Is this a new low for the senior officers and civil servants at the MoD?
F35 Leaks
If the report that Thomas Harding has supposedly seen and reported on was actually marked ‘Secret’ then releasing such protectively marked information is a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act and should be investigated as such.
If we cast our minds back to the famous leaked letter from Liam Fox to David Cameron, not a single person has been bought to account for that.
Is this now normal behaviour, is this the standard of conduct that should be expected of senior officers and civil servants because that document would not have been released to Joe Bloggs in the pub, then it really is a sad day.
As soon as the potential for a change in model from F35C to F35B the well oiled campaign has been in full flow, blog posts, tweets, letters to the editor and think tank musings from all the usual suspects have been involved in a concerted and coordinated campaign to persuade those in the decision making circle to ‘do the right thing’
We all know the F35C represents in isolation a set of improved performance figures and lower initial aircraft sticker price but those in the campaign simply do not comprehend that the decision is about overall cost and impact to the rest of defence.
Regardless of the decision, which for me is exactly and precisely nothing more than balance and cost, yet again, the grown ups in the MoD have cheapened themselves by talking out of school.
In my last post on this subject I suggested that Mr Hammond should go on the warpath against the leakers and spinners but I think this latest episode has shown that certain individuals on that document distribution list need to have a little attention from the MoD Police.
The rioters have felt the full force of the law and lenience for them, no matter how trivial their actual crimes, was in short supply.
Perhaps we should take the same approach with those responsible for this.
EDIT
Another take on this from Sir Humphrey, click here
Just saw the head of airpower at RUSI on BBC 24; sensibly pointing out C has more range because of more fuel, B has more landing options because its STOVL. Both excellent aircraft. You makes your choice and you pay your money. Only we don’t have a lot of money to go around.
If the MOD keeps getting bullied.. sorry, lobbied into ignoring their budget and buying “the best” then all we’re going to end up with is another black hole (assuming the original one is now filled in).
Indeed it is about costs, and the reduced capability of the “b” version will apparently require £2.4b in extra jets.
That should go some way towards the cost of cats-n traps on two carriers don’t you think?
This is bad leaking and poor reporting. B might be “less capable” than C but that is not the point which is choosing an aircraft that provides the right balance between meeting our needs and our budget. C on CVF is less capable than in fact binning CVF, ordering 2 ford class carriers with squadrons of F/A Xs but we can’t afford that and don’t need it
That is not what the report is saying……….
If we want to save money it means CVF as an LHA… which means a couple of F35B squadrons. Not 130+, not ~90, 24-30 aircraft only.
What happens in the future is then dependent on funds and capability requirements.
That is kind of against the notion of an effective military planning for the kind of engagements it sees itself as partaking in……. And then seeking the capability necessary to succeed in those engagements.
Surely?
There must be some serious infighting going on to warrant this standard of leakage, media coverage and general info ops. Wonder if it involves bailing out of any aspects of the contract, impacting on BAE’s profit figures or risking losing jobs in shipyards/aircraft factories? What a circus.
This leaking is beyond a joke and quite frankly those involved should be ashamed of themselves and the appropriate jail time served. A jsf document with a secret uk eyes tag should not have a huge distribution list.
Jedi you don’t know what the reports saying because we have a journos interpretation. Indeed how exactly we end worry about time over target if aar assets are present would suggest to me this may have gamed a very specific a/c only exercise. There is another telegraph artical which has more detail from the same author. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9217344/New-warplanes-less-capable-secret-paper-shows.html
@Gareth
Which RAF airbases can the F35B land at where the F35C can’t?
Wouldn’t it be cheapest of all to have F35A’s and have a Global Bombing Force at 24hrs standby that Chris B mentioned on a guest post I read in the archives.
While outclassed by F35C, the capability of a navalized GripenNG would compare better against the Bees; would have the possibility of buddy refueling too.
If they want a large carrier air-fleet, then it might work out cheaper to fit cats for the cheaper aircraft.
@ mark – for sure.
I am being a little glib as I am thoroughly amused at how carriers seem to be at the Centre of all these capability documents. Strange when they are apparently unnecessary gin palaces strangling core funding for ‘genuinely’ useful capabilities elsewhere in the military!
