The Defense Committee of the UK House of Commons has published on the Parliament’s website a report on the state of the armored units of the UK Armed Forces, describing a scenario of a possible military conflict with Russia.
“If the British army is fighting an equal enemy, which means Russia, in Eastern Europe for the next few years, our troops, although undoubtedly still some of the best in the world, would be shamefully forced into battle using outdated armored vehicles. vehicles.
Many of these machines are more than 30 years old, they have very low mechanical reliability, they are extremely seriously less efficient in terms of firepower than modern artillery and missile systems and they constantly do not receive sufficient air support, “the media quoted the document as saying.
According to British parliamentarians, the country’s Ministry of Defense and the army leadership were aware of the need to renew the fleet of military equipment.
But the failure of programs aimed at this has led to further obsolescence of the exploited models. This in turn “affects the overall potential and fighting power of the army, especially in the face of a potential equal adversary like Russia,” the report said.
“Since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the army’s fleet of combat vehicles has been characterized by increasing obsolescence and a steadily declining decline in the number (of vehicles). In 1990, Britain had 1,200 main battle tanks, today there are 227, and those that remain are in urgent need of modernization, the report said.
In addition, parliamentarians mentioned the latest Armata tank and the creation in Russia of improved armor for other combat vehicles in operation. The authors of the report expressed doubts about the ability of the British tank Challenger 2 “to withstand this new threat.” It is also noted that it is also inferior to similar war machines of NATO allies.
The report also includes an analysis by Brigadier General Ben Barry. He concluded that a special reduced division, to be created by 2025, “will not be able to defeat a modern Russian armored division, but rather will be surpassed.”
It will be recalled that on Friday Estonia announced the holding of joint exercises in the Baltic Sea with the participation of the naval forces of the United Kingdom, Latvia and Lithuania.
In addition, it became known on Wednesday of Britain’s decision to send ships to the Arctic to counter Russia’s “strategic advantage in controlling new trade routes that are opening up due to melting Arctic ice.”
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