The British army is in a deplorable state despite a multi-billion dollar investment over two decades, the head of Britain’s parliamentary defence committee, Tobias Ellwood, said in a statement.
yakutsk-news.net
The ground forces are in an extremely poor state, Ellwood clarified. He noted that there are three main components of fighting on land – tanks, main battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and reconnaissance vehicles.
“We have (tanks) Challenger 2, (IFV) Warrior and (reconnaissance vehicles) Scimitar and they are all over 20, 30 and 50 years old without any upgrade,” he said on Sky News TV.
Britain has over the years invested “huge sums” in developing naval capabilities, building aircraft carriers and supplying more fighter jets, but the number of tanks, according to Ellwood, has dropped significantly. Britain had 900 tanks in service a couple of decades ago and now has only 148, he noted.
In Ellwood’s view, the government should be “very concerned” about this, especially against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine. Not only does it need to invest in cutting-edge industries such as cybersecurity and space, but it also needs to do so without compromising the ground units of the armed forces.
“UK defence spending does exceed that of any other country in Europe, particularly in relation to maintaining nuclear capabilities and actively modernising the army. However, new models of equipment won’t arrive until several years from now, and at the moment the army is too small, given that the armed forces are often deployed in times of national crisis,” the head of the committee clarified.
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