'WIPED OUT'
British Army would be destroyed in a year if it had to fight ‘bloodbath war’ like Ukraine, veterans minister warns
Moscow is more than managing to replace its battlefield losses raising 30,000 recruits a month
BRITAIN’S Army would be wiped out in a year if it had to fight a bloodbath war on the scale of the slaughter in Ukraine.
Veterans minister Al Carns, a former Royal Marine colonel, warned eye-watering losses to both sides proved the need for better reserves.
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He said: “In a war of scale similar to Ukraine, our army would be expended in six months to a year.”
It came as a top former general warned “our weakness is like blood in the water to our enemies”.
Carns insisted the war in Ukraine did not mean Britain needed a bigger Army.
It has shrunk to a record low of 71,400 trained troops – its smallest size in 300 years.
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Meanwhile Russia has lost a staggering 700,000 soldiers both dead and wounded in Ukraine, an average of 700 soldiers a day.
But Moscow is more than managing to replace its battlefield losses raising 30,000 recruits a month.
Carns said Russia was on the cusp of moving on to its “third army” of the three year war.
The former elite commando stopped short of calling for conscription.
But he warned that Britain’s enemies “plan for attrition [and] we very rarely get a choice.”
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He added: “Most wars are attritional.”
General Sir James Everard, a former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato, said: “Our weakness is like blood in the water to our enemies.”
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Addressing defence chiefs at the Rusi think tank in London, he added: “While we are not a nation at war, we should act as though we are”
He said that Russia was winning the war in Ukraine on numbers.
He said: “Russia is generating more man power than it is losing and Ukraine is losing more manpower than it is generating.”
He said some allies hoped that the war in Ukraine would “bleed Russia dry”.
Britain’s shrinking army won’t be able to fight Russia and is now less than HALF the size of Germany’s, says EU general
ALARM bells are ringing in Europe over Britain’s ability to fight with its rapidly shrinking armed forces.
A top official warned “size matters” as the Army nosedived to a historic low of just 73,000 trained troops.
France has over 110,000 soldiers while Germany is growing its total armed forces to over 200,000 personnel.
An EU general told The Sun: “There is a concern about the British Army.
“You must have mass, you must have numbers.
“In Ukraine you can see, we must have mass to fight the Russian army.”
A second general, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “the British Army is still in decline”.
He added: “None of the recent announcements have moved the dial on that.”
PM Rishi Sunak pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030.
But he is standing by plans to shrink the Army to 73,000 – its smallest size for 300 years.
But he warned: “It is our equipment bunkers and equipment hangars that are empty.”
He said history showed that small armies were decimated in major conflicts.
General Sir Jim Hockenhull, head of the UK's Strategic Command, said there were more amputees from the war in Ukraine than soldiers in the British Army.
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