Disjointed Command: The Future of Warfare?

Things were easier during the Cold War, or at least it was for the services anyway. Everyone knew who the enemy was and as long as the equipment worked (or nearly worked) and came in sufficient quantities, everything seemed to be ok. The only real concerns were keeping ahead in the technology race, keeping our secrets secret and hoping that war never actually broke out. Yes, back then, the services were big, bold and proudly independent. You can almost picture old, retired Generals and Admirals wiping away a tear, as they fondly think back to those halcyon days.

But if anything, what was wrong with the services being independent? Each had their own sphere of operations, air, sea, land, to each there own! It couldn’t be simpler, or at least that’s what was the general consensus of opinion. Unfortunately the organisation of the services isn’t as clear cut as one may think. Although they may have a simple, hierarchical command structure, i.e. privates at the bottom, generals at the top and so on, the actual lines between the services resembles something akin to the rules of Quidditch, in that it’s somewhat irregular and difficult to fathom.

As an example, although the RAF may command the air over the UK, they have to share the airspace with both the Army Air Corps and the Fleet Air Arm. This may produce an element of duplicity but it also introduces a ‘healthy’ sense of competition amongst the services, a la political struggles for control of air assets. In the days of the cold war, it also meant three different training schools for pilots (although the creation of Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury has diminished this problem somewhat) maintenance and ground crews, with different maintenance procedures and the utilisation of different types of aircraft. Within NATO has always been a drive to improve commonality of weapons and equipment between member nations. If the services of one member country cannot achieve standardisation, what hope is there for NATO? This can be highlighted thus, although the RAF and RN use the Sea King helicopter, they are of differing types due to their roles, and due to the differing training and maintenance regimes, an RAF Sea King cannot just land at a RN base and receive maintenance. So, although this highlights a rare example of commonality between the services, it also raises a serious issue of inter-operability.

The lack of demarcation was also evident in other parts of the services; back in the Twentieth Century shipping wasn’t the preserve of the Royal Navy. The question of who were the best sailors could be argued by all three services. Surely the defence of the seas was the mainstay of the Royal Navy, you might ask? That is their primary role, isn’t it? It was, but not strictly. The Royal Navy has lots of ships, no surprise there. But so too did the Army and the RAF! The RAF had a number of fast rescue launchers stationed around the coast to rescue downed pilots in times of war. This arm was disbanded in 1986, and the Army’s last two, freight hauling HMAV’s were decommissioned in 1998. Although these particular days have passed, the situation does highlight a number of serious problems and also raises a number of difficult questions. The first is why do the services feel the need to duplicate the same type of activity, helicopters being a prime example? It wouldn’t be thought amiss to expect the services to abide by a sense of demarcation and work together along those lines. However, with one eye on inter-service rivalry, that’s where the problem inherently lies. Whether it’s purely down to human nature, loyalty or otherwise, there is a sense that the services cannot be entirely trusted to support each other with the assets bequeathed to them. The example of mutual co-operation in the current conflict in Afghanistan may ridicule this notion, as the services seem to work together seamlessly, but it is in peace time away from the battlefield that the problems arise.

As an example, the British Army being the British Army has a tendency to believe that it knows best when it comes to the deployment of troops, few would argue with that statement, and why should they? The problems begin when large bodies of troops need to be deployed by helicopters, which belong to the RAF. If those helicopters are dedicated to carrying troops does it not make sense for them to be operated by the Army? This immediately breaks away from the supposed common sense concept of everything flying belonging to the RAF. It also raises the issue of command and control and who’s actually in charge. If the RAF needed to alter their priorities, do they have the right to re-allocate resources? Would the higher echelons of the RAF view the helicopters as theirs to use as they please? Who decides the priority and who gets the final say? The argument for each service to having their own aircraft is strong, or at least it is until fatalities occur. During the Falklands Conflict, an AAC Gazelle was shot down by the Royal Navy due to the incompatibility of their respective IFF systems. Also, in 1989 a Royal Lynx helicopter crashed in Kenya with the loss of nine passengers and crew. This was due to an oversight in the Royal Navy servicing procedures. This oversight had been noticed in the army procedures, but there was no mechanism to highlight this fact between the services. If all aircraft were operated by one service, these possible problems could’ve been flagged up and prevented, or so the theory goes.

