Can you imagine the reaction of the pink and fluffy brigade over conscription 
With such a view, watching it could be very educational for you!
China actually fought a war against Vietnam in the late 70s on its southern border and lost.
Presentation at War Studies and RAF Regiment start of 1982 was that the RAF had a life expectancy of 3 days if the GSFG started to move west, by that stage supplies would have started to run out. The next point was tactical nuclear weapons to stop the 3rd Guards Tank Army and 3rd Shock Army.
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Fixed that for you 
My neighbours tune in to GBeebies. That, plus the fact the “presenters” and anyone associated with it is either a conspiracy theorist, a racist, a gammon or in some other way shouldn’t be allowed in a functioning society means I think I’d rather claw my own eyes out with a needle.
Anyway, back to talking about WW3.
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At work someone has pin locked GB News so you can’t put it on the TV at Hq 
Didn’t the Soviets also slap them around in some border skirmishes?
It’s one of those things where Cold War assessment of Russian capabilities was probably overestimated.
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I slightly disagree, to be honest. Every govt department has been battered with cuts after cuts after cuts after cuts. Yes defence has taken a toll, but so has every other part of government. We’ve gone from “trimming the fat” post-2008 and into early austerity, to literally hacking off bone in 2023/4.
Ive known examples where mil pay has been genuinely 15-20k more (SO2/3) than a CS (EO/HEO) sat next to them doing the exact same role, for example. Whilst yes, there should rightly be more compensation for a military role holder due to the additional commitments/obligations on them, getting £15k+ more is still quite generous. Or you can look the other way and see how terrible non-mil public sector pay is right now!
If people are talking more about infrastructure and equipment, it’s a very fair point (and im in no way defending the shoddy state of the defence estate and defence housing) but once again have a look around the public sector and you’ll find the same or very similar issues cropping up everywhere. The NHS is collapsing, schools under immense pressure and unable to even provide glue sticks in some cases, the police are struggling to cope, this is far more wide-ranging than politicians simply singling out defence as an easy target.
There’s also that old quote from the US about diplomacy and intelligence services, that if you fund those then the army don’t have to buy as many bullets. Guess what we’ve done to those budgets over the last 15 or so years? Can we realistically expect to compete on a cyber/diplomatic/intel front with the massive amounts of money and personnel that adversaries are throwing at it? This one is particularly pertinent to Russia/China, but also Iran and other adversarial powers too.
Everyone has suffered under this austerity, but in some ways it wouldn’t be right or fair to other branches of govt if MOD had gone entirely unscathed.
Tldr - everything is awful across govt, not just MOD, and without getting too political please think very carefully about what boxes we choose to cross this year…
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Conscription needn’t be linked to all-out total war with a near-peer adversary. The Army has been struggling to meet recruitment numbers for years now: rather than keep reducing standards and relaxing rules, why not simply expand to pool of recruits from those who can’t do anything else to all school leavers?
It would be very easy to avoid conscription by smoking weed, getting fat, having a hand or neck tattoo, declaring having had headaches or a history of fainting in the Capita medical, etc. Some of the Scandinavian countries have competitive conscription, whereby they’re able to scoop up the cream of school leavers rather than being left only with those who apply (I refer back to my earlier comments about people who can’t do anything else).
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Again not an entirely new idea - the history of the Auxiliary Units is much less well known than it should be:
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Even what little training the home guard had was similarly themed, just not to the same level of complexity.
Didn’t they have a “first stand, retreat, then disrupt” style plan?
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Britain needs an organisation (or organisations) to prepare youth for military service.
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Territorial Plebe Service
Aero Development Mustering
Ocean Plebe Fleet
That’s not what we exist to provide though, and it really shouldn’t be. That’s for the Army Foundation College, MPCT, BTEC Uniformed Services (sort of) and others to provide.
We’re an aviation-focus youth organisation with an RAF theme, not the RAF’s recruiting wing.
Having worked with the local BTEC Uniformed Services course a few times, that “sort of” is doing A LOT of work…
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I’m given to believe such organisations are called ‘Army Training Centres’, ‘Army Training Regiments’, and ‘Infantry Training Centres’…
The Cadet organisations have no role in this, their - far more valuable - imv, role is to provide kids with the opportunities that will make them happier kids, and better adults, regardless of what they do in adult life.
The last thing the Army needs is to increase the training time of recruits in order to unlearn the rubbish they’d get from the ATC…
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Politically it entirely does, you aren’t getting National Service across the line just because the military has a recruitment and retention problem, it would be political suicide for the politician who suggested it.
It’s exactly what we were created to do, however we have moved on.
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isn’t this called “Phase 1 training”
they take “kids” off the street, often who have never left home, break them down and build them up again into useful individuals to the military.
I am lost what an adidtional organisation could do that isn’t covered in Phase 1 - else it would be a “Phase 1” style organisation that if “passed” (not phase 1 is not selection) then permits individuals to join up.
While i have ideas of grandeur that what i do with the Cadets makes those who join up a breeze in Phase 1 - i know that isn’t really true. they find it easier than their non Cadet recruits but no one walks it. Yes they know how to iron and wear the uniform, are competent on the drill square, have good General Service Knowledge (GSK) and familiar with weapons, being on a range and fieldcraft but what we teach kids is a big step down to what Phase 1 teach military recruits.
if the CF became “prep for military” organisations then I think a lot would need to change (CFAV training for a start) and do not feel that is our place.
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We used to have a lady working for us who was part of the Vietnamese influx some years ago.
She used to tell us of her exploits when growing up …one of her memories was regular ‘grenade throwing’ practice at school! …never asked her if they used real grenades!
…Might make for a more interesting school sports day if they did that here!
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Is that not what all sport is for though?
Making humans better at hunting and fighting?
Sprints, long distance, javelin, strength?
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This is less to do with interest or standards but the application process itself - to join you can be looking at 18mths from point of interest to point of starting.
In order to get people in you need them starting with 3-6mths of application.
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