Boiling The Frog

Sinking reputations

Over on the EU Referendum blog, Richard North (who also writes at Defence or the Realm, a military blog that focuses more on “the war” as opposed to my own mild focus on “a war”) brings ot our attention a terribly disheartening article written by Max Hastings in The Daily Mail.

The Americans perceive the British Army as having suffered a defeat. They see us as leaving southern Iraq with our tail between our legs. Contempt for our showing there increases scepticism about what we are achieving, or not achieving, in Afghanistan.

The American are right. That they are right shouldn’t be news. Our likely defeat, followed by a quick declaration of victory and withdrawal to knowing sniggers, in Southern Iraq was obvious even to idiots like me back in 2005.

For a slightly more positive view, showing that the Army is learning lessons in Afghanistan, you could do worse than head over to Michael Yon’s site. This excellent war reporter has covered operational aspects ofthe  British Army in Iraq far better than any of the MSM idiots have managed. Currently he’s in Brunei:

Readers come to the website from well over a hundred countries, and when an officer from the British Army noticed I was in Brunei, he invited me to meet the next morning.  And so to make a short story even shorter, while having lunch with some British officers who were obviously quite proud of their work here, I asked if it would be possible to attend their military tracking school.  They were happy with the idea, but of course this would require approval from London.  That was lunchtime.  Within maybe four hours, approval was granted from London, and I began the embed that very day.  Next morning, the Brits outfitted me with some gear – such as a hammock, mosquito net and some rations – and I headed off to the jungle to one of the best tracking schools on the planet.  The class had just started so I happened to come to Brunei at just the right moment.  (Sometimes I think God really loves me.)  So this is the deal: I get to go to the jungle, learn tracking with the British Army, and photograph everything.  Then I get to write emails and send photos to you explaining what the Brits are doing out here.  For about the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll tell you about this amazing course.

You should head over to his site a read this excellent ongoing series.

I’m stunned, though not surprised, that the MoD has yet again completely ignored the work of this excellent reporter, who is doing more to explain the situation the Army finds itself in than any of the useless “we’ve just bought a shiny new peice of kit” junk posts which pass for news on the MoD blog.

Being honest

According to the Army-Technology.com website:

Britain’s opposition Conservatives dismissed a report saying they were considering cuts in defence spending to reduce the budget deficit if they win the election due by mid-2010.

I understand the political realities behind this ‘dismissal’ however, given the huge amounts of money we routinely waste on tailor-made equipment programs when off-the-shelf substitutes are both adequate and cheaper, perhaps a little honesty here would be helpful?

I’d love to hear a UK political party say:

Yes, we’re going to trim the defence budget, along with that of every other Government department. Frankly we have to. We think we can do it safely by making sensible procurement decisions such as……

It’d be refreshing wouldn’t it?

Lazy Reform

‘Reform’ is a UK-based think tank that advertises itself as “A policy institute promoting new directions for public policy based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, and individual liberty”.

In its latest report Reform, in a search for some solutions to the UK budget crisis, casts its brief, badly researched and contradictory gaze over “the second largest defence budget in the world”. What disturbs me about Reform’s suggestions are not the suggestions themselves but the obvious lack of research and joined-up-thinking behind them. 

Normally I have a lot of time for Reform and its agenda but like many others its fallen into the trap of simplistic answers for complex questions when it comes to defence issues.

I should note at this stage that I’m more than happy to see ’simple’ answers to complex questions - they are often the best.

Let’s take a look at a few Reform suggestions:

“The UK should extricate itself from Tranche 3 of the Eurofighter combat jet. It has been estimated that this will cost £3 billion. Planned system upgrades and modernisation of the Eurofighter programme – that unofficial sources have estimated could cost up to an additional £5 billion – should also be suspended. This could deliver a combined 2010-11 saving of £888 million.”

Actually I agree with this one, which is a pity as this is the defence procurement program we have the smallest chance of being able to extricate ourselves from, despite reports to the contrary. The UK has been attempting to renegotiate the tranche 3 Typhoon purchase for at least three years, so far with little sign of success. As with many UK defence purchases, industrial concerns and (in this case particularly) political issues trump defence needs. 

“Scrapping the programme to build new aircraft carriers – at a total ten year cost of £3.9 billion – could deliver a 2010-11 saving of £390 million.”

You may or may not agree on the need for aircraft carriers (I think they’re essential). Presumably however you’d agree that cancelling the carriers and not cancelling the aircraft to fly from them is a dumb idea, yet Reform makes no mention of the F-35. These aircraft are potentially more expensive than the carriers, especially given the UK’s decision to buy the variant with the shortest production run and highest percentage of parts not common to all three variants being developed. ‘Forgetting’ the F-35 is indicative of the slipshod approach Reform have taken to their short section on defence.