A viewpoint best summed up by James with his vitriolic epithet: “those spastic carriers”
We have two carriers with sufficient jets to meet the capability requirements demanded by hmg. What flies off them in support of that requirement matters not and I care even less.
We [will] have two carriers – that should read.
If that document was indeed SUKEO then heads have got to roll for that – that is an outrageous breach of security. However, as always I expect media hype to have overinflated the report – we will see.
Idealy we would have both types like the Yanks – C’s flying of our strike carriers for serious power projection and fleet defence/air superiority and the B’s flying of 4(?) CVS’s attack duties and sea control. But we can’t afford that… unless we REALLY cut capabilities elsewhere…
The point of this post is not about the decision but the agenda fueled leaking with scant regard for propriety and the appropriate treatment of protectively marked information.
If true, a criminal offence has clearly been committed, so while rioters caught up in a moment of madness and nicked a Mars bar are seeing the inside of a cell for 6 months, the people responsible for this should be treated equally harshly.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for them, they are a disgrace.
The same goes for Thomas Harding as well, he should know better, there is no public interest defence here at all
Reduced capability? Don’t both c and b outperform GR9? Yes. Well the it is an increase in capability.
Does C outperform F4 and the Buccaneer? I don’t know…….
Somewhatinvolved I would agree if it’s origion is indeed dstl then it’s highly likely it would be a min of secret when discussing jsf. I bet there will be a few phone calls from washington along the lines of and you want what source codes..,,(they are very paranoid about this kinda stuff) If people aren’t careful someone in the PMs office will say enough your getting neither.
Jedi I agree 2 carriers are required even if they’re rotated like the LPDs which means paying for cat and traps for both not 1.
I agree Mark, this sort of leakage has huge potential to cause international outcry; even if the contents are relatively tame the question is ‘why can’t you control your own classified information’.
2 x cats and traps please and get the US to install then, thus seeing off BAE in the process.
Hmm – when people were leaking in favour of the B, TD was all “this is just vindicating what I’ve been saying about B”. When people leak in favour of C, his attitude is “lock em up and throw away the key”.
The “political” leaks and counterleaks have been going on for weeks, even if some people haven’t worked out that’s what they were. Realistically, it’s hard to avoid at least some of that kind of stuff when you’re talking about a democracy spending £bn’s – and arguably this is another facet of the fact that UK procurement isn’t transparent enough.
Compare the way the US Senate/House committees oversee spending of other people’s taxes versus our system. Obviously a downside of that accountability is the amount of porkbarreling that goes on, but that never happens here. Oh no, not having a combined Scottish/Defence Secretary building carriers in Scotland and not closing down a £100m/year base with 9 aircraft for fear of what the SNP might say.
Far be it for me to suggest that the UN has better security than the MoD, but even the UN knows how to deal with this.
I drafted the “note” that the UN Force Commander sent to the Security Council in May 1995 about his negotiations with NATO for the dual-key approach to no fly zones in Bosnia, following the 2-week hostage crisis. It was an incredibly contentious issue. It had to be staffed around both UN and NATO HQs, as well as cleared politically by the 5 governments that made up the P5 on the UNSC and the 4 nations who were both part of the additional 10 nations on the UNSC and also contributing troops to UNPROFOR. Leaking would have been highly problematic.
Solution? 16 separate copies, all on .PDF and not editable, and all with very small differences in wording, use of italics or font, or oddities like a space between the end of a word and a comma, or changing the order of addressees.
We knew instantly which nation leaked the final draft document, and adjustments were made to the final text to reflect UN displeasure with that nation.
i like it james.
This is obviously trying to influence the aircraft decision, but regardless of whether this supports your own favourite flavour of jet or not, the leak is a serious issue.
And while there are undoubtfully a great deal of documents passing back and forth, reports do suggest that this one was indeed a secret report.
It is wrong that this was leaked, but was there any need for such a report to be marked ‘secret’? Would it not be better for there to be more transparency around this issue – that has been subject to so much meddling already?
El Sid, can I suggest you go and read my last post on leaking
It’s a matter of huge national interest and public funds so perhaps the real issue is transparency rather than leaking. Moreover, if the C version won’t be ready now until 2025 rather than 2020 is it not highly likely that the Superbug production line is going to keep going for a few years longer, albeit as an interim solution for the US Navy as well as our own and other nations?
