http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/1 ... s-job-cuts

It's the fcuking MoD bosses they wanna be looking at

I agree with you over the fact they should be looking at streamlining the structure over the active personell to reduce costs. But the sad and cruel fact is the Ghurkas are a mercenary force in the British Army and as such are the easiest to reduce in numbers.

Surely if there is a possibility of Scotland getting independence then we should put a hold on this.

After all if they do get it then we will need to replace all of the Scottish regiments. This could be done by increasing the number of Ghurkhas

Just how big an army do you think a country of 5m people would either need or be able to support? Scotland on it's own is the same size (roughly) as Finland, which has an armed forces total containing roughly 9000 members. The British Army as it stands has roughly 110,000 members. The 'Scottish division' of the British army contains ONE regiment (the Royal Regiment of Scotland).

The Gurkhas are actually roughly the same size as that (they have three battalions, which under British Army organisation is the same as one regiment)
But the bare fact is losing the Scottish division won't even account for the required redundancies the army has to make under the last spending review. Even if the Scottish division upped sticks and became The Scottish Army, they'd still have to sack people on top of that.

I personally think we should keep our connection with the Gurkas because they're well known for being bloody good soldiers. But the independence situation isn't going to change things, unfortunately.

Jon