Thinner red line

sir – The manpower strength of the British Army is worse than the reported 77,500 (January 11).

The figures from the latest official monthly service personnel report show that in October 2017 we had only 74,590 “trade-trained” regulars – 9 per cent fewer than the 82,000 required.

The reason for the discrepancy is that, in October 2016, the Ministry of Defence chose to include soldiers who have not yet completed trade training in its statistics. Consequently, the Government’s figure may be considered as the number of soldiers “ready to fight but ineffectively”. Dr Chris Couldrick

Shrivenham, Oxfordshire