The third element of the Army 2020 vision is a division of 'Force Troops', containing artillery, signals, engineer and medical brigades that will support the Reaction and Adaptable forces. Close support communications, engineers and artillery were previously part of the armoured and mechanised brigades. But, driven by the need to partner both regular and reserve units, and to make the most cost-effective use of equipment, the majority of support units are to be centralised in specialist brigades. Previously disparate surveillance, drone and intelligence units will be grouped into a single new intelligence and surveillance brigade. Signals units will be redesigned to deliver network and broadband access to battlefield units in new ways through deployed 'points of presence'. The army's hard-won expertise in countering improvised explosive devices is to be merged into a single group of engineer search teams, bomb-disposal operators and search dogs.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars saw an ever-increasing requirement for experts in languages, cultural issues and civilian reconstruction, who were eventually brought together in a Military Stabilisation and Support Group. This will now evolve into a new Security Assistance Group, which will not only retain this hard-won expertise, but which will also provide linguists and other experts to assist the army's partnering and training with foreign armies.
The Afghan war saw British troops making extensive use of close air support. So numbers of tactical air-control parties, which act as the essential interface between ground troops and attack aircraft, were increased accordingly. These are set to be retained at their current level. Army air-defence units are to fall under the operational command of the Royal Air Force.
The overall size of the regular army will fall from 142 to 119 units, a reduction of 17%. The number of brigade headquarters will fall from 27 to 18. Four out of 36 infantry battalions are being disbanded. Two armoured regiments will merge and another will be disbanded. The number of regular artillery, engineer and logistics units will fall by 14%, 27% and 33% respectively. The process has already begun, with the disbanding of one brigade headquarters and an artillery unit. The reductions are to be complete by the end of 2016.
Rebooted reserves
Army reserves, namely the TA and the 'regular reserve' of former soldiers, are set to benefit from the new design. Together they have contributed up to 10% of the troops on stabilisation operations in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, but the army now envisages a greatly increased role for them. Reserves could provide up to 10% of the Reaction Force, while Adaptable Force brigades conducting stabilisation missions could draw up to a third of their strength from them. And some capacity-building and peacekeeping tasks could be led by TA units. This has already happened: in recent years TA battalions have been employed in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.
The reserves are set to play pivotal roles in areas that require less military training than front-line combat or that draw on civilian skills - such as trauma surgeons or cyber specialists - that are impractical to maintain in the regular army. Logistics units are to be reduced by 33%, meaning that much of the capability of one of the army's two deployable logistics brigades will be transferred to the reserve. The army is also assuming that it will make greater use of contractors to provide logistics on operations.
Regular units in infantry and specialist brigades will 'partner' reserve units. For example, strengths of regular infantry battalions in the Adaptable Force are being reduced on the assumption that they would be joined by reinforcements from their partnered TA battalion when mobilised for operations.
An additional £1.2 billion has been allocated to building army reserve capability over the next decade, and is being used to fund a recruitment drive and additional training. The greater integration of the reserves will demand cultural change. Employers will need to be persuaded to support this initiative. Although deploying on operations provides a unique opportunity for their staff, it creates gaps that are difficult to fill, especially for small businesses. So employers are being consulted by the government and additional legislation may be required. The experience of the US, Canadian and Australian army reserves suggests that it is feasible to get more capability out of the British reserves. But the new organisation and basing of the TA have yet to be designed.
Risks
The army's ambitious programme of change carries significant risks. The regular army will be reduced to close to the minimum size needed to sustain its ability to operate at divisional level, as well as to command multinational operations. And the centralisation of most combat support may make it more difficult to bring all combat and supporting arms together for all-arms training, an activity that has been essential preparation for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
New equipment programmes will be required, particularly the replacement of ageing light- and medium-armoured vehicles by new Scout armoured reconnaissance vehicles and a utility armoured vehicle. Challenger tanks and Warrior fighting vehicles will need to be modernised. The defence budget provides funding for these programmes, as well as for improved helicopter and drone capabilities. The new structure also envisages the wider use of equipment procured as part of 'urgent operational requirements' for the Iraq and Afghan wars, including Jackal and Foxhound patrol vehicles, which the army plans to re-deploy from Afghanistan to equip light cavalry and infantry in the Adaptable Force. It is not yet clear, however, that the Ministry of Defence has the funding to retain all the equipment that the army hopes to transfer from Afghanistan.
Another risk is to the army's morale. The 20% cut in personnel is to be achieved by reducing recruitment, and through voluntary and compulsory redundancies. Fewer than 4,000 people have been made redundant so far, and the army expects to make another 9,500 people redundant by the end of 2014 - at a time of bleak UK economic prospects. The last decade's wars acted as powerful recruiting sergeants, but decreasing opportunities for adventure could make it difficult to retain combat-hardened talent and to recruit sufficient new personnel.
Commentators have criticised the increased dependence on the reserves, claiming that 30,000 TA personnel will have less capability than the 20,000 regulars being removed. However, the less challenging operational timelines set by the SDSR may allow the TA to deliver similar capabilities to those of the regular army, provided it has sufficient time to mobilise and train before deploying. The expanded reserve capability is unlikely to be complete before 2018, and will be challenging to create - a significant risk to the whole project. Army 2020 also depends on the force reductions in Afghanistan proceeding as planned and on equipment being successfully recovered to the UK and refurbished. These two factors mean that deployable army capacity will be reduced between 2014 and 2018, lowering the UK's ability to respond to unforeseen threats during that time.
Despite these considerable challenges, the reforms have the potential to transform the army's capability and to incorporate the lessons of recent operations. Success depends on the programme being properly led, managed, resourced and politically supported.
