Does ireland really need a military?

Xios

I'd just like to spark a debate here, prob not the right forum, but i'll post anyway.
Just checking for the military budget, in 2007 it was 1 billion euro(wiki), not sure what it was this year.

Just a couple questions you guys could muse over.

Is there a solid reason that we have a military other than the reason that everyone else has one? Costa Rica doesn't, they seem to be doing fine.

What does the military provide for the nation that a smaller more focused organistion can't do? Such as a dedicated border control unit, a counter terrorist unit, coast guard etc

There are no nations with an aggressive stance to ireland, we are in no danger of being invaded, and if we were invaded, we would have the EU and UN come to our aid.

I can imagine that a very strong diplomatic programme would negate the need for any kind of standing army in ireland, for a fraction of the cost.

What are your thoughts?

Nolanger

What happens if a giant sea creature emerges from the Atlantic and invades Ireland? You'd be shouting for the Irish military then!

Xios

Nolanger wrote: »

What happens if a giant sea creature emerges from the Atlantic and invades Ireland? You'd be shouting for the Irish military then!

I'd call the super best friends, with jesus and co.

beagle001

Do they actually have bullets in the guns these days as I knew a fella who did a couple peace keeping tours in lebanon and he said they were often given blanks while on patrol.

punchdrunk

beagle001 wrote: »

Do they actually have bullets in the guns these days as I knew a fella who did a couple peace keeping tours in lebanon and he said they were often given blanks while on patrol.

pure bull**** tbh...

bmarley

I don't think Ireland needs military. Many sit in barracks all evening and do nothing but watch tv.

Xios

punchdrunk wrote: »

pure bull**** tbh...

I agree,

so back on topic?

Andrew42

As a small Island nation it's extremely questionable as to whether we need a land army or not but we certainly need a maritime and air force as we are tasked with policing part of the EU's ocean borders, we should be getting buckets of money from Europe to have a proper fleet of Cutters and recon aircraft, we've two aircraft for that role FFS!

TT09

I heard they practice with tennis balls as a substitute for grenades

beagle001

Nope,
He is retired now a former officer and his two sons whom I am friendly with are currently serving as officers.
They lived out in lebanon during the 80`s for a period and he told us this a couple of years back,serious as f-ck on this.
Could not believe it but he said they did ot want to kick anything off during tense periods and this was standard practice.

OS119

Ireland certainly needs a police+ capability to counter what has historically been its greatest threat - internal insurgency and subversion.

the argument about needing a 'greater than Gendarmerie' military capability is perhaps more up for grabs - in terms of territorial defence you could argue that a relatively poor country with a small population could never really fight off any country that had the military capability to put significant force on Irish soil.

your point about diplomacy however is, imv, well off the mark - Ireland isn't going to avoid having problems with other states because of its diplomatic posture. Irelands problems with other states are caused by its geography - its next to the sea lanes of communications between Europe and America and because it offers a 'back door' to the UK from Europe. diplomacy can't solve that, only towing Ireland to the South Pacific can solve that.

concussion

beagle001 wrote: »

Nope,
He is retired now a former officer and his two sons whom I am friendly with are currently serving as officers.
They lived out in lebanon during the 80`s for a period and he told us this a couple of years back,serious as f-ck on this.
Could not believe it but he said they did ot want to kick anything off during tense periods and this was standard practice.

That doesn't make any sense - if you don't want to escalate, don't bring weapons. What's the point in using a battle simulator to reduce tension??? I sense a ballhop.

oncevotedff

beagle001 wrote: »

Do they actually have bullets in the guns these days as I knew a fella who did a couple peace keeping tours in lebanon and he said they were often given blanks while on patrol.

They actually carved fake rifles out of wood and gave them to lads on patrol. Gospel.

TT09 wrote: »

I heard they practice with tennis balls as a substitute for grenades

They had to stop that after a fatal case of tennis elbow.

