Army says it needs 20,000 more soldiers

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent Published: 9:00PM GMT twenty-seven February 2010

Photo: AFP/GETTY

A British Army plan request seen by The Sundaystates that the Army might need to grow by twenty per cent from the stream strength of 101,000 battalion if the nation is to be sufficient shielded from destiny threats.

It settled that costly apparatus might need to be sacrificed to compensate for the one some-more soldiers.

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The disclosures were done in an Army reply to the Green Paper that set out the conditions for the Strategic Defence Review, due to take place after the General Election.

Recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that large numbers of battalion were indispensable to hold and secure belligerent and to quarrel a comparatively unassuming enemy.

Senior Army generals have already questioned the cost of a deputy for the Trident arch halt or alternative costly programmes such as the RAF"s Eurofighter, the Royal Navy"s due carriers and the 100 US jets concomitant them.

Senior armed forces sources warned last week that most British battalion capabilities lacked aptitude and were structured and versed for the 20th-century cold war.

They pronounced that of all weapons at the ordering of the armed forces, the Trident barb complement was slightest approaching to be used.

The request states: "There are multiform cost drivers in counterclaim that grow on top of inflation; dual of these are manpower and equipment. The (Green) Paper righteously suggests that SDR contingency see at these.

"In the past this cost expansion has lead to reductions in numbers of platforms or crew but the Paper is clever not to indicate that these trends are enduring.

"We should be aware of the actuality that the US, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand allies have all not long ago increasing the distance of their Armies by coming twenty per cent.

"Indeed counterclaim might need to prioritise manpower over apparatus if that is what we need to quarrel wars in the 21st Century."

One Army source combined that the armed forces need some-more notice and comprehension entertainment apparatus and fewer set on weapons.

While battalion chiefs should not "say goodbye to vital quarrel operations" they should yield governments in the destiny with "many some-more options on the soft end" involving "boots on the ground".

The request additionally stressed the need for the battalion to urge the vital communications strategy, that is at large supposed as carrying unsuccessful to win open await for the Afghan war.

The quarrel for destiny resources comes as Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, is approaching to be forced this week to insist because counterclaim spending was slashed only a year after the begin of the quarrel in Iraq.

The Prime Minister will be asked at the Chilcot Inquiry because Army recruiting was capped, battalion battalions were cut and the helicopter bill was slashed by �1.4 billion only as Britain became inextricable in a counter-insurgency quarrel in southern Iraq.

Senior counterclaim sources have told The Sundaythat Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, was some-more meddlesome in reaping the monetary rewards of the assent division that accompanied the troops" pull-out from Northern Ireland than appropriation the Iraq war.

Under Treasury directives the Army was forced to cut the series of battalion battalions from 40 to 36; a programme to buy up to twenty Chinook helicopters was effectively cancelled; and recruiting for the infantry, that was at an all-time high in 2004, was stopped.

Defence chiefs were additionally told that there was no income accessible to reinstate the Army"s swift of easily armoured Snatch Land Rovers that were regarded by battalion as "death traps".

Senior counterclaim sources pronounced that the feeling in the Ministry of Defence was that Gordon Brown had no seductiveness in the Army or what was function in Iraq.

One comparison source said: "The rebellion in southern Iraq was gaining pace. The Army was apropos increasingly spread out and whilst the supervision should have been investing and spending the summary from The Treasury was "pare down"."

We done assorted submissions to the Treasury but they were possibly abandoned or not acted upon.

"The perspective was "the Northern Ireland complaint was right away solved so you don"t need so most battalion battalions".

The Treasury longed for to cut couple numbers by 10,000 but General Sir Mike Jackson, who the afterwards arch of the ubiquitous staff, fought behind and the figure was marked down to around 4,000, according to sources.

The 1998 Strategic Defence Review settled that there was a order for an one some-more twenty Chinooks, but a �1.4 billion Treasury-imposed cut to the apparatus bill in 2004 meant that the buying programme was shelved.

The consequences of that singular action came home to set down in Afghanistan in between 2006 and 2009 when a miss of helicopters forced battalion to transport by car at a time when the Taliban had switched strategy and the make use of of makeshift bomb inclination surged.