EU Referendum

The caption to the picture reads: "A Canadian convoy leaves a forward operating base in Panjwaii district, Afghanistan on Wednesday. The convoys are favourite targets of Taliban suicide bombers." Note the RG-31s used as convoy escorts.

The story is equally graphic:

In a country where everything is in short supply, the cargo carried by Canadian convoys is worth its weight in gold. "If the guys out at the front lines don't have the gear, they can't do their job, right?" says Master Cpl. Rich McLeod. "If they don't have their ammo, they don't have their food, they can't do what they gotta do." …

Adds McLeod, who had his worst day on the job during the first week in August:

(We) had a vehicle suicide bomber hit us and took out one of our tractor-trailers in the morning. Later on that day the convoy ended up getting mortared and they were blowing up all around us," he recalls. "Then on the way home in the evening we were ambushed by RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) and machine-gun fire."

If he'd been a British soldier, the chances are he would be dead or seriously injured. But hey! Why should a few lazy MPs be worried about details like that?

But you do wonder how they sleep at night.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: afghanistan, Canada, defence, RG-31

It has been known for some time that Taliban tactics are changing, with this blog reporting just over a week ago that they intended to resort to laying mines as a tactic to demoralise troops.

But it was also the case that they were going to be targeting troops with suicide bombs with the aim of killing as many soldiers as possible, to put pressure on the Nato governments.

And yesterday we perhaps saw another result of that tactic, a British Land Rover, part of a military convoy, damaged by a suicide car bomb in Kandahar, south Afghanistan. Three Royal Marines have been injured, one seriously. The other two are in a stable condition.

One thing is for certain, looking at the relatively modest damage to the vehicle, had the troops been riding in an RG-31, they would not even have had a headache. They might even have survived uninjured in a Snatch Land Rover – with its basic armour - but this is not even an armoured Land Rover.

It is a "wolf" version, stripped down and fitted with roll cages and weapons mounts – the so-called Weapons Mount Installation Kit (or "Wimik"). Fully equipped, it looks a macho machine in the style of David Stirling's World War II SAS jeeps. But it has no place as a convoy escort in Kandahar, where the suicide bomb is a known and potent enemy tactic and where, in the same town, two Canadian soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing last week.

Maybe yesterday, the three marines were "lucky" that they were just injured although, at least eight people other people were killed. According to Reuters, three civilians died when the bomber struck and five more were shot by troops afterwards.

As these appear to have been civilians, Nato spokesman Major Luke Knittig had said that the alliance will "establish the facts". But one fact is certain – deploying British troops in unarmoured vehicles in urban areas is too dangerous, exposing them to unnecessary risks. It is time to call a halt on this practice.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, RG-31

Not only the Telegraph but also the Mail on Sunday, The Independent and The Sunday Times all pick up on the story of idle troops at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

The Sunday Times has "British troops hide from bombers" and the Independent runs "Troops 'locked down' by suicide bombers", while the Mail on Sunday has a particularly strident headline: "Camp Do-Nothing". Its photographs tell the tale, some of which we have reproduced below, demonstrating how tough it is out at the front - something us "armchair soldiers" could never really appreciate before.


What is interesting about these pieces is that they all tell the same story - with at least four newspapers carrying it. Yet four newspaper editors did not suddenly and independently come up with the idea of looking at the conditions at Camp Bastion, and their journalists did not all come up entirely independently with exactly the same story. At the very least, there is some collusion and there may well be a "guiding mind". In that case, who is doing the spinning, and why?

Whatever the reasoning behind the spin, it clearly has MoD approval as all of the papers seem to quote Lieutenant-Colonel Andy Price and they all mention the recent death from a suicide bomb of Marine Gary Wright (pictured right), although none specifically point out the vulnerability of the "Snatch" Land Rover in which he was riding.

And neither do any of the newspapers mention an ealier incident - this one in Kabul in early September. This was also another suicide bomber, in this instance driving a Toyota Hilux truck, but it was also another instance of a highly vulnerable "Snatch" Land Rover being targeted.

Now, purely on journalistic grounds, you would have thought that there was a story here, especially if a contrast was then made with the fate of a Canadian RG-31 which had recently been attacked by a suicide bomber, the crew having escaped without injury, the vehicle itself having limped home under its own power, needing only relatively minor repairs.

Add to this the recent experience of the crew of another Canadian RG-31 escaping injury after a mine explosion, and the similar fate of a German crew riding a Dingo mine protected vehicle and you have a superb story of British government incompetence.

Neither Canadian nor German (nor any other) troops have been confined to base because of a bomb threat yet here we are with all those tough Marines having to act like big girls' blouses and stay at home with mummy all because their patrol vehicles are crap.

But rather than engaging their brains, we get the MSM hunting as a pack, all following each other down the same line, holding each others' hands for comfort. Thus does the Mail on Sunday, like the Sunday Telegraph give the Marines' "Vikings" a puff, not stopping for one moment to look beyond the MoD spin and do their own background research.

Nor even do they get their facts right, the MoS citing the top speed as 60 mph, when it is in fact 60 kph (approximately 40 mph, and then only for relatively short periods), and the price as £80,000 when it is in fact $1,000,000 (as opposed to the £1m cited by the Telegraph).

Most significantly, the Viking is an amphibious vehicle, designed in Sweden primarily for amphibious operations and for their ability to move through swampy terrain, as well as snow. At twice the price of either a Bushmaster or RG-31, to use (and wear out) these highly specialised vehicles in a landlocked desert is little short of stupidity.

Luckily for our government and military, however, while this commodity is available in copious quantities, the MSM seems to be totally blind to it.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, RG-31

Weighing into the debate about British Army equipment today comes Booker again, in his column, with a piece headed: "Our troops will patrol in 'coffins on wheels’".

This is about the continuing scandal of the Pinzgauer, named after an Austrian pony and, by one of our forum members, "my little Pinzy". For all the use it is to our troops, it could just as well be a little girl's toy.

Anyhow, at the heart of the disaster gathering round Britain's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, writes Booker, is the fact that our Government has in each case sent in an inadequate number of troops, hopelessly ill-equipped to do the job which faced them, Nothing has more cruelly brought this home than the still rising number of soldiers who died because the Ministry of Defence failed to provide them with patrol vehicles properly protected against mines and roadside bombs.

Last week, he tells us, Dutch troops in Afghanistan were supplied with the first of 25 mine-protected Australian Bushmasters, costing £271,000 each. This means that every other NATO contingent, American, Canadian, German, French and Dutch, now has mine-protected vehicles, but not the British, who are still expected to patrol in wholly unsuitable "Snatch" Land Rovers, such as the one destroyed by a suicide bomber in Helmand ten days ago in which a British Marine died, with a second seriously injured.

The MoD says it will soon be equipping our troops with Pinzgauer Vectors. These are known as "coffins on wheels" because they are in some respects even more vulnerable than the Land Rovers; not least because the driver is sitting right over the wheels when a mine strikes, and because the nature of their armour is such as to confine the effects of a blast inside the vehicle, probably killing all inside. Yet each Vector costs £487,000, nearly twice as much as the much-better protected Bushmasters. In other words, we are spending a great deal more money to give our men even less protection.

When our Armed Forces minister Adam Ingram was asked on 18 October by Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock what "risk assessments" had been carried out on the Vector, he refused to answer, merely giving the condescending reply "we do not comment on the details of our vehicles' protection levels". The Tory spokesman Gerald Howarth, on the other hand, is so reluctant to recognise the failings of the Pinzgauer that he is even pictured in an advertisement for them on the makers' website.

With a sense of frustration that we can only share, Booker concludes with the question, "why is this national scandal not on the front pages of every newspaper in the land?" Certainly, it isn't on the front page of his own paper, but that does report separately a story of how hundreds of marines are "penned into base by suicide bomb threat".