My personal view, which I’ll expand on in a later post, is that the carriers must now go ahead but that savings can be achieved by building them as conventional rather than STOVL carriers and buying proven, costed, aircraft for them rather than the uncosted sure-as-hell-to-be-stupidly-expensive-and-late F-35B.

“Cutting the Nimrod MRA4 programme – although it is now well advanced – would allow annual operational cost savings of £700 million to be made (1,700 uniformed and 200 civilian posts).”

Maritime surveillance is a capability we need, a fact that Reform acknowledges when they say “If necessary, some of these programmes could be replaced with relevant off-the-shelf purchases at a lower cost.” Unless we were to ditch the capability, talking only about operational costs which we may well incur irrespective of the type of aircraft purchased, makes little sense. Most of the non-operational costs of MR4A are, sadly, already sunk costs which we cannot recover.

“The MoD is also under pressure from the Defence Select Committee to scrap the A400M transport aircraft programme because it may ‘be so delayed that abandonment would be preferable.’ This could deliver 2010-11 savings of £689 million.”

No, it wouldn’t. Again Reform are talking about cutting a programme and not a capability. Cutting the A400M and replacing it with nothing assumes either that the UK has no need for the airlift capacity the A400M was supposed to provide or that the current fleet of Hercules C-130Ks will not have to be replaced soon. Neither of those arguments holds water.

Again, my own personal opinion is that cancelling the A400M and purchasing further C-17s and C-130J *would* allow us to achieve some savings through not having to go through the spares/training expense of introducing yet another aircraft type into RAF service. But £689 million in 1 year? No way.

Another blog, that comments on UK military matters in far greater depth than I do, rightly characterises this kind of approach to defence issues as ‘drive by journalism’. No thinking, little research, just headline grabbing (or an astonishingly incompetent editor).

Nevertheless, despite this sloppy approach, Reform do make a decent basic point - that given the completely fucked up nature of the UK budget the MoD should be able to deliver savings, alongside every other Government department. I don’t think 5% over a period of two years is out of the question. I hope to outline how I think that could be achieved, without sacrificing capability, over the next few months.

Tags: Army, MoD, Reform, Roayl Air Force, Royal Navy, UK

Return

After a long, long time, I think it’s time to start again.

The appalling state of UK finances, our continued entanglement in Afghanistan and the probability that the (almost certain to be elected next year) incoming Conservative government will want to conduct an immediate ‘defence review’ has prompted me to reactivate this blog after a long absence.

Sadly, there are few blogs and even fewer newspapers taking defence issues seriously at this important time. The laughable standard of defence ‘journalism’ in the main stream media in the UK, even (perhaps especially) in the broadsheets, fills me with dread.

Although I cannot promise to bring to these matters the resources of a real journalist or the contacts of those few active bloggers in the UK defence scene whom I find myself simultaneuosly disagreeing with and respecting, I will try over the coming months to analyse some key defence issues in greater depth than the average member of the public would encounter by reading newspapers, listening to radio or watching many television reports.

Frankly, it shouldn’t be difficult.

Typhoon news….

‘MOD in talks to offload Eurofighters‘ intones the Daily Telegraph, attempting in its slow-news-day way to catch up with the rumours that everyone has known about for months.

Well, I suppose if even the Telegraph is talking, albeit briefly, about the MoD’s continuing attempts to offload its Tranche 3 Typhoons then it must actually be happening.

The UK committed to ordering 236 Typhoons, 55 in Tranche 1 (delivered) 93 in Tranche 2 (ordered and being built) and 88 in Tranche 3 (not yet ordered). The attempts of both the UK and Italy to back out of the watertight contract that commits them to their Tranche 3 orders have been well documented elsewhere and although the Telegraph, as it always does when it comes to defence matters, treats any cut as “a bad thing”, personally I’m pretty happy that the axe is falling on airframes that would have spent much of their time in storage ready to be rotated through the active fleet in order to extend airframe life - instead of on capabilities that we need now (equipment for insurgency warfare) or are more likely to need in the future (expeditionary capability). Any Typhoon sale will not, at least in the next 10-15 years, have an effect on frontline capabilities.

The Telegraph mentions the usual suspects as the possible destination for unwanted aircraft;

• The ever-friendly Saudis, always willing to spray money around on defence equipment they can’t use properly in order to remain in favour with the real guarantors of their security.
• The Japanese, looking for a new front-line fighter to replace aging existing fleets.

