November 25, 2008: Britain is having maintenance problems with its 67 U.S. made AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships. Currently, only 20 are fit for service, either in Afghanistan, or for training pilots back in Britain. The problem has been building for over a year. Cuts in defense spending in Britain led to low stockpiles of spare parts for many major weapons systems. As a result, the hard working British AH-64 helicopter gunships in Afghanistan are suffering a shortage of spare parts. In reaction to this, hundreds of parts were removed from Britain's AH-64 fleet in order to keep those in Afghanistan in working order. Some British officers would like to get more AH-64s to Afghanistan, but the spare parts situation makes that inadvisable (as it would ground a large number of other AH-64s that were cannibalized.)

Britain has been cutting back on defense spending since the end of the Cold War in 1991, as have most other European countries. But operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have put more helicopters into the air, more often, and in very demanding (hot and dusty) conditions. This has used up spare parts stockpiles, causing many helicopters to be sidelined and often cannibalized for parts, to keep other aircraft in the air. The British military had kept details of this quiet, but it finally got out, and now opposition members of parliament are attempting to force the government to buy more spares and technical services.