ChunkyLover_53

TT09 wrote: »

I heard they practice with tennis balls as a substitute for grenades

Drill grenades are used, son. Tennis Balls are expensive.

beagle001

Didn't mean to drag thread of topic but it was from a v genuine man and he was not of the nature to crack a joke ever.
Anyway believe what ya want it makes no odds to me,not going to reveal anymore as I am sure someone might know his sons as they are both serving in the dept of defence.

ChunkyLover_53

beagle001 wrote: »

Didn't mean to drag thread of topic but it was from a v genuine man and he was not of the nature to crack a joke ever.
Anyway believe what ya want it makes no odds to me,not going to reveal anymore as I am sure someone might know his sons as they are both serving in the dept of defence.

If Irish Soldiers were armed with blanks in Lebanon in the 80s then how did Michael McAleavey murder 3 soldiers on Tibnin Bridge with blank ammunition?

RIP to them.

Wicklowrider

beagle001 wrote: »

Didn't mean to drag thread of topic but it was from a v genuine man and he was not of the nature to crack a joke ever.
Anyway believe what ya want it makes no odds to me,not going to reveal anymore as I am sure someone might know his sons as they are both serving in the dept of defence.

Its not true.
It was a long standing joke ( did you see the Snapper?) some guys liked to tell gullible civvies. Several posters on this forum who have served overseas will confirm we carried ball ammo in all cases. If you go back far enough blanks were used early in the congo to discourage the simbas from being silly - but they then got the idea that that bullets wouldn't kill them so it was back to live rounds.

OP - I think we could maybe trim "the fat" a bit but would need to maintain the ability to provide aid to civil power ( Specialist armed roles, riot platoons, armed cover to threatened installations etc) We'd also obviously need to maintain the "Bomb Squad" EOD. Should we return to the threat from terrorists then most of our infantry capabilities would be required. In short, I doubt there would be a significant saving made to justify the loss of capability. I don't honestly know but would imagine the largest part of the budget goes on what we use most - Naval and air corp capabilities.

Locust

Perhaps they could be scaled down - do away with a lot of stuff, artillery? Really a lot of stuff could be merged or specialised. EOD, Counter Terrorism, Cash in Transit - could all be done by Gardai could they not? Other police have thier own EOD teams why not hand it over to Gardai.

Could a large part of the DF be amalagamated into An Garda Siochana or vice versa? I know its a mad thought, but could you merge the two into one big organisation i.e. have a police service with a quasi military/multifunctional capability within it.

punchdrunk

actually what we don't need is thousands of infantry troops,and RDF troops that we don't deploy on missions

the stuff we are good at is the specialised stuff i.e EOD,training local troops

so a smaller more "elite" military is what we should aim for,but nobody has the balls to trim a couple of thousand troops from the force,and then invest that money in equipment for the job i.e more helicopters

Wicklowrider

Locust wrote: »

Could a large part of the DF be amalagamated into An Garda Siochana or vice versa? I know its a mad thought, but could you merge the two into one big organisation i.e. have a police service with a quasi military/multifunctional capability within it.

Immediate problem I see with that is the cost of payroll. You know army do not get paid overtime and a lot of allowances that Gardai get?

ChunkyLover_53

The DF recieve no Overtime unlike other members of the Emergency Services.

If you put all the soldiers into the Garda then you'll have to pay them Garda wages & overtime. You'll be making the financial problem worse.

There are an awful lot of Administrational Units/Appointments in the DF that could be scrapped to save money.

goldie fish

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

Drill grenades are used, son. Tennis Balls are expensive.

Drill grenades are Real grenades with no pins.