This is an entirely preditable response to a development which, it is claimed, marks a shift in Taliban tactics but, as we recently pointed out, was itself entirely predictable.


Nevertheless, we are told that military commanders ordered the "lock down" after receiving intelligence that many bombers plan to attack British troops in two towns in northern Helmand. One senior officer said that some of its fighters were now prepared to turn themselves into "human claymore mines" in a renewed attempt to drive the British from the province.

The two British bases being targeted are in Lashkar Gah, where 300 members of the Royal Marines are based, and the strategic town of Gereshk, on one of the main routes through Helmand, which is being guarded by 60 marines from 42 Commando. Limited patrols around Lashka Gar resumed yesterday only on the specific orders of the base commander, but high risk areas were avoided as was the centre of town.

So desperate are the Marines to strengthen their defences against suicide bombs, they are also deploying their BvS10 "Viking" all terrain vehicles, which were only delivered this year.

At a cost of cost £1 million each - nearly four times the price of the RG-31 or Bushmasters - they are being sold to the Telegraph's gullible Sean Rayment as giving "far greater protection than the infamous 'Snatch' Land Rover," even though the ballistic protection offered is about the same and the vehicle is rated to protect against pathetically meagre 0.5kg charge anti-personnel mines, compared with the 14kg protection offered by both the RG-31 and the Bushmasters.

Once again, therefore, Rayment - a specialist defence correspondent - misses the story and lets the MoD off the hook, while "my little Pinzy" toys pour off the production lines, unremarked by our skilled and diligent hacks.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, Gerald Howarth, land rover, Pinzgauer, RG-31

News of the moment is that the Ministry of Defence is banning ITN – Britain's biggest commercial news broadcaster – from frontline access to the nation's forces.

This is picked up by The Times and others, retailing an account of how the government "has withdrawn co-operation from ITV News in warzones after accusing it of inaccurate and intrusive reports about the fate of wounded soldiers."

The MoD's director of news, James Clark, has accused ITN of a "hatchet-job", with reporting that relies on "cheap shots all over the place, no context, no reasonable explanation. Like the Daily Star in moving pictures."

The tenor of the reporting is by no means unsympathetic to the MoD and the news of the action has even travelled over the pond to Michelle Malkin, who has her own (very good) reasons for distrusting media coverage of defence issues.

Any indignation, or sympathy for the MoD however, should be tempered with the knowledge that, when it comes to accountability, this ministry is the pits. It is not only one of the most secretive of government departments but is also quick to rely on the "security card" when it wishes to avoid scrutiny of its actions.

What is intensely frustrating though is that, while this story is quick to attract media attention, attempts by MPs to drag vital information out of the ministry are almost completely ignored.

The latest in this line is Mike Hancock, Lib-Dem MP for Portsmouth South, who has been trying to get to the bottom of the Pinzgauer issue with a Parliamentary Question to the minister asking:

…what risk assessment has been made of the ability of Pinzgauer Vector armoured vehicles to give adequate protection to the driver in the event of running over (a) a mine and (b) an improvised explosive device, with particular reference to the cone of destruction; and if he will make a statement.

In response, an MoD which, apparently in support of its troops, is so quick to squawk about the misbehaviour of the media, suddenly becomes rather reticent. The minister, Adam Ingram, replies:

To safeguard our own and allied troops, we do not comment on the detail of our vehicles' protection levels. However, the need to provide enhanced protection against the threats currently faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, including mines and improvised explosive devices, was a factor in the decision to procure rapidly a suite of protected patrol vehicles, including an additional 106 Pinzgauer Vector vehicles, which would give commanders a range of options dependent on the operational circumstances.

If ever there was a non-answer, that is it. And, if we had a halfway effective media, this would now be a serious issue, not least as we now learn that the Dutch have become the latest of the forces in Afghanistan to acquire mine protected vehicles. Only this week, the first of their $31.7 million purchase of 25 Australian Bushmaster armoured patrol vehicles became operational (pictured). Until recently, they had been borrowing five RG-31 Nyala patrol vehicles from the Canadians.

We now have a situation where German forces in Afghanistan are equipped with Dingo II mine protected vehicles, the French are being equipped with up-armoured VBLs, the Canadians and the US forces have RG-31s and the Dutch have Bushmasters.

Soon, uniquely, the British will have the only major contingent in Afghanistan which is not equipped with mine protected vehicles. Instead, troops are about to be supplied with Pinzgauer Vectors which, in some important respects, actually give less protection than "Snatch" Land Rovers – the vulnerability of which is only too evident.

Of course, this is far too complicated for the British media, which would rather see troops die than get its hands soiled with a little bit of technical detail. Instead, the hacks will wait until after the event, for a quick, cheap story when the bodies are being shipped back to the UK.

For once, though, we actually see an ordinary back-bench MP doing his job, and doing it well, which puts the self-serving preening of the media rather in perspective. This is an industry which gets excited about the fate of soldiers once they are wounded but is careless of whether they live or die in the first place - a rather odd sense of values.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Pinzgauer, RG-31

UPDATED: A Royal Marine from 45 Commando has been killed and another seriously injured after yet another suicide attack on a "Snatch" Land Rover in Afghanistan.

They were driving in a military convoy leaving the Afghan national police station at Lashkar Gar, capital of Helmand province, this morning. The marines were airlifted to a military hospital at Camp Bastion, where one later died from his injuries. An MoD spokesman said the dead soldier's next of kin had been contacted.

Ghulam Muhiddin, the spokesman for Helmand's governor, reported that the attacker targeted British soldiers. He said the bomber, who was on foot, also killed a boy and a girl, both under eight. Other reports speak of bodies of civilians, some with arms and legs blown off, scattered around the scene near the town's bazaar.

This is becoming an all too familiar scene and, while better-armoured vehicles do not provide complete protection – witness an incident earlier this month when a Canadian soldier lost his life after an attack on an RG-31 (pictured) – the overall experience is that troops are much more likely to survive, usually uninjured.

Apart from anything else, a "Snatch" Land Rover costs in the order of £60,000 and this – like others before it – is clearly a write-off, while RG-31s suffering similar attacks need only relatively minor repairs.

What is particularly disturbing though is that, while the replacement Pinzgauer "Vector" is no better protected than the Land Rover, already the MoD propaganda machine is moving in to tell the troops what a good piece of kit it is.

Thus we see in this month's Soldier Magazine a "Boys' Own" puff on the two new additions to the British order of battle, the tame hack gushing that the "meaty Mastiff" and Vector (pictured left) are "destined to make life safer for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The Vector – so soldiers are told – "will address the protection and payload problems of the Snatch Land Rover, making it ideal for Afghanistan." Surpassing the carrying capability of the Snatch, the Vector can carry an additional specialist, such as an interpreter, plus enough water for a ten-hour patrol. The piece adds:

"With Vector we have an improved payload capability, better mobility and improved protection,” said the vehicle’s project manager, Ben Onslow. “It will also have air conditioning, which is important for comfort.” The first of approximately 170 vehicles ordered should be delivered by February – just ten months after Pinzgauer started work on the variant.

Minister for Defence Procurement Lord Drayson told reporters on Salisbury Plain: "The Snatch Land Rover will continue to be an important part of our equipment. But we have identified that we need to give commanders more options. It is vital that we give our soldiers the kit they need. But it is down to the commanders in the field to choose the right tool for the job."

You would expect a tame house magazine to deliver that sort of guff, but it would be nice if the supposedly independent media took time out to tell our soldiers the truth. Unfortunately, it would seem that hacks are more concerned with the threat of external censorship, without realising that self-censorship, ignorance and indifference are probably the greater dangers.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, mastiff, Pinzgauer, RG-31

Although the meat and drink of real politics might be about dots and commas in draft legislation, it is also about life and death, as we have pointed out before. And there can be no better an illustration of this, and the total failure of our political process, than the contrast between this photograph (left) and the one below.