Seems to be growing pressure to do this http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-29/boeing-lobbies-for-2-dot-5-billion-in-jets .
I’ve long thought the best indirect argument for the C version or the Superbug are the other longer-range, higher altitude aircraft that become deployable like Hawkeye and Greyhound using EMALS that wouldn’t happen with Dave B. What’s the point of a short-range air group on an aircraft carrier?
Dan, 1982
TD, I think you misunderstood me. The argument here is not what’s the point of having an aircraft carrier with any air group short or long range – but whether a timely interim solution with the plus of a bigger radius of operation is becoming more available with each f-35 delay in a few years time rather than wait and extend the carrier strike gap longer still for b (not convinced this is now all running to plan) or c?
Brian, Dan, the Government has every right to protect sensitive information irrespective of what that information might be. The release of said information could prejudice numerous international relations and have potentially severe political, financial and military consequences. Just because we’d like to have something to talk about doesn’t mean that we should be able to demand whatever information we want – if fact it positively encourages further meddling.
Just give the services their budgets and let them spend it as they see fit … if we need carrier airpower let the Navy decide what works for them. Why should the RAF/BAE meddle?
The Army didn’t give advice on the AirTanker selection I presume?
If it’s all so contentious / fraught, why don’t they buy the F35B for the RAF and F35C for the Navy then everyone’s happy?
Of thr top of my head the definition of secret is info that if divulged may harm the national interestm
TS is info that if divulged will harm the national interest, whoever leaked this should have the book flung at them and more.
I Can’t believe a reporter from the telegraph is shown a document marked secret UK eyes only. Either they are not telling the tuth or some one at the ministry is breaking the law. Either way it warrents a police investigation and should result in a prosecution. I am sick to death of this constant press leaking from the current government. Perhaps a little jail time would finally fix the problem.
Given the knowledge and military experiance of many of the commentators on TD, if we as individuals were in a position of significant influence with regards to the F-35 acquisition, would we leak information to get the aircraft we thought was right for the job?
Damned bl@@dy right we would, or are creatures of such virtue that we only see the fault in others?
Dan, with aircraft like the MV-22 Osprey available, C-2 and E-2 are not the only game in town, so B is as viable as C (as long as range is discounted from the debate).
@Ace
Hell no, I won’t. You do it, someone else does it to counter your opinion, another leaks something else to counter the other guy, and soon you’ll have 1) An organization of leaks
2) Decision making by propaganda. (Abolish RAF!! Sounds familiar?)
Hi, SI. The PM and gov’t should be fully accountable to MPs, not sidelining parliament in the Blair style. These are spending decisions that stretch well beyond this government’s term in office. While the report mentions ‘sensitive planning exercises’, much of the cost and capability assessment info could be decoupled from the report and be published to the commons library for access and debate. If the report is concerned with two variants of the same aircraft, there is no competition issue; and broadly speaking, the flight performance and payload of each aircraft will be publicly available when they’re in service. What is being leaked now suggests that the gov’t likely intends to incur greater long-term costs for short-term expediency by buying a less capable aircraft – this is the ‘bow wave’, which has been widely blamed for the defence budget black hole, being continued.
Oh yeah.. wikileaks anyone? How much accountability did that generate? Not much, only lots of red faces in the US.
Ichabod – why don’t they buy F35B for the RAF and F35C for the Navy? STOVL may be a handy niche capability, but with a relatively small RAF/FAA fast jet fleet, any lightly armed and short-legged STOVL jets at all create further limitations for the overall jet fleet that are not outweighed by anything that STOVL brings to the table – except for the ability to operate from small cheap carriers maybe.
The RAF would probably prefer Alphas over Bravos. As for the consideration of F35B for the Navy, the leaks are now pointing towards that being the more expensive option.
Observer, “there is hope, the force is strong in this one”
@Ace
Nah, he had beans for lunch. That’s just gas you’re sensing.
@Ace- The Osprey is an expensive aircraft to run for the job it does, it also requires on average nearly 20 maintenance hours per flight hour and is far more complicated than the CH-46.
It makes sense simply to provide ample NH90 or Merlin helicopters but they take up deck space and I’m not sure if they could satisfactorily be stowed below.
