Critical Thinking

With the budget tightening over the last few years (I feel like every post seems to start like that) decisions have been made over which capabilities to axe and which to keep, which to enhance and which to keep static or allow to fade. Understandably this has driven much discussion in the defence community, which in turn has led to a number of varying solutions being offered up.

But one of the things that plays on my mind when I read these various suggestions is "are we preparing for/thinking about, the right challenges?".

The Concentration of Effort

I've had an idea on paper for a few months now that was stirred again while reading Heinz Guderians book "Achtung - Panzer!", which I picked up second hand for the princely sum of 1 British penny. If I get time in the future I might start doing reviews of the military books on my shelf, but that's for another day.

The thing that reignited my earlier idea was when Guderian mentioned that tanks should not be dealt out in penny packets to support other arms, but instead should be concentrated together to deliver a decisive blow. It's the "concentration of effort" that I'm interested in here, but on a slightly grander scale.

With the UK's defence budget gradually dwindling and the size of the armed forces subsequently contracting, might more be achieved by a concentration of effort across the armed forces, as opposed to the penny packeting that occurs now? Allow me to explain.

Droning on

I know, the titles get worse each time.

Today I want to look at drones, on account of the recent PR offensive surrounding Taranis, which was probably best covered over at Think Defence (p.s. many thanks to TD for the 700 additional pageviews his recent promo generated!). This won't be specific to Taranis, more of a general thoughts.