The first shows a Canadian RG-31 Nyala in Afghanistan which, according to CTV News was today attacked by a suicide bomber in a vehicle. The soldiers inside escaped unscathed and no other Canadian troops were hurt in the attack.

We are told that the attack took place about two kilometres from the regional international reconstruction headquarters in Kandahar and, according to reports, the suicide bomber tried to ram a vehicle into the convoy that was travelling through the city of Kandahar on its way to the main Nato headquarters at Kandahar Airfield.

The bomber was driving what appeared to be a minivan in front of the convoy. The driver pulled over as the convoy approached, then turned around and drove into one of the vehicles in the convoy. Soldiers said there was little warning of the attack.

Now compare and contrast with the outcome of a similar suicide attack earlier this month, only this time against British troops. They, to their misfortune, were riding in a lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rover. And, as a result of the failure of the MoD to equip our troops properly, they died.

This, as the media are belatedly beginning to realise, is one of the more egregious failures of the MoD procurement process, but one that has – with a few honourable exceptions – been almost totally ignored by the British political "blogosphere".

Nevertheless, the combined effort of the blogs that did engage, with the help of a cross-party and cross-House alliance of Parliamentarians, the support of Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph and the intervention of The Sunday Times, the Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne was forced to purchase armoured vehicles for our troops.

This does show the power of the political process when it is harnessed properly and focused, hence my irritation when the growing power and influence of the blogosphere is frittered away on trivia and puerile "tee-hee" comment.

A graphic illustration of that dynamic comes from Ian Dale's website which has recently made a rare expedition into defence issues, but only to report on this issue of utmost gravity:

As part of the government's Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), it was decreed that the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) and the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) - don't they just love acronyms - should merge.

I see from the the (sic) current edition of Jane's Defence Weekly that, from 1 April 2007, the merged organisation will be known as Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S). Even by the standards of NuLab, it seems a bit much that the Secretary of State should be naming part of his empire after himself!

By his own estimation, Iain Dale's site is third in the rankings of top British political blogs and thus in a position to influence the political process for good or bad. And, while it is not entirely fair to single out Dale's abysmal efforts, his output typifies much of what is wrong with British political blogging – and illustrates how it is failing to capitalise on the blogosphere's growing power and influence.

Although not of a religious bent, I am reminded of the parable of the talents. More prosaically, one of Rudyard Kipling's quotations comes to mind.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, RG-31

Under the heading, "They deserve more", The Sunday Telegraph today is launching a campaign to "get the Government to reward our soldiers properly".

Central to this campaign is the argument that the government now pays a newly qualified teacher £52.49 per day whereas a private "dodging bullets, bombs and missiles in Afghanistan is paid £39.24p a day for the privilege".

Illustrating just how lame this argument is, the paper is referring to the lowest level of wage, which would be paid to an 18-year-old soldier after 20 weeks of (free) training, a young man who may have no qualifications or experience.

By the time a soldier reaches the age of 21 – the age at which a newly qualified teacher might start – he will be on £54.60 a day (with no student loan repayments), unless of course he has been promoted, whence as a lance-corporal he will be earning £57.10 or, as a Corporal, a minimum of £64.48p. And, of course, certain specialists (such as parachutists) receive additional special pay, currently £4.85 per day.

Add to that a non-contributory pension – which can be carried over to other careers – plus tax-free lump sum after completing 18 years service, and the last problem soldiers have is their pay-scale. It is certainly not, as The Sunday Telegraph claims, a "pathetically inadequate level of pay", and far from being an "outrage".

What is an outrage though is their pathetic level of equipment, which Booker addresses in his column. He writes:

When Cpl Mark Wright of 3 Para was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, attempting to rescue six comrades who had been badly injured when their patrol vehicle was hit by a mine, this brought to 35 the number of our Armed Forces killed since their new deployment in Helmand. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been at pains to conceal the vehicle's identity, but the evidence suggests that yet again it was a Snatch Land Rover.

When Canadian and German patrols were also hit by explosive devices, their occupants escaped largely unscathed because their vehicles, an RG-31 and a Dingo, are designed to be "mine protected". This underlined the MoD's scarcely believable folly in sending our troops into action in Afghanistan and Iraq in unprotected vehicles, with the wholly predictable result that more than 30 have now died.

The MoD seeks to reassure us that it will soon be sending 100 Pinzgauer patrol vehicles to Afghanistan, costing £487,000 each. What they do not admit is that these "coffins on wheels", as they are known, offer less mine protection than the £60,000 Land Rovers. Meanwhile the RG-31s used by our allies, costing just £320,000, have saved scores of lives. Not the least forgivable aspect is how the MoD uses spin and deceit to conceal its incompetence.

Put it to the average soldier to whether they would prefer a wage rise, or decent kit that might keep them alive, and I have no doubt where their choice would lie.

So what is it with these gormless hacks that they so consistently grab the wrong end of the stick?

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, Pinzgauer, RG-31

Via The Times, agencies and others, we learn with great regret that the Army lost three more soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday, with 11 other troops injured.

Particularly distressing was the death of one of the soldiers after his vehicle hit a land mine, with five other troops also seriously injured. Another soldier received minor injuries.

The incident took place in the north of Helmand province, and occurred after the soldiers' patrol strayed into an unmarked minefield. There was no contact with the Taleban.

Very few news reports mention a vehicle, however, and the MoD have not disclosed the type. The likelihood is that it was a "Snatch" Land Rover. From the number involved and the fact this vehicle is the most widely-used patrol vehicle, the odds point very much towards this.

Another soldier of the three who died today one of the crew who was ambushed by a suicide bomber last Friday – an attack that had already left one soldier dead.

Yet, German forces have recently been subject to an attack by a suicide bomber while one of their patrols also hit a mine. Riding in mine-protected Dingos, however, both crews survived with only very minor injuries.

In May, a Canadian vehicle also ran over a mine after it had been sent to aid a resupply convoy that experienced a breakdown of one of its vehicles.

Fortunately, the vehicle was an RG-31 Nyala. Although the crew was briefly hospitalised after the incident, Brig. Gen. David Fraser, commander of the Canadian contingent in Afghanistan, was reported to be smiling as he left the hospital after visiting the soldiers.

For the British yesterday, there were no smiles. Yet the tragedy of the mine and suicide bomb incidents is that the deaths and serious injuries were almost certainly preventable. Unlike the other nations providing major force numbers in Afghanistan, though, British soldiers have no mine protected vehicles for carrying out patrols. Had they been German or Canadian, their odds of survival would have been that much higher.

And the only thing on the horizon for the troops are lightly armoured Pinzgauer trucks, which provide no mine protection either.

When the hell is the MoD going to do something about these unnecessary deaths?

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, Pinzgauer, RG-31

We did it on 3 July, barring a key bit of information that we had to tease out of the MoD through a Parliamentary question. This the Scotland on Sunday picked last week and we followed through last Friday.

Now, today – two months after we broke the original story - the Mail on Sunday has finally run it. Yet, at the end of the same month that we first ran it, little Shane Richmond, Telegraph web news editor, was happily pushing out an inane comment from Malcolm Gladwell, the author and New Yorker journalist, that blogs are "derivative".

Yet again this illustrates that sections of the MSM are so far up their own backsides that they haven't even begun to realise that, increasingly, blogs are running the agenda on certain issues. They are ahead of the curve.

As for the MoS, typically, it has gone for the cheap, sensationalist angle and has missed key parts of the story. That makes it just another space-filler rather than a contribution to the debate about the inadequacies of the MoD, which would have moved the issue forward.

Not least, it parrots uncritically the MoD line that the Mambas were "too heavy", without stating why - and that they "were not designed as a patrol vehicle". Yet, that is precisely what they were designed for, a task - even as we write - at which, in the form of the RG-31, they are excelling in Canadian hands in Afghanistan.