One alternative to solving this particular problem would be to introduce a Military Aviation Authority. We have a civilian one which governs all aspects of civil aviation could this not be done for the military? The organisation could be made up of serving or retired military personnel, whose sole purpose would be to foresee possible areas of conflict and ensure compatibility and commonality. Plausible? Possibly, but then it could be just another layer of cost and bureaucracy in addition to three already very bureaucratic organisations.

In addition to this, you also have to look at the wider issues of duplication within all three services. To some the RAF Regiment is regarded as just another infantry unit, albeit under RAF control. If this unit was integrated into the Army would the actual RAF Regiment personnel accept this or would they leave en masse? Also, would ‘other’ troops be content permanently sat guarding airfields? This could raise a possible morale issue. Would field commanders be happy at a large body of men sat guarding an airfield and seemingly doing nothing when they could be out fighting the enemy? Despite promises to the contrary, these troops would soon become filched by local commanders and sent into the field, leaving the airfields to be guarded by the RAF Police (or whatever replaced it) and support personnel. In this sense it is easy to see why the RAF Regiment was created in the first place.

Other nations, such as Canada and Israel, have circumvented the problem by integrating their armed forces into one force and calling it a ‘Defence Force’. However, this is a simpler exercise for these relatively ‘young’ nations. They lack the deeply entrenched sense of tradition and politics ingrained in the British nation and the forces. Attempting to amalgamate and integrate the ‘Senior Service’ with ‘Horse Guards’ would be verging on a political impossibility. The fact that the services would wholeheartedly resist such a move itself beggars belief, can’t they just obey orders? The same applies to the three different service police forces, why do we need three separate police forces? You could say it was four if you included the MOD Police, all essentially doing the same job!

To reduce the level of infighting, some pundits have called for the disbandment of the RAF altogether, radical though it sounds. Some current aircraft magazines and undoubtedly many RAF personnel would regard this as the rantings of the lunatic fringe. But then, the Royal Navy probably thinks along a similar vein every time somebody mutes the idea of absorbing the Fleet Air Arm into the RAF. Fleet air defence would suddenly become a very low priority, tell me it wouldn’t?

The problem inherently lies in the equality of the services in relation to each other, all are treated equally and therefore each sees itself as a possible contender to be the lead service. Unfortunately for the services whether they like it or not, they are not equal and not by a long shot. All are vitally important, yes, but not equal, and this comes down to one simple, unavoidable fact: ships and aircraft cannot hold ground, only foot soldiers can.

To take the Falklands Conflict as an example, the army couldn’t have got further than Southampton en masse without the Royal Navy to take it there. Without the army the Royal Navy and RAF only could’ve mounted an air and sea blockade, but how effective would it have been? The Royal Navy and RAF are fantastic in support, but without a large body of men to actually go in, bayonets fixed, and physically take the ground from the enemy, then the chances of victory would be minimal.

The use of force is the last resort of foreign policy, without force the policy itself would be useless. Again during the Falklands Conflict, an Exclusion Zone was set up around the Islands and policed by aircraft and ships, yet Argentine Hercules transports were landing with supplies right up to the day of surrender. This demonstrates the difficulty of enforcing an exclusion zone. Although the Royal Navy and RAF may be given ‘stand alone’ operational roles to enforce such exclusion zones, such as the No Fly Zone over Southern Iraq or chasing drug smugglers in the Caribbean, that is not their primary role, whether they like it or not, their primary role is to support army operations.

You may ponder this idea for a moment, and suggest that the United States Air Force was formed at the end of the Second World War, purposely producing a separate force from the U S Army Air Corps, there must have been a good reason? You’d be right in thinking that, during that war all air operations were controlled by the U S Army. So why did they change? They changed because the USAAC had developed two distinct roles, one strategic and one tactical. The strategic role was essentially long range bombing, and the other was direct tactical support of the U S Army. Having a separate force also prevented army generals from mis-managing the air assets seconded to them, with the inevitable disastrous results. However, given these two distinct roles, rather than forming one composite force, the separation of the two does seem like an ideal solution. Why separate the two? Because it’s all about support and who controls it. General Erwin Rommel commented that before any battle it was necessary to win the war with the quartermasters, and in this sense nothing has changed.

