Helicopters Update from the MoD
Tucked in behind the widely trailed Commons Defence Select Committee Defence Equipment Report (2010) is the MoD’s response to an earlier report on helicopter capability.
As readers of Think Defence will know, the issue of helicopters is of significant interest and we have keenly followed the issue since the blog started.
The report observes all the usual niceties but is interesting in many ways because it exposes the muddle, ‘short termism’ and lack of any strategic thinking that has bedeviled the UK armed forces helicopter capability over the last decade, perhaps even longer.
Conflict has a habit of exposing shortcomings in equipment and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated just how the absolutely critical element of tactical mobility, afforded by helicopters, has been allowed to wither. No amount of panic buying, cobbling together upgrades and hiding behind the oft used fig leaf of ‘more flying hours’ can hide the fact that failing to invest in a coherent, balanced capability has had and continues to have real implications for both operational success and force protection i.e. soldiers lives and limbs.
On the issue of…
Sensible Resource Management
The response makes reference to the requirement to balance aircraft hours in theatre with something that it calls ‘sensible resource management’
What exactly is sensible resource management, one suspects it might involve the husbandry of the finite asset that is airframe hours but surely, there is a bloody war on and we should not be concerned with sensible resource management but maximising the effect in theatre.
Enough
The MoD’s response echoes a number of senior defence staff that have repeatedly stated that we have enough helicopters in theatre. One suspects that these serving officers are wheeled out on demand to cover the embarrassment of the MoD and Government by saying move along, nothing to see here. These statements are always caveated with the desire for more.
So,
We have enough but more would be good.
Call me a simpleton but doesn’t that mean we don’t actually have enough?
The Full Picture
The initial report made a great point of highlighting what seems like deliberate lack of openness from the MoD. If anyone reads the actual transcripts of the evidence sessions it will become painfully obvious that the senior civil servants and military staff that attend the committee sessions hold it in complete contempt, arrogantly avoiding the questions at every turn.
It is not only politicians that can talk at length without actually saying anything of substance.
Reforming the system of governance and supervision within the government framework is essential if Parliament is to scrutinise effectively and hold to account the civil service and government of the day.
There are lots of other interesting information in this under reported response, full text at the link.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmdfence/381/38104.htm
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In regards to Helicopters the writing has been on the wall for quite some time as we all know this simply adds more evidence to the case against the government. There have been opportunities in the past to fix the helicopter shortage for what could be seen in the grander scheme of things as peanuts. Offers ranging from a good deal from the US DoD and Sikorsky to get us a load of UH-60’s and required training in short order to options to lease Mi-17’s all turned down for some petty reasons. Or maybe it would have been better if the Helicopter budget was not slashed all those years ago that might mean that not so many service personnel would have lost their lives serving abroad in some questionable wars. Maybe Gordon Brown, the Government and politicians in general realised that body bags are cheaper than helicopters and are simply thinking in that sad machine like way.
In future I cannot see things improving much at all as there will be no money to spend and at the end of the day if anyone really cared action would have been taken by now. Even if that action is senior people walking away or MP’s and members of the Government making lots of noise and rocking the boat.
Actually its worse than that isn’t it:
35 Upgraded Pumas + 28 Merlin = 63 existing airframes to be replaced by 22 new ones.
I am sure 22 x Chinook = greater lift capacity BUT we are back to the same arguments as we have for the numbers of surface ships;
1 Chinook can only be over 1 part of 1 battlefield in 1 theater of operations at any 1 time.
So reducing the number of support helicopters by 2 thirds and saying things will be better because they are bigger and carry more is the same kind of twisted logic BS that says we only need 6 air defence ships because they are Sooooooo much more modern than their predecessors……. grrrr :-(
Phil your absolutley correct !
34 Pumas replaced by 22 Chinooks – which is a good thing.
44 SeaKings replaced by 28 (?) second hand ex-RAF Merlins, actually I suppose 6 of them are third hand having belonged to the Danes first.
Oh but I am sure somewhere they said they MIGHT put the Wildcat purchase back up to the original 70 !
I found this section very interesting if not alarming:
Previously published plans would see us operating in the battlefield support helicopter role, by 2020, 48 Chinook, 28 Merlin, 28 Puma and around 28 Future Medium Helicopters, i.e. a total of 132 aircraft, all would likely be suitable for operations in Afghanistan. The plans we announced in December decreases slightly this number (to 126 aircraft) but significant increases the overall lift capacity and capability by focusing investment in more capable Chinook helicopters; Chinook offers more than double the lift capability over a medium support helicopter. We believe that this new approach best balances the need for aircraft numbers, the individual capabilities of those aircraft, and the number of hours we can operate them for. It must be remembered that each of these aspects is important—there’s no point having lots of aircraft that are unsuitable for the demanding roles we require of them.
I think this means that the proposed 22 extra Chinooks are ALL the new helicopters that we are going to get for the forseeable future. So a proposed replacement of over 80 aircraft (34 PUMA and 44 SEAKINGs) not to mention over half the current Chinook fleet wearing out fast is reduced to 22!!!
Fcuking great…