British Army ‘would last an afternoon’ against Russia because we lack ammunition

As Ukraine's defence chief warns that Vladimir Putin is planning a ‘maximum escalation’ of the war, a leading British military expert has said that if the British Army were to be pulled into the fight, it would run out of ammunition in “a busy afternoon.”.

General Sir Richard Barrons, former Joint Forces chief, says years of government neglect have left Britain’s military ill-equipped for a major conflict, and our armed forces “smaller and less ready to fight than at any time in living memory”.

His words echo a warning from the Royal United Services Institute in December that said Britain’s ammunition stockpiles were “woefully deficient” and that in any serious armed conflict the Army would run out of ammunition in a week.

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Defence analyst Francis Tusa, explained: “From the Treasury’s point of view, holding stock is wrong. But we need to hold six months’ worth of ammo in case we get into a serious war.”

Sir Richard, writing in The Sun, says we rely on imported explosives for tank and artillery shells and ammunition factories in the UK would take a year to make as many shells in a day.

The forced have been “hollowed out” by spending cuts, he says.

The cuts might have made sense, Sir Richard admits, when the Cold War ended and we no longer faced the threat of war with the Soviet Union.

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“We spent money on health, education and welfare instead,” he says.

But now, Sir Richard adds, “we have a war in Europe, and our Armed forces are smaller and less ready to fight than at any time in living memory.

“The Army is on track to slip below 76,000 troops, about half the size of our Cold War force”.

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And with significant quantities of key equipment, such a shipment of 14 Challenger tanks, being loaned to Ukraine that leaves our own regiments distinctly low on kit.

In the Commons earlier week, Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee, said that the war in Ukraine had “exposed serious shortfalls in the war fighting capability of the British army”.

A defence source told The Times that many of the warnings about Britain's declining military capability were “based on assumptions”, and pointed out that exact levels of our ammunition stocks are "highly classified".

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