I posed this question on another forum but thought I would give it a wider airing;
At what point does defending ever decreasing in size unique and service centric capabilities become unsustainable and actually contribute to that services further demise?
As you know, one of the things I have always highlighted is areas of duplication across all three services.
We have four organisations doing EOD, numerous light infantry, three services carrying out OR and officer training, policing, engineering, electronic warfare, three or four rotary wing aviation, three fixed wing aviation, signals, logistics and the list goes on.
Each one of these has a compelling case for staying as is, the FAA/RAF/AAC for fixed wing aviation, the RE/RLC/RAF/RN split for EOD, and Army/RM/RAF Regiment infantry, plus of course each service doing their own basic and officer training.
Whilst we are seeing the march of jointery there still seems a number of red lines which neither of the services are willing to cross, service ethos and the desire for a unique identity are strong forces to overcome.
If there is one thing that is certain it is that the forces will not be seeing any appreciable or sustained increase in funding any time soon.
So can we afford all the unique history and rigidly service centric organisational constructs?
Is the appearance of duplication only go skin deep and the functions that look the same are very different in reality?
Does duplication create inefficiency or does the uniqueness deliver more than it ‘costs’?
Is the logical outcome of increasing jointery a single service and if so, should it be resisted at all costs or embraced with open arms?
I’ll have a stab at this…
At what point? Now!
Put everything into a bag, shake it up and pull out two forces:
1. Home Island/Realm Defence Force.
2. Expeditionary Force.
Size each according to our needs (analysis) and kit them out properly.
For example…
- What do we need Apache for on the UK mainland?
- What do we need land-based strike aircraft for?
- Do we really need to stop piracy – should we let insurance companies mitigate that risk?
- How many expeditionary fleets do we need? Do we want one big and one small or two medium… or just one?
For the RN, re escorts – the point at which it cannot project power via carriers/amphibs:
the desire to project power in this manner eats so much of the budget that sufficient supporting assets cannot be maintained, i.e. our irreducible minimum of:
19 escorts
07 SSN’s
if a credible RFA fleet cannot be maintained along with amphibious assets to move a short brigade along with carrier cover [without] going below 19 escorts and 07 SSN’s then we must question whether the RN should project power in this manner.
For the RAF, re RAF regiment – the point at which it cannot project power via a deployable and sustainable squadron/flight/ISTAR.
the RAF is always going to be hobbled via its QRA duties and the need to provide strategic airlift, which limits its ability to project power, but it can sustain a strike power in foreign parts and supply strategic ISTAR assets considered valuable to a coalition.
however, it is struggling to do so, so the question remains: how much further can the pressure ratchet up on these two abilities whilst still maintaining 3000+ RAF regiment bodies?
put simply: would you chop 1000 RAF regiment bodies to preserve both of the two above abilities?
For the army, re COIN – the point at which it cannot project power via the 15% commitment to resourcing US operations in order to justify the 2IC spot.
the army does lots of nice specialist things that help support its broader objectives……….. which would have to be sacrificed in order to keep the ~10 brigades required to keep the two in the field required to resource the 15% commitment.
Does the army really have a rapid intervention force if its in roulement for Herrick?
This choice has already been made, it is no longer an objective that is sought because it would prove too destructive on those other specialisms.
But seriously – why is the RAF regiment not running the Falkland Islands and Sovereign Bases? Yes i know the SB’s provide a jumping off point for the ME/FE via the presence of an army battalion, but that could be one instead of two….
“Is the appearance of duplication only go skin deep and the functions that look the same are very different in reality?”
From what I have seen and experienced, it is only skin deep – well, at least for the lads/ladies in the forntline in these seperate but ‘identicle’ units, not sure what the officer class higher up would say – take EOD for example; each of the 3 caters for their niche areas and have a degree of overlap so if needed they can be called apon to work together to increase capability, they dont exactly mirror one another – Naval EDO is very different to that of the RAF for example, and the Army is geared for more rough frontline/terror situations than the latter two.
You’ll often see one or the other on the news when an old shell/bomb is found, but only when certain environmental conditions are present (such as V2 remains in a port in east anglia requiring Naval EOD) will you see the dedicated type, more often than not its simply who is based closer to the find.