It then mentions that, last month, the MoD "revealed" that the Army is to get 300 new, "tougher" armoured vehicles for use in Iraq and Afghanistan - failing, of course, to note that 100-plus of these are the useless Pinzgauer coffins on wheels. This, incidentally, is from Whitehall correspondent, Jason Lewis, who should have been aware of what was happening. When the butcher's bill comes in, you can bet the MSM will be waxing indignant but now, when there is an opportunity to do something and actually save lives - they are silent.

And, although all the information for the MoS piece came directly from the exertions of this blog – they even used the same photographs – was there any mention of EU Referendum? I'll give you three guesses.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Mamba, Pinzgauer, RG-31

Regular readers will recall our campaign on "Snatch" Land Rovers and our calls for more better armoured vehicles, in particular the mine-protected RG-31 used by both US and Canadian forces.

During this campaign, it emerged that the MoD had already purchased a fleet of 14 RG-31 type vehicles - the precursor version called the Mamba (although they were also called the Alvis 4 and 8 series) – for use in Bosnia.

As a result, through Owen Paterson MP, we put in some questions to find out what happened to these vehicles, knowing that some were actually in use in Iraq, being used to protect US diplomats travelling between Baghdad International Airport and the Green Zone.

The answers were picked up by Scotland on Sunday last week and make fascinating reading. It seems that all the vehicles in the fleet, which originally cost £4.5 million to buy, were sold abroad for the princely sum of just £44,000. Nine went to Estonia, four to "a US company" – which we know to be Blackwater Security Consulting - and one to a company based in Singapore.

Even now, though, the MoD is still attempting to put their "spin" on the deal. It claims that the modifications of the Mambas left them "too heavy" to go on patrol. This, as we know, was the addition of underside armour to deal with the TMRP-6 mine threat, the armour having been developed specifically for the MoD by a South African technology company (see right).

But we also know, from an exchange of e-mails with some of the soldiers who operated the vehicles out in Bosnia that they remained perfectly serviceable with the additional armour. Latterly, we were told that the real reason for the claimed "maintenance problems" was that the UK supplier, Alvis, had withdrawn technical support for the model - for reasons we know not why.

The Scotland on Sunday paper remarks that while the financial loss to taxpayers is another embarrassment for the MoD, but adds, "far more serious is the suggestion it could have put the lives of British troops at even greater risk."

For sure, 14 vehicles would not have made much difference in Iraq, where over 200 "Snatch" Land Rovers are operating, but even they could have helped. At least one death, for instance, was attributed to a Land Rover ambush, where the vehicle was being used to ferry an officer from the British base to the airport – precisely the use to which the Mambas are currently being put by Blackwater Security Consulting. And, as we also know, Blackwater vehicles have survived at least two IED attacks (see picture below).

Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth insisted that the government should have kept hold of its Mambas when it had forces in such danger in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told Scotland on Sunday that, "To flog these vehicles so cheaply when there must have been a reasonable chance of them being usable in both Afghanistan and Iraq is unforgivable." He is absolutely right on this. As have Blackwater Security done, the additional armour could have been removed for the different theatres where there was no TMRP threat, and the vehicles would have been perfectly usable.

But, perhaps, an equal scandal is that the replacement vehicles – the Tempest MPVs, on which the US Cougar design is currently based, were not used in Iraq beyond the initial "war" phase of the invasion. The eight purchased have now been returned to the UK, pending despatch to Afghanistan.

It is decidedly ironic – if not tragic - that, having recognised the potential of these vehicles nearly four years before the US forces realised their value, the Army failed to exploit them. Only now, is the MoD buying a hundred to supplement the "Snatch" Land Rovers – with deliveries to start at the end of the year.

All of this, though, simply reinforces the wide-held and accurate view that, when it comes to understanding the equipment needs of our troops, and managing the procurement process efficiently, the MoD is simply not on this planet.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Gerald Howarth, land rover, RG-31, tempest

Famously, in the days when we had a nationalised railway network and the system was routinely brought to a grinding halt with the even moderate winter snows, a hapless executive was hauled before the cameras to explain why, on one particular occasion, a particularly light fall of snow had brought trains to a complete halt.

It was, he explained to the incredulous media, "the wrong kind of snow". This he later expanded upon, telling us that it has been a very fine snow which, while not heavy enough to block the lines, had invaded the engines, blocking filters and shorting out electrics. This was plausible enough but too late. Forever in the vocabulary now rests that sneering commentary on the inadequacies of nationalised industries, "…the wrong kind of snow".

Reviewing now the recent performance of the Israelis in the Lebanon campaign – something which I promised in a post a week ago, I suppose the best that can be said of it is that the IDF was fighting "the wrong kind of war".

What brought this to mind was a photograph in today's edition of The Sunday Telegraph which we published on this blog nearly a month ago (so much for blogs being "derivative"), which illustrates a different facet of precisely the problem which the Israelis currently face (above left).

In the instance illustrated by the photograph and the accompanying story we have an issue rehearsed at length (and in depth) by this blog, where we argue that British troops attempting to police southern Iraq are dangerously ill-equipped.

More specifically, we have an army in theatre relying on equipment such as the Challenger Main Battle Tank (MBT) (pictured above, on patrol in Al Amarah, southern Iraq) and the Warrior Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) which were devised as the core weapons of armoured divisions intended to combat a massed Warsaw Pact armoured thrust in northern Europe. In short, they were never intended for counter-insurgency operations (especially in the high temperatures of the Iraqi theatre) and are wholly unsuited to it.

Partly recognising this, in late 2003, the British Ministry of Defence drafted in a consignment of mothballed armoured Land Rovers (the nearest equivalent to the up-armoured Humvee), themselves designed for dealing with street violence in Belfast and other Northern Ireland locations, during the height of the "troubles".

Known universally as "Snatch" Land Rovers, these might have been adequate for dealing with the provisional IRA and general street violence but against an enemy which had access to any number of munitions and increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs – such as the explosively formed projectile (EFP) roadside mine – they proved easy prey. Thus it was that, by early this year, soldiers patrolling in "Snatch" Land Rovers had accounted for more than a quarter of our combat deaths in Iraq.

This was a problem which has also faced the US forces, which have suffered a higher proportion of casualties and larger absolute numbers from what are generically known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs.

In response to that – after a series of false starts, which included a programme of adding armour to the standard utility vehicle, the Humvee – the US, led by the US Marine Corps, started a re-equipment programme using vehicles based on Rhodesian and South African experience, specifically designed to deal with the IED threat. These include the RG-31, the Cougar and the Buffalo.

Less obviously but just as significant, the US forces are undergoing a fundamental restructuring. In the war against the hit and run bomber, who will fight in civilian clothes and merge with the civilian population, there is no front line. Casualty rates amongst non-combatants (known from Vietnam days as REMFs) have matched those in combat units.

Thus, in this type of war, the spearhead troops are no longer the infantry and the tankers but the combat engineers. Numbers of these troops in the US order of battle have been increased substantially and, using their new RG-31s and other equipment, they have been active in hunting out IEDs. As a result, they are most often at the sharp end in the vicious fire-fights that develop when insurgents ambush the bomb hunters.

In Lebanon, the problem confronting the IDF was much the same – the hit-and-run fighter in civilian clothes – but the weapons employed by the enemy differed. In Iraqi desert conditions, where there is often little cover and most of the roads are metalled, the roadside bomb is the weapon of choice. In Afghanistan, where cover is also sparse in some areas, but many more of the roads are unmetalled, the mine is commonly used. But in south Lebanon, where the topography is in places more similar to the rolling, verdant hills of Gloucestershire and Somerset (not for nothing is the area known as "Little England"), the man-portable anti-tank weapon comes into its own.

