Think Defence hopes to start sensible conversations about UK defence issues, no agenda or no campaign but there might be one or two posts on containers, bridges and mexeflotes!
who knew that CV stood for conventional variant, strewth i’m thicker than a whale omlette and i could do better than that, same paper that did an in depth report on the RAF apache!!
Looks like dave b then, 65,000 tonnes to do what a 30,000 could do anyway. arsecakes!
The MOD ain’t allowed to borrow money so it’s budget is always balanced. The problem is and Phil the spread sheet may not be getting this is that the MOD does not buy it’s kit from Tesco’s. No one has a final idea of what programs will cost. Even relatively simple of the shelf procurement can run over budget.
I have very little faith in the top brass or the MOD to deliver kit at reasonable time and prices. Especially when we factor in BAE. However I do appreciate this is a very difficult job and it can’t be done by simply firing in numbers to a spread sheet and declaring the balck hole gone.
(Interesting strategy for the Tory’s to declare the black hole gone. I thought they were going to use that one until the end of time. )
ArmChairCivvy
From that linked BBC article “It is not clear exactly how Mr Hammond has done his calculations, though it’s understood he has built in a reserve of some £8 billion over the next decade”
- cost of capital charges constituted a perverse incentive to scrap perfectly good kit – just to make the same money available for new purchases => those charges were scrapped when this was finally understood
I would bet on something similar being in the works here:
-project estimates, each one, include a risk buffer
- there is a “law of physics” that any slack you put in tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy
- taking such “fixed proportion to the total sum” buffers away and pooling them at the total budget level could easily come to 8 bn over ten years (MoD moving from after-the-fact style financial control to proactive management accounting?)
James
ACC
“there is a “law of physics” that any slack you put in tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy”
Precisely why I never told Abbey Wood how much of the training budget HQ LAND was willing to expend on WATCHKEEPER*. Drove the civil service numpties wild to not know that (and inevitably leak it or just give away the secret inadvertently), resulted in complaints all the way up to 2 star level, but in the end COS LAND held firm. And guess what? Thales started paying great attention to what the end user actually wanted, spending a lot of time on the Training LoD, and the budget being under-achieved.
* At least for my three years that coincided with the bid phase. Who knows what happened afterwards?
ArmChairCivvy
Hi James, RE
“At least for my three years that coincided with the bid phase. Who knows what happened afterwards?”
- catapult launch was tested
- I am surprised that it has not been adopted, as an operating option (landing could be hundreds of miles away, where ever we happen to have an airstrip)
James
ACC,
I recall in the WATCHKEEPER bid phase at least one of the teams bidding was offering as the smaller air vehicle a UAV manufactured by RUAG of Switzerland which came off a launching rail – but I cannot recall which team it was! I think Northrop Grumman, but I may be mis-remembering. My vote (out of about 20 people) went to N-G for their Firescout UAV, but in the end the majority decision was Thales.
I think there were a couple of USN battleships involved in GW1 that had rail-launched UAVs for spotting the fire from the big guns. As I recall, it was the last time proper battleships took part in a war, and the first time UAVs played a role (Israelis aside). The battleships were I think leftovers from WW2. The USMC ANGLICO team we had in my Squadron were a bit miffed at us being too far inland to use NGS, so they had to control the F-18s instead.
Peter Elliott
@James
This You-tube of USS Missouri firing its 16″ guns in GW1 inlcudes some shots of UAVs launching and recovering.
To be fair, there are probably 100% of those deployed on this operation who would have done this years ago, without the political constraints. But even so, nice to see the Andrew justifying its’ existence….
James
HMS Talent currently in South Africa, will then deploy to Falklands waters according to the media.
Talent has TLAM, I think? I’m not expert on Trafalgar-class subs.
Glad to see the Government keeping the FI on regular patrol schedules.
Mark
Sorry if this has been covered else were but I think I’m right in saying we have a return of the Jedi
I heard at a meeting last week (Chatham House rules so no names) that the list of current defence projects that haven’t been allocated a firm line item in the procurement budget amount to about 7.5% of the total worth of the existing wish list.
Some of these are projects for which costs are not yet firmly known, some are projects that are still being prioritised to see if inclusion in the official budget fits requirements/restraints.
7.5% sounds quite reasonable to me being, as we are, at the beginning of a 10 year timeframe.
The person giving the information was a very knowledgeable source with no reason to massage the figures.
Also 40% of the procurement budget so far allocated is for RN purchases.
ArmChairCivvy
Hi WillS,
“7.5% sounds quite reasonable to me being, as we are, at the beginning of a 10 year timeframe”
- yes
- and with mathematical roundation it is the same as the announced 8% contingency
ArmChairCivvy
Hi Mark, the linked article implies (but does not say) that the flight (-) on FI has been seconded out of the two sqdrns out of Leuchars?
Someone posted that the current Tiffie number stands at abt 80, so well on our way to 5 with 107 (as the older ones start to get dropped, while new keep “trickling”in)
ArmChairCivvy
Hi James,
The headline number is meaningless, through a trickle feed about 2 bn will be committed to the new build before this Parliament is over.
RE
“Mr Hammond told MPs the contracts announced were a step towards ensuring the UK had a nuclear deterrent “into the 2060s”.
‘Cutting edge equipment’
He added: “We have a world-class submarine-building industry in this country and this programme will help to sustain or create more than 1,900 jobs across the UK.
“By making the core equipment programme fully funded and affordable, we are able to confirm additional equipment projects which help safeguard our national security.”
He has also included the final cost of the replacement submarines – expected to be at least £20bn – in his latest budget plans.”
-if the figure really covers both the boats and the designs (incl. CLC with variations)
- then, we are OK to 2040 – not 2060 – as in-between one can expect missile and warhead investments
- in the earlier announcements, cutting-edge was not the argument (I am sure it is one of them), but being able, in the first place, to have the first boat in water when the oldest “V” needs to go
- no one can drive this argument to any level of detail, as the RN is keeping the cards about SLEPping the “Vs” very close to the chest (I don’t blame them, but I just wonder what sort of talks, based on what information, are going on within the Coalition)
Peter Elliott
Hawk order from the Saudis – some jobs saved at Brough.
good article from roger, he is becoming progressively less insistent in supranationalism as the means, and more focused on using europe effectively towards our ends.
