Options for Change was a restructuring of the British Armed Forces in summer 1990 after the end of the Cold War.[1]
Until this point, UK military strategy had been almost entirely focused on defending Western Europe against the Soviet Armed Forces, with the Royal MarinesinScandinavia, the Royal Air Force (RAF) in West Germany and over the North Sea, the Royal Navy in the Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic, and the British Army in Germany.[2]
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact occurring between 1989 and 1991, the threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe fell away. While the restructuring was criticised by several British politicians, it was an exercise mirrored by governments in almost every major Western military power, reflecting the so-called peace dividend.[3]
Total manpower was cut by approximately 18 per cent to around 255,000 (120,000 army; 60,000 navy; 75,000 air force).[1]
Other casualties of the restructuring were the UK's nuclear civil defence organisations, the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation, and its field force, the Royal Observer Corps (a part-time volunteer branch of the RAF), both disbanded between September 1991 and December 1995.[4]
Overall the Royal Armoured Corps was a merger of 18 regiments, this was achieved by the formation of 10 new regiments through amalgamations and new formations.
Bands
Regulars
Territorial Army
Regulars
Territorial Army
RAF Germany itself was disbanded on 1 April 1993, being downgraded to group-level and becoming No. 2 Group of Strike Command.
A dramatisation of the effects that Options for Change had on the ordinary men and women serving in the armed forces came in the ITV series Soldier Soldier. The fictional infantry regiment portrayed in the series, the King's Fusiliers, was one of those selected for amalgamation. It showed the whole process of negotiation over traditions, embellishments, etc. between the two regiments involved, and the uncertainty that many of those serving felt for their jobs in the light of two separate battalions merging into one, with the resulting loss of manpower.