With thick cover, or the protection and disguise of civilian villages, small teams using RPG-7s, or the fearsome RPG-29, anti-tank teams can wreak havoc with armoured formations in what is nightmare country for tankers. Hezbolla have even been pressing into service Russian-made "Sagger" wire-guided missiles – which caused such great slaughter of Israeli tanks during the Yom Kippur war – and even captured (or purchased) US TOW missiles.

Combined with roadside bombs – some disguised as boulders, copying techniques pioneered by Iraqis, who have been known to cast their bombs into kerbstones) – these make a thing of the past, rapid armoured thrusts of the type that so thrilled us during the 1967 Six Day War, and the inspired counter-thrust over the Canal during Yom Kippur.

Instead, like the Americans have learnt to do, and the British are now following with a batch of Cougars on order, the Israelis have had to "up-armour" their engineers, on whom they rely for route clearing before what are now considered "conventional" armoured forces can be deployed. Thus did we see the widespread use of the Puma in the first, cautious phases of the ground campaign.

These vehicles, deployed by combat engineers, are little more than turretless Centurion Main Battle Tanks, known as the Poretz Mokshim Handasati (minefield breakthrough vehicle). Although better than nothing, they are far from ideal, not least because they lack the essential attribute of an armoured personnel carrier – a rear exit door. Egressing troops are forced to clamber over the hull, exposing themselves to fire.

Furthermore, as US forces have found – and as will the British – up-armouring invites a version of the arms race, where the terrorists use heavier and more sophisticated weapons, to the extent that not even the US 65-ton Abrams Main Battle Tank is immune from attack. As well as passive armour, therefore, a way of bringing the battle to the enemy must be found.

It was here, as we observed on this blog, that the Americans found a way, in the battle of Falluja which, when they comes to be drafted – will re-write the tactical manuals.

Contrary to perceived wisdom which has declared that tanks in urban warfare are death traps, the US used their Abrams as "point" to flush out the otherwise invisible enemies by presenting them with a highly attractive target. Dangerous it might have been for the tank crews but, generally, even if an Abrams is disabled, the crews tend to survive an RPG attack.

One the attackers had revealed themselves, above them were circling reconnaissance drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs) which would relay their co-ordinates to the artillery. Borrowing from a technique pioneered in Viet Nam, these were located in fire-bases away from the action and, within minutes, could bring down highly accurate, targeted fire on the insurgents, bringing instant death.

Additional assets, which could perform the same function as the artillery, were armed UAVs (known as UCAVs) or fighter-bombers stacked in the sky awaiting targets.

This, in the early stages, is what I though the IDF was doing, but it does not seem as if they had got the phasing and the tactics right. Casualties in tanks and crews, therefore, seem to have been relatively high, without corresponding gains in terrorists killed.

And, if this is the ground battle, there is the other element – the Katyusha strikes. In Iraq, the US forces are also prone to such attacks but their greater danger is the "White Van" mortar team. Merging with civilian traffic, these vans can park momentarily and discharge a mortar team to lob a few bombs, which then re-mount and drive off into the traffic, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other vans on the streets.

To counter this, the US has used counter-artillery radars which can locate the firing points of mortars within seconds and, with orbiting UCAVs, fighter bombers or even helicopter patrols, they can return accurate but lethal fire within minutes – or, if preferred, guide ground forces to intercept. Such would have been the expected response from the Israelis so, far from being impressed by their videos showing Katyusha launches, followed by IAF strikes a day or so later, this demonstrated that the capability was lacking.

The propaganda war

Alongside the shooting war, however, there has also been the propaganda war and it is here that the Israelis have proved dismally flat-footed. They are fighting an enemy which, as we have seen with the Qana incident – and many more – is willing to parade the bodies of its dead and, while hiding behind civilians (and even keeping them in harms way) exploits a sympathetic media and an "international community" which is locked into the paradigm that war is the greatest of all evils and any other solution is preferable.

Hezbolla in particular are aided by the notoriously poor local building standards and their fragile, reinforced concrete-framed buildings which give rise to such spectacular pictures of collapsed buildings after relatively modest impacts. But, in using ordnance such as 500-1000lb bombs, with every attack, the Israelis have been creating propaganda opportunities for their enemies and detractors rather than achieving tactical battlefield gains.

And, while propaganda in war has always been important, it is more so in current campaigns. In the past, when Israel could conduct "lightning wars", by the time the international community had mobilised to enforce a cease-fire, the IDF had usually achieved its tactical and strategic goals.

But the nature of war has changed. No longer is territorial gain the objective and neither are the opposing armies conveniently lined up in uniform, fighting an open war. The objectives in this new type of war are to bring the enemy to battle and to kill people, to disrupt the hierarchy, the command and communication systems and to destroy materiel.

That process, against the weapons the enemy is prepared to deploy and tactics it uses, takes time. But, even at the glacial speed at which the international community operates, no sooner have the opening phases of combat been rolled out and the pressure is on to bring overt hostilities to a halt. To enable the battlefield objectives to be achieved, therefore, the armed forces also have to win the propaganda war, to give them enough time to complete their tasks.

Collateral damage

In this war, the currency is collateral damage – dead babies and destroyed buildings, images of which have had more effect on the battle than the tanks and guns deployed by the IDF (for a more detailed discussion, see here).

Therein, like the British Army in Iraq, the IDF is using the wrong weapons and tactics. For it too, it is the "wrong kind of war".

Much has been said and written as a result about the limits of military power – much of it nonsense. Of course, final solutions require diplomatic initiatives and societal changes but, when you have any enemy with weapons who is attempting to kill you, there is only one response – to kill them. That means military action and, therefore, war – by whatever name you call it.

But it is how that war is conducted that makes the difference, and the difference is a matter of technology. The IDF currently is equipped for its previous wars, with superb armoured formations and a fleet of high performance fighter bombers that are capable of executing great slaughter of conventional forces. But they are the wrong weapons for this type of war.

On the one hand, in the style of the Fallujah-type operation, they need heavy but highly mobile armour to protect their troops as they provide targets for the enemy, in order to flush them out. And, coming into service is a new generation of artillery with rates of fire that are simply stunning. Capable of firing 40 or more shells a minute, these guns can also lay up to seven shells on a target to arrive simultaneously. Combined with unprecedented accuracy from GPS guidance built into the shells, these can intervene immediately with deadly but highly localised force on any terrorist foolhardy enough to attack.

For the Katyusha problem, what is needed is not fast jets with limited endurance and, therefore, loiter capability, dropping big bombs. The weapons needed are long-endurance UCAVs and platforms like the AC130 Spectre, with high-precision, small-warhead weapons. One such, in the process of development, is the Viper Strike which, with a 7lb warhead, can kill the occupants of a car without scratching the paintwork of the next car in line, or take out the occupants of a room in a building, without disturbing the neighbours.

Suitable platforms, guided by sensor arrays in satellites, UAVs and electronic warfare aircraft, can loiter the battlefield and, when a fleeting target appears, can launch instant but again highly localised death, making terrorist attacks near certain suicide.

Will we learn?

Since Israel is fighting for its very survival, the odds are that it will learn its lessons from the Lebanon campaign, and apply them. There is some confidence that the US forces will do likewise – they, after all, are developing the technology.

One casualty will almost certainly be the multi-billion dollar project called the Future Combat System (FCS). The plan here is to equip forces not with heavier armour, but lightweight, air-portable vehicles, relying for their protection on sophisticated sensors, the rapid exchange of intelligence and stand-off weapons to take out the enemy before he is within range and can do damage. But, when faced with an enemy that has the capability to deliver lethal blows and reveals himself only in the act of firing his weapon (or not at all in the case of an IED or mine), this system is fatally flawed.

Many knowledgeable commentators believe the US will scrap this system but, as a letter in the Sunday Telegraph reminds us, the British Army is still committed to a similar system, a £14 billion fantasy known as the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), all geared to providing the European Rapid Reaction Force with its "teeth".