I think the former is more likely, although a Japanese order is possible if their requirement is for a much larger number than than on offer, allowing them to build additional units in Japan. It had been rumoured that the Japanese were keen on the F-22 Raptor but ran up against US unwillingness to export such vital technology to an ally whose military had shown itself to be prone to embarrassing technology leaks. The Japanese preference for two-engined aircraft narrowed the field to the Eurofighter, the Rafale (a very unlikely choice given its terrible export success record), the F-18 (old technology) or some locally produced, stupidly expensive adaptation of one of the above (always a strong contender with defence purchases).

The only remaining question of real interest is whether the MoD are looking to sell the Tranche 2 aircraft and take delivery of the more capable Tranche 3, or to take delivery of the Tranche 2 airframes, upgrade them and sell the Tranche 3 production slots.

Tags: Eurofighter, Japan, MoD, RAF, Saudi Arabia, Typhoon

Saakashvili - Darwin Award Nominee?

he ‘darwin awards‘ are intended to:

“salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it…”

Although in this case one could substitute for ‘accidentally’ the world ‘willfully’.

“Help!!”

What on Earth was Georgia’s President thinking? Was he thinking at all? Did he believe that because Putin (who is obviously still in charge) was at the Olympics, Georgian forces streaming past Russia’s so-called peacekeepers in South Ossetia wouldn’t be brought to his notice?

Douglas Muir suggests that the Georgians might have been trying to cut the one road linking South Ossetia with Russia. That’s a reasonable assumption - presenting the Russians with a fait accompli might have enabled them to pull it off. But they’ve clearly badly misjudged the Russian response and over-estimated their own strength on the ground (although they don’t seem to be doing too badly in the air). Was it ever likely that military action of this type would be ignored by Putin’s paranoid, suspicious Russia? I don’t think so.

With his already faint hopes of NATO membership crushed, Saakashvili will be lucky to survive this episode after the inevitable post-war bounce in popularity fades. Those NATO countries keen to see both Ukraine and Georgia eventually gain membership must be furious that this idiot of a man has quite possibly given the Russians the leverage to install in Tbilisi a regime more accommodating to their desires.

What a tragic waste of a potentially important western-allied state.

Tags: Saakashvili Georgia Russia

Well, we’ll never need *that* capability again…

One of the reasons I’m always suspicious of those who insist that a certain capability will never be needed again us that tme and time again similar predictions in the past have always proved false.

Consider the UK in the cold war era, abandoning expeditionary capabilities because any future war would, of course, be fought in Europe … only to be faced with the Falklands. Assumptions are dangerous, and those currently insisting that expensive ‘future war’ capabilities can be safely postponed or dumped entirely because *of course* all of our future wars will be counter insurgency operations in places like Afghanistan are, frankly, short sighted and stupid.

Short term decisions lead to long term embarrassment (and of course loss of life), something that Canadian forces in Afghanistan are now discovering. Bereft of medium lift transport helicopters, Canadian forces draw instead on a (desperately small) pool of helicopters flown by their allies whilst waiting for 6 leased US Chinooks to be delivered, helicopters which are themselves a stop gap measure until the 16 new Chinooks the country has ordered roll of the production line and enter service from 2011.

Canada used to be a Chinook operator until the Mulrony government sold off the fleet to the Dutch in 1991. A poor decision inspired by the conviction that the end of the cold war meant that future Canadian engagements would be mostly ‘touchy feelie’ peacekeeping missions (as well as the disgraceful parsimony that has seen the once proud Canadian forces run down over a period of decades).

Now Canada’s troops find themselves ferried around southern Afghanistan in Chinooks operated by the US, the British, the Australians and, yes, the Dutch.

And wouldn’t you know it -some of the Dutch Chinooks are the ones they bought from Canada in 1991, still going strong.

It would be funny if the chronic lack of transport helicopters in Afghanistan wasn’t such a serious issue.

Tags: Canada, Chinook

All at Sea

August is shaping up to be an important month for the future shape of both the RN and the USN. On this side of the Atlantic HMS Daring (first of the originally 12, then 8 now 6 Type 45 destroyers) is getting ready to go out on its third sea trial period. After this she’ll be almost ready for handing over to the RN to begin the long ‘first of class’ settling in period before being declared operational in 2009.

Despite the reduced number and the long list of equipment the ship is fitted “for but not with” (surface to surface missiles, anti-submarine torpedoes, the Merlin helicopter) this is still an impressive and capable ship, far more capable and numerous than the French/Italian Horizons and the sort of large carrier escorts the RN wanted but never got from the Type 82s when the RN lost its conventional carrier capability in the 1970s.

One of a Kind: The only Type 82 built, HMS Bristol

On the other side of the Atlantic, the first of the two potential designs for the USNs Litoral Combat Ship, USS Freedom, begins early trials. The USN, unlike most other navies, can afford to indulge speciality designs and Freedom (together with her radically different ’sister’ ship, Independence) is certainly that. Shallow draft, fast, modular weapon systems fitted dependent on the mission, small crew, highly networked and astonishingly ugly.

