EU Referendum

How apposite that, when it comes, it arrives not in the main pages of any of the newspapers, where the defence correspondents are well and truly asleep, but in the business section – in this case The Times.

We are talking here of an item headed, "Treasury threatens to cut £35bn of defence projects" and even then, because it is about "business", David Robertson, the business correspondent, misses the huge political and strategic implications.

The thrust of the story is, as advertised on the label, that the Treasury is threatening to cut defence projects worth up to £35 billion in the Government's next spending round, the comprehensive spending review (CSR), which outlines spending for the next five years. And that means that key projects could be cut.

But the dynamite news is that the Army could be the biggest loser. The Treasury, says The Times is thought to be unhappy with Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), which the newspaper describes as "a £14 billion project for up to 3,000 armoured vehicles." It tells us that the Treasury is understood to favour buying a replacement off the shelf, possibly from a US company, rather than have the UK develop its own.

Whether this happens or not, this news tells us what we had already suspected… that the Army is fighting for its life, its "vision" of the future which is intrisically bound up in FRES. It thus goes a long, long way towards explaining why the Army brass has been so reluctant to rock the boat over Iraq and Afghanistan, and demand the new kit needed for these campaigns. One false move and FRES is toast, they must have been telling themselves.

It begins to look, though, as if the sacrifice imposed on the Army is in vain. But, if their vision of FRES is to be junked, then the Defence Committee missed the vibes completely. And, if the Generals do not get their toys, what then? Is the ERRF also toast?

For those of you who have the time, read our FRES thread. While the media and the politicos are so fast asleep you can here the snores from here, there is history in the making.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, FRES

At the heart of the dishonest and inadequate Defence Committee report on "The Army's Requirement for Armoured Vehicles: the FRES programme" lies a failure of the Committee to explain what FRES actually is.

That, most likely, stems from the fact that the MPs themselves do not understand what it is.

Although I have done this before (not least, here, here and
here), let me attempt to summarise it in this post for, without that basic understanding, you cannot even begin to appreciate the issues involved.

Essentially, this is a child of the post Cold War period, when the US and European government started to confront the idea that dealing with the world's hotspots required highly mobile, air-portable forces which could be shipped out at very short notice to deal with trouble as it arose, rather than letting the situation deteriorate to the point where larger ground forces would be required.

The concept crystallised in 1998 when the MoD decided that the UK Army required a fleet of armoured vehicles to fulfil what was termed the "expeditionary role", which was envisaged in the Strategic Defence Review, and then formalised as the "rapid reaction force", aimed at serving both the EU and Nato requirements.

Now, the trouble was and is that the basics of armoured warfare were incompatible with the requirements of air-portable rapid reaction forces. In the former, this had evolved to spawn two main vehicles, the Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV), the first providing the direct firepower, the second providing the infantry support.

In the MBT had evolved the optimum balance of three requirements: speed and manoeuvrability, armoured protection and firepower, emerging in its current form as the Challenger II (pictured) in the British armoury (and the Abrams in the US armoury), weighing in at around 65 tons.

To enable the maximum number of vehicles to be delivered, however, it was necessary to restrict weight to that which could be carried by the most common military airlifter, the C-130 Hercules, dictating a maximum weight of between 18-22 tons. This meant that military planners had to develop an armoured vehicle which could afford the same overall protection and performance of the MBT but came in at less than a third of the overall weight. (Pictured below is the "SEP" prototype platform, being considered for FRES: various versions will be produced, including an APC and a "direct fire" MBT equivalent.)

Ostensibly, this would have been impossible, except for the emergence of new technologies, enabling vehicles to shed weight, in the form of less armour, in exchange for three attributes: "situational awareness", "network capability" and high-precision stand-off weapons.

Using an elaborate system of high-tech sensors and reconnaissance systems, the new forces could detect the enemy earlier and at greater distances than before. With advanced electronic networks, that information could then be shared in real time, so that all mobile assets would be immediately informed of the presence of threats that could harm them, long before they came into range. Then, with those threats located, a whole range of weapons could be employed to destroy them, without their ever posing any danger to the lightweight vehicles.

That was the theory which drove what became known as the Future Rapid Effect System. But, by late 2003, the shooting phase of the Iraqi invasion had passed and the war had moved into an insurgency. There, the enemy's weapons of choice became the roadside bomb (IED) and the RPG fired by insurgents in civilian clothes who would not declare their identities until the moments they fired.

For dealing with this situation, any idea of relying on "situational awareness" and stand-off weapons, which underpinned the whole concept of FRES, became totally unrealistic.

Meanwhile, to deal with the insurgency, as we recorded, our then CGS Mike Jackson was trying to make do with "Snatch" Land Rovers. But, as the wider lesson of the insurgency were learned, planners were left to look at ways of improving the protection of FRES vehicles.

The task was effectively trying to square the circle, which they attempted by using additional sensors and self-defence equipment, plus increasingly esoteric forms of armour. Each added to the weight, eventually making the proposed vehicles too heavy for the C-130 and, possibly, too heavy for the A400M, should these ever be acquired.

Thus, at the heart of the conundrum is a conflict – which the Defence Committee acknowledges - where "the MoD", it says, "wants a vehicle which has sufficient armour to protect soldiers from IEDs and RPGs but which it also light enough to be transportable by air."

Now we come to the nub. The Committee says that seeking a perfect solution is "unrealistic" and that it is high time the MoD decided where its priorities lay. And that is where the dishonesty lies. The underlying decision is not one for the MoD but one for the politicians.

Essentially, what we are talking about are two different things – FRES-type vehicles for conventional warfighting, and completely different vehicles for counter-insurgency operations. It was never the case that "dithering" over the final shape of FRES cost any lives. The demands of the two types of warfare are so different that it is impossible to combine the requirements for both in a single platform. We need two completely different ranges of vehicles and the lives were lost because of the failure to provide suitable, non-FRES vehicles.

Currently, we still need the decision as to whether we are going to undertake "warfighting" or counter-insurgency operations – or both. And that, as we say, is a decision which must be made by the politicians.

Where the MoD has gone wrong, if it has, is in not making that abundantly clear to the Defence Committee - not that the MoD was actually asked. Now, it is left to Lord Drayson to explain the facts of life to the MPs. The FRES programme, he says:

…should not be confused with the recent urgent operational requirements to procure additional protected patrol vehicles to complement Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The recent and very rapid procurement of vehicles such as Mastiff, Vector and Bulldog, is not related to the FRES requirement. These patrol vehicles are important additions to the capabilities at the disposal of commanders, but are separate from the FRES programme.

But, in fact, it is not the MoD informing the Committee. It is the Army brass. They, collectively, want FRES. They want an army equipped for high-tech "warfighting" and do not want to buy counter-insurgency equipment that will affect their plans for acquiring their shiny new toys. Nor indeed do they want an Army which is primarily equipped for counter-insurgency.

That much was the real message CGS Richard Dannatt was giving last October, effectively a plea to pull out of Iraq, thereby saving FRES and keeping the Army in the shape the generals wanted.

For the political glitterati (aka clever-dicks), of course, all this will pass them by without disturbing so much as a hair on their carefully coiffured little heads. Yet, at those different levels, political and technical, the Defence Committee report marks an important turning point in the decline of this nation.

Future historians will see in it evidence of the total failure of the parliamentary system, a victory of the Army over the politicians and a retreat from any attempt by this nation to recognise what is needed to deal with the growing threat of militant Islam. For, what the report does is fail to recognise that the Army needs to equip to deal with the Islamic counter-insurgency, wherever it occurs, and that FRES is not the answer. More importantly, it fails to understand that role of the Army brass in sabotaging attempts to ensure that our armed forces are properly equipped to deal with the job at hand.

Thus, the MPs have let the Army brass get away with it. Meanwhile, as ill-equipped troops are pulled out of Iraq in an ignominious retreat, the national interest – to say nothing of the interests of our troops in the field and those of the Iraqi people - has been put on the back-burner.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, FRES, iraq, mastiff

From last Sunday's BBC Panorama programme, on the Army in southern Iraq, we learn that our land forces have been dubbed The Flintstones by the Americans, reflecting the antiquated equipment operated by them.

This is very much the preoccupation of the House of Commons Defence Committee, which is due to report tomorrow on "The Army's Requirement for Armoured Vehicles: the FRES programme". This is its idea of an inquiry on the FRES system, announced last October.

Already, we have seen one tranche of oral evidence and the signs that the Committee will come up with anything useful are looking extremely doubtful. We will, however, look carefully at the report when it is available, and the responses to it.

For the moment, however, it is interesting to look over the Atlantic at the US version and note that, while the British system has effectively come down to a matter of a family of armoured vehicles with network capability, in their own Future Combat System, the Americans are still sticking to the original concepts, complete with some high performance unmanned ground vehicles which look set to transform land warfare.

Despite the development of these systems, even the US military – with its far greater wealth and resources - is aware of the need to balance the modernisation of the future force with equipping the current force.

Hence, four of the 18 systems in the FCS programme have been deferred and the fielding rate for the system's prototype brigade combat teams, operating the Stryker APCs has been stretched out over five more years. Altogether, changes to the programme are set to reduce the budget by $3.4 billion over the next five financial years.

