After looking at the British Army’s main combat equipment in my talk next week, I will turn to the current state of the British Army’s formations. To explain what has changed, I will use the formations in the 1990s as my benchmark of what “good” looks like. At that time the Head of the Army stated that our deployable currency was a brigade and in 1995, we had more than 10 combat brigades ready to fight in Central Europe, or defend the United Kingdom.
Most of the regiments in these brigades were located close to each other and trained together regularly on test exercises and ranges. There was fierce competition, but also respect for each other’s traditions and history. At the brigade level, it was really important that the Commanding Officer of the 17th/21st Lancers knew what the Commanding Officer of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars would do in battle situations. Training together allowed commanders to know whether their neighbour was bold or cautious; calm or anxious; astute or naïve; brutal or compassionate – and he could make a plan accordingly.
Looking at the current formations, not many of those deployable brigades still exist. More worryingly, of those that do, such as 4th Light Brigade, the geographical span of command make them impossible to command in a coherent way. For example, 4 Brigade has battalions in Brunei, Scotland, Northern Ireland, both sides of the Pennines, as well as Aldershot and Windsor. 7 Brigade, with its valiant history from the Western Desert, is now a shadow of it former self based at Cottesmore and burdened with so much administration that it has lost its ability to deploy as it once did.
The reasons for this devastating change are quite surprising. The seeds were laid by three key decisions taken in the Ministry of Defence twenty years ago. Only by understanding how these came about, is it possible to address the causes and reverse the decline.
Desert Rats in Tobruk 60 Years On – What Would They Think Now
Rupert Wieloch 