I can see where we can join things up closer, especially regarding MP’s but also SAR (which we’re seeing with a joint RAF/RN/Coastguard run show under a PFI).
But short of a radicle reshuffle (like simons’s) that’ll loose more jobs and capability and create more mess, I dont see where there are severe duplicalities of capability. People often cite/bemoan the RAF Reg. but often dont know what the varied operations they do, (airfield defence, force protection around the airfield, CBRN, armed responce teams for CSAR and AeroMed and specialists for siezing airfields by air) if they didn’t exist then the more ‘serious’ fighting units would take their place, decreasing their pressence at the frontline.
I dont like the sound of Simon’s idea, just a huge unbalanced (navy centric?) downgrading of our military to a defence force that can forray oversea’s occasionaly.
I’ve always said the forces are a three legged stool, if one goes, they all go; in any peacetime/wartime op we’ve seen that. A single service if more desireable than cutting one and loosing a part of our history, but we should avoid it; what we have now is good enough, might need a bit more reshuffle, but has been for the past century. The Canadians didn’t have a swell 30 years of it.
Agree with Mike. A lot of duplication is only skin deep and any purple formation would only be skin deep as the different missions and environments won’t change.
There is probably scope for more Jointness but each case would need to be judged on its merits and in detail. Sometimes the role requires the intangible and subtle knowledge gained from being in a particular service that can’t really be trained for. For example Navy EOD divers.
As for light infantry, the Commandos used to be Army but their role is going back to re specialising in amphibious operations so should they stay close to the RN? Probably and the RAF Regt, well…
Really “Whilst we are seeing the march of jointery “?
What happened with the new Joint Command? They have their own budget, but other than taking on cyber, not much heard since starting up
Chop FAA and AAC, merge all into RAF. If it flies, it’s flown by a crab. Including UAV’s at anything above the tactical level.
Merge 3Cdo, RAF Reg and Army under one functional organisation. If it carries a rifle, it should be a pongo.
Anything on the water, manned by a sailor. You get my drift.
Ditch fishery protection and anything vaguely coast-guardy, form a proper Coast Guard.
RAF EOD? Are you kidding me? What do they do – defuse inflight meals? Two EOD organisations, one maritime, one land.
Three Service Police organisations under one guiding authority – well we’re almost there already.
Is it going to happen? No. Nobody trusts the other Services not to act selfishly and deploy resources to their own benefit. RAF would fund Typhoon over Chinook, Army would turn 3Cdo into the Paras, Navy would stop colonels getting lost at sea in yachts – oh, wait…
This is the point I have been making for some time.
Whenever you mention ‘jointness’ people quote Canada as some sort of disaster, but not the IDF.
We live in an ‘Air land/ Air sea battlespace.
The ‘If it flies it’s light blue’ ignores this.
Like the same but different units, Para’s and Marines. Is a classic example. Whatever the marines fans claim as a matter of fact they have been deployed alongside one another- nameless isles, or sequentially as in Afghan doing the same job. Don’t actually care what their ethos/ history, supposed role is, they have been doing the same job of elite light infantry for decades. They should be one unit. Ditto SBS SAS Why?
Likewise if whoever’s closest deal with the bomb then it should be one organisation.
So that’s just for starters.
You’ll never get a model armed forces, pure and efficient and organised in a completely rational manner. It is manned by humans after all. And it has history. I think there are also some very good reasons why helicopters are in the ground and sea services.
Nobody has ever convinced me that organisational tidiness outweighs the advantages of having embedded choppers in your service.
“Too small” is the level beneath which we cannot restore or replenish our capability organically.
For that I point to the SSN’s by way of prime example: We dropped below the point where we could build the Astute class without (greatly appreciated) assistance.
This tipping point does not necessarily require high volumes of assets in the field, airframes in the sky, or hulls in the water, but it does require that a program of continuous design, construction and maintenance is preserved.
We need to continue building Typhoons; Astutes; Challenger II’s; Warriors; Warthogs; Type 45′s; L85′s; etc; even if this is only low-rate production. This can result in an exportable surplus or it could mean having to regularly replace assets before their airframe life has been reached.
Simultaneously we need to continue designing the next generation: The Taranis’; the Mantis’; the Type 26′s; the FRES’s. What comes after Typhoon? UCAV’s? Really? Are we progressing our training, support and infrastructure methods?