On the other hand, funds have been redirected in the programme to buy some more of the UAV classes, the prototypes of which have been successful in Iraq, and work on some light robotic systems has been brought forward. Furthermore, instead of waiting for the "big bang", some of the technology developed for FCS is to be introduced incrementally into the field, as and when it becomes available, particularly some of the intelligence-gathering and surveillance sensors.

That still puts the US programme cost at $162 billion with another $2 billion slated for "additional construction", which dwarfs the £14 billion to be spent on the British FRES system.

Therein is shown up the great divide. Despite equal or greater pressure to balance the modernisation of the future force with equipping the current force, the MoD is showing no signs whatsoever of cutting FRES funding to help pay for current needs. In fact, the reverse seems to be happening, with FRES ring-fenced while troops in theatre continue to live up to their enforced "Flintstone" image.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FCS, FRES

As with a woman preaching and a dog walking on his hind legs – so it is with discussing FRES. It is not done well – to misquote Samuel Johnson - but you are surprised to find it done at all.

So, we give one small cheer to The Sunday Times which today runs an article on the Future Rapid Effects System. But it does have to be a very small cheer indeed because it is not done at all well.

Written by Peter Almond, a journalist we have met before, the piece is headed, in a wholly misleading fashion, "Army faces 5-year wait for armoured carriers", betraying the profound ignorance of the media on this subject – an ignorance shared by many others.

Quite how ignorant is immediately apparent from Almond's opening which makes such a huge sweeping statement that it makes one cringe, writing as he does: "the army's plans for a new generation of armoured troop and missile carriers costing £14 billion face new delays of at least five years, undermining its ability to fight land battles overseas."

The assumption, of course, is that FRES will actually enhance the Army's ability to fight land battles overseas, which is far from the case. In fact, as we have argued, FRES could actually be a wrong turning, saddling with the Army with extremely expensive high-tech equipment that is not fit for purpose – a purpose that nobody has bothered to define.

Therein lies the real story but, as always, we see these gifted and no doubt highly paid hacks miss the real story and go running after hares. In Almond's dim little world, the story is thus how the proposed 3,000 combat vehicles which form the core of the land component of FRES "will not enter service until at least 2017", five years later than the Ministry of Defence (MoD) forecast, potentially embarrassing the government.

Almond then tells us that General Sir Michael Jackson had told troops in 2003 that they would only have to wait until 2009 for the vehicles, an assurance given "to soften the blow from the previous round of cuts when many historic regiments were abolished."

What a stupid statement that is, going well beyond mere ignorance. The "historic regiments" were abolished to make way for FRES, you idiot, so how could assurances on the timing of FRES "soften the blow"?

The perversity of it all though is that, in his own account, Almond has the making of the real story – one that links directly back to the debate which Blair is seeking, on the nature and rôle of the Armed Forces.

In that context, he - Almond - tells us that the delay has been caused by a reassessment of what the Army will need, caused by experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. The original plan had been to provide a lightweight fleet of vehicles that could quickly be flown to troublespots. But the experience of roadside bombs and rockets has highlighted the need for heavier armour.

Furthermore, writes Almond, senior planners say that with so much money and attention being devoted to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan the government's blueprint to transform the armed forces into a nimble "expeditionary" structure is coming unstuck. He then cites a cites senior planner saying,

The whole concept of the 1998 strategic defence review was to push for forces to rush out to trouble zones, restore order and return … Instead, we're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But that is the crucial point – FRES is designed for the "wham, bam, thank you mam!" type of expeditionary warfare exemplified in the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) concept – a quick in and out, with plenty of fireworks in between. The real world, however, is the warfare in which our troops are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and, if that represents the future, we do not need FRES at all. In fact, FRES would be a dangerous diversion of funds. If we spend £14 billion on this, we are unlikely to have the money to spend on equipping the Army for the real wars.

You can now see why, though, the Army wants to get rid of Iraq and – to a lesser extent – Afghanistan. If our soldiers keep having to fight real wars, the generals may not get their new toys. Yet, the Almonds of this world fall for the propaganda - not giving the generals those toys would undermine the ability of the Army to fight land battles overseas... yeah, right!

And the Tories' line on this is?

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, FRES

It has been a constant refrain of this blog that we need a public debate on the role of our armed forces, with my colleague setting the tone by suggesting (nay, asserting) that we as a nation no longer have the stomach to be a military power and should disband our forces.

Not wishing this to be true (but accepting that it might) I had hoped that a grown-up Conservative opposition would lead such a debate and that the issues would be properly aired – even if I might have been less than satisfied with the outcome.

But, instead of a debate, we have one of the Boy King's loathsome "commissions" and for a shadow defence secretary Liam Fox, both of which has ensured that the issues have not been intelligently discussed – not least it seems because Fox seems to have no feeling for or understanding of defence issues.

But, in politics as in nature, vacuums are unstable things that are prone to be filled. In the absence of any sentient contribution from the Boy and his lacklustre chums, the gap is being filled by none other than our own prime minister (for the time being) Tony Blair who today spoke to the subject in Plymouth. There, at one of Britain's premier naval bases (for the time being) he opened precisely the debate we have been calling for.

According to the BBC website , Blair tells us that Britain must decide now whether it wants to be a major defence power in the future. Needless to say, he defends his own policy of intervention in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan but he also wants a debate on whether the UK should continue to send troops to trouble spots after he quits.

This is a bit rich coming as it does the day after the US announced it was sending more than 20,000 extra troops to Iraq and rumours abound that the UK is poised to withdraw over 3,000 troops from southern Iraq.

But what is fascinating is the sea-change in Blair's outlook. At the early stages of his prime ministerial career, he saw Britain's influence in the world in terms of membership of the European Union. To that effect – with enthusiastic support of his then defence minister Geoff Hoon – he was prepared to submerge the British military in the European defence identity.

Now, however, he is arguing that if Britain wants a leading presence on the world stage, it means continuing to send troops into dangerous places far away - with (and largely without) the involvement of the EU. In a interview with a local television programme, he declared, "There is a global terrorism that we face … I think it's right for Britain, alongside our allies, to be in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is a big decision to decide to be in that game still."

The crucial issue for the Eurosceptic community is that the allies with whom we are working are not the European Union. They are Nato, the United States, countries like Pakistan – with whom we share the vital task of defeating the Taliban – and Anglospheric countries like Canada and Australia.

In short, the best way for the UK to maintain its semi-detached relationship with the core EU countries such as France and Germany – and ward off encroaching political integration - is to remain immersed in fighting the "war on terror", from which the EU powers have largely opted out.

This being the case, it can be no surprise that the most strident critics of the Iraq war are the Europhile Lib-Dems, supported in the Tory ranks by such arch Europhiles as Ken Clarke. Likewise, with what are clearly emergent Europhile tendencies, it is entirely in character for the Boy King to go soft on the war and to support a policy of rapid disengagement. Equally, the Tory hierarchy are not opposed in principle to greater military "co-operation" with the EU.

The trouble is that there is not only a political divide between the European and the US-led approach, but a growing schism in military philosophies – a divide between conventional "warfighting" and counterinsurgency operations.

Between the two, the Army – in particular – sees the wizz-bang, shoot-em-up warfighting, with its tanks, artillery and other toys as "proper" soldiering. It hates counter-insurgency and treats it as an aberration, hence its reluctance to gear up for it and to develop appropriate and effective tactics. It wants to get it over and done with so that it can get back to its traditional role of breaking things and killing people – preferably "real" soldiers who have the decency to use green (or sand) painted toys and wear uniforms.

Perversely, it is the "soft power" European Union which offers the military the best prospect of equipping and maintaining a modern "warfighting" army, in its grandiose plans for the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). Because the ERRF is a theoretical construct, unhampered by having to be structured and equipped to deal with a real enemy in a known theatre, military planners can indulge in their flights of fancy.

Actively supported by the major equipment manufacturers, who are salivating at the thought of major European programmes, they are focusing on the high-tech end of warfare, developing things like Future Rapid Effects System (FRES). These have no relationship to the conditions in real-life theatres where there are actual wars going on. But they are comfortingly expensive and complicated, and will provide for many industrial jobs and shareholder profits.

Although fighting an insurgency, requires often fairly straightforward (and cheap) equipment - £250,000 for an RG-31 or equivalent as opposed to £8-10 million for a single FRES medium-weight wheeled armoured vehicle – the Army is not really interested in the quantity and suitability of its kit. It will happily discard that which does not fit with its own image of what its role should be, in favour of less capable equipment which accords with that image.

Thus, the debate is not actually about whether we should fight the war on terror but whether we should continue so doing or pull out in order to pursue the more acceptable - to some - programme of European defence integration. But, because the dreaded "E-word" is never mentioned, we have a wholly distorted and unreal debate, with the real issues being avoided and the parties indulging in proxy arguments.

On the one side, we have Europhile Liberal Democrat peer Lord Garden (illustrated), a former assistant chief of defence staff, who agrees that the UK should pay much more of its national income towards defence. He is then supported by Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon (retd), who also says that "We mustn't fall into the trap of becoming a peace-keeping militia." He declares that, "An ability to conduct full-scale military operations is the foundation for successful peace-making and peace-keeping."

Both of them – representative of their two factions – are thus opposed to deeper involvement in Iraq but for entirely different reasons. Nevertheless, they come together with a common objective which makes them temporary allies.

