This week the Telegraph is running a series of exclusive essays by expert commentators looking into Britain’s “hollow” armed forces.
3 (UK) Division is the core of the British Army as a war-fighting force. It has all the Army’s tanks, all its armoured infantry vehicles and all of its heavy artillery. Despite that, successive governments have allowed the Army to become so hollowed out that in reality it would be doing well to put just one of the division’s three brigades onto the battlefield equipped and ready to fight.
An armoured division is designed to be able to break through an enemy force to take and hold ground. The Ukrainian offensive towards Tokmak in the summer of 2023 was precisely the kind of operation for which 3 (UK) Division was conceived. The Ukrainians attempted that operation spearheaded by a similar size force, with the first echelon comprising two armoured brigades and a mechanised brigade. The attack failed. The Ukrainians lacked adequate training or sufficient equipment.
Britain’s 3 Division armoured soldiers are better trained, but are worse equipped than their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine had 57 Leopard 2 tanks, 14 Challenger 2s, Vincent 1 breaching vehicles, Bradley and Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, a large number of upgraded Soviet-designed tanks, and some 55 howitzers in the forces committed to attack Tokmak. 3 (UK) Division, by contrast, will have no infantry fighting vehicle, currently fields 14 artillery pieces, and lacks the spares to support its tank fleet. In theory the Division will eventually field two Regiments of Challenger 3 main battle tanks, but it does not have the logistics or engineering equipment to support them. It does have a large fleet of M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, but Britain likely has fewer munitions for them than Ukraine received to support its 2023 counter offensive, which was insufficient. The very notion that the British division really has three brigade combat teams is hard to support: one of them is a “Deep Recce Strike” brigade without any main battle tanks or infantry.
This week the Telegraph is running a series of exclusive essays by expert commentators looking into Britain’s “hollow” armed forces.
3 (UK) Division is the core of the British Army as a war-fighting force. It has all the Army’s tanks, all its armoured infantry vehicles and all of its heavy artillery. Despite that, successive governments have allowed the Army to become so hollowed out that in reality it would be doing well to put just one of the division’s three brigades onto the battlefield equipped and ready to fight.
An armoured division is designed to be able to break through an enemy force to take and hold ground. The Ukrainian offensive towards Tokmak in the summer of 2023 was precisely the kind of operation for which 3 (UK) Division was conceived. The Ukrainians attempted that operation spearheaded by a similar size force, with the first echelon comprising two armoured brigades and a mechanised brigade. The attack failed. The Ukrainians lacked adequate training or sufficient equipment.
Britain’s 3 Division armoured soldiers are better trained, but are worse equipped than their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine had 57 Leopard 2 tanks, 14 Challenger 2s, Vincent 1 breaching vehicles, Bradley and Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, a large number of upgraded Soviet-designed tanks, and some 55 howitzers in the forces committed to attack Tokmak. 3 (UK) Division, by contrast, will have no infantry fighting vehicle, currently fields 14 artillery pieces, and lacks the spares to support its tank fleet. In theory the Division will eventually field two Regiments of Challenger 3 main battle tanks, but it does not have the logistics or engineering equipment to support them. It does have a large fleet of M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, but Britain likely has fewer munitions for them than Ukraine received to support its 2023 counter offensive, which was insufficient. The very notion that the British division really has three brigade combat teams is hard to support: one of them is a “Deep Recce Strike” brigade without any main battle tanks or infantry.