Armed Forces for an Independent Scotland

This assumes that Salmond manages to achieve at least limited independence, which may or may not include the need to defend North Sea oil assets. Note that the existence of England and Europe reduces the need to worry about invasions.

So, will the country be able to afford a Norwegian solution or head towards an Irish solution?

Thoughts, please...
 

Thande

Donor
378 aircraft carriers...

More seriously an independent Scotland would be militarily like Ireland...or even Iceland (who's going to attack them, exactly?)
 
They inherit some good British troops and might continue to participate in UN missions to gain prestige.

Otherwise either very little or a mostly territorial/conscript force.

It would be cool if they introduce some pseudo-celtic/pictish parade dress (including blue-white face paint)
 
I see a Scottish Armed Forces being a mostly infantry-based military with some token armour and artillery, armoured vehicles/cars, helicopters, Medium-Lift Transports, and very basic naval patrol units.
 
Ok heres a educated guess......

Navy - Few patrol boats/corvettes for fisheries/oil protection.

Air Force - Lots of helicopters, maybe a sqaudron of jet fighters for security.

Army - Few battalions of infantry for security, some "baby" tanks/trucks for transport and some type of special forces unit Highland Rangers or something with help setting them up from the SAS or Navy Seals.
 
It depends on how North Sea is divided. Scotland would hve to maintain strong naval presence there to protect oil instalations, fishing rights and so forth. Protecting fishing rights, that is keeping everybody else out or force them to play by their rules, is specialy important as other side does it with civilians and on temporary basis, unlike oil/gas drilling where you'd have to set up permanent and highly visible instalations. so mybet would be something fast but ocean going.

Oh and kilts & bagpipes. :cool:
 

Anderman

Donor
For the land force a militia system like Switzerland, everbody has an assault rifle at home. If there is a constitution write something like the american 2. AM. into it, society should develop a gun culture. etc
 
A sizeable number of UK special forces types come from Scotland. I could see there being quite a strong SAS type contingent in an independant Scottish army. Perhaps reinstate some axed historical regiments together with their Royal prefixes plus specialists such as paras, engineers etc. Smallish navy as already mentioned and a smallish air force.

Interestingly enough I remember an article in an English tabloid newspaper some years ago that quoted the SNP as saying that the Scottish air force would have 22 aircraft. I think possibly they knocked a zero off the end for effect which would give a quite viable little air force of 220 aircraft if I'm right. Whether or not I'm right (they probably really did mean 22) it's fun to speculate what an independant Scottish air force with 220 aircraft would comprise.

So, just for fun: 6 main flying components.
1. Joint Services Flying Training School; Prestwick AB for basic training of pilots and aircrew. Advanced training might be contracted in Canada or UK or wherever.
2. Scottish Naval Air Service; Kinloss AB. Maritime patrol type such as Orion and Prestwick AB with ASW and general purpose helicopter types like the Lynx. Perhaps a fast jet squadron for maritime strike and recce Tornado GR4.
3. Air Mobility (Regiment?) Army helicopters. Lynx, Merlin or ?
4. Air Support (Regiment?) Transports and tankers etc. C130s.
5. Air Combat (Regiment?) Leuchars AB. Multi role fighters such as Typhoon or similar, perhaps cheaper options. Gripen? F18?
6. Air Combat Reserve. Flights of Hawks scattered at various ABs. Could revive historical squadron numbers associated with area such as 603 flight, Edinburgh and 602 flight, Glasgow.

Implausible I know. As I said 22 aircraft/helicopters is probably closer to what the politicians have in mind.
 
This is from Fletcher of Saltoun's fine A Very British Divorce (set in 2015, written in 2008):

"The British Army is the finest orginisation in the world."

11(b) The Negotiations.

The split of defence assets was always likely to be one of the more controversial subjects in the negotiations. How the UK armed forces were to be disentangled was to be not only a political question, but a question of nuclear law. For the Scots, the main question would be whether there should be an independent Scottish Defence Force. For the United Kingdom as a whole the question would be over how to reconstitute the UK Armed forces under two sovereign authorities.