What they need to understand though is that, since the Korean War in the 1950s, it is the conventional shooting war which has been the aberration. From Aden to Iraq via Malaysia, counter-insurgency has been the norm. Therefore, if we are to have a place in the councils of the world - which really mean anything - then we are going to have to ensure, whether they like it or not, that our armed forces are properly equipped and structured to deal with what is also called asymmetric warfare. And that, coincidentally, is the best way to break the grip of the EU - by developing a world view that does not accord with that of the "little Europeans".

More specifically, with current defence expenditure, we have the finance to equip our armed forces for conventional warfighting or for counter-insurgency, but not both. Clearly, the Europhiles would prefer the former - as that takes us in the direction of the EU. Also, the hierarchies of the armed forces desperately want to keep a warfighting capability and, forced to make a choice, would dispense with their counter-insurgeny roles. (As for the Tories, they do not seem even to be in the debate as they seem largely unaware of what is going on.)

Whatever the merit of retaining a significant conventional warfighting role, it has to be said that the urgent need for the here and now is to improve our counter-insurgency capability. And, by happy coincidence, promoting the development of that capability is the best way of scuppering the ERRF.

From the Eurosceptic stance, therefore, Blair is suddenly the ally - as are those who support the continuation of the war in Iraq. The Lib-Dims (the Conservatives) and the military – each for their different reasons – are the opposition. But, with the real issues ill-defined, the real opposition is ignorance. That is where we are going to have to focus, bringing it home to people that there is a real world out there. The EU is not part of it and, if we wish to be part of the real world, we cannot be part of the EU.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, EU, FRES

One tiny bit of the all-pervading veil covering that most secretive (and dishonest) of organisations, the Ministry of Defence, was lifted for us this weekend by defence correspondent Sean Rayment (pictured), of the Sunday Telegraph.

But what he thinks he might have seen, he may or may not actually have seen. And it is a moot point – given his lacklustre track record – whether he has actually understood what he did see.

Even with that, you cannot be sure he has painted an accurate picture. This depends on whether he was allowed to see enough of the game to form a clear view – which is extremely unlikely. He will have been shown only what some of the players wanted him to see – or were able to show him, notwithstanding that none of the players themselves have a complete picture.

If you are beginning to suspect this is a laborious way of my admitting that I have not the faintest what is going on in the MoD, then you are partially right. But it is also a reminder that no one else does. What we are getting, therefore, is a confused picture. In the final analysis, it may be completely misleading - with the possibility that that is the real intention.

Not for Sean Rayment and his MSM newspaper, however, are there any doubts or caveats – and nor would you expect them. Rayment, under the headline, "Armed forces face Brown's fury" is telling us that Defence Chiefs believe that the Armed Forces are now viewed by "senior Labour figures" as a "Tory organisation", leaving them at risk of incurring the wrath of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor.

Senior officers, we are then told, fear that relations with Labour are so bad that the Chief of the Defence Staff will have to issue official orders at senior level, banning the leaking of stories damaging to the government. The months of unofficial briefing by senior commanders have sparked increasing fears that the Ministry of Defence will be left the "poor relations" of government spending, with defence budgets slashed during this year's Comprehensive Spending Review.

That, of course, is what it is all about – the comprehensive spending review. This is the current "bun fight", the outcome of which will determine whether the different Services will get all the toys they want or whether some of the treasured projects will have to be cut back to pay for ongoing operations.

For all the complexity, once you have sussed that, you have the essence of the game. What you must not do is run away with the idea that the Defence Chiefs are actually interested in the performance of their respective services or even care about the current commitments in Afghanistan and - especially - Iraq. These are simply irritating side issues which are distracting them from the task of building "proper" armed forces.

The current concern about these operations thus stems not from any heart-searching about best to fight them but from a greater concern that the spending on them might eat into the finance available for longer term projects, like the Navy's carrier programme and the Army's £14 billion Future Rapid Effects System (FRES). The "war against terror" is regarded as a temporary and unwelcome aberration which must not be allowed to distract from the longer-term development of the armed forces.

Reading between the lines, this is why there is now real alarm within the MoD. The recent publicity about the under-resourcing of troops in the field has been too successful and has gone badly wrong. The message has gone to the Treasury that it is there that the bulk of spending must be concentrated, rather than on the grandiose headline projects to which the Defence Chiefs are so wedded.

What has caught them out is that they largely believed that stoking up public concern over current commitments would bring them extra (i.e., new) money. Instead, Gordon and his hard-hearted (and largely bankrupt) Treasury chums are simply planning to re-allocate existing funds, diverting them to service the immediate operational requirements.

Hence do we get another piece from Rayment (with the help of political editor Patrick Hennessy) in the inside pages, picking up what he has seen but not understood, under the headline "The big guns are ordered to hold fire".

What this amounts to is Defence Chiefs and the MoD establishment, having suddenly realised that their publicly-expressed concern for the troops in the field might actually cause money to be diverted to them rather than the favoured projects, are desperately clamping down on the publicity to ensure that their ambitions are protected. The rest is fluff.

What is rather amusing, in a pathetic sort of a way, is how little Sean has been recruited as the willing but unknowing agent to promote the Defence Chiefs' agenda. Not for him nor the MoD, and especially not the Conservative opposition, will you get any ideas that the Army – in particular – should be properly equipped for the tasks it is currently undertaking.

That defence money should actually be spent on defence is most irregular - and most definitely not on the agenda if the Defence Chiefs - with the help of the Sunday Telegraph - can keep it that way.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, FRES, Gordon Brown

The man has an uncanny gift for losing it. At a time when Iraq and the "war on terror" was centre stage, with Blair in Washington meeting Bush, the Iraq study group report on the table and General Sir Mike Jackson doing his best to act as an opposition party to Blair's government, the Boy King scuttled off to Brussels to tell the EU commission how wonderful it is and how it must use all its powers to combat climate change.

The Boy's greenie agenda is so much at one with one with the EU's - both of them stoking up and then exploiting public concern for their own reasons - that it was only a matter of time that their agendas should converge and there should be an open love-fest. But, as always, the Boy's timing is wrong and his sense of priorities badly askew. Was he not justifying the urgency of his visit to Basra last week on the basis that he needed to have been there before the Iraq Study Group Report was published?

And now that the report is out, and the debate is running, Cameron is nowhere to be seen on the issue.

Meanwhile, as the "professionals" in the media continue to laud Jackson, the real people in the letters columns and elsewhere are distinctly less than complimentary. Within the Army and those around it, "Macho Jacko" is generally regarded as having been a disastrous CGS. The only problem is that the "professionals" are getting it wrong again. While they laud Dannatt, the indications so far are that he is not much better.

And from the Conservative opposition team? We get a few ritual whimpers about "overstretch" and then Liam crawls back in his box. FRES? Restructuring? Equipment? Nah... clearly, now that the Tories are in love with a greener EU, they don't "do" defence.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: basra, defence, FRES

We might have been a little more impressed by General Sir Mike Jackson and his sudden conversion to the cause of the Army – in his Dimbleby Lecture – last night, if he had been slightly more robust about its welfare and direction before he retired as Chief of General Staff.

As it stands, not only was Jackson the primary architect of the Army restructuring (the Future Army Structure) – and the abolition of many of the regiments – he was an active and enthusiastic proponent of FRES. See what he had to say about both in his retirement speech posted on 26 July 2006.

...But it is as important to ensure that such success can be achieved in the future as it is now. That is why the Army Board has initiated the Future Army Structure (FAS) – to get the maximum capability we can from the resources we have been allocated. Some of the decisions involved in FAS and their effects were difficult – but they were right.

There is still much to be done, not least in getting both officers' and soldiers' career structures right, in bringing new equipment – particularly FRES – into service, in completing – speeding up, if possible – the modernization of accommodation; I am confident that we are on the right road, and that the British Army will be in as good shape in 10-20 years' time as it is today – better shape, even.

You will note also that there is not much concern about the "shape" of the Army then.

That aside, we would also have been much more impressed with the media if their representatives and columnists had actually read Jackson's speech – all of it – instead of just going for the cheap headlines. But then it is the MSM we're talking about.

Expect a fuller post shortly, looking at the whole thing.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES

I suppose it will take a little time for the implications to sink in, but if the Saudi Eurofighter deal does go down, as the current edition of The Business is warning might happen, then it will have a profound effect on the rest of our defence spending.

This is because the aircraft to be sold to the Saudis come out of the British allocation. And while we would have simply tacked on more machines to the end of the order, that would still have been highly beneficial.

Firstly, it built a delay into the purchases – and as every businessman knows, cash-flow is everything – and, secondly, it meant that we would be buying more Tranche 3 machines, with a ground attack capability, which would be far more useful than having more of the air-superiority versions.

With a number of high-cost defence projects coming through the system all in a rush, the budget was already under pressure. Without the relief afforded by the Saudi deal, the long-rumoured suggestion that something will have to give may now be closer to fruition.

This may be the carrier project – as we intimated earlier or it may be FRES, which are the two largest projects on the immediate horizon, or it may be a combination of many small cuts – which is already happening – plus delays in existing projects.

That the French might then be the ultimate beneficiary of a Saudi cancellation, all over a corruption issue, is profoundly ironic. All you have to do is put three words together - Taiwan, frigates and bribes - and the irony becomes immediately apparent.

But somehow, the idea that the Saudis might buy Rafales as a possible alternative to the Eurofighter simply does not compute. The French aircraft, whatever its merits, is no match for the Eurofighter, and would be hard put to match the US-built F-15s already on the Saudi inventory. Thus, the threat might be a deliberate attempt to probe a raw nerve, by people who understand British psychology all too well.

