British Army Regimental Cuts

I am interested in anyones views on the disbanding and amalgamation of historic British Army Regiments in the latest insane defence review by the Arch Traitor Blair. and the peacenick Geoff Hoon.
GONE are the historic remaining 6 Scottish Infantry Regiments,.....
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,The Highlanders,The Royal Highland Fusiliers,The Black watch(Royal Highland Regiment),The Kings Own Scottish Borderers and The Royal Scots(The Royal regiment)
,merged in to 1 "Super Regiment"
GONE are the Cheshires,Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters,Staffordshire Regiments and Kings Regiment..now "The Mercian Regiment"
GONE are the Kings Own Royal Border Regiment and the Queens own Lancashire Regiment,again ,merged into a "Super Regiment"
GONE are the Gloster,Berkshire and Wilthire Regiment,and all the Yorkshire Regiments,The Green Howards,The Duke of Wellingtons Regiment,Princess of Wales own Regiment OfYorkshire
GONE are the Royal Regiment of Wales and the Royal Welch Fusiliers,now the Royal Welsh Regiment
GONE are the traditional rifle regiments of the Light Infantry and the Royal Green Jackets to be merged into a faceless "Rifles "Regiment
GONE is 1 Para,the hardest Battalion in the Parachute Regiment,redesignated Special Forces Support "Rangers"..Give me a break!!
At a time when we need MORE infantry and Special Forces,to fight theWar on Terror.Blair and Hoon cut 2000 of some of themost proffesional infantry soldiers in the world!Plus the historic ties and traditions of these famous Regiments.
Shame on you Hoon.And Shame on you Blair..You have blood on your hands
Out
British Lion

This post has been edited by British Lion on Jan 3 2006, 01:14 AM

Well, All i can say is WOW, thats alot of Historical Regiments to chop down on.

We still have Cavalry units (mechanized now of course) from the civil war operating still.

It all made sense until you wrote 'the war on terror'. You call Blair the 'Arch Traitor' yet you talk about 'the war on terror'? Sorry, but you contradict yourself...

2000 British soldiers cut, at a time of war? It sounds like Mr. Blair has cut some deals in order to stay in #10 Downing ...

The problem was that successive defence cuts over the last few decades had resulted in these regiments being single battalion regiments, a hugely wasteful practice in terms of logistics and administration. As such, rather than step up army recruiting (Which would have been the logical step in my opinion), the powers that be have instead decided to simply amalgamate the battalions into larger regiments. The defence staff were reluctant supporters of this (the reforms were badly needed), but as was said by Sir Tim Gardner ( a former chief of the defence staff), the greatest risk here is the fanatical insistance on cutting troop numbers.
Also, the many of the regiments are not so much being axed, as losing their regimental independence. Battalions are often deployed individually in combat situations, and a majority of the battalions will retain their title and traditions (whether told to or not). The real danger here has been the cut in troop numbers, and the complete hash made of the press releases.

Troop cuts

The only regiments unfortunate enough to completely lose their identity are the following:

I agree that the loss of these regiments is a travesty, and if we could only force labour to increase defence spending, they could perhaps have been preserved in the way the other historic battalions will be. Sadly, no serious political party are reccomending an increase in armed forces spending, and this will be another sad chapter in our forces' history, on par with Thatcher's pre-falklands naval cuts.

The reforms were badly needed to balance the way regiments interact, but they have been tarnished by the insistence on cuts, and the destruction of a number of regimental identities.

I agree that the special forces rangers is a ridiculous idea, it blurs the distinction between the SAS and the conventional forces. A more sensible option would have been to make them the Para's equivalent of the Royal Marine's Commando battalions. But who said politcal appointees to the MoD were sensible. All I can say is that I hope the establishment fought tooth and nail against this particular change.

That really stinks. I know how I would feel if American units like the 101st and 82nd Airborne, the 7th Cavalry, or Big Red One were disbanded.