Should this go ahead, we will find that not only are the British forces currently equipped for the wrong kind of war, they will perpetuate the error, at enormous cost in money and – eventually – lives. For once, we should look further afield and watch very closely what the Israelis do.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: al amarah, collateral damage, defence, FRES, RG-31

Less than two weeks ago, we remarked how a veil of secrecy has descended over the conduct of the British occupation of Southern Iraq.

Not least was the MoD's news blackout over an incident on 16 July when two soldiers were wounded when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, according to AFP, on the road to Al-Zubair, southwest of Basra, lightly wounding them.

The obvious and immediate question was the nature of the vehicle the soldiers were travelling in, but the MoD refused to release any further details for "reasons of operational security". The next day, therefore, Lord Astor of Hever asked the defence minister Lord Drayson in the House of Lords whether he would confirm whether the troops had been in a Snatch Land Rover but, such is the utter contempt Labour ministers have for any notion of transparency or accountability that he simply ignored the question.

Remarkably, though, we have found a photograph of the incident (above left), taken by an AP photographer and published on the Italian Yahoo news site (link now broken). As rather expected, the scene shown is a convoy of Snatch Land Rovers, amongst which is the damaged vehicle.

Particularly noteworthy is the width of the road and the wide open spaces, making a mockery of Drayson's earlier claim that the RG-31 was too big for the roads of Basra.

Altogether now, we have collected over 100 photographs of Land Rovers on patrol in Southern Iraq – including now ten damaged or destroyed vehicles (two more of which are show here) – in none of which could the location be described as restrictive. In fact, in all the scenarios where bomb damage has occurred, an RG-31 and even the newly ordered Cougars could easily have gained access. Needless to say, though, not one photograph of a damaged Land Rover has ever appeared on an MoD website.

If these are but small examples (in the grander scheme of things) of the grip of British censorship, what are we to make of an article in Azzaman?

This is a warning from Basheer al-Najafi - one of the four main ayatollahs in the Shiite religious leadership which includes grand ayatollah Ali Sistani – that security conditions are worsening in several cities in southern Iraq amid reports of clashes between Shiite militias and the British troops in the region.

Says Najafi, in at least three big cities – Basra, Amara and Diwaniya – the militias are almost in full control and have clashed with foreign troop or bombed their bases. "Conditions have aggravated a great deal and reaching the climax," he added. "We are afraid that the day of a massive popular uprising is approaching that will result in grave and unpredictable consequences."

Furthermore, Shiite religious leaders in the holy city of Najaf are reported to have warned the government of Nouri al-Maliki that they may no longer be able to contain the masses and prevent a popular uprising in the absence of security.

This is from an Arab newspaper and we cannot comment on its accuracy or impartiality. But we also cannot compare it with reports from any more reliable – perhaps – UK sources. There simply are none, although this gives useful background. This is Blair's other "forgotten war".

But, even if attention is elsewhere, that doesn't mean that nothing is happening or about to happen. We may be reminded all too soon.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: basra, land rover, RG-31

It is a reflection of how deeply ingrained is my distrust for government that the last place I would think of looking for information on the armed forces is the MoD website – especially since it was "improved", whence most of the archives have rather conveniently gone missing.

Anyhow, one of our readers pointed me in that direction and, lo and behold, we have a picture of the new armoured vehicle which the MoD is purchasing for our troops in Iraq. The photograph, supplied by Force Protection Inc, is of a 6x6 Cougar variant and, from the colour scheme, it is definitely one of the batch originally destined for the Iraqi Army, known as the Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle (ILAV).

There is an extremely good article on this here (which links to some essential reading here) and the indispensable Defense Industry Daily gives a good narrative of the MoD contract here.

Just what the Iraqi Army feels about the MoD jumping the queue has not been recorded but it is more than a little rum that, at a time when the Iraqis are being asked to assume greater responsibility for internal security, the British step in and swipe their vehicles from them, leaving the people who are most at risk to ride around in unprotected or lightly armoured vehicles.

If there is a comedic aspect to this, it is Lord Drayson, the defence procurement minister, who having told us of the RG-31, as recently as 29 June, that "we judged the size and mobility of the vehicle not to be appropriate to the needs of our Armed Forces today", is now buying something a foot wider and higher, and nearly four feet longer. Incredibly, it is nearly ten feet longer than the Snatch Land Rover and three feet wider and taller.

But there is nothing at all comic about the choice of the Pinzgauer Vector, a picture of which is also up on the MoD website. Bought primarily for its cross-country performance – which is superb – the MoD is calling this a "Protected Patrol Vehicle". With its slab sides and lack of window in the troop compartment, it is hard to believe the MoD is serious about this being used for patrols. The soldiers inside will be sightless passengers, guarded only by an unfortunate soldier (or two) with his head stuck out the roof as "top cover", terrified that the vehicle will overturn (as top-heavy, cross-country vehicles are prone to), crushing him to death.

As for "protected", that it ain't, except against the lightest of threats. The vehicle, as we have observed before (here and here) offers no protection against anti-tank mines, which are available in abundance in Afghanistan – a fact to which the Germans and the Canadians will attest. The latter, having recently lost four men travelling in a lightly armoured G-Wagon (the Mercedes equivalent to the Land Rover) are now counting their good fortune that the next mine strike hit troops driving in an RG-31.

While there is some considerable debate about the benefits of mine protected vehicles in dealing with IEDs – which plague the coalition forces in Iraq - the situation in Afghanistan is different. In Iraq, most of the roads have metalled surfaces – which is why the insurgents resort to roadside bombs - but, in Afghanistan, huge areas are accessible only by unmade roads, which favour the use of mines.

Perhaps millions of mines are left over from the Soviet era and the accounts of the Red Army experience during their occupation show that most of their casualties came from mine strikes. In putting these Pinzgauers into Afghanistan, the MoD are out of their tiny minds… they are criminally insane.

As opposed to mine protected vehicles, however, often the most appropriate way of protecting troops is to use helicopters. There, of course, we bump up against reality – the cupboard is bare.

Here though, is an interesting reflection for a site named "EU Referendum". Something that has haunted me from my days in the European Union Parliament is the cohorts of preening MEPs, each of whom cost the British taxpayer £1.2 million a year. Many would tell me how vital their roles were, in increasing British influence in the EU.

When it comes down to real influence, however, in the real world this turns out to have more to do with how many helicopters the British can field. With 78 British MEPs at present, costing us over £90 million a year, that is the price of five Chinook helicopters a year with change left over. Somehow, I suspect – given a choice – most people would opt for the Chinooks.

Similarly, for the £11 billion a year we pay in "contributions" to the EU each year – nearly twice our annual defence procurement budget – I suspect we could buy a great deal more influence if we spent it on "toys" – provided, of course, we did not fritter it away on the European Rapid Reaction Force, and spent it on kit that was actually fit for purpose.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: helicopters, land rover, Pinzgauer, RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.

The truth of the saying, "success has many fathers" comes alive today in The Sun, which runs the story today on the government’s U-turn on armoured vehicles for Iraq.

"British soldiers," says The Sun, "are finally getting bomb-proof patrol vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq after warning that their lives were in peril. Ministers acted last night after a Sun campaign to beef up their protection."

Yeah, right.

Anyhow, we now have the transcript from Hansard in which Des Browne tells the Commons about the new armoured vehicles. Here it is:

The Secretary of State for Defence (Des Browne): If I may be permitted, Mr. Speaker, in that regard I can announce today the conclusions of an urgent review into protected vehicles for operations, particularly in Iraq. We have identified three complementary ways forward, two of which build on and accelerate work that is ongoing, and the third is new. They will be funded from an acceleration of existing funding and, in part, from substantial new funding from the Treasury for Iraq and Afghanistan. I have set out the details in a written statement. Briefly, we are ordering 100 new Vector vehicles, 70 FV430 vehicles beyond the 54 already ordered, and about 100 new Cougar wheeled armoured vehicles for both theatres.