The financial implications aside, losing the contract to the French could actually be a good thing in the long term. It could wean us off the fashionable, communautaire pretence that the French are partners and remind us that they are competitors. In business as well as politics, the first duty of every Frenchman is to shaft the English. If we understand that it is in our national interest to return the favour, then the great fantasy of the European Union, where all nations happily co-operate in ever closer harmony, will be a step closer to its demise.

Now that really would be ironic, that the Eurofighter - the great symbol of European integration – should contribute to bringing down the "project".

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: defence, FRES

In the great tradition of the free-enterprise de Haviland Mosquito fighter bomber of World War II, BAE Systems has this week unveiled a completely new armoured vehicle, a 6x6 Mine-Protected Vehicle, to be known as the RG33L.

This has been developed in-house using the latest in design, modelling and simulation tools in Benoni, South Africa and in Santa Clara, Calif. It is claimed to offer more volume under armour than any other C130 transportable mine protected vehicle and incorporates the latest designs in protecting against improvised explosive devices and is equipped with a hydraulic ramp, a gunner's protection kit, a robotic arm, survivability gear, and dedicated space for equipment stowage. In addition, the vehicle is remote weapon capable and network enabled.

The RG33L also features additional systems to enhance survivability, such as modular add on armor kit provisions, TRAPP transparent armour that provides excellent visibility and situational awareness, and run-flat tyres. The vehicle is equipped with multi-positional mine protected seating and air conditioning.

Left to themselves, the armies of this world would still be looking at generations of armoured vehicles with their design principles stemming from the 60s – as indeed is the European Defence Agency with the pan-European Boxer (right) – and the British Army is still floundering around with the FRES concept and lightweight armoured vehicles.

This BAE Systems concept, however, is the future. While the Europeans are still bogged down in their outdated plans for air-portable rapid reaction forces capable of fighting a conventional war, it is to the RG33 type of vehicles that Sir Richard Dannatt needs to be looking.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES

Should we give half a cheer that at least one newspaper has picked up on Dannatt's plea for more resources to be devoted to the armed forces, or will this have no more effect than any of the tons of fish and chip wrappers produced each day?

Well… a micro-cheer – if there is such a thing. But, while the world's favourite newspaper (not) has come up with a stunningly obvious headline declaring that, "Winning the war will need more" – the problem is that the nature of "more" is not specified. What we do get though is this:

For the foreseeable future, the Army's basic task will be to defeat hit-and-run insurgent groups in hostile terrain. Yet the priorities for the defence budget are still geared towards frustrating an attack by the Soviet Union on Western Europe. A very substantial slice goes on our nuclear deterrent; more still will go on updating it. Some £18 billion has been expended on our share of the Eurofighter: a plane that still does not work properly, and for which no military function has been found.

...

The "peace dividend", the pot of gold politicians so love, has long since disappeared. We face a prolonged war against an implacable enemy. Mr Blair has recognised the threat. He, and his successor, now need to provide the resources our Armed Forces need to defeat it.

Clearly, the egregious hacks on The Sunday Telegraph did not fully read the Sarah Sands piece in the Mail (which is hardly surprising as most of them have been fired) but, had Patience given it to the dog, he might have reminded her of this:

What will make a difference is the arrival of more heavily armoured vehicles. Sir Richard is open about the vulnerability of some of the vehicles his soldiers have been using, particularly in Iraq.

"The threats we have been facing in Iraq from last summer grew considerably. The sophistication of the mines and rockets used to attack our vehicles went up significantly."

Thus, 160 six-wheeled, four-ton armoured patrol vehicles are on their way to Afghanistan. There is also a 20-ton vehicle called the Mastiff ready for use in Iraq or Afghanistan. The controversial "snatch" Land Rovers, which give little protection, should be replaced. "Over time I want to modernise all patrol vehicles," says Sir Richard. "The snatch vehicles were getting old. They were originally developed for Northern Ireland. I want people to have adequate vehicles for the tasks they carry out." There is also a family of armoured vehicles called FRES (Future Rapid Effect System). The cost of this future equipment is £14 billion.

And there it is. Dannatt, like his predecessor Jackson, is committed to FRES – with a price tag of £14 billion – the biggest single procurement programme for the Army ever devised.

Is anybody out there? FRES, i.e., Future Rapid Effects System, is the biggest single procurement programme for the Army ever devised.

This is not "geared towards frustrating an attack by the Soviet Union on Western Europe" but neither is it suitable for defeating "hit-and-run insurgent groups in hostile terrain." In fact, its primary purpose is to equip the European Rapid Reaction Force, the function of which is unknown – other than to pursue the "colleagues'" ambitions for further defence integration.

It is all very well taking a cheap shot at the Eurofighter (the only thing cheap about it) but the money is spent – or committed. It would cost us more at this stage to cancel the contract than buy the aeroplanes, unless we can dump more on the Saudis.

But when it comes to FRES, we are talking about the future – decisions yet to be made. And not for nothing have we called it a blunder of Eurofighter proportions with serious political implications.

There is still time to reverse course and equip the Army to deal with "hit-and-run insurgent groups", but that is not going to happen unless the media (to say nothing of the politicians) start waking up and discussing forward plans instead of ancient history.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES, mastiff

If one were to try and guess what either or both Basil Liddell Hart (left) and JFC Fuller were thinking at this moment – presumably as they perched on their lofty celestial clouds (or perhaps not in the case of Fuller) - it is difficult to decide whether they would be laughing or crying.

Both of them armoured warfare theorists in the inter-war period and strong advocates of the tank, they might perhaps be amused – in an ironic sort of way - by the news that the Canadian government has ordered its armed forces to prepare 120 troops and 15 Leopard tanks to send to Afghanistan as early as next week.

This is the government which used has 66 of these machines but was in the process of trimming the fleet to about 44 vehicles, judging them costly and less useful than in the Cold War era, having succumbed to the current military fashion for medium-weight wheeled armoured vehicles.

What has the hallmarks of a sudden decision follows changes in Taliban tactics in southwestern Afghanistan, where the 2,200 Canadian forces contingent is heavily committed in Operation Medusa to clearing out the Taliban from Kandahar province.

According to Canadian deputy commander Colonel Fred Lewis, the Taliban appear to be concentrating forces and digging in defences - moving to what he called "semi-conventional" combat, compared to guerrilla-style tactics employed before. In this scenario, the tanks would provide well-protected firepower to blast away and plough over such defences.

Interestingly, at 42 tons, the Leopards are considerably lighter than the US Abrams tank – weighing in at 65 tons – are more lightly armed with a 105mm gun as opposed to the Abram’s 120mm, but they are also faster. They may prove a better weapon against lightly armed irregulars, providing the Canadian all-arms co-operation is good enough to protect them from the ubiquitous RPG-7s.

But the crucial issue here is that, yet again, another army is turning to heavier armour. This follows in the wake of the US and Israeli armies, who have found that there is no substitute for thick steel when protection is needed, reversing the thinking of recent decades where the tank has been considered redundant on the modern battlefield.

The news comes little more than a week after the new British Chief of the General Staff (the professional head of the British Army), Sir Richard Dannatt , has called for a debate on defence spending, questioning whether the five percent of public spending (about £30bn) on defence was sufficient.

A similar line was taken by The Times but it must surely be getting to the point where there must be a similar debate on what equipment is needed by our forces, who are committed to so-called "asymmetric" conflicts for the foreseeable future. Not least, the big-spending projects like the £14 billion FRES project must be reconsidered, now that the former CGS, General Sir Mike Jackson – and champion of the project – has departed.

The problem is, of course, that – nominally – the UK government is still committed to Chirac's dream of a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), of which the FRES concept is an integral part. Will Blair have the courage to tell L’Escroc that he needs to ditch the dream or will we have to wait for his successor – presumably Gordon Brown – to break the bad news to Chirac's successor?

Therein, however, lies danger. So laboriously has the ERRF deal been stitched up that unravelling it and its component parts, like the European Capabilities Action Plan and establishing the EU Battlegroups (with plans only finalised in 2005), would open up a such a can of worms that the "colleagues" might resist any review. They could instead put pressure on member state signatories to honour their commitments and maintain their European fantasy.

Thus, while most of the forces which are actually in contact with the enemy are having to revise their thinking – and their equipment programmes – to deal with the realities on the ground, the British government may find itself under pressure to stick to the programme agreed with the "colleagues".

Whether a new prime minister will rise to the challenge – the challenge of reality versus dogma – and resist the pressure, will be an important test. Many lives will depend on the result.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES, Gordon Brown

A crop of letters in the Telegraph today (double-click to enlarge), under the heading, "Armed Forces deaths are the result of a lack of equipment", attests to the fact that the this blog is by no means alone in its view of the MoD's procurement performance – not that we ever thought we were.

But a recurrent theme in the debate is the issue of "underfunding". For instance, Telegraph correspondent James Heitz Jackson of London sees a direct correlation between the overstretch and underfunding imposed on our armed forces and the deaths of service personnel.