Sad to hear the news.

Mike

How is that relevant to this topic? Unless you mean the Iraq war, and how the reducing in strength will affect the troops there.

Personally, I am not too concerned. It seems to me there will be less fathers and brothers separated from their families in senseless wars.

Yes, but it's both a case of military heritage and national defence.

Britain has an extremely martial history, and to lose any part of it is a great tragedy. In addition to this, our national defence is increasingly being dumped on the shoulders of fewer and fewer soldiers expected to engage in more conflicts for the same pathetically mediocre wage.

mib,King of the Isles
Look, the point I,m making is Blair likes to make himself look like a tough guy by sending his troops into battle.Moddelling himself on Churchill.Then he imposes all these cuts.
When I say he has blood on his hands,he has pal.
Six RMP,s died in South Iraq because they lacked the proper equipment and sufficient ammo.
A Sgt in the Royal Tanks died because he was ordered to give up his Kevlar Vest to afront line unit
And where was Hoon?Off skiing with his f**king family!Moaning about not having enough time off.
I personally would love to stick Hoon and Blair with anSA-80 and 6 rounds of ammo each and insert them into the middle of Fallujah.See how they like it.
I,m as glad as anyone that we got rid of Saddamm Husseien.But I don't see why we got involved in this crazy war in Iraq and then axe the spear head of the Army.
The real enemy is in Afghanistan.

Thanks for your support Mr Trento,
Big Red One..Thats the 1st Infantry Division isn't it?Oldest Infantry Outfit in the U.S Army,trace itself back to the War of Independence!
And as for your Airborne Units.Couldn,t have taken Caen or got as far as we did in "Market Garden" without you Yanks to help us out.
God bless you all!
It makes me sick when I see Belgians and French deface our WarGraves.
I will always be proud to be a friend of the American people.

Almost makes me want to deface a French War grave...oh wait, there is like five of them in existance!

How is that relevant to this topic? Unless you mean the Iraq war, and how the reducing in strength will affect the troops there.

Personally, I am not too concerned. It seems to me there will be less fathers and brothers separated from their families in senseless wars.

Of course I mean the Iraq War!
That is part of the"War on Terror "is it not?
The whole point I am making is that when Britains Armed Forces were overstretched as it was since the 1993 cuts,they are now even more overstretched.
Bliar has sent Her Majesties Forces into combat more times since any Prime Minister since WW11,and how does he repay them?By cutting there capability to sweet bugger all!
I squat down and shit on Bliar and his PansyAss Government.
Britain needs to get tough again!

Here here!

Britain and France alone in Europe can claim to possess fully professional and reasonably sized militaries. Since the french don't seem to deploy theirs that often, any EU rapid strike force would depend on a hard core of British troops, this is not the time to cut the military, it is a time where we are facing growing international problems. We should be increasing funding for the military, and finally giving our troops a decent wage instead of the pitance they get now.

I totally agree with you on this then. If Blair is going to use our troops, he should at least fund them properly. But Blair shouldn't be using our troops like he is.

Edit:

British Lion, that is only a tiny minority of those countries. Whenever you see the Normandy Memorial Services, a great many French people go to pay their repects and thanks to the war dead. Don't let the actions of a minority of neo-Nazi scum turn you against the French/Belgians as a whole.

British Lion, that is only a tiny minority of those countries. Whenever you see the Normandy Memorial Services, a great many French people go to pay their repects and thanks to the war dead. Don't let the actions of a minority of neo-Nazi scum turn you against the French/Belgians as a whole.

Remember that Britain also has people like that, but not neo-nazis. During the 2000 May day riots, an ex-soldier defaced a statue of Winston Churchill with grafitti, and was also held responsible for having defaced the cenotaph in the same way. All nations have a minority of short-sighted narrow minded fools who are incapable of taking the history and heritage of their modern nation into account.

http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...000/2480215.stm