I posted a reply on Six's blog concerning Afghanistan where I mentioned the fact that there were more U.K troops in Northern Ireland than in Iraq and Afghanistan added together.
The military contingents deployed overseas are:
Germany 20,885
Iraq 8,077
Afghanistan 871
Bosnia and Kosovo 829
Cyprus 3,458
The Falklands and Ascension Island (South Atlantic Islands) 1,212
Gibraltar 564
Diego Garcia 37
Northern Ireland 9,943
This excludes those on NATO excerises, coalitions, or part of the Lebanon-Israel peace-keeping force or those in Sierra Leone etc, the number of U.K military personnel overseas but not in one of the countries listed above is approximately 16,000.
The military contingents deployed overseas are:
Germany 20,885
Iraq 8,077
Afghanistan 871
Bosnia and Kosovo 829
Cyprus 3,458
The Falklands and Ascension Island (South Atlantic Islands) 1,212
Gibraltar 564
Diego Garcia 37
Northern Ireland 9,943
This excludes those on NATO excerises, coalitions, or part of the Lebanon-Israel peace-keeping force or those in Sierra Leone etc, the number of U.K military personnel overseas but not in one of the countries listed above is approximately 16,000.
Note: I have used Hansard and various newspapers as the source - some online sources have higher/lower figures for example wikipedia states there are 11,000 in Northern Ireland, I couldn't find any other source to confirm this. Interestingly the Army's own website states that it has 21,000 troops in Germany which could be formed into nine battlegroups - perhaps it knows something we don't!
8 comments:
Paul I'm hoping that you can answer this question for me but why on earth do we still have so many in Germany? The cold war is over, isn't it?
Mags,
The reasons we have so many troops left in Germany are two-fold, firstly they are part of our NATO commitment and secondly, and more bizarrely, there isn't enough Army housing stock available in the U.K to bring them home.
The army in N.Ireland should be reduced considerably in the next year.
Thanks Paul. They sold a lot of the housing stock off. I suppose it wasn't in the right place.
I heard a couple of months ago that there are the proportionally the fewest personnel employed in the armed services than at any other time in history.
Six,
You're right - I think for the first time in history you could actually fit all the Armed Forces personnel inside Wembley Stadium - mind you they'd need hard hats
How come we've got 37 troops in Diego Garcia?
Six,
They've been there since 2001 as part of you know what - it's seen as a strategic base should the U.K want to use the airbase to launch an air attack.
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