The link between Force Structure numbers and the R&D/Industry backing it up needs to be broken. Both have points below which we should consider them “too small”.
@Phil: organising armed services by dint of the equipment they use rather than by it’s employment is hardly sensible
Mike,
“…downgrading of our military to a defence force that can forray oversea’s occasionaly.”
I think you missed my point.
Really I’m advocating a split between true defence and offence. Might seem a little left field to some, but it would allow monies to be allocated correctly on our offensive posture rather than clouding, say, Typhoon with offensive duties and, say, Astute with defensive duties.
i.e. our “defence force” will never “forray”
PS: I’m not fussed if the expeditionary force is not navy centric. It should be whatever it should be to achieve the desired objectives.
The Other Chris,
So are you suggesting that the size of the army, air force and navy should be defined by the minimum size of a fleet we can design, build and sustain organically?
If so, is there not a problem will fleet classes? i.e. The way to minimise is to build only multi-role jets and multi-role ships… always “jacks of all trades, masters of none”.
- One factory turning out one F16 each year with a lifespan of 30 years gives 30 jets in service –> 1000 RAF.
- One factory turning out one T23 every two years with a lifespan of 30 years gives 15 ships –> 2000 RN.
- One factory turning out a dozen Challenger II every year with a lifespan of 15 years gives 180 tanks –> 6000 Army.
Double, double-again or half the personnel numbers ‘cos I haven’t got a clue, but my point is there’s way too low to have any effect on the defence of this nation.
I’m not sure it really works.
@Simon
I’m specifically saying that the link between force sizes and the industry that produces them needs to be broken.
They have different tipping points and should not be linked. There will likely be cost implications.
If you want SSN capability for example, you need to build enough subs to prevent a gap in design and construction leading to a loss of skills. In this particular example always having an SSN, SSBN or even SSK in construction, with one new model in the design stage would likely suffice.
Your actual fleet sizes should always be determined by what you need in the field. What you need in the field at any given time will very rarely fit with what you need to keep building and designing to preserve your skills.
What this means to your supply chain and the nature of the fleet within the size depends. The options include (but aren’t limited to): A large fleet of subs; a small fleet of newly constructed subs; exporting any surplus subs; mothballing or scrapping any excess; etc.
Questions on what is sufficient to retain a capability are certainly raised. Will designing and manufacturing a UCAV jointly with France preserve skills for replacing Typhoon adequately, for example?
SomewhatInvolved,
Perhaps you can split them be responsibility rather than asset.
e.g. If it’s in the air it’s the RAF’s problem… sea/land/etc.
How the service deals with the threat is immaterial. Simply put, the RAF protect the air, the army the land and the navy the sea.
I think this works for defence of the realm, but not so much for expeditionary warfare where the Navy has to provide the services of air-defence for the fleet and any landed troops.
Perhaps, and this is way out there… The RAF should own CVF because it’s a tool they use to defend the air space?
I should probably add an amendment to my earlier post to say that maintaining capability also includes training and using the assets as well!
The best judge of whether duplication is required or not would be a competent ministry. So perhaps the greatest emphasis should not be on witch-hunts for duplication and the inevitable bun-fights over service toys, but rather creating a proper civilian management structure to be the external arbiter. If/when that happens they’ll have the closest to perfect information, and will have the best guess on what stays and goes. After all isn’t that what the MoD was created for? Furthermore, if competent decisions were made on force structure, procurement, and industrial policy then perhaps we wouldn’t be searching for relative pennies in duplication. Which, as far as I can see, hasn’t had a catastrophic effect on operational performance.
Can we not create something like the Joint Support Service (Streitkräftebasis) of the German Bundeswehr? Put all EOD, Military Police, Logistics etc. under a single joint command. That service can then decide whether there is duplication of anything.
Interestingly, we have a conceptually similar problem at my place of work (bear with me).
Where I work, we provide a service to install, maintain and fix computers for schools. The problem is, we have three different departments heading up the 3 different tasks. Installation is under Sales, Maintenance is under Business Development, Repair is under Support.
