DefenceSynergia - The British Army and its Reserves – 2016 to 2025
After reviewing the oral evidence of Sir Michael Fallon, Mr Paul Wyatt and Lt Gen Mark Poffley to the House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) into Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR 2015) DefenceSynergia (DS) offered the following observations back in 2016 mainly concerning British Army Critical Mass and its need to rely upon Reserves. What is more striking are the comments below by a few senior former Service Chiefs on the unreliability of President Trump during his first term in office!
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, General Sir Alexander (Richard) Shirreff, General The Lord Dannatt and the Chairman of the HCDC have all raised serious concerns over the potential for a Russia v NATO confrontation. This DS position is partly in response to the recent US election where Donald Trump was re-elected to the Presidency inducing questions over future USA commitment to NATO.
This all adds to DS concern over answers offered to the Defence Committee on the subject of the British Army and its Reserve in 2016. One of the biggest questions being what has changed? Apparently, nothing positive, there are still the same if not worse issues when it comes to reserves of both manpower and equipment.
It was the DS view that in matters of UK military forward presence there was a quantitative and qualitative difference between the UK's capability to rapidly dispatch and sustain a company or battalion sized unit (up to 800) as opposed to an armoured brigade (5000) or division (15,000). The danger is that these orders of magnitude were not really debated and it is still unclear as to whether HMG, then and now, understand the nature of 'Critical Mass'.
The simple fact remains, with the rump of UK forces based on home soil, readiness for combat deployments to mainland Europe will always be impacted by the total numbers available; notice to deploy; the time to assemble and transit to embarkation ports or railheads; then to transit by sea/rail/road into theatre. But as in 2016, today we do not have the logistics to move people and equipment quickly. Even recent training exercises have taken months, if not years of planning to move a couple of thousand and their wheeled vehicles.
All this is affected by the need for secure lines of communication in an anti-access area denial (A2/AD) environment. Since 2016 NATO has stepped up its forward presence in the Nordic and Baltic regions but the re-election of President Trump has changed the dynamic for the British Army yet again with serious concerns that US forces may not be at our side.
In 2016, General Poffley referenced training stocks and the Regular Reserve in relation to regeneration of forces in his evidence to the Defence Committee. Taken at face value the answers offered may have seemed reasonable at the time. However, whilst DS appreciate that General Poffley knew back then that this regeneration work had not been finalised there are still unanswered questions then and now as to how many of the circa 28,000 Regular Reserve can reasonably be expected to be fit and ready (or actually contactable) and over what time frame they could be mobilised?
It may have been the intention back in 2016 to equip these Reserves by using war reserves, training resources and equipment in storage but much of the kit in question has since been redirected to Ukraine – either as operational or training stocks.
For all 3 services, Regeneration is complex. For the British Army it is a major headache in an environment of logistic shortages and ever tightening budgets, (as of March 2025 restrictions on budgets may be relaxed). The more complex the weapons system that has to be reactivated from reserve or training status the more variables will accrue. For example: AAC battlefield helicopters held in reserve or on conversion training squadrons will invariably not be modified or fully combat ready (CR). So DS asks: what provision in time, money, maintenance and sustainment has been allocated to bringing these and other assets to CR status?
The fact is that the maxim 'we fight with what we have on day one' is ostensibly true and there is little or no capacity for regeneration of complex larger forces in the short to medium term. This is why DS maintains that it is crucial that the British Army order of battle (ORBAT) – personnel and equipment - must reflect these realities. To rely upon long term regeneration resources is a dangerous position in anything other than low end, low expectation operations. As Lt Gen Poffley honestly stated back in 2016 in reference to the Army Reserve; “The trained assumption is that they have completed their basic training and therefore are able to complete a basic soldier function. Inevitably, with each of the trade groups, there will be a variable series of courses in which they would need to specialise. That phase 2 and 3 training is not included in that figure, but that is a continual process. If we take a basically trained soldier, quite inevitably you are going to refresh his training through his career, whether he is a regular or a Reservist.”
The latter being the crux of the regeneration issue for personnel. Army training takes time – e.g. for a pilot (any service) it is many years to become CR and several months to regain currency once CR status is lost. It may take a few months to train service personnel to fire a weapon, operate a field radio or drive a vehicle but years to train the engineer or technician to repair them. For complex weapon systems like MBTs and AFVs and complex Artillery - already low in numbers, the ability to replace or enhance the ORBAT from war reserve stock is not a practicable option in the short term – not least today when sustainment stocks have been dispatched to Ukraine.
DS is adamant that readiness and regeneration in a 21st century context are largely synonymous in the short term – especially in a 'Counter Surprise' encounter battle. We fight with what we have on day one (in manpower, equipment and resource terms) and what we have to confront the enemy is dependent on the funded 'Critical Mass' and the time to mobilise, the time to transit with the logistic and operational enablers available at short notice.
DS states that HMG/MOD must instigate an Immediate Action Plan to restore sustainment stocks, reloads, ammunition and people.