While all these pressures do exist, and will exert pressure on european nations to evolve in the direction stated, the OP was specifically written in reference to Britain and i do have some doubts about the end to expedionary war:
“The end of expeditionary operations. The British public and many members of Parliament are not likely to mandate future expeditions on anything approaching their previous scale to support U.S. military missions. After more than a century of overseas campaigning, ending the primacy of expeditionary forces will have a radical effect on the role and organization of the armed forces.”
Specifically, i have my doubts as to the [degree] to which this is true.
Yes, it is the end of protracted and nasty counterinsurgency campaigns that sees interminable blood and violence as the sole return on billions of taxpayers money.
That is not the same as an end to an expeditionary stance………………. unless the next SDSR ditches the commitment to spending the 2.0% of GDP mandated by NATO.
As an island nation, that does not have to plan for tanks rolling across ones border on a Friday afternoon, 2.0% of GDP can preserve a sovereign and strategic expeditionary capability.
The real question is about what kind of expeditionary capability you invest in, and the answer is obviously not the endless body-bags of COIN war that inevitably overburdens the host Defence budget as the campaign grinds on for a decade or more.
No, ambition and budget permitting, the answer is drawn from the DCDC’s own planning documents stating a desire for pre-emptive action designed to lower the total investment necessary to see the problem solved. That requires a greater emphasis on light-weight forces fully supported by the panoply and transport and theatre-entry assets necessary to justify the term “rapid reaction”.
Unsurprisingly, the SDSR saw the preservation of 3Cdo and 16AAB along with the amphibious ships, RFA support vessels, and RAF lift necessary to achieve this.
The future is bright, the future’s Raiding!
x
Roger never quite gets it for me. He always starts so well and then looses it
We are in Europe because of our geography; we are too big to be ignored. We should have aimed to be a “Super Norway” trading with but not part of the grand French experiment. If France could sit outside Europe’s military structure for most of the Cold War “we” could have sat outside their political experiment. If war had come to Europe France would have been dragged in and economic or political shifts in their grand experiment would have affected us too. But that degree of separation from their experiment would have satisfied our national character, just as sitting outside NATO satisfied the French’s nationalistic needs.
What “we” through away in the early 70s was the White Commonwealth. As a part of block that included Canada, Australia, and New Zealand we would have global span and through our navies with their common history global reach across the Atlantic, Pacific, and India Ocean. That is lost now. We still pull in the same direction more less but the association is much looser. “We” could have lead a block with a shared history and culture with a population greater than Germany’s and the world’s largest resources. “We” could have shared and developed technology; we used to before we through it away and we ended up with shares in expensive poor value Euro projects or sickly domestic projects. “We” could have used our collective influence. Together “we” would have been stronger. Hindsight is fantastic; not for nothing does the term “Little Englander” really piss me off.
Being a part of strong White Commonwealth block we would have been a more balance to the US. And taking more of the load would have probably paid benefits on Capitol Hill as the US wouldn’t have been carrying the lion’s share. It would still have been an unequal partnership, but not as unequal by a fair margin.
What we need now is another “Thatcher” somebody who can see some of that potential power as the UK sits as nexus betwixt the US, Europe, and the White Commonwealth. Doubt it will happen.
Turkey in the EU. Made me laugh.
Alex
Not so impressed by PRISM thing. Very late 60s/early 70s “oh, we’ll NEVER need to deploy outside Europe again. And the peasants are revolting!” S/students/Muslims, /communists/Islamists.
I think his take on the riots is both alarmist (really, it didn’t come close to “bringing London to a standstill”) and poorly informed (rioters weren’t all or even close to being majority Muslim). But I guess it’s better for ex-colonels to advocate a bigger nastier police force than a private Tory militia like the original 1970s Walter Walker model.
Also, if we’re not going anywhere, why does the Gendarmerie have to be deployable?
x
@ Alex
Yes it is poor. It would probably get a first if handed in as an essay on a Security Studies course……….
I don’t think the likes of Afghanistan can be seen as expeditionary warfare after a decade. The first phase yes. Going into unseat the Taliban by bringing forces to concentrate rapidly on the target yes. But what came later no. Same in Iraq. The public don’t mind quick wars with easily defined objectives. It is the attritional periods afterwards they come to despise. Unseat a dictator or regime yes. Stay to mould or build the nation afterwards no.
And I note there is some “unknown unknowns” with the “unimaginable changes”. Always good to fill a paragraph or three.
ArmChairCivvy
Mark’s link, posted on the 26th
- tells us that the army reorg will be informed about July (moving from the Feb-April target)
- also Ch2 LEP from 2018; Scout roll-out from 2020; and Bulldogs will have to last to 2022 (and beyond)… well, over 500 got an upgrade
- no date for Warrior upgrade, and if the new gun only gets rolled out to other platforms from 2020, that will make the economics for ammo production and development ‘interesting’
“The 500 million pound ($784 million) demonstration phase being undertaken by General Dynamics UK to provide a family of tracked Scout and other specialist vehicles could be extended and the fielding of the vehicle pushed back, one MoD source said.
A second source said the Army was “looking at its options and while the issue had not been finally settled, it was likely the vehicles would not enter service until 2020.”
International observers will likely track the possible delay since the Scout Specialist Vehicle (SV) was already generating interest in the export market. A recent Ernst & Young study estimated the potential export value of the program at more than 1.3 billion pounds over a 16-year period.
The MoD has never publicly acknowledged the expected in-service date for the Scout vehicle, although Army officers at last year’s DSEi exhibition in London said it was 2015.
The number of vehicles eventually purchased could also be cut. That’s a reflection of continuing budget pressures and the fact the Army is facing a heavy downsizing as part of a restructuring plan.
Details of the restructuring, known as Army 2020, and a tri-service reorganization and expansion of the reserves are expected to be rolled out before the government goes into summer recess in July.”
