United Kingdom - Strategic Defence Review - Supporting Essays

SUPPORTING ESSAY SIX, ANNEX B

Table 8:
Concurrency: Two Concurrent Medium Scale

Force Element	Enduring Non-Warfighting	One-Shot Warfighting	Continuing Commitments	Factors	Total
Aircraft Carriers	1	1			2 ⁽¹⁾
Amphibious Ships	6 ⁽²⁾	8 ⁽²⁾			8 ⁽²⁾
Attack Submarines	1	4 ⁽³⁾	2	3.36	10
Destroyers and Frigates	4	9	1	18.13	32
Minewarfare Vessels	4	6	5	3.24	18
RM Commando	1 ⁽²⁾	3 ⁽²⁾	0.5	1	3.5 ⁽²⁾
Royal Fleet Auxiliary Vessels	5	8	1	1.26	15
Strategic Deterrent Submarines			4		4
Armrd & Recce Regiments	1.66	2.66		4	8.33
Army Air Corps Regiments	0.33	⁽³⁾	1	0.33	4.66
Artillery Regiments	1	2.33		4	7.33
Engineer Regiments	1.44	3.33	1.66	5.10	11.53
Equipment Support Battalions (REME)	1.2	2	1	2.8	7
Field Hospital	0.5	1		1	2.5
Infantry Battalions	3	3	15 ⁽⁴⁾	34 ⁽⁴⁾	55 ⁽⁴⁾
NBC Regiment		0.55			0.55
Royal Logistics Corps Regiments (Close and General Support)	1	1	1	3	6
Airborne Early Warning Aircraft	2	3			5
Air Defence Aircraft	14	17	6	33	70 ⁽⁵⁾
Maritime and Reconnaissance Aircraft	5	5	4	8	22
Offensive Air Support Aircraft	24	42		88	154
RAF Regiment Squadrons (Field and Rapier)	1	7	3	2	13
Support Helicopters	20.5	26.5	7.5	9.75	64.25
Transport and Tanker Aircraft	51 ⁽⁶⁾	82 ⁽⁶⁾			82

(1) Currently a third Aircraft Carrier is required to maintain two available for operations.

(2) Only one amphibious operation at any one time is planned, therefore no Medium Scale concurrency is assumed.

(3) Includes one for strategic intelligence.

(4) This reflects the number of infantry tasks in Northern Ireland. However, as explained above, units from other arms are available to fill some of these tasks, thus reducing the requirement for infantry battalions to 40.

(5) Would require the use of operational conversion unit aircraft.

(6) It is assumed that the deployment timings of two concurrent Medium Scale deployments will be staggered meaning that concurrency requirements for transport aircraft at Medium Scale will not arise.