tanks would be cut by 40%. All three of Britain's armed forces would take cuts in manpower. Overall, the largest overseas deployment was expected to be not more than 30,000 personnel, including maritime and air force units. This compares to the 45,000 involved in the
2003 invasion of Iraq. In November 2010, the MoD released its plan to implement the changes.
Royal Navy , previously RFA
Largs Bay, was sold to the
Royal Australian Navy following the SDSR. • Personnel to be reduced by 5,000 to 30,000. • One of the landing ship dock vessels would be decommissioned. • The number of warheads carried on each submarine to be reduced from 48 to 40, and the number of operationally available nuclear warheads to be reduced from about 160 to no more than 120. • The surface fleet of frigates and destroyers to be reduced to 19 ships: the current 13
Type 23 frigates and the six active
Type 45 destroyers. The remaining four
Type 22 frigates: (decommissioned 2011), (2011), (2011), and (2011) and five
Type 42 destroyers: (decommissioned 2011), (2011), (2012), (2012), and (2013) would be disposed of. The Report also announced the early retirement of the
Joint Force Harrier aircraft, the
Harrier GR7/GR9. Both of these measures were to save money for the purchase of the aircraft carriers. In 2011 72 British Harriers were sold to the United States to be used for spares. The SDSR proposed that one of the two
Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers currently under construction would be certain to be commissioned, with the fate of the other left undecided. It had been suggested that only one carrier, routinely equipped with 12 fast jets, was to be in service at any one time, with the other carrier held in extended readiness. These plans were to be reviewed in 2015. The SDSR announced the government's intention to switch its purchase of F-35Bs to the carrier-variant F-35C to allow for a wider range and weapons to be used.
British Army • Personnel to be reduced by 7,000 to 95,500 by 2015. To take place within the overall mandate of reducing the army's size to 82,000 regular personnel and 30,000 reservists by 2018. • The withdrawal of all 20,000 British troops from
bases in Germany by 2020. • The number of
Challenger 2 tanks to be cut by 40% to just over 200.
RAF Kinloss, where the aircraft were to be based, ended its 73-year association with the RAF on 26 July 2012 when it was transferred to the Army. •
Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft procurement to go ahead, to replace the ageing
VC10 and
TriStars. • The purchase of 22
Airbus A400M military transport aircraft was confirmed, with the aircraft to operate alongside the RAF's eight
C-17s. However, in 2011 the Ministry of Defence signed a contract for 14 Chinooks. • The RAF's future fast-jet fleet to be based on the
Typhoon and the
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, with the latter also to be flown by the Royal Navy. ==Criticism==