This is a charge made by former soldier Michael Moriarty in the "comment is free" section of the Guardian last week. Moriarty actually claims that soldiers are paying with their lives for the MoD’s incompetence, declaring that, "escalating commitments, budget squeezes and big equipment programmes have left Britain's forces fatally overstretched". He argues that:

Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching our forces - the army in particular - beyond the limits of the assumptions on which their funding is based. This situation has arisen through a combination of the government's enthusiasm for use of the armed forces to support its foreign-policy aims and the failure of defence chiefs to adequately highlight the limitations of military force and to demand that the government properly resource its military ambitions. There is a real risk that the armed forces could fail in their politically appointed tasks, with terrible long-term consequences for both them and Britain's world standing.

This has had defence secretary Des Browne rushing to the ramparts with what he thinks is a rebuttal, denying that British troops are ill-equipped and that the defence budget is insufficient.

At the heart of Bowne's rebuttal is his claim that the Afghan operation is fully funded from the Special Reserve and, therefore, the defence budget is not threatened by operational costs. Furthermore, he claims, the annual defence budget has risen by five billion pounds over the last five years - well in excess of inflation.

One has to say that this sort of charge and counter-charge gets us nowhere. It is little more that the "yah-boo-sucks" type of exchange that you can get any day in any school playground, lacking as it does any detail upon which to chew.

Actually, both are wrong and both are right – and neither has got to the key point. Yes, the defence budget has increased, and yes British forces are underfunded. And the reason both are right is that the money is going on useless projects like the Eurofighter, the Type 45 Destroyers and the Storm Shadow (the million pound bomb) – none of which are any use to the troops committed in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

But there is another all-important issue which neither of the proponents seem to have recognised. That is the value for money issue, which must also be assessed with regard to the tactical need.

Taking the second point first, outside a very narrow group of military specialists, there is very little debate as to what precisely is the right type and mix of equipment needed for counter-insurgency operations. Yet this issue is too important to be left to the specialists and – especially – the military establishment, which has a glorious and virtually unbroken record for getting it wrong.

Whether it was the introduction of the rifle in the Napoleonic wars – which was strenuously resisted – the change from red tunics to khaki in the Boer War, and the tardy issue of machine guns, or failure to develop a suitable tank (or armoured personnel carrier) during the Second World War, the record is dismal.

One of the current, most vibrant arguments at the moment is the role of armour in counter-insurgency, one that came to the fore in the battle for Fallujah (see here and here), which has had the US military reappraising the role of Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) and committing to a major programme of upgrading their Abrams fleet to improve its survivability in urban warfare.

Similar thinking is influencing the Israeli military. Before the Lebanon war, it was a given that the IDF would halt production of the latest mark of its Merkava MBT.

The view now – according to DefenseNews - is that the tank acquitted itself well in the recent fighting, not only in its primary role but in support missions such as escorting infantry, delivering supplies and even extracting battlefield casualties. The tank, therefore, is expected to evolve into a multi-purpose vehicle and its continued production looks assured.

Not only is the tank version undergoing a transformation, however, the Israelis are funding a project to develop the Merkava chassis into a dedicated armoured personnel carrier, called the Namera, building on their experiences with the Puma and its limitations.

All this is happening though at a time when the British Army is undergoing a major transformation, cutting back on its heavy armour and planning to replace much of its capability with medium-weight, wheeled armour, under the aegis of the £14 billion FRES programme, all to fit in with the EU concept of the European Rapid Reaction Force.

One can only marvel at the thought that the two armies which are most actively engaged at the sharp end with so-called "asymmetric warfare", in deadly counter-insurgency campaigns are opting for more and heavier armour while the British military establishment, imbued with the ethos of European integration, is going the other way.

But, if the choice of equipment is suspect, what about the costs? One of the main disadvantages of the Israeli Namera, we are told, is the cost – at a cool $750,000 each. But that, in sterling, is £398,631 (at current exchange rates) yet this compares with £437,000 each for lightly armoured Pinzgauer trucks.

No one is saying that the Namera would be the most appropriate equipment for the British Army in Afghanistan – although I suspect that some commanders would not turn them away if they were offered them – but surely the MoD can do better than spend nearly half a million for a truck that offers little if any better protection than that afforded by a "Snatch" Land Rover.

Then, as we have reported before, while there is a crying need for tactical helicopters in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the MoD is committed to buying the " future Lynx" at an average cost of £14.2 million each, which means that they cannot be brought into service until 2014. Yet, the US Army is quite content with the well-proven Kiowa variant, at less than £2.3 million each.

All this and much more (such as the near £200 million on 400 useless Panthers – which cannot be used in Iraq - see also here) suggests that, not only is the MoD buying the wrong equipment, it is also paying far too much for what it does buy – the worst of all possible worlds. It also suggests that the problem is much more complex than the simple issue of "underfunding".

On the one hand, we have committed far too much on equipment that is of no use for the current campaigns and, on the other, much of what we do buy for the respective theatres is either overly expensive, under-performing or too late – or any combination of the three.

Echoing Booker's lament in his column last week: "Oh, for a properly clued-up media and an Opposition worthy of the name," we urgently need a properly informed debate both in Parliament and in the media.

We have no great hopes of the former and, as for the latter, even if there were journalists around who were capable of understanding the issues, the likelihood is that they would not be allowed to write even half-way detailed stories (as we found to our cost here). Their editors, wedded to their dumbed-down diet of political soap operas and Diana-esq, human interest stories, can rise to the occasional cheap quickie - after the event – (or the occasional cartoon) but would judge detailed analyis too "boring" for their precious readers.

Thus is the public condemned to ignorance and, as we keep pointing out, the consequences are all too evident. Ironically, during the early '80s, when the killer disease AIDS made its appearance, the Department of Health advertising slogan – to increase awareness – was "don't die of ignorance". Decades later, this looks to be the fate of many of our soldiers. The horrible reality, though, is that it will not be their ignorance which does for them – but ours.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES, helicopters, land rover, Panther, Pinzgauer, Type 45 Destroyer

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

In the event that the Conservatives win the next election – the date of which could be anything from 2007 to 2010, depending on diverse factors – they could be in for a very nasty surprise.

According to the current edition of Aviation Week, the Ministry of Defence is looking down the nose of a huge shortfall in funding over the next procurement planning period – from 2011-21. This amounts to perhaps £11.6 billion, or even more, on top of the £6 billion or so spent each year on defence procurement.

The problem for the Conservatives is that purchasing decisions made during the Labour term of office – and even before – will come to fruition during this next planning period, when there is a possibility that there will be a new government.

Pojects that will have to be paid for include the acquisition of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – at an estimated £10 billion - the two proposed aircraft carriers (£4 billion) and the remaining tranches on the Eurofighter, tranche 2 alone estimated at £4.3 billion.

On top of that, there is the £2.4 billion order for 24 Airbus A400M military airlifters, the remainder of the Type 45 air defence destroyer, programmed for £6 billion – and more if a new Conservative government decided to increase the numbers - as well as the £14 billion Future Rapid Effects System. There is also a marked increase in guided-weapons spending in the period, including the £1.2 billion Meteor air-to-air missile for the Eurofighter, and there is the MARS fleet replenishment programme, the Future-Lynx, and the £3bn contract for 12 Nimrod MRA4 aircraft which was announced this week.

All this is money already committed and does not take into account the need for any new equipment for the Army – such as additional armoured vehicles to deal with the threat from IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor does it include any provision for increasing helicopter airlift capability, already depleted with the MoD facing the prospect of scrapping eight Chinooks which have never flown operationally, at a cost of £259 million.

Apart from anything else, this "funding gap" raises important questions about the very nature of our democracy, arising from the lengthening period between ordering military hardware and taking delivery. We are getting to the situation where typical procurement cycles are longer than the length of several parliaments, so that one government can make huge spending commitments which may have to be met by a completely different government.

There is a certain irony here in that the Eurofighter project, which was approved by Heseltine in 1985, will revisit the Conservatives, who will have to find the money for tranche 2 and 3. The great Europhile casts a long shadow.

As importantly, whether intentional or not, the defence "funding gap" takes on the aspect of a "poison pill", potentially saddling the next government with huge commitments. This cannot but help but have an effect on other spending programmes and broader policies. A future Conservative chancellor may, for instance, find himself unable to implement manifesto commitments – if any are ever made – simply because he has to pay the debts incurred by the previous Labour government.

This possibility alone drags defence issues out of the specialist ghetto and into mainstream politics. It makes it all the more urgent that future defence policy is properly debated – not least in terms of the major spending programmes such as FRES, which will have an important effect on shaping our defence capabilities and options.

So far, Liam Fox has not risen to the challenge and David Cameron has yet to engage on the issue at all. But, unless this issue is confronted, a new Conservative government may find it has bitten off more than it can chew.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: Airbus, FRES, Liam Fox, Type 45 Destroyer

For an update on this post, see here.

It is not often we can look to Canada for a lead in military affairs but, on the face of it, Army leaders are on the brink of making the stunning decision to cancel two high-tech equipment projects, the Mobile Gun System (MGS) (pictured) and the Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle (MMEV), together worth about 1.5 billion Canadian dollars.

These are respectively an anti-tank gun and missile systems, based on the US Stryker wheeled armoured vehicle chassis, and were being ordered as part of the Canadian equivalent to the British Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) and the American Future Combat System (FSC).

According to DefenseNews, the Army is being reticent at this stage about the precise reasons for what is at the moment a recommendation to cancel. There is, therefore, some speculation as to whether this is on the grounds of cost or because the ongoing conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan has shown the need for increased armour protection on vehicles.