Freedom, as they say, ain’t free. In this case in this case it costs an estimated $600m. Time will tell if this huge investment in what are essentially trial ships is a Dreadnought moment.

Tags: HMS Daring, LCS, Royal Navy US Navy, USS FReedom

Reaper Madness

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I’ve written before about the UK’s unusual approach to UAV purchasing and development. The core of this strategy appears to be to take an existing design, layer a decent amount of pork on top, pass the result off as a ‘British’ system and use the requirement to develop UK industrial capacity as a shield with which to defend the resultant mess against allegations of wasting the MoD’s budget in time of war. In other words an industrial strategy disguised as a military purchase.

I had a chance at one of the Farnborough Airshow public days just over a week ago to see the latest development in this exercise in wasting taxpayers’ money, the BAE Systems “Reaper class” UAV, The Mantis.

Mantis: Currently available in Papier Mache only.

Why, exactly is the MoD part funding the development of a “Reaper class” armed UAV when funds to buy actual Reaper UAVs, some of which are already operated by the RAF, in a hot war zone, are so hard to come by?

Given that the UAV market is growing at a rapid pace and that, to be competitive in the defence market, this is an area in which BAE would have had to invest anyway, why the MoD funding? To “preserve our defence industrial base” of course! That or yet another sign that the MoD is hopelessly besotted with or intimidated by our monopoly defence equipment supplier.

As for how much of the MoD’s budget is being pumped into research for a project that displays little in the way of truly new technology, nobody is saying … which means it’s an embarrassingly large amount.

The star of the show? Well, not having been at the show on Wednesday for the F-22 appearance it had to be the fabulous Vulcan.

Wow.

I know, if I’d been around during its development I’d probably have objected to us not buying an American alternative but I’ve never shied away from hypocrisy and I’m certainly not going to allow it to get in the way of watching this majestic beast, especially as it’s the only one left flying.

Tags: BAE, Farnborough, Mantis, Reaper, Vulcan

Is the Bear waking up or still dreaming?

With Russian planes probing NATO responsiveness over the North Sea & the Baltic and ambitious plans for the future of the Russian Navy is Russia engaging in some futile posturing or a real attempt to re-exert itself on the international stage as something more than a gas, oil and polonium exporter?

While the occasional Russian military flight into the UK’s area of responsibility has been noted by the press, reports from Denmark (via Aviation Week) show that the Russians are not confining themselves to the North Sea when it comes probing response times, this time with Su-24 Fencers instead of lumbering Tu-95 Bears.

Meanwhile the head of the Russian navy is reported, via the International Herald Tribune, to have outlined Russia’s plans for 5/6 carrier groups to begin construction ‘from’ 2012. Although statements suggesting that a major carrier building program for the Russian Navy is on the cards are not new (and usually reported in articles better researched than the IHT* one), continued repetition is beginning to endow this particular claim with a little respectability.

All alone

But there’s still an air of wishful thinking here. As the IHT points out Russia has only one operational carrier at the moment, the Kusnetsov which, together with escorts (and apparently an emergency repair ship) sailed to the Med earlier this year in a highly publicized attempt to demonstrate Russian military reach. Plans for more seem rather ambitious given that their shipbuilding industry is demonstrating an almost Soviet efficiency when it comes to in service dates and budgets with the conversion of the carrier Admiral Gorshkov for the Indian Navy, where it will become (eventually) the INS Vikramaditya.

Additionally, carriers need escorts and although the Russian Navy still has a decent number of Soviet-era escorts (condition unknown) it has commissioned no surface vessels bigger than the 2,500 tonne Project 20380 corvette since the collapse of the Soviet Union and announced nothing larger than the 4,500 tonne Gorshkov class frigate, the first of which is due in service next year.

Claims that it will modernise the ‘new’ Borei class SSBNs from boat number 4 onwards might be a little more credible. The first boat of this new class of SSBNs, the Yury Dolgoruky, was finally handed over to the Russian navy in 2007 (5 years late) but is still not fully operational due to the repeated and rather embarrassing failures of the Bulava ICBM with which it is to be armed to achieve a successful submarine launch and separation. Improvements to the ‘class’ may include updates to the design which dates from Soviet times but might also cover changes to the Bulava missile itself.

So, 5 or 6 carriers for the Russian Navy? My guess - Bluff.

* The IHT tells us that “(Kusnetsov)..features a steam turbine power plant with diesel generators, while all modern carriers are nuclear-powered.” Really? I’m sure the RN will be surprised to hear that.

Tags: Flanker, Kusnetsov, Russian Navy