts don't go to them it will mean a loss of jobs in constituencies , which in turn results in a non-competitive market.
The money needs to be spent where it is needed, scrap; JSF,further Typhoon, carriers, T45, Pay the soldiers a decent wage for retention of skills.
Soldiers can be trained in months, Planes, ships etc, take years to design and build and will be in service longer than the current crop of personnel.
Edit: I've just looked at the article and it's by Lewis page. He's a t*sser of the highest order.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The real issue is what we view ourselves as.
It is not 1946, we do not have an empire, nor in my view should we play at being "world police"
The arms trade has the majority of its contracts underwritten by the government anyhow.
With that MoD acquisition projects are £35bn over budget and five years behind schedule, putting "yes minister" types in charge of anything other than ordering a good bottle of claret is a risk.
Ask the lower ranks how much kit they replace with stuff they buy themselves (socks, base layers, head torches, the list goes on).
The SA80 and its future variants were a disaster early on and resulted in recalls and re working.
I am sure most kit goes back for reworking.
I worked for a control system manufacturer a while back, a lift control system which normally would have cost £10 to 15K cost over £100K to meet MOD specification.
Its all nonsense.
Posted 2 years ago # -
It's an interesting question BD, recently read that the Task Force sent to Afghanistan numbered 3300 people, out of that only 650 were front line "fighting soldiers" the rest were involved in Support logistics, comms, engineering and so on.
Posted 2 years ago # -
<feels threatened>
Posted 2 years ago # -
And yet they get more deployable fighting soldiers than we do by a factor of 2.
Source please BD. Not that I doubt what you say.
I would venture that 1 british soldier is worth 2 US ones.
nickc, most of the "trades" that you mention do a fair share of front line fighting. ask the engineer who clipped himself to an apache to recover a marines body. Maybe that is your answer BD, that the British soldiers are more versatile?Posted 2 years ago # -
...... but not having carriers would seriously limit our capabilities.
Seriously limit our capabilities to do what ?
Defend Britain ? ........or attack far-flung countries ?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Backhander - I think that's what the article originally linked by sfb states. Its footnoting is poor though and I haven't gone beyond it.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Seriously limit our capabilities to do what ?
Defend Britain ? ........or attack far-flung countries ?
Are Las Malvinas still considered part of "Britain"? What exactly do you think we do need to defend Britain nowadays?Posted 2 years ago # -
Las Malvinas
It doesn't exist mate
Falkland islands does though!Posted 2 years ago # -
Aren't there two basic possibles?
1 - We imagine and plan for (not entirely without reason) the Russians invading Estonia, theoretically requiring NATO to challenge Russia in the Baltic, or that they may encroach in earnest on Ukraine or Georgia, putting NATO under strong pressure to intervene. Either intervention would need tanks, carriers, proper fighters etc etc and
2 - we also assume that we have to flatten rubbishy third world armies in various parts of the world, for which admittedly much of the high-tech and major spending projects are not needed in the slightest.
Posted 2 years ago # -
What exactly do you think we do need to defend Britain nowadays?
Not much really.
Posted 2 years ago # -
It doesn't exist mate
Falkland islands does though!
I was just imagining the scenario of us not having carriers
Posted 2 years ago # -
I was once told that the way defence contracts are worked out is that politicians work out what value will be exceptable to the public, defence contractors bid around this value and then they send in bills for what the work actually costs. No wonder everything looks a shambles!
That and we insist on contacting out to UK companies to protect jobs, essentially writing a blank cheque to BAE every year
.It's called maintaining UK capability, have a read of the DIS if you're bored. Why is the UK getting Future Lynx when what we need is heavy/medium lift helicopters? Because UK wants to maintain Agusta Westland's helicopter design capability. Who owns Agusta Westland? The Italian company Finmeccanica!
Posted 2 years ago # -
having been tangentially involved in inter-country comparisons, my experience is that you have to look very closely at what is included and what is not. So soundbites like 10x spending delivers 7x size need to be treated on a like-with-like basis, something that is very difficult with defence spendiig as I should imagine it is impossible to know the exact amount of back-subsidies, back-handers, what is and isn't a subsidy etc etc.
What do we need to defend ourselves against: the FRENCH of course
But seriously, my impression is that the world is going to become a much scarier place as we start to compete for resources with emerging countries such as China.
Posted 2 years ago # -
....the world is going to become a much scarier place as we start to compete for resources with emerging countries such as China.
How do you figure that out ? We need to supply emerging countries such as China with resources so that they can make stuff for us. Or by 'resources' do you mean oil ?
The only thing which is going to make the world a much scarier place imo, will be a new arms race. Specially one spearheaded by a new generation of nuclear weapons.
Posted 2 years ago # -
how do you figure that out
Gosh look around you. China is busy tieing up most of Africa so that it has access to raw minerals (read China Safari), and also agriculture - if 1+ billion people start to become more affluent their diet will change and how are they going to be fed? Look at any of the climate change reports and see what it says about access to water. Look at any of the projections for population growth and the amount of agricultural land to feed those people.
Hence, I suspect that the world will become scarier.
Posted 2 years ago # -
if 1+ billion people start to become more affluent their diet will change
And ? That hardly means that we need to go war, does it ? And you can forget about going to war with China anyway ..... that's why unlike the Falklands, we handed Hong Kong back to it's rightful owner.
Yes, food will become more expensive in the future. And yes, the US, Britain, and other Western countries, will slowly lose their global dominant role as new emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil, start to assert themselves. Get used to it - war isn't an option.
The West has screwed up - Big Time. We've moved our manufacturing basis to the Third World, and we shafted Africa. Now we need to learn to live with those consequences, and the new level playing field. The phony post-colonial era of dominance is slowly drawing to an end.
And Climate Change ? ...... deal with it properly. Not by pretending that we can stop global progress.
Posted 2 years ago # -
That is all, I was under the impression that HK was at the end of its lease period where as FI is sovereign property?
If anywhere on the planet should be able to feed itself you would think it would be africa. Isn't it a very fertile land? The parts I've been to were (less the desert bits!)Posted 2 years ago # -
I was under the impression that HK was at the end of its lease period
As I understand it .......the Treaty of Nanjing permanently ceded to Britain Hong Kong. The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong in 1898 granted Britain a 99-year lease on the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. There was no need to return Hong Kong to China. An extension on the lease for the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories could have been sought. Indeed Thatcher did ask very nicely - the Chinese told her to go and **** herself. Quote from an interview which Thatcher gave :
"Well, that Deng Xiaoping told me. I’ll tell you what he told me. I have written it. I said that we have done so well for Hong Kong, for Hong Kong people, that can we not have another lease say for another 50 years? He reacted very quickly. He said no. I said can we not have another lease? I said we have done so well on a territory which I know will eventually return to you. Wouldn’t you really let us have...it would be an act of sovereignty to give us a management contract? "
"Oh alright ........ you can have it all back then" I believe was the Iron Lady's response.
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If anywhere on the planet should be able to feed itself you would think it would be africa.
Yep.
Posted 2 years ago #
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