ArmChairCivvy
That ” army reorg will be informed about July (moving from the Feb-April target)” makes it a full two years from SDSR speculation reaching the fever pitch as for the likely outcomes
- interesting if from pointing direction it takes two years to get a plan
- and we will have this every five years
jedibeeftrix
@ X – “Roger never quite gets it for me. He always starts so well and then looses it”
It is the natural consequence of his affliction; an [interest] in FP combined with a [belief] in ever-closer-union resulting in the [need] to conflate the two.
James
ACC,
very depressing when the original timescales for FRES UV were ISD 2008, and SV ISD 2011. That was back in 2002.
Funnily enough, what many wanted in 2002 were a reliable armoured box for the UV, probably a 40mm gun and some decent networked comms / SA, and a smaller armoured box with a mast and sensors, plus the networked SA for the SV.
Could have been fielded in easily enough time, if the C-130 deployable requirement had been dropped.
Given the original “budget”*** of £14B for around 3,000 vehicles, I’m presuming UV has pretty much dropped out of the ten year plan, and UV will become some warmed over Warriors.
432 will be well over 50 in 2022, CVR(T) about 50. 432 does not become any younger if you give it a new name of Bulldog.
*** That’s “budget” as in what it was predicted to have cost, the figure pencilled in, but not in any way actually funded.
Alex
*Fourteen billion quid*, and some people complain about the shipbuilding budget…I really don’t see why there’s not vastly more outrage about FRES*. Perhaps it’s just that some armoured-vehicles-that-aren’t-quite-tanks don’t have the iconic quality of a really big ship or a fleet of supersonic jets.
*or for that matter, BOWMAN or DII. There was a bit of outrage in the end about Annington, but only years after it mattered.
Chris.B.
@ Alex
“Fourteen billion quid*, and some people complain about the shipbuilding budget…I really don’t see why there’s not vastly more outrage about FRES”
– Because most people agree we need new vehicles. The same cannot be said about Carriers. Arguing over numbers of vehicles is still viable though.
I don’t see why we can’t just roll with the CV 90 (meets requirements, already has a 40mm, just stick Bowmans on it), put the new 40mm CTA turret on the Warrior to de risk it for a MLU to the CV 90, then start from scratch a small vehicle to fill the scout role.
x
If you say 60 per battalion x 20 x £3million a copy and then add in vehicles for the RA to I don’t know RE and everybody else £14billion sounds quiet reasonable.
Mark
Yes 14b for vehicles and the opposition buys a Toyota pick up with a gun on the back!
X do we need 20 battalions worth of tanks if we’re only ever going to deploy 4 battalions worth? Just that French vbci and have done with all this fres nonsense.
James
I’ve got no idea how it came to be £14Bn either, and here is me, then the HQ LAND bloke being the lead proponent for FRES (apparently, but Freddie Viggers’ mind was rightly more on the here and now of AFG in 2002, so he agreed to let Upavon have the lead on this). As far as I was concerned, some modern reliable armoured boxes would have done, some with 40mm guns, some with gucci ISTAR kit, but there were those who really wanted it to fly about the world in a C-130, and in the manner of Doctrine HQs, they were tremendously self-important and all at least Lt Cols and all combining to vote for the expensive stuff. Most of them are now prostituting themselves around the defence industry.
You also have to factor in the most spastic (civvy) IPT leader ever in human history, with some completely mad ideas about Systems of Systems houses and Integrators. It was very little surprise to me that the megalomaniac was later quietly removed from position (only £500 million wasted) after he had a very odd fistfight on the hard shoulder of the M4 with a white van man that he believed had cut him up. Lord knows what he is doing now, but hopefully it does not involve an MoD chequebook.
x
@ Mark
I am just trying to make sense of £14billion. And that is the only way I can do it.
Um. I am “used” to kit that costs in the region of £3million so that figure seems reasonable. Most of these 8×8 come in at about £2million. So….
My view is concentrate all the Warrior in one brigade (3 x batts) and then buy/reuse Mastiff for the brigade off on the American’s next adventure. And everybody else get on with whatever is to hand.
Mr.fred
Did we even need 40mm guns? If we want to look at missed opportunities, then look no further than the Warrior 2000 paired with the Stormer. A procurement of those, back in the late 1990′s/early 2000′s would have covered almost, if not everything, that was needed. By replacing the RARDEN-armed vehicles in the armoured battalions with the new vehicles, some seven hundred modern and reliable hulls would be available to replace the FV430 series. Whip the turrets off, plate over the hole with mission-specific kit and you’ve got mortar carriers, APCs, Ambulances or whatever else you need.
Given the continuing work on the Supershot for the Mk44 gun with which both were equipped, there would now or in the near future be a 40mm (or near enough) upgrade as well.
James
Mark,
there’s no making sense of the £14billion, and that’s me speaking as Mr FRES U Like, and as you know the chief cheerleader for the spending on carriers and F35s. It is monumental bollocks.
Just think of what we could have got for the nearly £25 Billion that was FRES + CVF + F35 combined. Or more likely, how much Gordon’s deficit could be reduced.
Stryker comes in about £2M, Jackal about £500 K (not sure why, but that’s published), LSV about £80 K. Add £100 K to both Jackal and LSV for the ISTAR kit and it is still as cheap as chips. That’s pretty much all we need.
Simon
I know this will sound a bit derogatory but if Bugatti can build a Veyron for less than £2m then I’m sorry but any number of wheels and armour can’t cost £3m each! Have people never heard of a production/assembly line? 3000-4000 of the things is “buy the factory” money!!!
Gareth Jones
@ Jedi – Interesting links, particulary the first one.
Mark
James as a total layman thats seem a sensible suggested list of vehicles to me. The marines did buy viking off the shelf for not a lot of money and they came in handy. Theres so many vehicles out there and a number built in uk I cant quite understand why this seems like pulling teeth.
x
It is the MoD so I am surprised you are all surprised that we would pay £3million for what everybody else will be paying £2million or less. Remember this is the organisation that couldn’t even buy a decent tactical rifle.
