British Tank Force Falls to the Lowest Level Since WW1
Defence chiefs have expressed anger that Britain is to mothball a third of its tanks, leaving it with fewer than Serbia, Cambodia or Burma.
The military is planning to revamp only 148 of its 227 Challenger 2 tanks because of cost constraints, The Times has learnt. That would send the armed forces down to 56th in the global league table of number of tanks available.
The remainder of the Challenger 2s, which entered service between 1998 and 2002, are expected to be used for parts. It is possible that some could be patched up for deployment in an emergency. …
Budget started getting tight, more and more welfare recipients keep immigrating… what is a nation to do but mothball its army in order to maintain gibs at a stable level?
Connor Bell
To be fair the UK doesn't need tanks to defend their actual interests. Now to be a NATO "partner" and good goy you need more than that but if we're talking defending the interest of the UK citizens in matter of national security, UK is a fucking island and exactly no one they're on bad terms with is capable to invade them. Even if they were, the fact that have subs with nukes make sure it won't. You could reduce the entire UK land forces to whatever is left of the Royal marines backed with a small but decent expeditionary fleet to secure UK citizens abroad when SHTF and that would be perfectly enough. How much tanks do you need for that? 12? 36 for spares and 24/7 12 tanks ready to be shipped out?
What they need is ships and planes to secure their borders and the occasional threats to bomb the shit out of 3rd worlders if they don't behave. Both of which they cruelly lack.
Joshua Carter
Today, 20 april 2019, no. But NATO and EU are on the brink of extinction and Europe is going to have hard times ahead and in periods of uncertainty it is very irresponsible to weaken militarily. For instance, now Spain and UK are allies, but tomorrow without NATO they can (and probably will) be foes. Then UK is not a reliable NATO partner. With a lower budget every year, how many of these tanks will be available when SHTF? 30%? Now consider this reality to all land force, not only tanks, and the result is incapacity to project power beyond its borders or even defend itself against internal/external enemies or both altogether in the short/mid term. We are not in 11th century. It's way more easy to invade an island nowadays. With AAVs, helibornes, paratroopers and so on, you can traverse the english channel like a river. Irrational fear. When the first nuke explodes and both sides see that the nuclear war is not all that, they will use them like conventional artillery. Also this.
Pic related. When our irish friends and muslins all over UK realize the british weakness expect for a lot of fun. And I will not be surprised if some neighbors "join" the party too.
Is it in a worse state then right before the Falkland War? It was quite a challenge then to fight a nation that had advance weapons, the UK would probably get raped now against below average forces.
Camden Hall
please use archives and also avoid reddit spacing in the future OP
Thomas Moore
It's funny that you mention Spain, don't they have a rather large tank force for a NATO member?
Austin Hernandez
You could hand over some of them if you really don't need them, Britain.
Elijah Sullivan
What would it take to invade and conquer Great Britain in CY+4 militarily?
