More Horses Than Tanks

 More Horse Than Tanks

The Case For Public Duties

            It is an oft repeated statement that the British Army currently operates more horses than tanks. This is technically correct, if one discounts the Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle (Tracked), the British Army will under Future Soldier operate 148 Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks and 485 horses, mainly under the Defence Animal Centre, Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery but also, of course, Corporal Cruachan IV of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and finally the famous ceremonial duty haters, The Parachute Regiment, outsource their Public duties to Pegasus (a pony who unfortunately can't fly). In this article I'm going to argue that all of this is necessary for armed forces to both maintain the support of the public and recruit well.

            Firstly, while public duties obviously have limited military value on the face of it, the British military's recruiting is probably at an all time low. With operations constantly deployed at a near brigade level in Afghanistan and Iraq drawing to a close, large scale State Ceremonial and Public Duties (SCPD) will probably be some of the only times the Armed Forces get some publicity and awareness besides Remembrance Day (not great for recruiting) and when a ship breaks down/3 PARA has an orgy/racist recruiting policy. Trooping the Colour or the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo are excellent ambassadors for the British Armed Forces to both our own people and the world.

            Included in this point are indeed the horses, ponies, sheep, rams, Irish Wolfhounds and otterhounds of the British Army; while it is unlikely that the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment are going to be leading a cavalry charge against a battalion of T-72 MBTs, their mounted band and horses act as ambassadors for the British Army and Global Britain. The same goes for the regimental mascots, Corporal Cruachan IV spreads awareness of his Regiment both through public engagements, meeting veterans and small children alike, and online, where the corporal has 2,700 followers on twitter (the obvious gauge for how effective the army is).

            However, it could also be argued that state ceremonial and public duties has a detrimental effect on a battalions morale and potentially manpower- this is often quoted as the reason all public duties should be abandoned completely and the Army should do nothing but run around Salisbury Plain with a knife between every soldiers jaw. However, blaming public duties for this could well be unfair. If you read the most recent manning liabilities for infantry battalions, you will recognise that some of the most understrength battalions are from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Royal Welsh and Royal Irish. This suggests that the recruitment difficulties may in fact be due to them all having smaller pools who also tend to dislike the UK more than in England. This is also backed up by the fact that the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards, which both recruit in England, are some of the best recruited regiments in the infantry.

            Another of the main lines against the British Army's ceremonial role is to say something along the lines of, 'The French/Americans/Australians manage without horses/massed bands/ceremonial duties teams'. Not only is this a rather stupid way to think about it (other countries have other priorities), it is also demonstrably incorrect. The French Republican Guard have both horses and a mounted band while the US Armed Forces maintain over a hundred bands of various sizes and the ADF fields the Federation Guard. All this proves ceremonial duties form a part of the vast majority of countries armies; it would be deeply embarrassing for the United Kingdom to not have a band to play the national anthems during a State Visit.

            Finally, the killer of the Household Division itself. 'The British Army has more horses than tanks,' as I said in the introduction, this is indeed true, 148 Challengers to 485 horses. What this leaves out is that a horse is a lot cheaper than one of, if not the, most advanced Main Battle Tanks. The solution to this problem is not to dispose of the Army's horses, but to buy more tanks. Even if - against the advice of probably everyone in Main Building - the Defence Secretary decided to disband the Kings Troop, Royal Horse Artillery and Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, selling all their horses he would soon find himself the funds for a massive increase in the Royal Armoured Corps.

            A well trained Irish Draught horse (which is the breed most commonly used by the British Army) seems to sell for around £15,000 (remember market forces and supply and demand would probably actually decrease this quite a bit if 500 extra horses went up for sale) and the Army owns 485 meaning the MOD would potentially make around £7,275,000 from their disposal. When they were procured in 1993, a Challenger 2 MBT cost £4,217,000 which, adjusted for inflation, is £7,328,661.48 in today money. This means for the loss of every horse in the army we could nearly have one more tank!

            Hopefully, you will be able to see now that, while indeed an extra role for the infantry, public duties don't actually affect the Field Army that much, seen as the 'cap badge mafia' seem to prize cap badges and kilts more than the deployability of the force, leaving us in the unusual predicament of having a lot more infantry battalions than supporting arms. Why then does it matter, if these infantry battalions occupy themselves with an activity, helping show Britain and her army off in the best possible light to the world, instead of sitting in barracks in Catterick since they can't deploy without signallers? 

Over to you twitter!

BMR  

God Save The Queen