@ James re Jackal and LSV
You will be advocating quads next! Let me get this right then. This week I have found out you think FRR vehicles don’t need the autocannon on their vehicles. And you are not wedded to enclosed vehicles (I remember you said buttoned down in CVRT you might as well not bother) or tracks. This is interesting anything else you can add?
Brian Black
The Scout SV may be desirable now, but it will look most passe by 2020. We’ll have to find a few billion quid more to begin a new scout vehicle development.
Meanwhile GD ASCOD will surely be selling all the SV variants we paid them to develop. Not made in Britain of course.
Mr.fred
Simon,
I assure you that it can. The Veyron is a stunning piece of engineering but it is simply a highly optimised car. It goes places on smooth roads. It does not have the ability to pick out a man at several kilometres in the pitch black. It isn’t armoured against mines, missiles and machine guns. It doesn’t weigh thirty tonnes. It can’t put a shell through a window at over a mile. It cannot survive, much less operate, in the severity of environments than an AFV has to operate in.
It does build on a vast amount of experience in building cars – something that simply does not exist in the armoured vehicle world. How many models of car have Volvo made since the CV90 came out?
Simon
Mr Fred,
“it goes places on smooth roads”
No, if flys 1mm above the ground at 250mph
Sorry, I said it would seem derogatory but I must be missing something. A shell through a window at over a mile? Pick out a man at several km in pitch black? 30 tonnes of steel plating for armour. Come on, that kind of stuff has been around for years – it simply can not cost £3m.
James
X,
there seems to be some form of delusion that a cavalryman is wedded to an armoured box on tracks and does not like getting his boots dirty. I am against that tendency – I like recce people to live in the mud, walk about, and move from A to B unobtrusively but rapidly. I will admit there’s probably a majority of recce people that like some more protection and don’t mind trading noise and height.
In the end, it is all about getting into the right place to observe something, form a judgement and get that info back to the relevant commander in the most appropriate format (and also mostly to lie up for a while observing to get a pattern of activity). By and large, stealth is better than armour. There is however a fetish about wagons. Frankly, a quietened trials bike or even a mountain bike and man pack radio with some decent binos would be good enough in many scenarios.
Mike W
Mr.fred
“If we want to look at missed opportunities, then look no further than the Warrior 2000 paired with the Stormer. A procurement of those, back in the late 1990′s/early 2000′s would have covered almost, if not everything, that was needed.”
Couldn’t agree more. I presume you are referring to the Stormer 30 (for reconnaissance). Saw that vehicle down at Aldershot in the late 1990s – a mean, snarling sort of machine and one which looked right in every respect. You know what they say: “If it looks right, then . . .” What a phenomenal amount of wsted money would have been saved if those two vehicles had been selected. Furthermore Alvis amnd GKN might still have been in business.
James
X,
to add some flesh onto that, I cannot at all think of a situation in my career where a decent lightweight trials bike (with some noise muffling) would not have been perhaps a better wagon than CVR(T). The optics on CVR(T) were crap, Drives and the Gunner were basically only enablers for getting my eyes to where I wanted them to be. Yes, over some weeks having extra bods about is useful in running a routine in an OP, but the CO didn’t want to have my Driver explaining some sighting report while I kipped 50 yards behind the OP, he wanted me to do the talking.
I do believe you can buy trials bikes for less than £10K, which seems cheaper than FRES SV. If I were really pushed, I think you’d get a better recce troop than 4 CVR(T) if you had 6 on trials bikes, 6 on quads, a couple of which had some form of lightweight genny on the back rack, and the other 4 carrying some troop kit and a few Javelin. Add in a “mothership” Land Rover and trailer with some extra jerrycans of fuel. You’d probably get a Troop’s worth of kit for less than £200K.
x
@ James
There is an American book called “Air, Mech, Strike” that says basically what you said. Some regard it as a bit “Looney Tunes” but as somebody who speaks crap about defence daily who I am to judge? In a way what you are advocating is a return to horses. Um. I don’t know. Would the public buy it, however sound the reasoning behind the idea? Even though the public have no understanding of military matters. Look at the controversy over body armour, imagine replacing a tank with a half dozen of Honda or Kawasaki’s finest. It is a better answer than LSV which was wrong in so many ways; wheels too small, ground clearance good but come on could be better, under-powered etc. etc. Who ever signed it off into service had never attended an AWDC Comp Safari and had a shufty at the more imaginatively engineered vehicles.
James
X,
I’m not familiar with the book, and in a wider sense there are several ways to skin a cat. My cousin commanded the recce platoon of 1/2 Ghurkhas and they used to do a couple of kilometres a day in the jungle (Observer would probably relate to that). My recce background is in Germany mostly, plus GW1, so 50-100 clicks a day was about normal.
As far as protection is concerned, well, it is a risk business. I’d far rather have unimpeded all round visibility and the mobility to choose any path I want than being buttoned up in armour but stuck to a defined road. If you drive over a bomb in a balls out wagon, well life’s a bitch.
I say LSV in a generic sense: anything from the original LSV to Jackal would work well enough. If one’s got a problem with weight or wheel travel or engine power, sort it out or choose something different.
Nothing to stop you bolting on a lightweight Kawasaki trials bike onto the back of a Jackal to have the best of both worlds. The French used to do something similar with recce tanks and monkey bikes, a really odd combo.
Also nothing at all to stop a laterally thinking troop leader from packing a set of jeans and a grotty old hiking jacket in the CVR(T), and going for a hike on the Sunday before an exercise against the Bundeswehr in the Harz Mountains. Amazing what you can pre-observe while appearing to be nothing more than another hiker.
Today, it looks like we are going back to F35-B. Who’s to say next week we may change our minds (again), and the week after change again?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9253377/About-turn-on-new-variant-of-carriers-fighter-plane.html
who knew that CV stood for conventional variant, strewth i’m thicker than a whale omlette and i could do better than that, same paper that did an in depth report on the RAF apache!!
Looks like dave b then, 65,000 tonnes to do what a 30,000 could do anyway. arsecakes!