All three different sections have different procedures to set-up computers, but all of them overlap to a large degree (after-all once a computer is fixed, it needs to be re-installed). At the moment it’s hell for someone to maintain a computer, fix a faulty one or install a replacement because no-one knows the procedures any of the other sections are using.
It’s obvious to everyone in the company that all three sections need to be under the same manager, to improve cooperation, communication and standardise procedures. But seeing as this would make 2/3 of managers redundant, it’ll never happen. Turkey’s never vote for Christmas and all that . . .
It’s the same in HM Armed Forces. No-one wants to be the one to merge “capabilities” because that would likely make their “Management Structure” redundant, and the last person you want to make redundant is yourself!
One solution I’ve mentioned before is to concptually break down the entire HM Armed Forces into irreduceable single-focus units. So, individual ships for the RN, single-type squadrons for the RAF and, I don’t know, Regiments comprising a single type of force (no organic AAA, or Arty. for example) for the Army.
Once you have all these units defined, you can then group like with like to standardise their capabilties (i.e. widen them to the most capable, not find the mean!), and generate force structures for “On Operations” and “Resting from Operations”.
Once these permanent force structures have sunk in, you could even experiment with creating the force structures on the fly for particular operations, with all other units not a part of the Operation being in a “reserve pool”.
Of course, operationally a lot of this happens already – but the force structure on Ops is in *addition* to the “at rest” force structure – effectively we are duplicating all the leradership roles. What I propose is replacing all the ranks above Ships Captain, Squadron Leader and Lt. Colonel with a single combined arns command structure (replicated to have enough for the number of simultaneous Ops HMG want the Armed Forces to carry out this week). This would require a lot of slashing, burning and disestablishing of staff officer posts (and whatever the equivalent is in the RN and RAF), so of course it’ll never happen and I am quite safe to shout about it in the same way that LibDems shout about PR and Lords Reform 8-D
How many of the ‘single service’ nations *really* have a single service identity? After all, the IDF splits into Army, IAF and Navy. CF splits into Army, RCAF and RCN after ditching the [Environment] Command naming system last year. What is different about their unified higher command structures from ours?
The IDF example in particular cannot be seen as a viable model. The IDF was created new in the 1940s/50s and does not have hundreds of years (or even RAF’s tens of years) of service identity predating that formation. Israel had a clean sheet to work on, Britain does not.
In dealing with the environments, it must be recognised that there is a hierarchy, not three equal environments.
Anixtu
Re service ethos/ history
I have on my wall a picture of stretched out relaxed cat. The tag line says.
‘Your little semi evolved Monkey brain cannot comprehend the size of the F*ck I do not give’.
(No insult intended the cat is addressing the whole human race me included).
But the view stands I care about defending this country into the next 50 years not who fought facing backwards in the Napoleonic wars.
Given the extent of the changes and the cuts that our forces have faced, and will face, between ’91 and 2020, there should certainly be some review of who provides which capability. I can’t believe that consolidating some multi-service roles to a single service wouldn’t deliver any efficiencies or savings at all.
Some of the roles that regularly crop up in discussion on this site have been mentioned; but what about the RAF’s tactical supply wing? Couldn’t those tasks be transferred to the Army’s logistic element? And how about the RAF’s medical and dental services? Do RAF airmen have unique physical ingredients that require RAF doctors nurses and dentists?
100% agreed
BertramPantyshield says:
July 31, 2012 at 13:32
RE- SSN design – From reports I have read we need to design a new type of SSN every 8 years or so to maintain the design team skills. I have been curious how other countries particularly the USA manages to do this as they tend to produce a single design for much longer than us and the vessel has a longer service life.
If they had not switched from Sea Wolf to Virginia class for budgetary reason’s then they would not have designed a new boat since the early 1990′s until 2010 when work started to design the Ohio successor.
I often wonder if the sacred cows of maintaining design and manufacturing skills really do require continuous build. Can a naval architect that designs SSN’s not design other naval vessels as well? Can the engineers and ship builders at barrow not build anything else?