Michael Gove: The Prime Minister recently underlined the threat to our troops in Iraq from Iranian-backed militias and Iranian-supplied weapons. I am delighted that the Minister has today announced that we are going to upgrade the armoured vehicle fleet available to our troops to protect them from that threat. However, the wheeled armoured vehicles that he has ordered will not be ready for deployment until the end of this year. What consideration was given to the procurement of battle-ready RG31 protected patrol vehicles?

Des Browne: We gave serious consideration to all the vehicles that were available. Thanks to the work that we were able to do with the Americans, and thanks particularly to significant work that my hon. Friend Lord Drayson was able to perform, we were able to identify about 100 Cougar vehicles to which the Americans were prepared to allow us to have access. We chose those because up-armoured, with electronic counter-measures added and with Bowman radios fitted, we believe that they would be the best protected mid-range vehicles in theatre. We made an objective decision to choose them instead of the RG31s. Had we chosen the RG31s, we would have had to fit ECMs and Bowman to them and possibly to up-armour them. In any event, the earliest possible time that we can get them into theatre is in the context of the six-month period of the next two roulements for Iraq and for Afghanistan. It physically could not be done any more quickly with any vehicle.

We are still uncertain as to precisely which vehicle is being ordered. The Sun and the BBC both show a three-axle vehicle, while the ILAV has two. This, however, is nerd territory, although we cannot wait to hear how the minister reconciles his earlier claim that the RG-31 was too big with his decision to buy an even bigger vehicle. I wonder how that will go down in the back streets of Basra.

It will also be interesting to see whether anyone challenges the decision to buy the Panther, asking whether, if the RG-31 had been selected instead, these could have been reconfigured and diverted to Iraq. The MoD must be keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that they lose no more Land Rovers between now and the arrival of the Cougars.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: basra, Panther, RG-31

Having just listened to defence questions, it appears that – contrary to my earlier report - the MoD is NOT buying RG-31s. Defence secretary Des Browne announced he was sending 70 up-armoured FV 432s, and 100 "Cougars", procured "through US military sources".

My confusion about the "Cougars" arises from the fact that the name is used informally for the RG-31s and the price range cited would not have covered the larger vehicle also used by the US Marine Corps, also called the Cougar, used by bomb disposal officers.

But, Browne's response to Michael Gove, who asked why RG-31s were not being bought, indicates that what we are actually getting is a batch of vehicles from the Americans, intended for the Iraqi Army, designated as the Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle, based on the same chassis as the larger Cougar.

The vehicles, it appears, will be drawn from the batch of 378 ordered from BAE Land Systems (but actually manufactured by Force Protection Inc), which had an option to bring the contract to 1,050 units. It is obviously the speediest way of getting additional armour into theatre.

However, it comes to something when the MoD is reduced to buying equipment destined for the Iraqi Army. One has to wonder how the Iraqi's will feel about having to wait for their equipment when they too are driving around in armoured Land Rovers - with the same tragic results experienced by the British Army – and are expected to take on increasing responsibility for patrolling from the British.

As relevant, the size of these Cougars makes an absolute mockery of Drayson's contention that the RG-31s are too big. Just short of nine feet high, it is exactly nine feet wide and over 20 feet long, weighing in at 15 tons. The RG-31 is a shorter, a foot narrower and nearly two feet lower. While the RG-31 is built on a light truck chassis – originally the Unimog – the Cougar is built on the chassis of a commercial articulated truck chassis.

Make no mistake, though, these are superb vehicles and will considerably enhance the protection afforded to British troops – and they will take the pressure off the hard-pressed Warriors. But patrol vehicles they are not and, if the RG-31 was going to be restricted in the areas it could go, this applies to a much greater extent to the Cougar.

The up-armoured FV432s will also add extra protection – the Israelis use the US equivalent M113 – and it will give commanders an additional armoured option, again taking the pressure off the Warriors. However, it is interesting to see that, in Lebanon, the IDF is using converted Centurion main battle tanks for their front-line APCs.

Altogether, therefore, this shows the MoD in shambles. Reluctant to take on one new vehicle, it has ended acquiring two more, neither of which is optimal. Nevertheless, it is an improvement, for which we should be grateful.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.

The funny thing is – in a definitely non-humorous sense – that the decision, yet to be officially announced, to buy RG-31s for the British Army in Iraq represents a another major U-turn by the government.*

Yet, because this is a cause not espoused by the "chattering classes", it will probably go unnoticed by the bulk of the media and certainly by the self-important political blogs.

In their eyes, this is much less important than the detail of how many lovers John Prescott bedded, or other political "gossip", that can be dredged up to entertain the political groupies.

To an extent, however, the government's U-turn on RG-31s is a much more important event for bloggers (many of whom did join in the fray), but I am not going to be triumphant about. It also reflects the work done by Christopher Booker, who raised it several times in his column.

It also owes much to the political intervention of the Conservatives, especially Lord Astor and Gerald Howarth, and also to back-benchers like the steadfast Ann Winterton and shadow minister, Owen Paterson, who was representing a constituency interest. Even a Lib-Dem MP, Mike Hancock, played a role.

Undoubtedly, the publication of the story in The Sunday Times helped enormously, and the fact the issue was then picked up – albeit in a spasmodic way – by others in the media, elevated it into a political issue that demanded the attention of the secretary of state for defence.

All this notwithstanding, even judged by the recent performance of this government, this is a remarkably speedy U-turn, which has us wondering precisely what it is that made the difference.

Readers will recall that, as recently as 12 June, the defence procurement minister, Lord Drayson, was adamant that the Snatch Land Rover was exactly what our forces in Iraq needed. "The Snatch Land Rover provides us with the mobility and level of protection that we need," he told the House of Lords.

Furthermore, he set his face against the RG-31, dismissing it as an option, declaring that its "size and profile did not meet our needs" and claiming that there were maintenance issues.

For sure, the day after the Sunday Times publication – on 26 June - we got a spirited attack by the Conservatives, forcing secretary of state for defence, Des Browne, to review of the situation. But we rather downplayed this, suspecting – as one does – that it was just another cynical attempt to kick a politically sensitive issue into the long grass.

That suspicion was reinforced on the 29 June, when Drayson maintained his stance, again telling the Lords that, "After giving careful consideration to the matter, we judged the size and mobility of the vehicle (the RG-31) not to be appropriate to the needs of our Armed Forces today."

What is then especially interesting is that we also saw what appeared to be an MoD-inspired propaganda campaign suggesting that a new threat from off-route mines was so great that new equipment would not make any difference. Yet, it is this very threat which is now being used as the basis for justifying the purchase of the RG-31s.

Talking to those involved, however, what appears to have proved the turning point was Booker's piece last week plus my post, where we pointed out that, while the officers were to be equipped with their Panther "battlefield linousines", troops were to remain equipped with their lightly armoured Land Rovers.

In particular, it seems, my jibe about "Rupert wagons" struck home. The implications suddenly dawned that we would have a situation where, totally contrary to the fine traditions of the British Army where officers lead from the front, officers would now direct operations from the comfort of their better-protected vehicles, sending their troops out to die.

Already, we understand, there have been situations where senior NCOs have refused to lead patrols in Snatches, without specific written orders spelling out the implications and, as we know, some officers have been extremely reluctant to order their men to patrol in these vehicles. But, officers in their "Rupert wagons" creates the makings of a mutiny, while the likes of The Sun would have a field day if troops were then killed. Mind you, with the provision of RG-31s, the situation will be reversed – if Panthers are ever deployed in Iraq. The men will be much better protected than their officers.