The starting point of this stage of the negotiations was to be Scottish contribution to the UK armed forces, including questions such as ; What is located in Scotland? What do the individual regiments do(the Signals, REME etc.)? What would it take to disentangle Scottish contributions?

The MOD released data suggesting theree were 6,000 direct defence jobs located within Scotland. In the Army, there were 12,000 Scots as opposed to 96,000 non-Scots, in the RAF, 5,600 as opposed to 49,000 non-Scots(1). There was a similar ratio in the RN. How they would be disentangled was a major question.

Following two days of intensive negotiations, it was agreed that the Royal Regiment of Scotland should be transferred to any Scottish Defence Force. Three RAF Squadrons, to serve RAF Leuchars, Lossiemouth and Kinloss. It was agreed that Scottish personel in non-regional specific regiments should be given the choice of Scottish or UK service.

With regards to the Royal Navy, it was agreed that Scotland should get two of the Type 23 Frigates, one hunter class mine counter measeure vessel and two Archer fast patrol boats.(2)


This led onto the issue of the RN base at Faslane on the Clyde. It was a major commitment of the SNP to get nuclear weapons out of the Clyde. For them this was non-negotiable. Following intensive discussions, it was agreed that the UK nuclear submarines would be removed, but in a phased withdrawal over seven years, during which time the UK Government would pay an Independent Scotland for use of the base on Scottish territory.(3)

(1) Actual MOD Figures for the late 90's. I do not have up to dat info.
(2)Sorry, no Scottish Aircraft Carriers.;)
(3)This is the only feasible solution I can see which will work.



 
For the land force a militia system like Switzerland, everbody has an assault rifle at home. If there is a constitution write something like the american 2. AM. into it, society should develop a gun culture. etc

I believe we are speaking about OTL Scotland... the nation where there is popular support with the idea of banning airguns.

As to answer the OP, personnally I think Scotland would be closer to Norwey military wise compared to Ireland. As a lot of towns and areas depend on the army as both employment with army bases in them and also a place where the jobless an get employed (such as in some parts of the Central Belt where the only job is quite often to be found in the military.
 
I always wondered, where does the 378 Scotish aircraft carriers come from?

The oil money that Westminster has been keeping from us.

I would advocate that as a new nation we renounce war making capabilities whatsoever, creating a Scottish Self Defence Force outside of NATO but involved in UN peacekeeping missions.
 
The Red...

...The Japanese Self-Defence Forces have a remarkable degree of equipment and warfighting capability. Ireland and Iceland don't (they shelter behind US/UK and the rest of NATO). Sweden and Switzerland make themselves costly to attack. Norway is in NATO and has a blend of territorial and professional forces.

Oilfields are everybody's favourite possession. If the UK wants the oil, they should guard it and give Scotland a cut. Scotland can then concentrate on more meaningful elements of territorial defence and support. The mission statement for Scottish forces is maybe the most important element.
 
Commonwealth citizens are eligible to serve in the UK armed forces, so if Scotland is independent, and assuming it doesn't leave the Commonwealth, realistically the Scottish squaddies, etc., will just join the rump-UK armed forces.

I can even see some Scottish-named formations continuing in the rump-UK armed forces - it's not like the Irish Guards disbanded the moment southern Ireland left the UK.

The real Scottish armed forces would be minimal, both because there are no major threats, and the type of Scottish government that leads Scotland to independence is not likely to have much of an appetite for larged armed forces or foreign adventures.

The only military Scotland needs is fishery protection, a glorified paramilitary police-force for domestic anti-terrorism and the like.

The only conceivable conflicts I can think of are disputes over fishing rights (perhaps with Norway or Iceland), or with the rump-UK over the division of assets in the North Sea or elsewhere.
 
