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British armed forces to face big cuts in defense review

08 August 2010 00:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Britain’s new coalition government is looking at concrete plans to cut British armed forces that would see the Royal Air Force reduced to its smallest size for 90 years, the loss of many of the army’s tanks, and the scrapping of six warships, including submarines, according to the reports of a British newspaper, APA reports quoting news.xinhuanet.com website.

The planned cuts, which are not yet formalized, were revealed on Saturday in the national daily newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The cuts are under serious consideration as part of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), which will report later this summer, and the leak is the first sign of how the Ministry of Defense (MOD) plans to tackle them.

The cuts have been widely heralded as likely to be profound and deep, and they are expected to significantly change Britain’s strategic ambitions and its global capabilities.

The Daily Telegraph claimed that it had been leaked detailed proposals which list the axing of 295 aircraft, including the entire fleet of Tornado jet fighters, as well as 7,000 air force personnel.

The new Eurofighter Typhoon fleet, which went into service in 2007, will also see cuts. Cutting back on orders will see an anticipated fleet of 160 reduced in number to 107.

Also facing the axe, according to the leak, is the entire fleet of Hercules transport aircraft, which currently numbers 36. It is likely to be replaced by the new A400M from Airbus in a fleet of 22.

It is the RAF which is to bear the worst of the cuts, but the other two services suffer too.

The Royal Navy could lose two submarines and three amphibious ships, along with about 100 senior officers. It’s control of the Royal Marines, soldiers who fight at sea or are deployed to land directly from the sea, could be lost to the army, where they would join the troops of the Parachute Regiment as an elite section of the armed forces.

The army, which is currently heavily deployed in Afghanistan where it has suffered more than 325 fatalities, would see its armored vehicle fleet cut by up to 40 percent.

Most of those cuts would fall on heavy weaponry used to fight conventional state-against-state wars. Armored artillery and tanks could see big cuts.

Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined that his new coalition government wants to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by 2015. Cuts in troop numbers are likely to be small until then, but after that the army is likely to loose a brigade of soldiers, about 5,000 troops.

The coalition government, formed in the wake of the inconclusive general election of May 6 which saw the Labor party’s 13-year rule ended, has set as it’s main task the cutting of 100 billion pounds (about 155 billion U.S. dollars) from the government budget over the next four years.

Government departments have been told to prepare for cuts of up to 40 percent in spending, to tackle the record public spending deficit, which this year is set to reach 153 billion pounds (about 240 billion dollars).

The MOD faces cuts of up to 20 percent, and has been a consistent over-spender in the past.

Defense Secretary Liam Fox warned military contractors at the Farnborough International Air Show last month that the numbers of warships, aircraft, and armored vehicles would be reduced to save money.

"We must reduce fleet numbers that provide any one capability because we cannot afford the luxury of multiple supply chains and the associated training and infrastructure costs," he said.

He added: "The defense program is entirely unaffordable -- especially if we try to do what we need to do in the future while simultaneously doing everything that we’ve done in the past."

However, an MOD spokesman said: "The defense secretary has made clear that tough decisions will need to be made, but the complex process of a strategic defense and security review will be concluded in the autumn and speculation at this stage about its outcome is entirely unfounded.