dapaterson said:
Kirkhill: You still haven't identified what to stop and what to change to free up the needed resources. Even doing less of X,Y and Z is a capability divestment - you can do less of those things, or your skills in doing so are not as great. Pretending otherwise is intellectual dishonesty.
We cannot afford the Army we want; I'd argue we can't even afford the Army we have. Something has to give. And continuing to add additional equipment with supporting it erodes existing capabilities and does not provide the capability promised when the shiny new items were acquired. Support considerations should be part of the plan before contracts are signed, not an afterthought once new equipment shows up.
(I suspect that we are more or less in violent agreement, just using different terms. "Divestment" is laden with emotion, but it is the best word I know of to describe the conscious decision to stop doing one thing, or to do less of another.)
We are in violent agreement DAP.
I agree we can't afford the army we want, not on the budget available. Therefore we will have to divest ourselves of something(s).
And McG you and Sun Tzu are equally correct.
However I suspect that even Sun Tzu would have accepted that a tradesman does better work with a full toolbox, even if he doesn't need all of them every day. There is nothing wrong with cleaning and oiling them and putting an edge on them and then storing them against the day they might come in handy. Maybe you don't need 200 Torx wrenches but it would be nice to have a couple on hand, especially since you already paid for them.
Warehousing isn't that expensive.
My next suggestion is probably heretical. A smaller percentage of the trigger pullers in the Regular Force (and yes, less means less, fewer operations, shorter duration, smaller objectives) and more reliance on the youngsters in the militia to beef up numbers when and as required... but again that means two things:
Give the Reserves realistic training mandates that can be accomodated within the time and dollars available (basically Yes Sir, No Sir, Three Bags Full Sir and can you hit that target?).
When sustained operations are anticipated start moving Reserve Volunteers into the long term training cycle early.
What that model suggests is maintain all of the command structure, all the way down to the section level but decrease the size of the Peace Time section and beef it up on Operations.
As to the employment of the TAPV, isn't it essentially complementary to the existing wheeled fleet, to be inserted into the same theatres and requiring the same logistic effort to deploy it and support it?.
