I was chatting with a friend about the armed forces and was questioning why we still have three treads to our national defence ie army, navy and air force.
They are simply different weapon delivery systems so why do you need these overloaded management structures of Field Marshals,Generals,Rear Admirals,Queer Admirals,Air Commodore and Air Chief Marshals when you could have one person to do it. Perhaps you would only just need one military person to decide the delivery location, the required ordnance and the timing a bit like ordering something on the Amazon app.
We just accept what has gone on in the past but rarely challenge why it is still relevant to the world today.
A suggestion it could be called the Integrated Defence Force but then i thought the UK Defence Force may be best.
Any thoughts?

Very sensible, especially given the fact that wars are fought now with far different strategies and approaches. A single co-ordinated and expert management structure would be more appropriate. It would never be accepted by the military hierarchy though, too many highly paid and prestigious jobs at risk.

The Canadians did this in the early seventies, it was a disaster. So much so the Canadian Government finally caved in and reverted to the three services.
The services are different because there roles are different..would you combine the Police, Fire Brigade and Paramedics together….?
One senior Jack of all trades officer commanding eveything would be a nightmare.
It sounds like the sort of idea a politician would come up with, which is why it wouldn’t work.

Would just be an expensive regrading and administrative exercise. You still need your specialisms. Less officers I agree with.

Anyway the RN and RAF are part of our national identity. I thought people were moaning about that being eroded?

things would be co ordinated now as they were in the past. doubt there would be much love for the idea in the milatary anyway and the public at large.

Perhaps it didnt work for the Canadians as they got the "process wrong" as our Prime Minister would say. However there are some very powerful interests to make sure this would not work and it would be made not to work here.
Can you imagine a Rear Admiral at the Jobcentre trying to argue that he has no experience to be the attendant at the local boating lake

Warfare has changed a hell of a lot since the 70s and I'm pretty sure if the will was there then a single overarching management structure could be effective and efficient. You'd still have your specialist leaders and managers at lower but appropriate levels.
Like most organisations I suspect, top heavy at senior management and boardroom equivalent levels.
As discussed though it wouldn't be allowed to get past think tank level.

What’s changed….
The Canadians created a single force and three three services hated it because they are different services and changed back to their original format over the past 20 years to their original format of three separate services….they then tried it and found it shite….we’re dealing the armed forces ..not fecking plumbers.

Why not Raj makes it work

Well the fact that drones are used so much, do we need air force, army, navy drone squadrons under 3 different arms of our defence forces?
We have a combined military operation of much fewer personnel to manage and organise, but I wouldn't mind betting the reduction in numbers at the top is not proportionate to the frontline personnel?
Just because things have always been done a certain way doesn't mean it's the best or most efficient way. And of course the 3 separate entities hated it, as just about everyone who's been involved in a corporate takeover or re-organisation hate it. Nothing to do with plumbers.........??
Pretty sure the NHS and various government departments could be streamlined to be more effective and efficient.
Not going to happen so we'll never know.

I wonder if the Royal family have a yearly "cost improvement target" to meet every year like the NHS and government departments have?
I am ok with the King,Queen and the likes of Princess Ann who do something but as for the hangers on i suggest they are given zero hours contracts and be made to work for what they earn.

I spent 10 years as a planning applicator, basically how can we streamline this job/ organisation …..people can be very bloody minded while you create lots of paperwork and eventually a truce is called, it’s called human nature.
Drones have been around for ages, they’re just getting the publicity as an object for depositing a small load on a target…because the meeeeeja have made them flavour of the war.
Our armed services have been neglected since they end of the Cold War with the greedy politicians peace dividend and still they buggered things up.
If the nurses and teachers had been reduced in similar numbers there’d be hell to pay..
Don’t give em ideas.

Just cut officers. Job done. Let NCOs be NCOs. No need for any rebranding. BTW, there'll always be a need for human crewed aircraft and folks controlling UAVs need much the same quals as a regular pilot.

Israel has a similar number of full time military personnel to the UK and a huge number of fully trained reservists under a single central command IDF. It seems to work well, but the crucial point is that that is how they formed their military from the start in 1948.
India is forming integrated campaign military forces because they think integration is the best way to organise. I'd imagine if these are successful then more centrally integrated military will be their end goal.
So it can work, as a new force or by re-organisation.
"We've always done things this way" isn't always the best way, and I know there'd be huge resistance. That's why it'll never change.

So what? What is it you think you'll save from this? Do you even know or are you guessing? Those countries still have air forces and navies under separate commands. You want us to do some expensive rebranding for what is effectively the same thing as we have now?

I'm offering an opinion as I think the starting thread is a good idea, obviously you missed the bit where I said that I believe the result would be a more effective and efficient military for the UK?
Those countries don't have duplication or triplication of the higher levels of command. A single team approach generally is more effective and efficient than 3 different teams with their own nuanced management strategies trying to work together.
My opinion that's all.

Not applicable to us. A lot of things are joint now and we still retain service identities. Nothing to see here.

Says you, it's a f*cking forum. If there's nothing to see here go look elsewhere.

Yep says me. I know more about this than you. There is plenty of other stuff where it's the other way round. You'll see I don't contribute to those discussions because I don't know enough about the subject but you might.

