British army will take two-year hit from Olympics: report

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British army will take two-year hit from Olympics: report

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's armed forces will take two years to recover from their involvement in the Olympic Games because the high number of personnel deployed at short notice were taken away from normal duties, the army's chief planner for the Games told the Guardian newspaper.

Wing Commander Peter Daulby, who was put in charge of the army's Olympic planning 18 months ago, said the capability to send 18,000 troops to the Games highlighted the danger of "pulling the military down."

"We were originally planning to provide niche capabilities. When the requirement for venue security was doubled, that was a bit of a game changer," Daulby was quoted as saying in the Guardian on Tuesday.

"It will take two years to recover from this, to get back to normal, to get everything back into kilter. You can't expect them to go back to normal routine very easily."

The Olympics became the largest peacetime operation ever performed by Britain's armed forces after security firm G4S could not supply all of the promised 10,400 guards for the two-week sporting festival.

Daulby said the UK's commitment to Afghanistan had not been affected by the Olympics but the military had exceeded by 6,000 the maximum number of people he thought the Ministry of Defense could supply.

"Anything above 18,000 and you start to shut down elements of defense," he said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said the defense contribution to the Olympics had been planned to avoid an impact on current operations.

"While some individual training and leave may need to be rescheduled, this will be managed and will not impact on operations including the ongoing mission in Afghanistan," he said.

British Defense Minister Philip Hammond said on Tuesday that G4S's failure to provide enough guards has shown that there were some things only state organizations, such the army, could be relied upon to do.

Hammond, currently overseeing the largest overhaul of Britain's armed forces in a generation, said in an interview with the Independent that "the story of G4S and the military rescue is quite informative."

Regular trained members of Britain's army will be cut to 82,000 from 102,000 by 2020 to save money.

British army will take two-year hit from Olympics: report - Yahoo! News

An army is supposed to have flexibility to switch from tasks without losing its efficiency.

If the British Army was used to provide for security for the Games, then it should not, in any way, make them training wise or operationally unfit.

It is correct that the training schedules and leave planning would be skewed, but then it can be made up with some imagination.

Training schedule could be truncated by cutting down on the routine and repetitive which are there more of a refresher and shortfall in leave recompensed with money.

Since operational tasks in Afghanistan has not been affected, there should be no worry about not being able to meet operational needs.

Therefore, what could be the grounds wherein it is felt that the British Army will take two years to return to normal?