ChunkyLover_53

punchdrunk wrote: »

actually what we don't need is thousands of infantry troops,and RDF troops that we don't deploy on missions

the stuff we are good at is the specialised stuff i.e EOD,training local troops

so a smaller more "elite" military is what we should aim for,but nobody has the balls to trim a couple of thousand troops from the force,and then invest that money in equipment for the job i.e more helicopters

I disagree. Nearly all Infantry Soldiers are trained in 2 or 3 weapons systems & the more senior Privates will be qualified as Signallers or Driver (MT Drivers & APC Drivers) AND can be givena shovel & spade to clear snow off the roads. The Infantry we have is showing a return for the job its asked to do.

As I've said in my previous post there are plenty of administration appointments that could be put under review to see what return we're getting from them. For a a Defence Forces of 10500 we are top heavy with brass a HQ appointments.

ChunkyLover_53

goldie fish wrote: »

Drill grenades are Real grenades with no pins.

No mate thats a LIVE grenade & I won't be standing anywhere near it.

punchdrunk

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

I disagree. Nearly all Infantry Soldiers are trained in 2 or 3 weapons systems & the more senior Privates will be qualified as Signallers or Driver (MT Drivers & APC Drivers) AND can be givena shovel & spade to clear snow off the roads. The Infantry we have is showing a return for the job its asked to do.

As I've said in my previous post there are plenty of administration appointments that could be put under review to see what return we're getting from them. For a a Defence Forces of 10500 we are top heavy with brass a HQ appointments.

I'm not slighting the men doing the job,but it's simple maths

we don't have the vehicles,ships or planes to move,say a few Battalions (never mind a whole brigade)independently
so even if we get help with moving the equipment and men in theatre we don't have the ability to mobilse them when they are there
fine if it's a regional boarder with static positions like the Leb
totally useless in a situation like Afghanistan if you want to get out on the ground and patrol a serious amount of ground

where we can make a difference is in comms/logs/EOD/sniping/FAC/

ChunkyLover_53

punchdrunk wrote: »

I'm not slighting the men doing the job,but it's simple maths

we don't have the vehicles,ships or planes to move,say a few Battalions (never mind a whole brigade)independently
so even if we get help with moving the equipment and men in theatre we don't have the ability to mobilse them when they are there
fine if it's a regional boarder with static positions like the Leb
totally useless in a situation like Afghanistan if you want to get out on the ground and patrol a serious amount of ground

where we can make a difference is in comms/logs/EOD/sniping/FAC/

Yeah but no one is going to buy that equipment for the DF in the next few years after the carry on with the state finances this year so why cut what assets you DO have.

AFAIK there is a restructure due next year so I'm just hoping the Horsey School & some of the SSUs go under the microscope rather than the units that are useful

punchdrunk

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

Yeah but no one is going to buy that equipment for the DF in the next few years after the carry on with the state finances this year so why cut what assets you DO have.

AFAIK there is a restructure due next year so I'm just hoping the Horsey School & some of the SSUs go under the microscope rather than the units that are useful

but our whole military structure is out of the stone age!

loads of bases we don't strategically need,but are kept for the good of the town they are in & for the jobs of the boys working there i.e for totally the wrong reasons

every base is it's own little empire from quartermaster to cook!
huge duplication

a tiny air corps & Navy when looked at in proportion to the army,as an Island this is lunacy!

ChunkyLover_53

punchdrunk wrote: »

but our whole military structure is out of the stone age!

loads of bases we don't strategically need,but are kept for the good of the town they are in & for the jobs of the boys working there i.e for totally the wrong reasons

every base is it's own little empire from quartermaster to cook!
huge duplication

a tiny air corps & Navy when looked at in proportion to the army,as an Island this is lunacy!

Totally agree with your post.

I just get annoyed because for every young lad who was out there breaking ice or driving nurses to hard to reach patients there is a guy of equivelant rank & pay scale twiddling their thumbs in some stupid makey-upy unit in some hidden part of DFHQ or the Curragh

I posted in another thread before Centralisation & Re Organisation is how to save money in the DF.

However I'll be very surprised if subsequent Govts invest in any of the 3 service branches in the next 5 years.

punchdrunk

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

Totally agree with your post.