Furthermore, I don't think the MoD has thought this through. Since WWII, the British Army has always gone for the "common platform" option, with multi-purpose light utility vehicles – currently the Land Rover – used for functions ranging from troop transport to command vehicle.

On an active patrol, the common platform lends anonymity to officers, who are known to be targets for insurgents. But, in a mixed convoy of, say, Land Rovers or RG-31s and a Panther, driving around in the Panther is like carrying a notice saying "I'm an officer – shoot me". And, protected though it is, the Panther is not proof against an RPG-7.

Anyhow, as one of our forum contributors has pointed out – and we ourselves have noted - RG-31s are not the whole answer. To defeat the insurgents requires a range of equipment and tactics, the former including light tactical helicopters and UAVs – of which there are critical shortages in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

With news that British troops are set to be "tactically withdrawn" from isolated military outposts in Afghanistan following a series of sustained attacks from Taliban fighters, this is not only a question of force protection but whether the Army can effectively prosecute the war against the insurgents.

Without the right equipment and numbers, the only option is to withdraw them to the safety of their main bases, which rather defeats the object of deploying forces in these theatres. If we are going to do the job, then we need to do it properly, which means having the right kit – an issue to which we will continue to devote our energies.

* Once announced, the RG-31s turned out to be Cougars produced by Force Protection Inc.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Gerald Howarth, helicopters, land rover, Panther, RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.


"Bombproof vehicles for troops in Iraq", says The Sunday Times this morning. More than 100 new heavily armoured patrol vehicles have been ordered by the government to protect British troops in Iraq against roadside bombs, writes Michael Smith.

The move, to be announced this week, follows the review ordered by Des Browne, the defence secretary. The latest vehicles will be upgraded versions of the armoured Cougars, says The Sunday Times, as used by US marines in Iraq. They will have additional armour, making them the most protected vehicles of their kind in the world.

Browne, a former chief secretary to the Treasury, asked his former boss Gordon Brown to provide the tens of millions of pounds to rush new vehicles to Iraq, a senior defence source said yesterday. Snatch Land Rovers, says the ST, cost about £50,000 apiece (actually, £60,000). The new vehicles cost about eight times as much but carry more troops. Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials, we are told, were ordered to bypass their complex procurement system and buy the best vehicle available.

From there, the Sunday Times gets a little muddled. From the price, it seems they are talking about the RG-31 – which is occasionally called the Cougar. But the paper says they are built in America by BAE Systems, which is not the case. The body shells are built in South Africa by a company owned by BAE Systems, and they are finished by General Dynamics in Canada.*

Nevertheless, the paper says they came closest to fulfilling the requirement for a protected vehicle, but despite surviving a number of bomb attacks in Iraq it was still deemed to have insufficient armour. It cites the MoD source saying that, "Browne accepted the arguments in favour of the Snatch Land Rover but ruled that the new range of roadside bombs meant that the situation had changed."

We understand that the MoD aims to have the "Cougars" in Iraq by the end of the year.

Interestingly, The Daily Telegraph carried a piece yesterday about blogs, noting that, "the most visited blogs are devoted to political gossip and comment. Once regarded as the home of amateur, 'wannabe' journalists, they are increasingly setting the political agenda."

Although we can't aspire to the heights of writing political gossip, this decision might just be an example of this phenomenon.

* Later information indicates this is wrong. The vehicles now seem to be a variant of the Cougar produced by Force Protection Inc.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: land rover, RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.

The defence questions we have been putting into the system are beginning to trickle through, dreadfully slowly, the answers, as we pointed out yesterday, largely incomplete.

One more which has come through is another question by Owen Paterson asking for the cost per track mile excluding crew costs of operating the Warrior MICV (often dubbed a "battlefield taxi") and an RG-31M in Iraqi conditions.

Adam Ingram again was the nominal respondee and again the answer is incomplete. The full capitation cost for the Warrior, he writes, is calculated for financial year 2006-07 as £154.04 per kilometre. That is equivalent to £250 a mile – no wonder the MoD prefers to quote in kilometers.

However, the figure quoted is "based on peacetime usage" and Ingram tells us that "specific operational track mile data is not held centrally" and could be provided "only at disproportionate cost". This does the MoD evade telling us what the Iraqi figures actually are. One has to be a little alarmed if the MoD does not have these figures to hand, as any efficient fleet manager will always be fully aware of his operating costs.

But that is not the name of the game. The MoD is seeking to conceal information and this is the classic get-out. And it is not surprising that it is trying to conceal the figures, as we are privately informed that the Warriors in Iraq are taking a serious hammering. Their operating costs could easily be double or more the "peacetime usage" figure – which is high enough as it stands.

As to the RG-31 figures, Ingram gets away from answering the question by declaring that the Ministry of Defence "does not own any RG-31M vehicles". However, that is an irrelevance. In 2001, the MoD ran a competition for the Future Command and Liaison Vehicle.

Three companies were shortlisted, including (then) Vickers Defence Systems which fielded the RG-31M and RG-32M. Then, in June 2001, the company was awarded a fixed-price contract for "the risk reduction studies and trials phase" allowing the army to carry out extensive tests of the competing vehicles, including the RG-31, at the Armoured Trials and Development Unit.

This was announced by the MoD on 15 June 2001 where each company was paid about £500,000 each to take part in the trials.

Given that the current vogue in defence procurement is the assessment of "whole-life costs", it is inconceivable that the MoD did not acquire considerable data on the operating costs of the RG-31. This would include a fairly accurate figure for costs per mile. Yet, as we see, the MoD is not in the business of giving MPs information – who do they think they are?

Nevertheless, in view of the huge operating costs of Warriors, I am warming to the thesis that there may be an economic case for running RG-31s. This was certainly a factor in the US choice of the Stryker wheeled APCs, which proved considerably cheaper to run than the Bradley MICV, the American equivalent of the Warrior.

Nor, of course, it this an academic issue. When defence must compete with all other areas of public expenditure – from schools to hospitals and more police on the beat – our ability to project force largely boils down to pounds and pence. To be effective, therefore, we must also be cost-effective. And in this case, it looks like better could be cheaper.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.

Booker, in his Sunday Telegraph column today picks up on the continuing scandal of the lack of armoured protection for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He writes:

When US, Canadian, French, German, Australian, Austrian or Danish soldiers go patrolling in Iraq and Afghanistan they travel in "mine-protected" vehicles, such as the RG-31, specially designed to defend them against the explosive devices favoured by the insurgents. Only British troops have to rely on unarmoured Snatch Land Rovers, which has led to the deaths of more than a quarter of those who have been killed in action.

This scandal was half-acknowledged last week by our Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, when he admitted to the Commons Defence Committee that there was a "capability gap" in the way our troops are equipped. He also acknowledged, as the Tory defence spokesman, Gerald Howarth, was quick to point out, that none of the billions of pounds that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is spending on military vehicles will provide our soldiers with those needed to fight counter-insurgency campaigns such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the name of equipping a fantasy army of the future to play its part in the European Rapid Reaction Force, the MoD has been happy to commit £14 billion to vehicles for its Future Rapid Effects System. It has already contracted to spend £413,000 each, twice the price of a Rolls Royce, on 401 Italian-made Panthers, "battlefield limousines" to ferry officers around behind the lines. But when it comes to equipping our troops to fight the very nasty wars in which they are already engaged, Gordon Brown has said there is no money left over. It is time this horrifying story was recognised for the major political scandal it has become.

The picture we've shown on the left is the Australian Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicle, currently in use in Iraq. It is an Australian designed and built vehicle, mine protected along the same lines as the RG-31.

It really has come to a pretty pass that we seem no longer able either to design or build our own armoured vehicles so that, while the MoD fritters away our money on Italian-built "battlefield limousines", our troops are still riding around in "Snatch" Land Rovers.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Gerald Howarth, land rover, Panther, RG-31