Oilfields are every body's favourite possession. If the UK wants the oil, they should guard it and give Scotland a cut. Scotland can then concentrate on more meaningful elements of territorial defence and support. The mission statement for Scottish forces is maybe the most important element.
Well if the UK really wanted to be arsehole about a Scotland that looked like it was going to be voting for full independence they could try and recognise the Shetland Islands as a Crown Dependency. Not sure if it would stand up legally but the idea of the SNP gaining independence whilst losing most of the oil to 22,000 islanders demanding their oil back is faintly amusing just for the look on Salmond's face. :)
 
...The Japanese Self-Defence Forces have a remarkable degree of equipment and warfighting capability. Ireland and Iceland don't (they shelter behind US/UK and the rest of NATO). Sweden and Switzerland make themselves costly to attack. Norway is in NATO and has a blend of territorial and professional forces.

Japan understandably has to have large self-defence forces considering the proximity of Russia, China and North Korea but Scotland has no immediate threats, guarded by the Atlantic to the west and numerous European allies to our east. Thus we should have a similar armed forces to Ireland, a small infantry based self defence force with some tanks and APC's. There's no-one to defend the oil fields against which couldn't't handled by the Scottish Self Defence Force.

The mission statement for Scottish forces is maybe the most important element.

Exactly, the fact that we declare our armed forces pacifist and humanitarian will reflect well on the nation.
 
If we were fortunate enough to get shot of Scotland then please take Frankie Boyle back with you, along with The Krankies, Suebo, Lorraine Kelly, the freak who does the Hollywood bollocks, Gordon Brown and the rest of them....

;)

and as for your forces, Ireland has 6 infantry 'battalions' (ahem), 4 squadrons/batteries/companies each engineers, cavalry, artillery, MP's, etc plus loggies. Air Service (can't call it an air force) has around 15 fixed wing and a similar number of light helicopters, naval service has at most 10 patrol vessels. Scotland would 'need' a similar sized force maybe a tad bigger. Old Scottish brigades pre 1958 algamations-Scots Guards, Royal Scots, Royal Scots Fusiliers, KOSB, Cameronians, Black Watch, Highland LI, Argyll & Sutherland H, Seaforth H, Gordon H, Cameron H, -thats 11 battalions although before 1938 each regiment had 2 regular battalions and most had at least 5 TA battallions. Add to this your Paras and former RM's...
Armour-Scots Greys and RTR were only armour associated with Scotland although there was always a LOT of Yeomanry units.
Artillery- currenntly 2 regts describe themselves as Scottish... and so on.
Naval Service-ASW frigates, Norway has 5 frigate style ships plus quite a few patrol ships and vessels, plus submarines and so on. Air Force -couple wings.

More realistically...

5 'brigade' HQ's for local control (W Highland, E Highland, W Lowland and E Lowland, Islands)and 1 active mobile brigade HQ (51st/52nd Brigade). The local brigades with two combined arms battalions with a traditional title, plus local TA (including Yeomanry squadron with old title using Land Rovers or Supacat Jackels) to create a full brigade. The regular brigade with the Scots Greys (with LAV's), RTR with some tanks, 2 infantry bn groups (each with a varying number of companies from host regiments) plus 1 bn Scots Guards at Edinburgh. There'd also be an RDF/Special Ops Command with a bn (sort of) of Paras, Commandos and SAS etc.

(That way you keep your trad regiments have lots of pipe bands for tourism etc-each only has to have 1 RHQ and depot manned by old boys plus 3 active companies-modern Brit combat battalion groups are often formed from a mix of units anyway so your average squaddie would see no difference and still keep his cap badge family).

Air Force- 1 air sea rescue sqdn on contractor basis, couple transport squadrons, couple training squadrons, an MPA unit with Persuaders, and a strike fighter wing using Typhoons.

Navy- you'd really need 6 frigates to be a realistic force. Also 12 patrol vessels, some fleet support. Nice to have submarines but not happening.
 
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