I just get annoyed because for every young lad who was out there breaking ice or driving nurses to hard to reach patients there is a guy of equivelant rank & pay scale twiddling their thumbs in some stupid makey-upy unit in some hidden part of DFHQ or the Curragh

I posted in another thread before Centralisation & Re Organisation is how to save money in the DF.

However I'll be very surprised if subsequent Govts invest in any of the 3 service branches in the next 5 years.

what really bugs me,is that we have people in the RDF who with adequate hours of training/range time/exercises on a big enough scale would be every bit as good as PDF guys,but it's like we get them 90% of the way there and then give up! if they are costing money to train then use them! left them do cash escorts! send them abroad!! but don't waste money doing 3/4'ers of a job training them up to standard

if the DF had realized this in the boom and sold all bar maybe 5 or 6 bases (including the don and haulbowline) they'd have been able to revolutionize our forces

goldie fish

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

No mate thats a LIVE grenade & I won't be standing anywhere near it.

Wow! Thats amazing!:rolleyes:

Manic Moran

Costa Rica doesn't, they seem to be doing fine.

The Nicaraguan Army crossed Costa Rica's rather contested border last month, there wasn't a hell of a lot Costa Rica could do about it except complain. FWIW, Nicaragua blamed Google Earth for the error.

That said, in event of larger scale problem, Costa Rica is also a member of the Rio Pact. Not having a military is fine enough if you're at least accounting in theory for some form of defence. Look at Iceland, for example.

NTM

OS119

punchdrunk wrote: »

I'm not slighting the men doing the job,but it's simple maths

we don't have the vehicles,ships or planes to move,say a few Battalions (never mind a whole brigade)independently
so even if we get help with moving the equipment and men in theatre we don't have the ability to mobilse them when they are there
fine if it's a regional boarder with static positions like the Leb
totally useless in a situation like Afghanistan if you want to get out on the ground and patrol a serious amount of ground

where we can make a difference is in comms/logs/EOD/sniping/FAC/

this is my view - the Irish military is completely unbalanced.

there are 18 - yes 18 - Infantry battalions in the ORBAT of the Irish Army, yet it has Artillery to support 5 of them, helicopters to move less than 1 company, Low level AD SAM's to protect perhaps 2 Bn's in the field, Mowags for perhaps 2 Bn's and i dare not think about logistic support.

ok, so we all know that not one of the 9 RDF Bn's actually exist in real terms, and that you might be able to get 2 composite RDF Bn's in the field in the event of a war of national survival - but that's still 11 Bn's - of which at least 6 are going to be nothing more than lots of blokes standing around in a field with no mobility, weapons support, logistics support, or AD.

cull the infantry and match the Bn's with their support arms/services - without which they are just very well paid tour guides/snow clearers.

oncevotedff

OS119 wrote: »

cull the infantry and match the Bn's with their support arms/services - without which they are just very well paid tour guides/snow clearers.

Without infantry, all the rest is pointless. The whole point is to get the infantry man to the enemy position with his rifle. The rest are just window dressing and from an Irish DF perspective unnecessary.

OS119

oncevotedff wrote: »

Without infantry, all the rest is pointless. The whole point is to get the infantry man to the enemy position with his rifle. The rest are just window dressing and from an Irish DF perspective unnecessary.

infantry without Artillery, mobility, log spt, engineers, signals, AD etc.. will never get to the enemy position, and are therefore window dressing and, from anyones perspective, unnecessary.

you'll note i didn't say get rid of the infantry, i said get rid of infantry you can't put into the battlespece and then support when they get there.