However, defence analyst David Rudd, executive director of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies, is less reticent. He has seen the formal text of the recommendation and says the reasons outlined in that document indicated the need for better armour protection on vehicles as well as freeing up money for other, more urgently required equipment.

"If you go by the correspondence, the reason given is partially because of lessons learned by our allies, and that is when you are in a complex environment, you must lead with a vehicle that's survivable," says Rudd.

This seems to be following the line pursued by this blog, where we are arguing that the UK should abandon the grandiose £14 billion FRES project and concentrate on equipping our army for the tasks it is at present undertaking.

If this is an example of reality breaking out, it seems to be catching – at least on the North American sub-continent. With the strenuous demands placed on them in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Army's fleet of Kiowa light observation helicopters is wearing out rapidly.

According to Defense Industry Daily, the Army has been offered a new, all-singing, all-dancing replacement called the Comanche, at an eye-watering $36 million each. But, rather than spend this sort of money, the Army has decided on a cheaper option – an upgraded Kiowa, codenamed the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH).

At an estimated $6 million each, this is approximately £2.28 million per helicopter, compared with the average cost of the Future Lynx, at £14.2 million each. And, in contrast to the MoD, which is delaying deliveries of the Lynx to 2014, the US Army is bringing its programme forward

As DID remarks, the deciding factor was that the new US helicopter was based on a certified civilian aircraft in order to lower maintenance and R&D; expenses, and keep the aircraft within the required acquisition cost range. Again this is in marked contrast to the UK approach, which is developing specific military airframe, with very limited sales potential and with only 70 machines on order.

Of course, Kiowa replacement, which may be called the Arapaho, will not perform all the functions of the Lynx, but that is no bad thing. As it stands, the current aircraft have to perform a dizzying variety of functions, from resupply, to assault troop insertions and to "communications" (a VIP taxi), to say nothing of the attack helicopter role and casevac – plus reconnaissance and convoy escort.

A better option would be to operate two types, as indeed does the US Army, it having currently ordered at EADS Eurocopter UH-145 LUH for the separate light utility role. At just under £4.5 million each, the UK could buy three of these for every Lynx, and have change left over, or four of the new Arapaho, giving a much better fleet mix and more helicopters.

Purists might argue that the new Future-Lynx might have some additional capabilities, not provided by either machine, but one has to ask whether the pursuit of supposed perfection, the Services – or at least, the MoD specifiers, are not being altogether too precious. After all, we are not dealing with technologically sophisticated enemies and, not so very long ago, the MoD was content to allow the Army to operate Skeeter helicopters (example pictured) which were actually used in combat areas such as Aden.

Thus, just why the MoD is taking such a ludicrously expensive – and dangerous – route seems beyond the wit of any mere mortal to work out. But, as our troops are increasingly starved of vital resources, we could do no better than to look to the realism of the Anglosphere for our answers.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES, helicopters

For an update on this post, see here.

On the back of oral evidence given yesterday by secretary of state for defence, Des Browne, to the House of Commons defence committee, the Conservative Party has waded into the battle of the Land Rovers, calling for improved armour for British troops.

This is in the form of a press release issued by the shadow minister for procurement, Gerald Howarth, on the back of the evidence given by Browne. The secretary of state has at last admitted that our Armed Forces need a level of armour between the heavily armoured Warrior and the lightly armoured Land Rover. Gerald Howarth says:

Des Browne's admission that there is a capability gap in the armour available to our troops on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan raises serious questions about the Government's commitment to ensuring Britain's Forces have the best equipment. They have failed to provide the Armed Forces with a medium capability between the heavily armoured Warriors and the lightly armoured, but more agile, Land Rovers to allow them to carry out the full range of tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Howarth's release also offers interesting insight into the total disarray into which land forces procurement has descended. He reminds us that it was always the MoD's intention to have a medium, wheeled armoured vehicle to fill the gap between the Land Rover and the Warrior which, originally, rested on another of those ill-fated European co-operative projects.

This was the Boxer Multi-role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV), originally an Anglo-German project signed in 1999 and joined by the Netherlands in 2001. But, in July 2003, Britain pulled out after it was realised that the new vehicle, at 31 tons, was too heavy to be transported by the RAF's fleet of C-130 transport aircraft.

Not only did we lose £48 million in the process (a conservative estimate) – this also set back the re-equipment plans, which became subsumed into the Future Rapid Effects System Programme. However, the need for a medium vehicle remained, which was why FRES was originally given an early in-service date of 2009. This was later pushed back to 2010 and, yesterday, David Gould, chief executive of the Defence Procurement Agency, confirmed to the defence committee that the main procurement for FRES had not begun and that there was no in-service date.

With nothing on the immediate horizon, therefore, the Conservatives are demanding that that the government looks to "interim measures which will give commanders in the field a greater range of options, better protected than the Land Rover but more manoeuvrable than the Warrior". Howarth adds:

While we all accept that there needs to be a range of options available to our commanders on the ground, ranging from air transport to foot patrols, it is now clear that there is a shortfall in the range of armour available. It is imperative that the Government re-examine all the options to ensure that our Armed Forces have the best possible equipment to carry out the difficult job which we ask of them.

The problem for the MoD and defence planners is none of the platforms being considered for FRES are really suitable for counter-insurgency operations and, while the RG-31 is undoubtedly an improvement on existing vehicles, it is optimised for mine protection and itself can only be regarded as an interim solution. Anything produced will be, as Howarth readily concedes, a compromise but, so far, the MoD is showing no signs of addressing the issue.

This, therefore, has much greater resonance than just defence policy. It is yet another example of the dismal incompetence of the Labour government, the defects of which only now, after nine years in power, are becoming all too apparent.

Incidentally, confirming assertions made on this blog, Des Browne stated in his evidence that the Pinzgauer Vector which enters service in 2007 does not provide much greater protection than the Snatch Land Rover currently in use and also stated that the Panther vehicle, which also enters service in 2007 will not meet the armoured patrol vehicle role required.

See also Corporate manslaughter for an update on the Pinzgauer Vector.

COMMENT THREAD

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

For an update on this post, see here.

Today, we read in The Daily Telegraph that the Conservatives are concerned that our forces in Afghanistan are under-equipped for their mission.

In a separate piece, we also read that the Army is scrapping 500 Saxon armoured personnel carriers that are unfit for use in Iraq or Afghanistan, but is so short of money that it is planning to replace them with vehicles that are almost 40 years old.

If ever there was a time for saying, "I told you so", it is this. It was two years ago, almost to the day, that I first wrote a piece on this blog about defence equipment plans, noting that the government was planning to spend (then) £6 billion – since increased to £14 billion - on re-equipping the Army with the Future Rapid Effects System.

Presciently, I headed my piece "Another blunder of Eurofighter proportions", introducing a thesis since amplified that the government was preparing to spend huge amounts of money on an untried force structure, all to meet Tony Blair's commitment to providing formations for the European Rapid Reaction Force.

From a limited defence budget, therefore, we were devoting huge sums to feeding a fantasy army while starving our real army, increasingly committed to actual combat, of the equipment and men it needs.

One of the first pieces of equipment actually to roll off the production lines for this new, fantasy army is the Panther Command Liaison Vehicle, about which we have written at length.

But what is particularly relevant at this juncture – when the Army is desperately short of a protected patrol vehicle - is that the Panther, at £413,000 each, was purchased against a specification so narrowly drawn that it is useable only for its designated functions. Yet, it was chosen in preference to the RG-31. This was not only £150,000 cheaper but is also a multi-purpose vehicle which could easily have accommodated the Command/Liaison role as well as providing an ideal, protected patrol vehicle.

Currently, the Italian-built Panthers are being finished off by BAE Systems, with the additional of a machine gun, radios and other accessories, when they will be delivered to the Army, effectively providing "battlefield limousines" for Ruperts – as officers are dismissively called – while troops are forced to patrol in dangerously vulnerable "Snatch" Land Rovers.

Had the decision to buy Panthers, announced in November 2003, been different, we would have had RG-31s rolling off the production lines in British Army colours which, with minor modifications, could be re-fitted as patrol vehicles and shipped out to Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter theatre, they would be joining the RG-31s operated by the Canadian Army which is so pleased with the vehicles that it has just ordered another 25.

Hindsight, you might say, is easy, but for the fact that the Panther decision always looked suspect and, in the context of a limited budget and an uncertain future, it makes sense to buy a multi-role vehicle, even if it is not absolutely ideal for all of the different tasks for which it might be called upon to perform – more so if, like the RG-31, it is significantly cheaper.

What has happened, though, is that the MoD – under successive governments – has taken its eye of the ball. Obsessed with the idea of constructing a mean, lean, high-tech army, with shiny new toys to impress the European "colleagues", it has neglected the here and now, and the immediate needs of our present-day armed forces, engaged in the messy, bloody counterinsurgency operations for which it is singularly ill-equipped.

This obsession with shiny (and expensive) high-tech toys – and the prestige they bring - is also another fatal weakness of the MoD, their defence industry pals and the warring tribes within the armed forces. This is behind the decision to buy 900 Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles at over £1,000,000 each, the introduction of which was brought forward so that the RAF could indulge in a dick-measuring contest with the Americans during Gulf War II, proving that it too had a stand-off munitions capability.