You know what you know and I know what I know. I don't know what you know and you don't know what I know.
It's a forum we're all allowed to post opinions that's the way these things work. I'm sorry but you don't get to end a thread because you have a different opinion even if you're the world's expert on the subject.

I just said I know more than you about this. You seem to think you know about everything. I'm different to you. I shut up when I don't know about summat. Makes you look silly otherwise.

You know nothing about me yet you comment on me, doesn't that make you look silly? And my Dad's bigger than yours btw!!

As soon as you start typing, I know enough.

Have a read of this, in a nutshell:

Need an integrated defence force
Need integrated procurement
Move more back room personnel to front line
Adapt from Cold War model to modern warfare structure and methodology - use of AI, autonomy, intelligence etc
Remove silo mentality and organisation - business as usual is not an option.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ong-abroad

I think the authors know a bit more than you.

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

Depends who the authors are…you can always get an author to agree with your viewpoint by fishing around.
But you chose one by this Government..behave that was pure bullshit by people who find the scouts tooo militaristic oh dear
Armed forces are built around their Esprit de Corps, not the distant thoughts of some armchair theorist.
Hitler wrote a book and a country followed….that worked out well didn’t it.

But this isn't by the Government, it was commissioned by them agreed, but as you obviously haven't even looked at it let alone read it you won't appreciate that this was carried out by a wider team that included all 3 present forces. So hardly armchair theorists.
I agree with a lot of what's included in this review, modernisation, streamlining senior management, having a single procurement and logistics department both make a lot of sense to me.
Trying to close down debate by claiming that you know more than me, or quoting the ramblings of Hitler as justification for disregarding any document you disagree with is frankly childish in the extreme.
I'm not claiming to be right, I'm expressing an opinion in a considered manner that's all.

Make your mind up. You slag the government then try to batter us over the head with some random government document. This is probably the most hilariously tragic thing you've come out with to date.

I've never said the Government get everything wrong though have I? And I'll repeat for the slow witted this wasn't carried out by the Government it was carried out by a review team including representatives of all 3 millitary arms, and led by an ex Senior Army chap. Obviously they know f*ck all about the workings of our military, how to improve efficiencies across the board, compared to you. Pity they didn't consult with you come to think of it.

just thinking i cannot remember when modernisation, streamlining and change ever really improved on things that have been in place for as long as we can remember. all sound good in theory until put into practise.

Wars are just plain silly, fought by poor people on behalf of rich people. Poor people who fight in wars, other than those that are really necessary, like your country being invaded by another ( been waiting 60 years for Russia to invade us, still waiting ) must be really dumb, even more so nowadays, at least in the past , if you were a psychopath who liked a fight and dreamt of killing another human being, there were opportunities to do that, these days you will just get neutralised by a drone, what a silly way to die, someone sat in a computer suite ending your life.

The military service will be no different from the civil service overloaded with staff doing non jobs, they are institutionalised, anyone mentions change and they say we have always done that way why change.
Private companies employees are employed on performance, you don’t perform you don’t work.

They really don't. It's the lads and lasses whose guile and graft keeps things together. Senior officers? You mean the jobs for the boys, bright ideas ideas club?

War and prostitution will always be with us like poverty…get used to it….it ain’t going away.

You think that nowt shit has happened to us is accidental? I'm glad you can sit safe smug and comfortable everyone deservesthat. That security has never and will never come for free. As long as there are plonkers out there that think war is a good idea then we need defence. Mind you, maybe the presidents should all just get in a ring and have a fight.

If it’s commissioned by them and approved….. it’s their view

It is now that they've accepted it!!

The use of the word ‘integrated defence’ force does not mean sticking everyone in the same uniform and part of the same outfit.
It means co-operation between the different specialities, land, sea and air to achieve their purpose……which in many respects it now does anyway.

Well if it’s accepted by the present shower of shite in office or the toxic Tories, we’re are truly fucked because what do they know about fuck all.
They’ll be nodding dogs to the ‘experts’ they’ve appointed because they know fuck all about defence…..I’ll remind you when the bits fall off….

So are you saying there's absolutely no room for improvement, no duplication of effort, every rank utilised to the best they can be, etc ????

Always room for improvement….but not under the auspices of gormless politicians or smart arse whizz kids who deal with figures and have no practical experience of the topic…and not forgetting the ‘academics’ with a bone to pick….and never got wet in their lives.
Reports come, reports go and usually end in cuts in the name of improvements.

We had General Starmer swaggering in Parliament last week about purchasing 12..yes 12 F35A’s from the Yanks to carry atomic weapons ….. we don’t need tactical nuclear weapons, theresmaller power makes them tempting to use….that’s if the 12 get through…but as the waiting list for these aircraft is quite a few years, it won’t happen…but worst of all has no one informed him we have submarine based strategic nuclear weapons available….he should do …. he was stood on the casing of one in Faslane a couple of weeks ago.
.

I think you've lost track of the point you're trying b b to make.

Not at all, but think you've run out of reasoned discussion...............

Not at all. I don't think you even started with any.

And there you go, my latest point proved.

I could talk about it all day... with someone who knows what they are talking about.

Spot on.