“Balanced budget”. Devil will be in the detail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18054731
The MOD ain’t allowed to borrow money so it’s budget is always balanced. The problem is and Phil the spread sheet may not be getting this is that the MOD does not buy it’s kit from Tesco’s. No one has a final idea of what programs will cost. Even relatively simple of the shelf procurement can run over budget.
I have very little faith in the top brass or the MOD to deliver kit at reasonable time and prices. Especially when we factor in BAE. However I do appreciate this is a very difficult job and it can’t be done by simply firing in numbers to a spread sheet and declaring the balck hole gone.
(Interesting strategy for the Tory’s to declare the black hole gone. I thought they were going to use that one until the end of time. )
From that linked BBC article “It is not clear exactly how Mr Hammond has done his calculations, though it’s understood he has built in a reserve of some £8 billion over the next decade”
- cost of capital charges constituted a perverse incentive to scrap perfectly good kit – just to make the same money available for new purchases => those charges were scrapped when this was finally understood
I would bet on something similar being in the works here:
-project estimates, each one, include a risk buffer
- there is a “law of physics” that any slack you put in tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy
- taking such “fixed proportion to the total sum” buffers away and pooling them at the total budget level could easily come to 8 bn over ten years (MoD moving from after-the-fact style financial control to proactive management accounting?)
ACC
“there is a “law of physics” that any slack you put in tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy”
Precisely why I never told Abbey Wood how much of the training budget HQ LAND was willing to expend on WATCHKEEPER*. Drove the civil service numpties wild to not know that (and inevitably leak it or just give away the secret inadvertently), resulted in complaints all the way up to 2 star level, but in the end COS LAND held firm. And guess what? Thales started paying great attention to what the end user actually wanted, spending a lot of time on the Training LoD, and the budget being under-achieved.
* At least for my three years that coincided with the bid phase. Who knows what happened afterwards?
Hi James, RE
“At least for my three years that coincided with the bid phase. Who knows what happened afterwards?”
- catapult launch was tested
- I am surprised that it has not been adopted, as an operating option (landing could be hundreds of miles away, where ever we happen to have an airstrip)
ACC,
I recall in the WATCHKEEPER bid phase at least one of the teams bidding was offering as the smaller air vehicle a UAV manufactured by RUAG of Switzerland which came off a launching rail – but I cannot recall which team it was! I think Northrop Grumman, but I may be mis-remembering. My vote (out of about 20 people) went to N-G for their Firescout UAV, but in the end the majority decision was Thales.
I think there were a couple of USN battleships involved in GW1 that had rail-launched UAVs for spotting the fire from the big guns. As I recall, it was the last time proper battleships took part in a war, and the first time UAVs played a role (Israelis aside). The battleships were I think leftovers from WW2. The USMC ANGLICO team we had in my Squadron were a bit miffed at us being too far inland to use NGS, so they had to control the F-18s instead.
@James
This You-tube of USS Missouri firing its 16″ guns in GW1 inlcudes some shots of UAVs launching and recovering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HzVBVIjM6s
Peter
The Andrew finally grows a pair!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144798/Chopper-blasts-hunting-boat-water-awesome-display-force-Somalias-pirate-infested-coastline.html
To be fair, there are probably 100% of those deployed on this operation who would have done this years ago, without the political constraints. But even so, nice to see the Andrew justifying its’ existence….
HMS Talent currently in South Africa, will then deploy to Falklands waters according to the media.
Talent has TLAM, I think? I’m not expert on Trafalgar-class subs.
Glad to see the Government keeping the FI on regular patrol schedules.
Sorry if this has been covered else were but I think I’m right in saying we have a return of the Jedi
http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafleuchars/news/index.cfm?storyid=55B729D4-5056-A318-A86E3619B20BE1ED
Trident contracts to be placed. Presumably for long lead stuff or research work, as the official decision is not taken until 2015.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18155835
On book balancing at the MOD.
I heard at a meeting last week (Chatham House rules so no names) that the list of current defence projects that haven’t been allocated a firm line item in the procurement budget amount to about 7.5% of the total worth of the existing wish list.
Some of these are projects for which costs are not yet firmly known, some are projects that are still being prioritised to see if inclusion in the official budget fits requirements/restraints.
7.5% sounds quite reasonable to me being, as we are, at the beginning of a 10 year timeframe.
The person giving the information was a very knowledgeable source with no reason to massage the figures.
Also 40% of the procurement budget so far allocated is for RN purchases.
Hi WillS,
“7.5% sounds quite reasonable to me being, as we are, at the beginning of a 10 year timeframe”
- yes
- and with mathematical roundation it is the same as the announced 8% contingency
Hi Mark, the linked article implies (but does not say) that the flight (-) on FI has been seconded out of the two sqdrns out of Leuchars?
Someone posted that the current Tiffie number stands at abt 80, so well on our way to 5 with 107 (as the older ones start to get dropped, while new keep “trickling”in)
Hi James,
The headline number is meaningless, through a trickle feed about 2 bn will be committed to the new build before this Parliament is over.
RE
“Mr Hammond told MPs the contracts announced were a step towards ensuring the UK had a nuclear deterrent “into the 2060s”.
‘Cutting edge equipment’
He added: “We have a world-class submarine-building industry in this country and this programme will help to sustain or create more than 1,900 jobs across the UK.
“By making the core equipment programme fully funded and affordable, we are able to confirm additional equipment projects which help safeguard our national security.”
He has also included the final cost of the replacement submarines – expected to be at least £20bn – in his latest budget plans.”
