Front Line First: The Defence Cost Study was a UK programme of defence cuts announced on 14 July 1994 by then

Defence Secretary A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...

Malcolm Rifkind Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind (born 21 June 1946) is a British politician who served in the cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1986 to 1997, and most recently as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament fro ...

. Front Line First was announced four years after

Options for Change Options for Change was a restructuring of the British Armed Forces in summer 1990 after the end of the Cold War. Until this point, UK military strategy had been almost entirely focused on defending Western Europe against the Soviet Armed Forces, ...

, which was a military draw-down as a result of the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, often described as the "

peace dividend ''Peace dividend'' was a political slogan popularized by US President George H. W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the light of the 1988–1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, that described the economic benefit of a decrease in d ...

". Critics such as the Labour defence spokesman Donald Anderson argued that the cuts were driven by the Treasury, however Rifkind argued that the front line of the armed forces was not affected and it was support staff and assets which were being cut; Rifkind stated that one of the major conclusion of the study was that the "Ministry of Defence and other headquarters at all levels are too large, too top heavy and too bureaucratic."

Main changes

*Closure of

Rosyth naval base Rosyth Dockyard is a large naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation in the 1990s it was f ...

, retained as a Royal Naval Support Establishment. *Reduction of MOD civil servants by 7% (7,100) *Reduction of armed forces personnel by 5% (11,600) **

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

- 7,500 **

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

- 2,200 **

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

- 1,900 *These staff reductions included "more than 20 senior military and civilian jobs - that is Major-General level and above." *Closure of 17 depots. *Closure of 2 of the 3 military hospitals. Military wings to be set up at NHS hospitals. *Army, Navy and Air Force headquarters to be merged into a Joint HQ at Northwood. *Base closures: **

RAF Scampton Royal Air Force Scampton or RAF Scampton is a Royal Air Force station located adjacent to the A15 road near to the village of Scampton, Lincolnshire, and north-west of the city of Lincoln, England. RAF Scampton stands on the site of a Fi ...

RAF Finningley Royal Air Force Finningley or RAF Finningley was a Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force station at Finningley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The station straddled the historic county boundaries of both ...

** RNAS Portland **Royal Marines Music School,

Deal, Kent Deal is a coastal town in Kent, England, which lies where the North Sea and the English Channel meet, north-east of Dover and south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town whose history is closely linked to the anch ...

RAF Laarbruch Royal Air Force , more commonly known as RAF ICAO EDUL (from 1 January 1995 ETUL) was a Royal Air Force station, a military airfield, located in Germany on its border with the Netherlands. The Station's motto was (). The site now operates ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

New equipment orders

*Confirmation of order for 259 Challenger II tanks. *Confirmation of upgrade of 142 Tornado GR1s to GR4 standard. *Confirmation of order for 7 ''Sandown''-class minehunters. *Intent to spend £300 million on

laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly pr ...

s and

laser designator A laser designator is a laser light source which is used to designate a target. Laser designators provide targeting for laser-guided bombs, missiles, or precision artillery munitions, such as the Paveway series of bombs, AGM-114 Hellfire, o ...

s. *Intent to order 400,000 rounds of 51mm from

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

Royal Ordnance Royal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until then were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories (abbreviated ROFs) which manufactured explosives, ammuniti ...

. *A new class of nuclear submarine would be ordered, the Batch 2 ''Trafalgar'' class (what would become the s). *A new class of amphibious assault ships would be ordered (what would become the ). *Procurement of

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...

cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warh ...

to be studied.

References

External links

{{UK Defence Review British defence policymaking Government of the United Kingdom 1994 in the United Kingdom 1994 in politics 1994 in military history United Kingdom defence procurement 20th-century military history of the United Kingdom

Main changes

New equipment orders

See also

References

External links