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  Monday 27th December 2004  World News   Powered by Yeast Logic
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That new-look British Army in full

Shake-up promises military in 'right shape for the future'
by our military affairs correspondent

The forthcoming year promises to be a traumatic one for the UK's armed forces — not least for the British Army which faces the dual prospect of overseeing elections in the sun-kissed paradise of Iraq while simultaneously undergoing a major restructuring ordered by defence secretary Geoff Hoon.

Hoon's radical plan will see the number of infantry battalions reduced from 40 to just four, and the creation of two "super regiments" — a move which would leave the Army in the "right shape for the future", according to General Sir Mike Jackson. Quite what that shape would be, Jackson was unable to elaborate, but sources close to Whitehall suspect that it "may be a bit like an outline of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but with a few extras arms tacked on". Critics, however, insist that the shape will be "more like a child's crayon representation of a Venn diagram illustrating the relationship between UK consumer confidence and the value of the pound against the euro".

Whatever the case, here is a summary of that historic military shake-up:

  • The Royal Scots, King's Own Scottish Borderers, the Black Watch, the Celtic Football Supporters' Club, the Western Isles Sheep Worriers and the Queen's Own Fish Supperers will merge to form the Right Royal Regiment of Scotland.
  • The 19th Mechanised Brigade, based in Catterick, will begin its conversion to an eco-friendly, mountain-bike-equipped rapid response force in January whose saddlebags will be packed with tasty sweets as part of the Iraq "Hearts and Minds" campaign. Fifty per cent of its personnel will be recruited from the massed ranks of the "Friends of Dorothy" as part of a plan to make the Army a more caring, more touchy-feely force for international good.
  • The King's Own Royal Border Regiment, the King's Regiment and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment will merge to form two new battalions within the new King's and Queen's Lancashire, Lancashire Border, Border and Borders Regiment. This force will be supplemented by one specialist regiment from the Prince of Wales' division charged with archtectural critique and organic farming.
  • The 4th Armoured Brigade — based in Germany — will be converted to a Mechanised Brigade in 2006 in response to German complaints that "Armoured" sounded too belligerent for deployment in our peace-loving European ally. Its principal role will be to assuage German indignation at British military outrages during 1945 in Dresden and Hamburg through a programme of rebuilding and charitable work.
  • The 7th Armoured Brigade — affectionately called "The Desert Rats" — will be outsourced to Bangalore. Any security threat within countries largely composed of sand will be dealt with by an elite force of university-educated callcentre operatives who will confound and confuse the enemy with their creative use of the English language.
  • Future jungle operations will be assigned to a crack unit of self-obsessed B-list celebrities who can survive for whole days on a diet comprised entirely of self-indulgent whining. This will allow members of the SAS to get on with what they do best — writing highly florid accounts of Gulf Wars I & II for the benefit of the UK's sensation-hungry reading public.
  • Finally, and to reflect the changing face of Britain, an entirely new force of fresh-faced asylum seekers will be recruited into Her Imperial Majestyness Queen Liz II's Swan Roasting Hussars, to be financed entirely by the UK's state benefits system. Recruits are expected to provide suitable material for abuse at Deepcut Barracks until 2012.

So there you have it. We would like to add that the British Army is currently looking for top grade recruits committed to "be the best". Preference will be given to Arab speakers with their own desert kit.

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