the British army and Scottish independence

tac foley

dvpower wrote: »

A UK/Scotland defense pact leaving shared bases in a Scotland.
Or Treaty Ports.

NOT unless the SNP change their minds on their non-nuclear policies......IF they remain in power after the transition.

We all have to rejoice in the fact that the 'Wee Eck' is not the universally-loved person that he sees when he looks in the mirror.

tac

Donny5

Geekness1234 wrote: »

That's one helluva a military Finland has,with 400000 permanent and reserve out of a population of 5387000.

Yeah, they maintain it as a deterrent against Russia. They have an interesting system, where have about 10,000 professional full-timers, mostly officers and technical roles, and 25,000 conscripts on 12 month terms. Conscripts are retained (and kept trained) in the reserve until they are fifty. They do all this, and maintain 150 MBTs, nearly a thousand APCs, over 700 arty pieces, MRLSs, over sixty F-18s and a sizable navy for about €2.8 Billion a year.

goldie fish

Well having been invaded a few times by Russia(and the soviet union) in recent history, one can understand their need for luch a large defence force.

Donny5

goldie fish wrote: »

Well having been invaded a few times by Russia(and the soviet union) in recent history, one can understand their need for luch a large defence force.

For sure. It's the economy with which they achieve it that most impresses me.

Rawhead

goldie fish wrote: »

Well having been invaded a few times by Russia(and the soviet union) in recent history, one can understand their need for luch a large defence force.

They gave the Soviets quiet a hiding initially. I remember reading about one sniper who wiped out a whole battalion on his own, I think he only died recently.

Geekness1234

Donny5 wrote: »

Yeah, they maintain it as a deterrent against Russia. They have an interesting system, where have about 10,000 professional full-timers, mostly officers and technical roles, and 25,000 conscripts on 12 month terms. Conscripts are retained (and kept trained) in the reserve until they are fifty. They do all this, and maintain 150 MBTs, nearly a thousand APCs, over 700 arty pieces, MRLSs, over sixty F-18s and a sizable navy for about €2.8 Billion a year.

That's actually really cool and impressive,thanks for that .

tac foley

Rawhead wrote: »

They gave the Soviets quiet a hiding initially. I remember reading about one sniper who wiped out a whole battalion on his own, I think he only died recently.

Simo Häyhä - December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002.

Most of his shots were taken with either an open-sighted M-N rifle, or a Suomi sub-machine gun.

tac

Jawgap

Donny5 wrote: »

Yeah, they maintain it as a deterrent against Russia. They have an interesting system, where have about 10,000 professional full-timers, mostly officers and technical roles, and 25,000 conscripts on 12 month terms. Conscripts are retained (and kept trained) in the reserve until they are fifty. They do all this, and maintain 150 MBTs, nearly a thousand APCs, over 700 arty pieces, MRLSs, over sixty F-18s and a sizable navy for about €2.8 Billion a year.

Ireland has a comparable GDP to Finland - both around $265 billion.

However, they spend about 2% of their GDP on defence and we spend 0.9%.

Scotland has an estimated GDP of about $240 billion - the UK spends about 2.7% of GDP on defence - you'd wonder if (a) any hypothetical new Scottish Government would want to commit to that level of defence spending or (b) if they didn't, whether the remains of the UK would want a partnership with them where they were carrying an unfair share of the combined defence budget.

Tenger

Jawgap wrote: »

.........Ireland has a comparable GDP to Finland[/URL] - both around $265 billion.

However, they spend about 2% of their GDP on defence and we spend 0.9....

I can't see us equalling the Finns even if we tripled our Defense budget.

IRLConor

Tenger wrote: »

I can't see us equalling the Finns even if we tripled our Defense budget.

Well, it would take 30+ years worth of mandatory military service before you'd have an apples-to-apples comparison.

On top of that, there's also the motivation difference. Their neighbour with their biggest land border invaded and killed roughly 100,000 of them. When you have something like that in living memory it gets easier to persuade the general population to both spend on military budgets and to get behind the idea of military service.

tac foley

IRLConor wrote: »

Well, it would take 30+ years worth of mandatory military service before you'd have an apples-to-apples comparison.

On top of that, there's also the motivation difference. Their neighbour with their biggest land border invaded and killed roughly 100,000 of them.

....and stole 1/3 of their country. Karelia WAS Finnish, until the Sovs took it, and the equivalent of eu 100 Billion in 'reparation'.

You don't forget THAT in a hurry.

tac

Border-Rat

Lemming wrote: »

Given the OP's username, postcount, history of posts thus far, and the thread title in keeping with that history, I smell a pot of something being stirred.

Reported for uncivil conduct, read the charter!

Capt'n Midnight

Jawgap wrote: »

What about Faslane? Wonder where they'll move / re-locate their Trident and attack boats?

Remember the treaty ports.

The question is really would it be that much different to what happened when we gained independence ?

tac foley

I've already suggested Lough Foyle - used in WW2 with great success.

Nearby Derry/Londonderry would see the immediate benefit, too.

tac

TheLastLazyGun

IrishFeeney92 wrote: »

It would probably suit them to be honest, it would mean they are way ahead of schedule to reduce their 2020 Target numbers of 80.000 Full time soldiers

And there is a lot of anger that, when it comes to army cuts, the Scots are, as usual, getting preferential treatment.

Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom which is NOT seeing any of its regiments axed. This is despite the fact that military experts say that Scottish regiments should be the ones which are first to be axed because they are more poorly recruited than Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish regiments and they therefore have to rely on people from elsewhere in the Commonwealth to join their regiments.

So there are many top brass within the army that are left mystified and angry as to why no Scottish regiment is being given the axe.