-if the figure really covers both the boats and the designs (incl. CLC with variations)
- then, we are OK to 2040 – not 2060 – as in-between one can expect missile and warhead investments
- in the earlier announcements, cutting-edge was not the argument (I am sure it is one of them), but being able, in the first place, to have the first boat in water when the oldest “V” needs to go
- no one can drive this argument to any level of detail, as the RN is keeping the cards about SLEPping the “Vs” very close to the chest (I don’t blame them, but I just wonder what sort of talks, based on what information, are going on within the Coalition)
Hawk order from the Saudis – some jobs saved at Brough.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18173779
A couple of positive developments on f35
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/05/eglin-f-35-initial-cadre-start.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usmc-f-35b-starts-local-area-flights-at-eglin-afb-372203/
A couple of positive developments on f35
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/05/eglin-f-35-initial-cadre-start.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usmc-f-35b-starts-local-area-flights-at-eglin-afb-372203/
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120526/DEFREG01/305260002/U-K-May-Delay-Major-Vehicle-Buy?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/TrainingAndAdventure/RafTucanosSupportFrontLineOperations.htm
good article from roger, he is becoming progressively less insistent in supranationalism as the means, and more focused on using europe effectively towards our ends.
http://europeangeostrategy.ideasoneurope.eu/2012/05/19/stopping-british-declinism-before-it-starts-again/
PRSIM article on the onset of Her Majesty’s Fighting Gendarmerie:
http://www.ndu.edu/press/next-security-era-for-britain.html
While all these pressures do exist, and will exert pressure on european nations to evolve in the direction stated, the OP was specifically written in reference to Britain and i do have some doubts about the end to expedionary war:
“The end of expeditionary operations. The British public and many members of Parliament are not likely to mandate future expeditions on anything approaching their previous scale to support U.S. military missions. After more than a century of overseas campaigning, ending the primacy of expeditionary forces will have a radical effect on the role and organization of the armed forces.”
Specifically, i have my doubts as to the [degree] to which this is true.
Yes, it is the end of protracted and nasty counterinsurgency campaigns that sees interminable blood and violence as the sole return on billions of taxpayers money.
That is not the same as an end to an expeditionary stance………………. unless the next SDSR ditches the commitment to spending the 2.0% of GDP mandated by NATO.
As an island nation, that does not have to plan for tanks rolling across ones border on a Friday afternoon, 2.0% of GDP can preserve a sovereign and strategic expeditionary capability.
The real question is about what kind of expeditionary capability you invest in, and the answer is obviously not the endless body-bags of COIN war that inevitably overburdens the host Defence budget as the campaign grinds on for a decade or more.
No, ambition and budget permitting, the answer is drawn from the DCDC’s own planning documents stating a desire for pre-emptive action designed to lower the total investment necessary to see the problem solved. That requires a greater emphasis on light-weight forces fully supported by the panoply and transport and theatre-entry assets necessary to justify the term “rapid reaction”.
Unsurprisingly, the SDSR saw the preservation of 3Cdo and 16AAB along with the amphibious ships, RFA support vessels, and RAF lift necessary to achieve this.
The future is bright, the future’s Raiding!
Roger never quite gets it for me. He always starts so well and then looses it
We are in Europe because of our geography; we are too big to be ignored. We should have aimed to be a “Super Norway” trading with but not part of the grand French experiment. If France could sit outside Europe’s military structure for most of the Cold War “we” could have sat outside their political experiment. If war had come to Europe France would have been dragged in and economic or political shifts in their grand experiment would have affected us too. But that degree of separation from their experiment would have satisfied our national character, just as sitting outside NATO satisfied the French’s nationalistic needs.
What “we” through away in the early 70s was the White Commonwealth. As a part of block that included Canada, Australia, and New Zealand we would have global span and through our navies with their common history global reach across the Atlantic, Pacific, and India Ocean. That is lost now. We still pull in the same direction more less but the association is much looser. “We” could have lead a block with a shared history and culture with a population greater than Germany’s and the world’s largest resources. “We” could have shared and developed technology; we used to before we through it away and we ended up with shares in expensive poor value Euro projects or sickly domestic projects. “We” could have used our collective influence. Together “we” would have been stronger. Hindsight is fantastic; not for nothing does the term “Little Englander” really piss me off.
Being a part of strong White Commonwealth block we would have been a more balance to the US. And taking more of the load would have probably paid benefits on Capitol Hill as the US wouldn’t have been carrying the lion’s share. It would still have been an unequal partnership, but not as unequal by a fair margin.
What we need now is another “Thatcher” somebody who can see some of that potential power as the UK sits as nexus betwixt the US, Europe, and the White Commonwealth. Doubt it will happen.
Turkey in the EU. Made me laugh.
Not so impressed by PRISM thing. Very late 60s/early 70s “oh, we’ll NEVER need to deploy outside Europe again. And the peasants are revolting!” S/students/Muslims, /communists/Islamists.
I think his take on the riots is both alarmist (really, it didn’t come close to “bringing London to a standstill”) and poorly informed (rioters weren’t all or even close to being majority Muslim). But I guess it’s better for ex-colonels to advocate a bigger nastier police force than a private Tory militia like the original 1970s Walter Walker model.
Also, if we’re not going anywhere, why does the Gendarmerie have to be deployable?
@ Alex
Yes it is poor. It would probably get a first if handed in as an essay on a Security Studies course……….
I don’t think the likes of Afghanistan can be seen as expeditionary warfare after a decade. The first phase yes. Going into unseat the Taliban by bringing forces to concentrate rapidly on the target yes. But what came later no. Same in Iraq. The public don’t mind quick wars with easily defined objectives. It is the attritional periods afterwards they come to despise. Unseat a dictator or regime yes. Stay to mould or build the nation afterwards no.
And I note there is some “unknown unknowns” with the “unimaginable changes”. Always good to fill a paragraph or three.
Mark’s link, posted on the 26th
- tells us that the army reorg will be informed about July (moving from the Feb-April target)
- also Ch2 LEP from 2018; Scout roll-out from 2020; and Bulldogs will have to last to 2022 (and beyond)… well, over 500 got an upgrade
- no date for Warrior upgrade, and if the new gun only gets rolled out to other platforms from 2020, that will make the economics for ammo production and development ‘interesting’
“The 500 million pound ($784 million) demonstration phase being undertaken by General Dynamics UK to provide a family of tracked Scout and other specialist vehicles could be extended and the fielding of the vehicle pushed back, one MoD source said.
A second source said the Army was “looking at its options and while the issue had not been finally settled, it was likely the vehicles would not enter service until 2020.”