Avgas

[QUOTE=punchdrunk;69529395]actually what we don't need is thousands of infantry troops,and RDF troops that we don't deploy on missions

the stuff we are good at is the specialised stuff i.e EOD,training local troops

so a smaller more "elite" military is what we should aim for,but nobody has the balls to trim a couple of thousand troops from the force,and then invest that money in equipment for the job i.e more helicopters[/QUOTE]

With respect, Punchdrunk I'd offer a different view-I understand where you are coming from. Indeed I'd triple SOF type ranger qualified people... we should have a battalion equivalent SOF....IMHO.....(even if standards drop a bit] and have them priority for overseas....

BUT I'd keep a residual mass land army structure that would have to be lean and reservist.....if internal security situation viz 'the north' ever went terminal (v. unlikely but function of any army is to address 'black swan events')...then the scale of response required MIGHT be in the order of several battalions worth of decent infantry more structured towards ACP.....
How to do without being marred by current weakness in RDF culture and resources is not obvious I'll admit.

One idea: we establish a dedicated 'Training Corps' whose remit is to train functional reserve units to much higher standards than heretofore AND these specialist full time PDF trainers would have a handy use overseas in PK and similar situations...where handing over to 'competent' local forces is vital........that would be an asset (like our EOD people) which would be in demand maybe?

Just an idea. Don't take the 12.7mm out on me!:)

OS119

Avgas wrote: »

How to do without being marred by current weakness in RDF culture and resources is not obvious I'll admit.

easy, don't have your large reserve element as soldiers, have them as Police/Gendarmerie.

thats the role they would fill in an emergency, so why not have a large force of say 8,000 'special Garda' who could be trained on a similar basis to RDF, (weekends, weeknights and annual 2 week blocks) they could be used at regular intervals throughout the year (big demo's, sporting events etc...) -and they would be very useful as an overseas contribution.

sorting out a bigger budget that that given the RDF will be relatively easy because, unlike with the RDF, the state would actually get something for its money.

getting 100,000 NATO/ISAF troops to afghanistan has been easy(ish), getting 10,000 half-competant police there has been like collecting rocking horse ****.

Xios

Good points coming in so far.

Let me bring in another angle. What would happen tomorrow, if there was no army at all, no infantry, no artillery etc. Just an expanded police force, for border, aerospace and naval policing?

Advantages i see from this:
Huge reduction in annual budget.
Liquidation of military assets would amount to a lot of €€€
A fully functional aerodrome that could be used for industry/cargo planes saving runway time in Dublin airport.

Cons:
It'll piss people off
Won't help unemployment
Leaves us vulnreble to invasion by vikings again.

ChunkyLover_53

If you sack all the military tonight.

Who will guard all the weapons & ammo in the morning?

Poccington

OS119 wrote: »

this is my view - the Irish military is completely unbalanced.

there are 18 - yes 18 - Infantry battalions in the ORBAT of the Irish Army, yet it has Artillery to support 5 of them, helicopters to move less than 1 company, Low level AD SAM's to protect perhaps 2 Bn's in the field, Mowags for perhaps 2 Bn's and i dare not think about logistic support.

ok, so we all know that not one of the 9 RDF Bn's actually exist in real terms, and that you might be able to get 2 composite RDF Bn's in the field in the event of a war of national survival - but that's still 11 Bn's - of which at least 6 are going to be nothing more than lots of blokes standing around in a field with no mobility, weapons support, logistics support, or AD.

cull the infantry and match the Bn's with their support arms/services - without which they are just very well paid tour guides/snow clearers.

The new CS4 will be dealing with that problem specifically, on the PDF side at least.

xflyer

Yes we do need a military. Just not the one we have a present which is outdated in it's present form as eloquently elucidated by OS119! There are a lot of changes coming for this country in the next few years. A lot of sacred cows need to be slaughtered before we dig ourselves out of this mess we created. The army will be in the firing line too, to coin a phrase!

concussion

Xios wrote: »

Good points coming in so far.

Let me bring in another angle. What would happen tomorrow, if there was no army at all, no infantry, no artillery etc. Just an expanded police force, for border, aerospace and naval policing?