In the UK, air support, rotary especially, appears to be a somewhat ad-hoc affair, given the political too-ing and fro-ing of the services. An ideal solution would be this: all aircraft designated as tactical support of the army, whether it’s RAF Harriers and Hercules or transport helicopters of all services, they should be organised into one force called the ‘Army Tactical Air Force’ (organised along the lines of the United States Marine Corps), whose primary role would be to support army operations. The RAF would be solely concerned with national air defence/air superiority, long range bombing and long range transport; they would become the ‘Strategic Air Force’. In fact, harking back to the Second World War the RAF specifically had formations designated as a ‘tactical air force’s’. This was for formations of more than one fighter group and dedicated to ground attack in support of the army! This organisation, e.g. the Second Tactical Air Force, was based in a particular theatre and purposely excluded a strategic capability. It was the Second Tactical Air Force which famously destroyed the German army in the Falaise Gap.

This ‘amalgamation’ of the services, however loose it may seem, is in fact already being achieved under such the guises as Joint Command Helicopter, in which the army have been given command and control of a number of RAF and Royal Navy Squadrons. This command is somewhat limited as it doesn’t control all of the transport helicopters available. This ‘centralisation’ has also been extended to the ‘Joint Harrier Force, which unites RAF and Royal Navy Harrier squadrons under one force. Whether this is just a prelude to the absorption of the Fleet Air Arms fighter squadrons into the RAF awaits to be seen.

With the creation of an ‘Army Tactical Air Force’ and the reorganisation of the armed forces, the Royal Navy would become divided into two almost distinctive services, Royal Navy Amphibious Support and the Royal Strategic Navy. The Royal Strategic Navy would be for those sailors who like sailing to far off exotic locations in frigates, destroyers and submarines and don’t like being near dirty soldiers. The Royal Navy Amphibious Support would be for those who truly understand the nature of modern warfare, and would absorb the Fleet Auxilliary landing ships, the aircraft carriers and the assault ships. These vessels would be given significantly improved weapons systems for air defence, fire support and the like. The Fleet Air Arm would still exist but its primary role would be fleet air defence for its jet fighters and anti-surface and ASW for its helicopters. The Fleet Air Arm would lose its transport helicopters to the Army Tactical Air Force and would gain a high flying Airborne Early Warning aircraft, something akin to the V-22 Osprey with a radome would suffice. The Royal Strategic Navy could also be given control of the Nimrod ASW aircraft, given their primary maritime role.

These forces would be supported by one centralised flying training school (again, nearly there with DHFS) and one aircraft engineering school etc, rather than duplicating the same thing over and over again. All aircraft maintenance procedures and manuals would provided by a Military Aviation Authority, an organisation that would issue regulations and ensure that all aircraft radios and IFF’s etc within the forces were compatible.

If we had an Army Tactical Air Force, why would we need a Strategic Air Force you may ask? We’d need one because of a lesson from history. Again during the Second World War, the primary role of the Luftwaffe was the tactical support of the Wermacht. Because of this it didn’t have a dedicated long range bomber force, like the RAF and the USAAC. Thus, when it came to bombing long range targets like arms factories and the like, it was hampered by a lack of large bombers and therefore couldn’t plan audacious, long range raids against key installations. A Strategic Air Force, independent of army control could achieve this. As for the Luftwaffe, one of the few large, long range bombers they had was the Heinkel He 177 Greif, which believe it or not was optimised for dive bombing to support the Wermacht! A strategic air force requirement could have prevented this unnecessary corruption of the aircraft’s specification, which significantly compromised its performance.

The upshot of these separate tactical and strategic forces would be that never again would the army sit waiting for RAF helicopters to turn up due to a political battle between the services about who actually had control. Never again would an RAF helicopter pilot declare that, “The RAF isn’t a taxi service for the army,” when it clearly is! Neither would the army have a helicopter forced upon it due to the need for commonality with another service (read Lynx/Future Lynx), it would get the aircraft it needed and they would be fit for purpose. They would also be at home, whether operating from ships or a muddy field, the force would also get the aircraft it truly needed, not just ‘de-roled’ ASW helicopters as has happened in some cases. It would also get all the tactical fighter support in needed. The Strategic Air Force could scream around the skies in air superiority fighters and long range bombers, content and relatively free from inter-service interference.

For the purists in the Royal Navy and RAF who see themselves as a ‘stand alone’, service, not beholden to the army in anyway, shape or form, they can join the strategic arms and patrol the air and seas to their hearts content, looking for non-existent enemy submarines and the like. This would leave the strategic elements to their own devices and allow the tactical elements to get on with what they’re good at, fighting and winning wars. Unfortunately, the biggest and hardest battle that will have to be fought is to get the services properly organised in the first place, and that is going to take some fighting!

Richard Stockley

Tags: Army