International observers will likely track the possible delay since the Scout Specialist Vehicle (SV) was already generating interest in the export market. A recent Ernst & Young study estimated the potential export value of the program at more than 1.3 billion pounds over a 16-year period.
The MoD has never publicly acknowledged the expected in-service date for the Scout vehicle, although Army officers at last year’s DSEi exhibition in London said it was 2015.
The number of vehicles eventually purchased could also be cut. That’s a reflection of continuing budget pressures and the fact the Army is facing a heavy downsizing as part of a restructuring plan.
Details of the restructuring, known as Army 2020, and a tri-service reorganization and expansion of the reserves are expected to be rolled out before the government goes into summer recess in July.”
That ” army reorg will be informed about July (moving from the Feb-April target)” makes it a full two years from SDSR speculation reaching the fever pitch as for the likely outcomes
- interesting if from pointing direction it takes two years to get a plan
- and we will have this every five years
@ X – “Roger never quite gets it for me. He always starts so well and then looses it”
It is the natural consequence of his affliction; an [interest] in FP combined with a [belief] in ever-closer-union resulting in the [need] to conflate the two.
ACC,
very depressing when the original timescales for FRES UV were ISD 2008, and SV ISD 2011. That was back in 2002.
Funnily enough, what many wanted in 2002 were a reliable armoured box for the UV, probably a 40mm gun and some decent networked comms / SA, and a smaller armoured box with a mast and sensors, plus the networked SA for the SV.
Could have been fielded in easily enough time, if the C-130 deployable requirement had been dropped.
Given the original “budget”*** of £14B for around 3,000 vehicles, I’m presuming UV has pretty much dropped out of the ten year plan, and UV will become some warmed over Warriors.
432 will be well over 50 in 2022, CVR(T) about 50. 432 does not become any younger if you give it a new name of Bulldog.
*** That’s “budget” as in what it was predicted to have cost, the figure pencilled in, but not in any way actually funded.
*Fourteen billion quid*, and some people complain about the shipbuilding budget…I really don’t see why there’s not vastly more outrage about FRES*. Perhaps it’s just that some armoured-vehicles-that-aren’t-quite-tanks don’t have the iconic quality of a really big ship or a fleet of supersonic jets.
*or for that matter, BOWMAN or DII. There was a bit of outrage in the end about Annington, but only years after it mattered.
@ Alex
“Fourteen billion quid*, and some people complain about the shipbuilding budget…I really don’t see why there’s not vastly more outrage about FRES”
– Because most people agree we need new vehicles. The same cannot be said about Carriers. Arguing over numbers of vehicles is still viable though.
I don’t see why we can’t just roll with the CV 90 (meets requirements, already has a 40mm, just stick Bowmans on it), put the new 40mm CTA turret on the Warrior to de risk it for a MLU to the CV 90, then start from scratch a small vehicle to fill the scout role.
If you say 60 per battalion x 20 x £3million a copy and then add in vehicles for the RA to I don’t know RE and everybody else £14billion sounds quiet reasonable.
Yes 14b for vehicles and the opposition buys a Toyota pick up with a gun on the back!
X do we need 20 battalions worth of tanks if we’re only ever going to deploy 4 battalions worth? Just that French vbci and have done with all this fres nonsense.
I’ve got no idea how it came to be £14Bn either, and here is me, then the HQ LAND bloke being the lead proponent for FRES (apparently, but Freddie Viggers’ mind was rightly more on the here and now of AFG in 2002, so he agreed to let Upavon have the lead on this). As far as I was concerned, some modern reliable armoured boxes would have done, some with 40mm guns, some with gucci ISTAR kit, but there were those who really wanted it to fly about the world in a C-130, and in the manner of Doctrine HQs, they were tremendously self-important and all at least Lt Cols and all combining to vote for the expensive stuff. Most of them are now prostituting themselves around the defence industry.
You also have to factor in the most spastic (civvy) IPT leader ever in human history, with some completely mad ideas about Systems of Systems houses and Integrators. It was very little surprise to me that the megalomaniac was later quietly removed from position (only £500 million wasted) after he had a very odd fistfight on the hard shoulder of the M4 with a white van man that he believed had cut him up. Lord knows what he is doing now, but hopefully it does not involve an MoD chequebook.
@ Mark
I am just trying to make sense of £14billion. And that is the only way I can do it.
Um. I am “used” to kit that costs in the region of £3million so that figure seems reasonable. Most of these 8×8 come in at about £2million. So….
My view is concentrate all the Warrior in one brigade (3 x batts) and then buy/reuse Mastiff for the brigade off on the American’s next adventure. And everybody else get on with whatever is to hand.
Did we even need 40mm guns? If we want to look at missed opportunities, then look no further than the Warrior 2000 paired with the Stormer. A procurement of those, back in the late 1990′s/early 2000′s would have covered almost, if not everything, that was needed. By replacing the RARDEN-armed vehicles in the armoured battalions with the new vehicles, some seven hundred modern and reliable hulls would be available to replace the FV430 series. Whip the turrets off, plate over the hole with mission-specific kit and you’ve got mortar carriers, APCs, Ambulances or whatever else you need.
Given the continuing work on the Supershot for the Mk44 gun with which both were equipped, there would now or in the near future be a 40mm (or near enough) upgrade as well.
Mark,
there’s no making sense of the £14billion, and that’s me speaking as Mr FRES U Like, and as you know the chief cheerleader for the spending on carriers and F35s. It is monumental bollocks.
Just think of what we could have got for the nearly £25 Billion that was FRES + CVF + F35 combined. Or more likely, how much Gordon’s deficit could be reduced.
Stryker comes in about £2M, Jackal about £500 K (not sure why, but that’s published), LSV about £80 K. Add £100 K to both Jackal and LSV for the ISTAR kit and it is still as cheap as chips. That’s pretty much all we need.
I know this will sound a bit derogatory but if Bugatti can build a Veyron for less than £2m then I’m sorry but any number of wheels and armour can’t cost £3m each! Have people never heard of a production/assembly line? 3000-4000 of the things is “buy the factory” money!!!