During that war, the RAF managed to launch 27 missiles at a cost of £29.43 million in weapons alone, compared with the 400 or so US Tomahawk cruise missiles, making no measurable contribution to the campaign and saddling us with a massive bill which we are still having to meet. Yet, in simple terms, the £1 billion for these missiles – the bulk of which are now sitting uselessly in RAF stores – could have bought 4,000 RG-31s. It is not difficult to work out which would be of more use in our current situation.

Similarly, although there is a massive shortage of tactical helicopters in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as we have recently reported, the government has announced its intention to procure 70 "super-Lynx" helicopters for £1 billion, to come into service from 2014. Once again, we see this obsession with "high-tech" kit for the future, when the need is here and now.

But even the £14.2 each to be expended on these aircraft pales into insignificance compared with the £60 million each paid for the Army’s 67 Apache attack helicopters, a squadron of which is currently deployed in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly, they have their value, as attested by a typically "Boy's Own" piece in the Telegraph recently. However, we saw in the Sunday Times, this weekend, a graphic account of a firefight between British troops and the Taliban.

The journalist, Christina Lamb, recounts that, at the height of the battle, the patrol leader, Major Blair, "was very angry indeed". "Where's the f****** air support?" the major was yelling on the radio to British headquarters at Camp Bastion, reading off a GPS position. Lamb continues with the narrative:

"Two A10s 10 minutes away can be with you for 20 minutes," came the reply. Nothing arrived. "We need air support. Where's the air support?" Major Blair radioed again after sliding on his back in another trench, pulled down by the weight of the kit on the mud. The message came back that the A10s had been called off to Sangin, a village to the north where two British special forces had been killed. No other planes were available because heavy fighting was still going on.

Now, let's do a little sum. An Apache costs £60,000,000. A Hughes 500 – a light, 4-seater commercial utility helicopter - costs £900,0000. For each Apache, you could buy over 60 Hughes helicopters.

Purists will immediately say that there is no comparison between the two, and indeed there is not. However, in the hands of the private security company, Blackwater Security Consulting, off-the-shelf Hughes 500s, with two door gunners, are used to devastating effect as convoy escorts. Now ask which would have been more use to Major Blair – one Apache committed to a battle elsewhere, or a detachment of four Hughes 500s, on the spot, spitting out fire from eight machine guns?

And yes, I know you can buy such helicopters off the shelf, but it takes two years fully to train a combat helicopter pilot. But how many redundant or under-used helicopter pilots are there currently in the Armed Forces, and how many civilian pilots are there, who were military-trained? And how long would it take to train a pilot to handle a simple machine like a Hughes 500?

So much for the toys, but what about the political implications? These are graphically put by the Telegraph leader which cites Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, who told the Commons yesterday, the cost of succeeding could be very high, but the cost of failure would be intolerable. At stake, he says, is the future of both Afghanistan and Nato, under whose aegis the campaign is being waged.

This theme is amplified by Con Coughlin in an op-ed but, like so many, he misses the point. The Army itself, he writes, might be suffering severe overstretch through a combination of underfunding by Gordon Brown's Treasury and Tony Blair's messianic willingness to commit forces to resolve the world's ills…

No, Mr Coughlin, with the MoD committing £14 billion to FRES, having spent £166 million on its battlefield limousines for Ruperts, having spent £1 billion on Storm Shadow, and billions more on other grandiose European projects – not least committing £30 billion to the Eurofighter - you cannot say there is any underfunding. The real problem is that the Army is suffering from the cumulative effect of bad procurement decisions, which started under the Conservatives' watch but are currently being driven by the Blair government's obsession for European defence integration.

At the moment, it looks doubtful whether the small, under-equipped British force can prevail in a country four times the size of Wales and a border with Pakistan 1,500 miles long, but, as Liam Fox rightly remarked, the cost of failure would be intolerable. Equally, although attention has shifted from there to Afghanistan, the cost of failure in Iraq – where we also have a small, under-equipped force - would be intolerable. Yet, without more troops and more equipment – the right equipment – failure is a distinct possibility.

In fact, failure in either theatre would destroy what little credibility the UK has as a world power. Arguably, to slink out defeated, licking our wounds, would have a greater effect on our standing in the world community than our ignominious departure from Suez. That is what is at stake and the real reason why we are in such a parlous situation is that we have devoted far too much of our energy and wealth to feeding the European fantasy, while neglecting our current responsibilities.

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: FRES, helicopters, Liam Fox, Panther, RG-31

For an update on this post, see here.

Two weeks ago, alongside Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, we set ourselves the apparently simple task of drawing to the attention of the wider community the dangerous inadequacies of the equipment supplied to our troops in Iraq (and also Afghanistan), in particular the so-called "Snatch" Land Rover.

We were by no means the first to raise this issue, but if ever there was an open and shut case, this seemed one to tackle and one ideally suited for a campaigning blog like ourselves.

In terms of exposure, I suppose we can call our activities successful, in that Booker did two articles, here and here, and The Sunday Times picked up our posts from the blog. Based almost entirely on our research, it ran last week a front-page story, a focus piece and an editorial. We have also tabled, through our friends and allies in the House of Commons and the Lords over 40 parliamentary question (with more to follow) and the issue has been raised both in defence questions in the Commons and in a debate in the House of Lords.

Then, last week, the issue led in the letters page of the Sunday Telegraph and this week it does so in the Sunday Times, the lead letter being from Andrew Adams, an ex-Captain of the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, now a chartered engineer, living in Ruislip, Middlesex. He writes, under the heading: "Army needs equipping with a fighting chance":

Thank you for highlighting the risks that British soldiers face when using Snatch Land Rovers.

As a former British Army engineering officer who led Snatch vehicle repair platoons during the last two summer tours of Iraq, I have seen first- hand the lack of protection they offer our troops. They are not fit for purpose - unstable, unreliable, overloaded with desert modifications (such as radios and air-conditioning) and, most importantly, lack sufficient blast protection. In addition, there were insufficient spares within the logistics system to enable us to quickly repair broken vehicles — spares delays of up to a month were common.

I chose to resign my commission rather than face another tour with dangerous "make do and mend" equipment.

There then follow six more letters, each making good points, the first of the remainder being from Keith Armstrong of Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, who refers to the MoD spokesman, Brigadier Bill Moore, in the Sunday Times piece. He defended the use of "Snatch" Land Rovers on the basis of the effect on civilians of Challenger tanks and Warriors roaring through Basra. Thus does Keith Armstrong write:

Surely Brigadier Bill Moore should be more concerned with the security of soldiers fighting in Iraq rather than their ability to interact with the local community, who currently seem to be taking advantage of our inability to supply the right vehicle. Anyway most of the vehicles have been attacked on main roads, and not in narrow side streets.

The government proclaims what a wonderful job the armed forces are doing on our behalf, but it is trying to have the job done on the cheap.

Malcolm Paton then makes the perfectly reasonable point that, while we are preparing to spend billions on renewing the "independent" nuclear deterrent,

…we have reports of the threat to Hercules aircraft from a lack of fire protection in the fuel tanks. Considering the number of low-level sorties currently flown by the Hercules in dangerous theatres - and the number of fatalities — this has caused great concern.

"My son has just passed out from the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick," Paton writes. "I doubt that our independent nuclear deterrent will be of any comfort to him when he undoubtedly serves in both Iraq and Afghanistan."

It is a measure of the lack of debate in the issue of European defence integration that the man does not pick up on the fact that we are committing £14 billion on the FRES programme, re-equipping and re-structuring the Army so that it can fulfil Blair's commitment to the European Rapid Reaction Force.

This, however, Christopher Booker deals with from the position of his ghetto in the his Sunday Telegraph column, sandwiched in between a worthy, but hardly earth-shattering piece on the latest round of absurdity on the metric rules, and a piece by James Le Fanu on the new diet pill.

Headed "A fantasy force for which our soldiers pay with their lives", Booker reminds readers that, when he wrote about the Land Rovers two weeks ago, he set the issue in the wider context of our disastrous defence policy, by which our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are starved of proper resources in order to spend billions on equipping our forces to play their part in the planned European Rapid Reaction Force.

The FRES concept which will form the heart of the ERRF - for which, we repeat, the MoD has allocated £14 billion - will rely on medium-weight, air-portable armoured vehicles, and is reported to be considering vehicles like these. One of these is the Piranha, on which the Stryker, currently used by US forces in Iraq, is based. And, as events have demonstrated, this too is highly vulnerable to IEDs.

To support his argument about the EU plans, Booker refers us to Karl von Wogau document on the "Implementation of the European Security Strategy", which we raised on this blog, having been alerted to its existence by a UKIP member of the Ind-Dem team in Brussels – and example of UKIP actually providing value for money.

Anyhow, returning to the crop of letters in The Sunday Times, Hugh O’Daly of Sheffield writes that the way ahead "is to replace these Land Rovers quickly by bringing in the wheeled Saxon armoured personnel carriers that the army already has in Europe."

O'Daly suggest that additional upgraded protection could be easily added to the sides, if needed, suggesting that, "this vehicle is larger and tougher than the Land Rover and is a modern replacement for the old armoured Pigs that operated in Northern Ireland." He concludes that, "there is no point patrolling towns in Warrior armoured personnel carriers and Challenger tanks, as is happening, as they are too big and heavy for the town streets. In addition they send the wrong message."