Given the capability of Astute and the lack of any real arm’s race we may be able to say that after we finish the successor submarine we could just knock out more Astutes. I think we can probably reasonably assume that if new design work is needed in the post 2040′s that: One we will have to do it jointly because neither we nor the French and possibly the USA will be able to afford anything else. Number two the entire world is democratised and we can no longer justify the expense of such platforms
Hi Anixtu,
I would seek the explanation in the confined space for ops that calls for intimate co-operation, rather than in
“The IDF example in particular cannot be seen as a viable model. The IDF was created new in the 1940s/50s and does not have hundreds of years (or even RAF’s tens of years) of service identity predating that formation. Israel had a clean sheet to work on, Britain does not.”
And it can backfire:
- Hezbollah only did “so well” because the H of Gnrl Staff, or whatever the going title is, at the time was an airforce man, putting too much emphasis on air power and too little on joint ops… the fact that the force was not fully trained in those may predate him, but anyway
- it is “good practice” to maintain Joint HQ with rather long postings, so that the nomination of who ever to “Head Boy” does not tilt the balance in thinking and planning too much (that’s the ops; isn’t the Head Guy there for the political interface?)
Hi Martin,
The Virginia Payload Module (practically a new class as for the design challenge) has been in the works for well over ten years); and the SSGN conversion can’t have been that straight-forward, either, RE
“If they had not switched from Sea Wolf to Virginia class for budgetary reason’s then they would not have designed a new boat since the early 1990′s”
- so SSGN, Virginia, Virginia+, what number of years should we divide by three?
Bertrampantyshield
Not had a catastrophic effect on performance?!!!
The performance of our armed forces when ‘up against it’ since Gulf 1 has left a lot to be desired, mostly from point of view of ‘back office support, and effective resource’s’.
OK
Not catastrophic perhaps just lamentable…
Army wise, wE have twice in the last 10 years (Basra and Helmand), had to clear out of half arsed attempts to send 2 guys with pointy sticks to do what required divisions to do, leaving the field for the yanks who got fed up with our posturing.
Navy wise, Sending boys and girls to do a man’s job in the gulf leading to the capture of the boarding crew and the worldwide humiliation of the RN- Ipod anybody?
Airforce
Where to I start?
I know I am picking worst cases etc, but my admittedly Ltd Foreign Military contacts are clear that UK armed forces are not regarded with anything like the respect they were in the early 90′s.
BTW the ‘Basra bug-out’ Comes up a lot in conversations in that context.
Simon, erm yes – isn’t that what I said re responsibility?
And the RAF do not ‘protect’ the air. The Navy exerts influence over the maritime domain. The Army the Land domain. The air (and space) domain extends over and is an essential component of both, so ultimately the RAF will almost always be an enabler for the Navy and Army, not the other way around. If you think about it, the RAF has to able to operate completely within both environments (i.e. function separately in a Land enviromnent and a Maritime environment, as well as cross from one to the other); the Navy and Army do not operate outside their own environments except in that crossover zone, the littoral.
But it’ll never happen anyway. Too many egos in the way.
@ Martin,
“I often wonder if the sacred cows of maintaining design and manufacturing skills really do require continuous build. Can a naval architect that designs SSN’s not design other naval vessels as well? Can the engineers and ship builders at barrow not build anything else?”
– It appears we often wonder the same thing then.
Take Astute. It wasn’t that the designers weren’t able to design a new submarine. They tried to use a piece of software that had never been tried on something of that scale, and it backfired horribly. The input from electric boat was really more to do with the construction phase than the design phase.
Designers tend to be remarkably adapatble.
Chris, indeed, they are “Designers tend to be remarkably adapatble.”
Wasn’t it Vickers in the early 90′s shedding them, I hired a couple into the City
- please allow for the inflation correction, they came in at £30k pa (to put that in context my sec was paid 20k, and most of the secretaries 12-15)
- within two years, most had hit 100k
- guess at what rate the new recruits were taken in when the programmes were started again (I am sure brilliant folks; but no passed-on knowledge to use as a base on which to build their expertise)
SI,
“…The air (and space) domain extends over and is an essential component of both, so ultimately the RAF will almost always be an enabler for the Navy and Army, not the other way around…”
But doesn’t that just say that the RAF “controls the sky” for the Army and Navy to defend their domains… just like the Navy “controls the sea” and the Army “controls the land”?
It’s only when you consider offensive power that there is a “domain overlap” where the RAF start to become essential to provide strike, interdiction and support capabilities.
