Recent war games in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that British troops would run out of ammunition within the first 10 days of a war.
This is according to former Minister for the Armed Forces John Spellar, member of parliament (MP) for Warley in western England, who made a statement expressing his concern during a session of the House of Commons on Tuesday, March 26.
Spellar, who served as Armed Forces Minister between 1999 and 2001 during the tenure of Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, voiced his serious warning in the Commons during defense questions.
"The minister rightly speaks about the ability to sustain fighting, he knows that an exercise conducted with the Americans showed that the British Army would run out of munitions within 10 days," Spellar said, in remarks addressed to outgoing Armed Forces Minister James Heappey.
"In exercises that I have seen where the U.K. have operated alongside the U.S., what happens again and again and again is that American senior commanders hold the U.K. force elements in the highest of regard," said Heappey in a response that did not directly contradict the concern regarding munitions.
Conservative MP Richard Drax of South Dorset, a former British Army officer and a member of the Defense Committee, broke with the party and expressed his concerns about British munitions stockpiles.
"I would challenge the fact that we are ready to fight a sustained war with the armed forces that we have, and bearing in mind all the threats that we face that's become very real. Would the defense minister now stand at the dispatch box and say we need to spend a lot more money on defense?" Drax said.
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Heappey replied: "The reality is that our armed forces remain fearsome. Yes, it is the job of this House, and particularly Mr. Drax's committee, to scrutinize, as they have, our readiness."
He also agreed that the British Armed Forces "need reinvestment in their ability to sustain themselves at a war-fighting level." The current substandard state of the armed forces, he added, "is the consequence of a peace dividend that allowed successive governments to rightly disinvest in the resilience that kept our Cold War force credible."
Heappey: Britain must "urgently" invest more in defense budget
According to Heappey, the U.K. must "urgently" invest more in defense. In a separate statement, he noted that the goal of spending 2.5 percent of Britain's gross domestic product on defense "should be achieved urgently."
"The fiscal situation is improving, and this party has made that commitment," said Heappey, who previously served in Afghanistan. "Both parties [Labour and the Conservatives] should be strongly considering a further increase in defense spending in the next parliament.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps reiterated that the upcoming election manifesto of the Conservatives should contain a target for military spending to be raised to three percent of GDP, a full half percentage point more than Heappey's target. (Related: British Defense Secretary warns of WORLD WAR with China, Iran, North Korea and Russia in FIVE YEARS.)
The goal of spending 2.5 percent of GDP on the military is already 0.5 percent above the two percent target imposed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the increases in spending will come "as soon as economic conditions allow."
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Watch the video below about a British submarine firing faulty munitions.
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