It doesn't cost much to have artillery, rifles, MG's and missiles sitting around. They're not worth much on the surplus market either. The big money goes on fuel and maintenance of, wait for it, naval and aviation assets. Never mind the approximately 70% of every years budget which goes on pay and pensions.

oncevotedff

OS119 wrote: »

infantry without Artillery, mobility, log spt, engineers, signals, AD etc.. will never get to the enemy position, and are therefore window dressing and, from anyones perspective, unnecessary.

you'll note i didn't say get rid of the infantry, i said get rid of infantry you can't put into the battlespece and then support when they get there.

I would agree with you if we were going to re-fight WW2. But we're not. From an Irish perspective we need infantry battalions since that is all we deploy overseas. We are never going to send a battery of 105s anywhere and the artillery/cavalry/engineers etc that go overseas do so as part of an infantry unit. In short for our purposes there is nothing that those people can do that cannot be done by the infantry.

concussion

We don't just deploy infantry overseas - the Cav operate MRV's and CRV's and, I assume, provide recce capability. Engineers perform mobility and countermobility tasks, as well as constructing camps. We've deployed 120 mm mortars before and they are currently operated by the Arty Corps, and lets not forget about CIS to provide comms, Ordnance for IEDD/EOD, MP's, medics and transport. And that's everyone I think.

dodgydes

It's been almost a week since someone started a 'get rid of the army thread'.

Certainly, there is room for improvement in the DF.

Here's my take on it:
1. There is two categories of soldier in the DF, the new breed that participate fully and have to meet certain criteria to renew contracts, and the older ones that have a job for life regardless of performance. Not that all the older soldiers are poor but there are quite a lot of them working in stores/messes etc that could be retired. Post 1994 pers do not get signed on if they are not up to standard, not the case for pre 1994 unless on medical grounds.

2. There are too many barracks, close several of the smaller ones.

3. The army has always been a cheaper option for manpower in times of crisis, for example, in the foot-and-mouth where it was cheaper to put a soldier alongside a garda on the checkpoints rather than pay two gardai's overtime ( a single garda got more overtime than a section of soldiers ATCP allowance)

4. Make more use of the RDF, the integrated reserve has been a failure as far as I can see. There should be provision for RDF overseas service with laws compelling employers to release people to serve with the RDF.

5. Expand the naval service or amalgamate it with the coastguard with its own air support.

6. Integrate the Air Corps into the army

7. The DF offers contingent capability so they are required ( the recent example of the snow storms) but they could do it more cost effectively

jazu

the reason ireland needs an army bigger than what it is rather than smaller, is quite simple for me to see. i was not in any army, although i wanted to, couldnt join the irish army, i had to take on my fathers responsabilities because of health issues. when a young person 18 19 that was bad at school, i caused a lot of trouble i would not have caused if i was in the army, it is like a follow on to a young persons education to learn the virtues of hard work and discipline and consiquences.
i believe if you went to norway or sweden or norway where large scale military service and even non combat options, are or until reciently was manditory, although i havnt been to those countries, i believe they are clean, honest, hard working societies, where unlike ireland where we have litter thrown everywhere, rubbish, tvs, fridges, beer cans, scandanavian countries are clean, its considered shameful to dump rubbish, in ireland the counsel workers are too lazy to pick up rubbish or do any ****in work. they dont have a massive financial crisis in ****in norway either because they didnt have electricians refusing to get out of bed for less than 40 euros an hour. im a farmers son and i know what work is, since i was a child, 90% of irish people dont know what its like to get their ****in clean manicured hands dirty, everyones gettin fatter. if ireland employed 40000 people in the army the country wouldnt be ****ed.
basicly what im sayin is the size of the irish army is to small for it to have any possitive influence on society, and compared to many other countries where a lot of people are passed through the army, they have better functioning societies that we do here, plus a much lower percent of the people in the irish army leave the army and use what they have learned to further themselves in their lives, too many pdf members stay as long as they can to get a big fat pension to feed their big fat bellies, no offence but some of those guys look like their ready to hibernate for the winter with all the energy stored in their gut. these guys should not be still in the army, they should be trying to pass as many people as possably through the army with the resourses the have not letting a small few people benifit masssavily. plus the fact that when a man is 18 19 years old he is in his physical prime and should be uthilising that to its full potential, and maybe paying for collage which the government pays alot for anyway. when you think about it the government bailing out the banks means that essentially it is the tax payer that has to pay 40 euros an hour for all those electricians, and retarded money to block layers, to build ghost estates, i think the tax payer would have had better value for their money had it been spent on our military, especially giving young people something to do.