My point is that because of this sudden change that occurs when you consider the “offense” side of the coin, this is where the main force split should lie offensive/defensive rather than land/sea/air.
IXION, I think you’ve misunderstood me. My point was that duplication has not, and indeed will not, have as bad an effect on operations as a lack of and/or poor equipment. Furthering my argument about the overarching need for a competent MoD. I do not believe that the armed forces are in any way wreathed in glory from the last 20 years.
Simon, no because the airspace above each is part of that domain. The Maritime Component Commander is expected to control the entire maritime domain, including airspace. To achieve that he needs an enabler, aviation, i.e. the RAF. Likewise on land. Air power should be coordinated at source and is not limited to offensive or defensive power, but to ISTAR, troop transport, evacuation, reconnaissance and unmanned capabilities. Air power is also shaped by requirement, i.e. you will not always need air defenders or strike assets, but potentially only surveillance assets.
If all air assets are properly coordinated and managed by a single Service then massive efficiencies can be gained by coordinating your capabilities. We then avoid single Services disappearing down rabbit holes like Watchkeeper, and the assets are shaped to the requirement of the primary Services i.e. Army and Navy, and the needs of expeditionary offensive power. The Service would obviously be divided, with pilots and crew operating a variety of different platforms with different missions, but they would be embedded in their supported Command anyway, and would still benefit from common thinking and doctrine. It also makes the maritime/land transition much easier to manage.
Probably the only exception to that is the UK air defence requirement where the RAF truly operates alone.
Proponents of air power always want to operate from the perspective that air power alone can decide a campaign. I don’t subscribe to that, because it is about more than just bombing the crap out of people, and is in any event an epically expensive way of fighting. An operation should have either a land or maritime focus, and the crabs need to support/enable that mission, not dictate it.
Martin
You need to separate the design and manufacture in your question. Should barrow manufacture something other than subs absolutely not. Why? If the yards is set up from a tooling infrastructure perspective to produce nuclear subs then it is madness to suddenly switch as that is were the largest non recurring costs are associated.
From a design perspective you dont need a clean sheet design to keep them current, major mods or class modification can support a small specialist core (which is critical) which can be maintained with regular work. The technical staff will number only around 100-300 people. There is some cross over with such staff in the aerospace sector so some may move around mainly to the civil side getting them back can be problematic as there is a major uk shortage of engineers.
“I know I am picking worst cases etc, but my admittedly Ltd Foreign Military contacts are clear that UK armed forces are not regarded with anything like the respect they were in the early 90′s.”
The Army has gone to pot, not like it was in my day. Boys these days are soft, can’t fight, play too much PS3.
Yeah, I can imagine the conversations.
“I do not believe that the armed forces are in any way wreathed in glory from the last 20 years.”
I. Will. Bite. My. Tongue.
Perhaps we should give up the desire to retain domestic design and production capability for some of the gold star items. We’ll never export any new-build T45, for example, and just six for the Navy hardly justifies the development costs of a uniquely British ship.
Perhap when it comes to major warships, aircraft, etc, we should settle for domestic assembly and fitting only. Retain domestic design and production for individual components, and for systems – weapons and sensors, etc. Only items which we can competitively tender to international buyers. We should accept that we’ve shrunk our forces to a size at which they can no longer support these domestic industries, and reduce our procurement bill in the process.
One thing to keep in mind re; defence industries is that we’ve hit a rather unique position right now in that we’ve sunk about as low NATO will permit in terms of % of GDP spent on defence, combined with an economic recession that enforced extra cuts that otherwise would not have happened.
In all likelyhood we could be on the up from here on out once the economy recovers.
Hi, Chris.B. You may be happy in your optimism that defence spending will be on the up once the economy is back on track; however, defence just does not carry the votes that health, and education, and tax cuts and credits do.
People talk of the respect and regard that the public have for the military, but it does not translate into votes. As far as politicians are concerned, defence is a cash-cow, to be milked when times are bad. But when there is more money sloshing around, defence will always find itself at the back of the queue for budget increases.
Brian
Its an interesting concept and one that we now essentially do in the aerospace world martin baker and rolls being two I like to highlight and the most likely future direction. In defense however your biggest customer will be the US and if you try to get into that market youll quickly get involved in ITAR regulations ect which have issues trying to sell elsewhere.
