British Army, Navy to get more muscle

Press, 16 May 1984, Page 10

British Army, Navy to get more muscle

NZPA-Reuter London The British Government said yesterday that it would reverse the run-down of the Royal Navy and beef up its' Army on duty in West Germany.

The Defence Secretary, Mr Michael Heseltine, outlined the moves in his £l7 billion (36.4 billion) defence budget and policy statement for 1984. He reaffirmed that the British Government was determined to maintain a credible defence deterrent through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but was also committed to pursuing genuine progress in arms control. Mr Heseltine, who took over as Defence Secretary when Sir John Nott resigned after the Falklands war in 1982, ditched the policy of his predecessor to take up to eight of the Navy’s active fleet of 50 warships out of service by 1986.

None of the ships would now be moth-balled, effectively increasing the number of destroyers and frigates available for duty at short notice by up to 20 per cent, he said. Sir John’s critics had asserted that his proposed run-down of the Navy had encouraged Argentina to seize the Falkland Islands in April, 1982. Britain dispatched a huge naval task force to reclaim them.

Mr Heseltine said that the British Army of the Rhine, the country’s contingent of 55,000 men committed to the forward defence of Western Europe, would be strengthened.

Britain would form an extra armoured regiment later in the decade, create a new air' defence regiment equipped with new missiles, and start equipping regiments with the new multi-

pie-barrelled rocket launch, system. Mr Heseltine, one of the most influential Ministers in Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government, made it clear that it was still committed to buying the American Trident missile as Britain’s next-gen-eration independent nuclear deterrent. The cost of the sub-marine-based Trident to replace Polaris missiles has nearly doubled in the last four years to £8.7 billion (18.6 billion), prompting some defence experts to urge Mrs Thatcher to look for a cheaper alternative. Mr Heseltine said that as part of his drive to streamline management of defence he intended to open more contracts to competition. He said that that should result in big savings, noting that 46 per cent of the defence budget went on buying equipment