@ Jedi – Interesting links, particulary the first one.
James as a total layman thats seem a sensible suggested list of vehicles to me. The marines did buy viking off the shelf for not a lot of money and they came in handy. Theres so many vehicles out there and a number built in uk I cant quite understand why this seems like pulling teeth.
It is the MoD so I am surprised you are all surprised that we would pay £3million for what everybody else will be paying £2million or less. Remember this is the organisation that couldn’t even buy a decent tactical rifle.
@ James re Jackal and LSV
You will be advocating quads next! Let me get this right then. This week I have found out you think FRR vehicles don’t need the autocannon on their vehicles. And you are not wedded to enclosed vehicles (I remember you said buttoned down in CVRT you might as well not bother) or tracks. This is interesting anything else you can add?
The Scout SV may be desirable now, but it will look most passe by 2020. We’ll have to find a few billion quid more to begin a new scout vehicle development.
Meanwhile GD ASCOD will surely be selling all the SV variants we paid them to develop. Not made in Britain of course.
Simon,
I assure you that it can. The Veyron is a stunning piece of engineering but it is simply a highly optimised car. It goes places on smooth roads. It does not have the ability to pick out a man at several kilometres in the pitch black. It isn’t armoured against mines, missiles and machine guns. It doesn’t weigh thirty tonnes. It can’t put a shell through a window at over a mile. It cannot survive, much less operate, in the severity of environments than an AFV has to operate in.
It does build on a vast amount of experience in building cars – something that simply does not exist in the armoured vehicle world. How many models of car have Volvo made since the CV90 came out?
Mr Fred,
“it goes places on smooth roads”
No, if flys 1mm above the ground at 250mph
Sorry, I said it would seem derogatory but I must be missing something. A shell through a window at over a mile? Pick out a man at several km in pitch black? 30 tonnes of steel plating for armour. Come on, that kind of stuff has been around for years – it simply can not cost £3m.
X,
there seems to be some form of delusion that a cavalryman is wedded to an armoured box on tracks and does not like getting his boots dirty. I am against that tendency – I like recce people to live in the mud, walk about, and move from A to B unobtrusively but rapidly. I will admit there’s probably a majority of recce people that like some more protection and don’t mind trading noise and height.
In the end, it is all about getting into the right place to observe something, form a judgement and get that info back to the relevant commander in the most appropriate format (and also mostly to lie up for a while observing to get a pattern of activity). By and large, stealth is better than armour. There is however a fetish about wagons. Frankly, a quietened trials bike or even a mountain bike and man pack radio with some decent binos would be good enough in many scenarios.
Mr.fred
“If we want to look at missed opportunities, then look no further than the Warrior 2000 paired with the Stormer. A procurement of those, back in the late 1990′s/early 2000′s would have covered almost, if not everything, that was needed.”
Couldn’t agree more. I presume you are referring to the Stormer 30 (for reconnaissance). Saw that vehicle down at Aldershot in the late 1990s – a mean, snarling sort of machine and one which looked right in every respect. You know what they say: “If it looks right, then . . .” What a phenomenal amount of wsted money would have been saved if those two vehicles had been selected. Furthermore Alvis amnd GKN might still have been in business.
X,
to add some flesh onto that, I cannot at all think of a situation in my career where a decent lightweight trials bike (with some noise muffling) would not have been perhaps a better wagon than CVR(T). The optics on CVR(T) were crap, Drives and the Gunner were basically only enablers for getting my eyes to where I wanted them to be. Yes, over some weeks having extra bods about is useful in running a routine in an OP, but the CO didn’t want to have my Driver explaining some sighting report while I kipped 50 yards behind the OP, he wanted me to do the talking.
I do believe you can buy trials bikes for less than £10K, which seems cheaper than FRES SV. If I were really pushed, I think you’d get a better recce troop than 4 CVR(T) if you had 6 on trials bikes, 6 on quads, a couple of which had some form of lightweight genny on the back rack, and the other 4 carrying some troop kit and a few Javelin. Add in a “mothership” Land Rover and trailer with some extra jerrycans of fuel. You’d probably get a Troop’s worth of kit for less than £200K.
@ James
There is an American book called “Air, Mech, Strike” that says basically what you said. Some regard it as a bit “Looney Tunes” but as somebody who speaks crap about defence daily who I am to judge? In a way what you are advocating is a return to horses. Um. I don’t know. Would the public buy it, however sound the reasoning behind the idea? Even though the public have no understanding of military matters. Look at the controversy over body armour, imagine replacing a tank with a half dozen of Honda or Kawasaki’s finest. It is a better answer than LSV which was wrong in so many ways; wheels too small, ground clearance good but come on could be better, under-powered etc. etc. Who ever signed it off into service had never attended an AWDC Comp Safari and had a shufty at the more imaginatively engineered vehicles.
X,
I’m not familiar with the book, and in a wider sense there are several ways to skin a cat. My cousin commanded the recce platoon of 1/2 Ghurkhas and they used to do a couple of kilometres a day in the jungle (Observer would probably relate to that). My recce background is in Germany mostly, plus GW1, so 50-100 clicks a day was about normal.
As far as protection is concerned, well, it is a risk business. I’d far rather have unimpeded all round visibility and the mobility to choose any path I want than being buttoned up in armour but stuck to a defined road. If you drive over a bomb in a balls out wagon, well life’s a bitch.
I say LSV in a generic sense: anything from the original LSV to Jackal would work well enough. If one’s got a problem with weight or wheel travel or engine power, sort it out or choose something different.
Nothing to stop you bolting on a lightweight Kawasaki trials bike onto the back of a Jackal to have the best of both worlds. The French used to do something similar with recce tanks and monkey bikes, a really odd combo.
Also nothing at all to stop a laterally thinking troop leader from packing a set of jeans and a grotty old hiking jacket in the CVR(T), and going for a hike on the Sunday before an exercise against the Bundeswehr in the Harz Mountains. Amazing what you can pre-observe while appearing to be nothing more than another hiker.