Trailer episode: Why now and why is this an important conversation?

Military training budgets are getting hot in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Holding big live exercises is expensive. Very expensive. And as military budgets are increasingly under pressure from over budget equipment costs, and pay rises for service personnel, cuts to the training budgets look like easy ‘savings’. But there isnt much evidence that postponing exercises or curtailing them can do anything else other than to reduce the combat effectivness of military forces. Simulation offers a possible alternative, yet even those who provide these services do not say it is a replacement for live training in the field, at sea or in the air. If we continue to simply look at and measure military training through a financial prism, we will be on a hiding to nothing. This podcast wants to look at where we started to disregard the importance of training military forces in the UK, and what we can do about it.