Alternatively a rummage around the bargain bins at AMARC might be in order. Refurbished and slightly modified aircraft could massively cut down our total bill s long as money is spent wisely (e.g no frivolous glass cockpits, trained pilots can cope with real life instruments).
On the leak front, if this is all that was released then it does seem like a bit of a misuse of the top secret stamp. I have a few books that you could get the same information out of. TD you are right in that they have the right to make things secret but you are wrong in that it is fundamentally a topic of national interest.
I do have to say I understand why certain parties in the MOD feel the need to orchestrate these leaks. The government has seemingly eliminated them from the discussion all together and they will be the ones stuck with the planes and ultimately carry the can if there is a massive screw up.
If it were up to me I would get C’s for the navy and have the catapult installed abroad to attempt to save some money and have the RAF equipped with A’s and simply buy one or two Boeing KC-46/KC-767 or refurbed KC-135′s.
I just have to put in:
1. I spent enough time around goverment to know that most leaks come out of minister’s offices.
2. Leaks of the scale suggested indicate a department which is utterly at war with itself. Such departments are always disfunctional and the only solution is a general house cleaning. General house cleaning’s are however rare as pollies lack the balls for the ensuing ruckus. Administrative tinkering is much more likely which simply papers over the cracks.
3. In the absence of real house cleaning, pollies treat everything coming out of the deparment with long tongs and in the absence of an immediate political impact the department stagnates.
Will that happen in the UK? With the end in sight in Stan, without an equal operation in the immediate intray, with a slow economic recovery, looks like a good prospect.
“As soon as the potential for a change in model from F35C to F35B the well oiled campaign has been in full flow, blog posts, tweets, letters to the editor and think tank musings from all the usual suspects have been involved in a concerted and coordinated campaign to persuade those in the decision making circle to ‘do the right thing’”
Because the pure and awesome lovers of the greater good did not have their own campaign in support of the B when the decision to change to C was put forward, right?
A very big case of “i’m right, you are wrong”.
“We all know the F35C represents in isolation a set of improved performance figures and lower initial aircraft sticker price but those in the campaign simply do not comprehend that the decision is about overall cost and impact to the rest of defence.”
Absolutely true.
You believe that the F35B has the lower impact and overall cost, others believe, not without reason, that it is the C that delivers the best deal.
You are no different in your arguing for B than who argues for the C, you know.
You BELIEVE that the B is the best choice. There is still no way to prove it for sure.
Especially until the 1.8 / 2 billion conversion cost figure isn’t explained, because there is really no way to justify such a cost unless it is related to the conversion of both hulls.
Ace said “The Army didn’t give advice on the AirTanker selection I presume?”
Actually I bet they did. James the Red Trouser is the man who will know……
I have one probably stupid question.
Is the airframe of the B strong enough to take a catapult launch?
And if so what would be the cost of modifying our B’s so as to be fully interoperable.
@DavidNiven: no, it won’t be strong enough. But it’s not necessary, a B could operate from a CATOBAR carrier just fine. The ski jump allows it to take off with more weight.
DavidNiven,
You’d then have the worst of both worlds. A heavy jet that doesn’t have the range AND all the expense of the conversion.
STOVL already are completely interoperable – Harriers have landed on the back of Intrepid/Fearless for example, and they’re not even carriers.
Trouble is STOVL jets are heavier (carry less fuel) than their conventional counterparts.
Almost certainly not. Given that the B is utterly dependent on having a low empty weight, all structural members will have been designed against the lowest required load. In the B, that will be compressive as the gear reaches a ski-jump (UK requirement), whereas a nose-tow cat launch would have a completely different (and higher) set of loads.
Thanks for the reply’s.
I thought there was an obvious reason.
I said “Ace said “The Army didn’t give advice on the AirTanker selection I presume?””
It was Ichabod.
Hi Jedi,
More interesting than what the numbers uplift might have to be, to compensate for capability “the reduced capability of the “b” version will apparently require £2.4b in extra jets”
is the very exact 97 of “C”s
- tallies with the speculation of 48 to fill the need for carrier aviation (of course, a lot of it land based)
- and the two-humped procurement profile(which opens up the avenue for a different variant for the RAF dep strike, should the one chosen for carriers struggle)