Poccington

concussion wrote: »

We don't just deploy infantry overseas - the Cav operate MRV's and CRV's and, I assume, provide recce capability. Engineers perform mobility and countermobility tasks, as well as constructing camps. We've deployed 120 mm mortars before and they are currently operated by the Arty Corps, and lets not forget about CIS to provide comms, Ordnance for IEDD/EOD, MP's, medics and transport. And that's everyone I think.

You forgot the Equitation School.

Oh, wait....

goldie fish

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

No mate thats a LIVE grenade & I won't be standing anywhere near it.

Thank you for your PM chunky.I decided to answer your query in public because I don't have the time to be answering pissing contests in private.

Barking up the very wrong tree sunshine. Anyone with half a brain should know that taking the pin out of a grenade makes it (once you release the fly off lever) explode.
Ergo, my suggestion that a drill grenade was a real grenade with the pin removed, would, to anyone with the same half brain be considered a joke.

Unless of course, you use live grenades with the pins removed yourself as a training grenade.

So take the broomhandle out of your rear and lighten up.

Manic Moran

oncevotedff wrote: »

From an Irish perspective we need infantry battalions since that is all we deploy overseas. We are never going to send a battery of 105s anywhere .

Ireland may not, but the countries that Ireland usually finds itself working with tend to be thoughtful enough to bring a few howitzers or guns along with them, and it makes sense to have a number at home to train to work with.

Actually, I'm kindof surprised they didn't take a couple with them to Chad.

The training event where they put deploying troops into a trench and shell their general vicinity with 105mm is a useful capability too.

NTM

twinytwo

As was said before we do need to trim the fat. Army is too big ,navy and airforce too small. But we do need to strike a balance. To keep specialist units up to standard (EOD, ARW etc) you need a wide a range of individual as possible. And yes some will moan about the cost of having such units until the day come we actually need them.

Manic Moran

Come on, Goldie, that one was a tad out of line.

Official Mod type infraction given.

NTM

Frogeye

Hi Lads

My two cents:

1) Giving roles to the Guards. Fine until they don't get the pay rise they want and decide to ring in sick en mass. Wouldn't happen in the DF.

2) If you do away with 80+ years of experience, its very hard to get back. All well and good saying we aren't going to be invaded etc etc but they thought the same in the 30's and wound done the army and when WWII came along we had nothing to defend ourselves with. At least if we have a core we can build on it. The world is changing at an accelerating pace. We are all competing for the same resources and I don't think there is enough to go around. There are a lot of poor young men in countries like egypt ( ( and other african countries) and Syria and indeed India who look at the west with envy. If someone was to motiviate and mobilise them in a few years.... cut backs in defence in the west, aging european populations ......we could be vunerable. Not going to happen today or tomorrow but in a generation perhaps. Once the DF is gone, its gone for good but the current peacefull situation will change at some point in the future. Having a DF of any size with a reasonable level training and equipment is a deterent and a starting point to build on should the need arise.

To sum up, the DF are a bit like the condom in your wallet. You might never use it, it might be in poor shape and be a bit battered, but get rid of it and you bound to get lucky and then by golly you'll wish you had it!