Yet, as our own readers will know from this blog, Saxons have been deployed in Basra, and for a time operated alongside 'Snatch' Land Rovers (see left). They have since been withdrawn – probably rightly. Despite their formidable appearance, they are actually no more than Bedford trucks with an armoured box on top, which confers little more ballistic protection than the Snatch. They confer no significant level of mine/IED protection and, even in the present configuration, are notoriously top-heavy. With additional protection they would be dangerous unstable.

However, the point about "sending the wrong message" by putting Warriors and Challengers on the streets is a good one. A wheeled vehicle is often chosen because it is regarded as looking "less aggressive" and is thus less likely to provoke civilian reaction. And, in this context, not only is the RG-31 a wheeled vehicle, it is an inch narrower than the Saxon.

Three more letters complete the "bag", which can be read from the link provided above, but the last merits special comment. This is from Anthony Philips of Salisbury, Wiltshire, who remarks that "nothing changes":

Almost 50 years ago, when serving in Cyprus, I lost two colleagues in a land mine explosion. The official response was to cover the floors with sandbags and, on frequently used tracks, reverse the vehicles over considerable distances to minimise the danger to front seat occupants.

That speaks volumes for the military mind, which constantly ignores the reality of operational threats and developments in warfare. I recall that, in the Peninsular war, there was enormous resistance to the use of rifles instead of the musket, in the Boer War the High Command initially rejected the idea of issuing khaki uniforms to replace the scarlet uniforms of the infantry and, even in the 1920s, the serried ranks of the Cavalry Corps argued that the tank was a passing fad which could so easily be knocked out by enemy artillery that it was a liability on the battlefield.

It is the political dimension, though, that most concerns us, on this blog. In his response to the calls for better equipment, Lord Drayson has sought to denigrate the RG-31 on four grounds: he tried to confuse it with the Mamba (left), inferring that because this vehicle had "maintenance problems", the RG-31 was unsuitable; he argued that the vehicle was "too big" and "lacked mobility" (two halves of the same coin), despite it being smaller than the Saxon, the Warrior and the Challenger. However, as Keith Armstrong put it in The Times, "most of the vehicles have been attacked on main roads, and not in narrow side streets."

Finally, Drayson argues about "profile", regarding the RG-31 as "too aggressive" in appearance compared with the "Snatch" ignoring the fact that, if it is too dangerous on the ground for the "Snatch", the only alternatives are the Warrior and the Challenger.

But, what Drayson does not argue – ever – is that the RG-31 would not provide additional protection, nor even that it would not provide complete protection, which has been left for others to do. Some argue that, because it would not protect against the so-called "off-route" mine, we should not use the RG-31, an argument as fatuous as saying that, because a Challenger tank is not proof against an anti-tank missile, they should not be deployed. And, surprise, surprise, guess where the ex-MoD Mamabas are (see above).

But the Minister's arguments (or lack of them) indicate that he is fighting a political agenda on political grounds, and it is Booker who has given us that agenda in today's Telegraph.

The pity of it is that, in two weeks, Parliament packs up its bags for the summer and the "silly season" takes over, so let's just remind ourselves of what this is all about. (left). Nevertheless, the media – and especially the Sunday Times - have got their little bit of mileage out of the story, and the BBC has rushed to the government's defence. The issue will thus peter out, leaving Drayson to breathe a sight of relief while he continues to ignore the welfare and protection of our troops.

But, while the MPs play, as we seen from from the media today, the situation is becoming highly dangerous in Afghanistan while, in Iraq, the MoD is simply reacting by putting the lid on comment and controlling access by journalists.

That leaves us to "bang on" but I am sure that, if we continue at this rate, we will eventually lose most of our readers and become just another lonely voice bleating in the dark. Can anyone out there suggest the next move?

COMMENT THREAD

Labels: basra, FRES, land rover, RG-31, UKIP

For an update on this post, see here.

According to the Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP, minister of state for defence, "we take all measures possible to ensure the safety and security of our troops deployed in Iraq". This is in response to an MP who had passed on a constituent's letter (a former serving soldier) expressing concern about "the safety of so-called armoured Land Rovers".

On the face of it, Ingram's statement is an out-and-out lie, except that in the weasel words that flow so easily from the civil service, to be signed off by their ministers, there is an important qualifier, in the use of the word "possible".

To the ordinary person, that word might encompass every measure known to man, certainly anything technically feasible, but in the dark halls of Whitehall, it would also include the issue of "affordability". Straight out of "Yes Minister", you can almost hear their honeyed words: "There is nothing allocated in the budget, Minister, so acquiring enhanced protection for our troops is not possible".

From there it is an easy step to write to the public, grieving relatives, worried parents, MPs and the rest, telling them: "…we take all measures possible". In strict terms, it is not a lie – but then it is not the truth either.

However, as we research this issue more deeply, inevitably the labyrinthine complexity emerges and what seems at first sight a straightforward black-and-white question of providing better armoured vehicles for our troops merges into complicated arguments about tactics, procedures, training and capabilities.

It is in this grey area that ministers are able to operate, obfuscating the issues and confusing readers of their letters, in which manner does Ingram soothingly declare, "mitigation measures are not just about equipment – all our forces undergo a comprehensive package of pre-deployment training to ensure that they are as prepared as possible for the specific operational environment they will encounter".

The sub-text, of course, is that it is not just about spending more money. In fact, implies the minister, our superb training, etc., etc., will prevail. Carefully does he avoid telling us, however, how any amount of training will protect a soldier in a lightly armoured vehicle from the blast of a concealed IED, triggered by an unseen operator.

It is here, therefore, that we pick up on the emerging story, broached in our two previous posts, here and here, which – on the basis of what we have so far found out - seem to show up the British at their very best and their very, very worst.

By way of background, we need to explore what is currently happening in the US-occupied areas of Iraq, where the scourge of the IED accounts for a full 68 percent of the battle casualties. To counter this threat, the Americans have been, since 2004 and now in increasing numbers, deploying new equipment, the Buffalo mine clearance vehicle (right) and the Cougar HEV/JERRV series (below left), together with the RG-31 series.

Bear with me briefly on the technicalities, but the basic strategy is, acting as a team, these vehicles are sent out onto the roads of Iraq to hunt out mines and IEDs and to destroy them. Then, as a final stage before the any particular road is cleared to allow ordinary patrols down them, the Cougar travels down it in a process known as "route proving" – on the basis that, if there is anything there, the mine protected vehicle will take the hit and the crew will survive.

Now, the thing is that this technique seems to have been pioneered not by the Americans but by the British in Bosnia, as early as 1999-2000. This is why the Mambas were purchased. But, even more intriguingly, it was there that the greater threat of the "penetrator mines" emerged, which led the development of British-funded counter-measures and the order of eight Cougar mine protected vehicles, in what is known as the Tempest project.

This, incidentally was in December 2001, in what appears to be the very first order for such vehicles, more than three years before the US forces placed their orders. Furthermore, the vehicles were upgraded to protect against the new mine threat. In other words, in a pioneering piece of research and development, we emerged with world-beating techniques and equipment, years before our more technically advanced cousins.

However, while the Americans have so far bought 122 Cougars - and have over a thousand more on order - we bought eight. I do not know yet whether they were deployed in Bosnia, but they do appear to have been sent to the Gulf, although I can find absolutely no reports of their having been used. According to one report, however, the vehicles are back in the UK being refurbished, prior to their despatch to Afghanistan where, it is claimed, the mine hazard is greater.

At a point, therefore, when the IED threat in the British occupied sector of Iraq is probably at its highest, the life-saving equipment pioneered by the British has been withdrawn, while the Americans are introducing it en masse, adopting precisely the tactics which our own Royal Engineers developed. You really could not make this up.

In the meantime, I have been sent an extract from the Regimental Journal of the King's Royal Hussars, which gives a graphic account of their recent deployment to Iraq. From this emerges that the current tactics adopted – unwittingly – are brutal and primitive. Quite simply, the troops are told to patrol their areas in lightly armoured Land Rovers until one or more of them are blown up. Then the Land Rovers are withdrawn and replaced by Warriors and Challenger tanks, until it is deemed safe to resume patrolling in Land Rovers again.

In effect – although they do so uncomplainingly – our soldiers are being used a "canaries down the mine" in a tactic redolent of the Red Army, in which punishment battalions were sent into minefields to clear the way for the assault troops.

From a more strategic point of view, this means that the Army can no longer function effectively. While Warriors and Challengers do provide additional protection, as the King's Royal Hussars report testified, their use "caused a major change in the way the Squadron operated, limiting the distances we could cover and the routes we could use." At one point, movement in "Snatch" Land Rovers was "deemed too dangerous" in Al-Amarah and helicopters had to be used to lift fully crewed Land Rovers out to the Iranian border where the Squadron was responsible for conducting patrols.

Returning, therefore, to Mr Ingram's claim that "we take all measures possible to ensure the safety and security of our troops deployed in Iraq", clearly this is not the case. The equipment and techniques do exist and, since the US forces introduced them, their casualty rate from IEDs has halved.

The problem is that Mr Ingram does not have the money. The government is happy to commit £14 billion to the FRES programme, and billions more on other equipment to provide our component of the European Rapid Reaction Force but that leaves nothing extra for the forces in Iraq. To spend a few million on new kit for them is simply not "possible".

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Labels: al amarah, FRES, helicopters, land rover, tempest