The biggest mistake I think the navy/mod made over the last decade was stopping the type 23 production. We were making them cheap in the end and had we replaced all the type 22 (yes I know they may not have been as capable as the batch 3) we could even have flogged off the old ones to chile ect and take new updated ones off the production line for the RN. This is where a repeat should not be made with type 26. I like the look of it and it has the potential for future modifications and possibly a aaw variant could replace type 45 in future decades if we do it right now. With its lean manning and a host of modular problems the US in running into with LCS we may with either luck or judgement just be on the right lines with the ship hopefully the price will equivalent to type 23. I think with ships and vehicles and possibly a/c we can develop things in this country if a clear stable path can be seen.
SomewhatInvolved,
Well, I think I agree with everything you say.
With one tiny exception and that’s the fact that you’ve acknowledged the role of “fighter command” for UK air defence.
I think that if we sat down and took stock of UK sea defence and UK land defence you’d end up with the same concepts. It’s just we don’t. Defence is too tightly embroiled in offensive force projection plans.
Phil
Actualy it was more like young Nordic Lt, and Sceptic Cpt, over ‘many’ beers, they started off very polite, but both when they had a couple were both suprisisngly unanimous about the Uk forces rep. There was also a lunch with a med ranking US officer v Similar first time I ever heard the phrase ‘busted flush’ used.
There is also quite a lot out there on internet, of credible proveneance. I should have specified I was talking about foreign opinion.
So sorry I am sure a lot our allikes are all being very polite, but get a few beers down them when they think no official one is listening……. In VINO VERITAS.
There have been these wizzard wheezes over the years, that usually end up costing more than they save.
Phil, that’s not a go at the armed forces either. IXION interpreted my initial comment as wide praise of fantastic performance, it wasn’t. Neither am I one of the few who think the performances in Iraq and Afghanistan were terrible and destroyed our armed forces’ reputation.
To avoid further clarification: I think the armed forces at brigade-level down have performed incredibly in conditions which would struggle to be more adverse, whether that is in Basra or Helmand. The individual soldier/sailor/marine/airman proved themselves to be of immense ability and possessing impeccable fortitude and the officer corps at a personal level proved why RMAS et al. are world-renowned. However, above brigade-level, particularly the strategic and management aspects of defence (i.e. main building), performance has been very poor. That is what I was criticising, not the poor bastards on the frontline.
It’s never been this hard to slag-off the MoD before… tough crowd.
@ TD,
there’s a logical problem in your original article where you appear to group the RAF Regiment together with the RM and Army under “infantry”. I’m not aware that the RM or Army are rightly described as money-wasting Walts.
IXION, first rule is ask how many belligerent Nordics when drunk actually have any credibility. My experience with the Nordics is that – in the same way as the French – they try to pay their way out of trouble, but unlike the French, don’t reasonably happily admit to it. For instance, SWEDBAT 3 in Bosnia in 95. Or the fact that on the UN payroll they had nearly 1100, but mustered fewer than 600 for operations, and that when questioned by the UN Force Commander on this during what was meant to be a routine CDS visit with a courtesy call to the Force Commander, Swedish CDS was put on the spot and within 24 hours elected to reduce the Battalion staff by 500, with no impact on capability. Bugger, that Force Commander had a seriously fucking sceptical MA who dug into those sorts of details.
@ ACC – I can see there is a fair bit of design work for the Virginia payload. Maybe it would make sense for us to do something similar rather than trying to design a new boat every 8 years.
@ Mark- I am not suggesting using the actual yard at barrow and machine tools but rather that staff themselves than need to have their skills maintained. We can always mothball the actual yard and tools and wait for the next boat to be ordered.
We simply don’t have a big enough navy to have three frigate yards and one submarine. However possibly one yard for surface ships at Govan and a joint yard for Frigates and SSN’s at Barrow could be sustained.
@ Mark – If we could get a decent price for used warships then I would say yes but we always seem to sell them on for pennies because the treasury wants rid of them and the MOD needs the cash.
@ Chris B , Yeah it was the software and computing input they needed from electric boat not help with the design of the boat it’s self. Another f**k up was that the yard at barrow bid for the Upholder Class refits for Canada and could not do both at the same time so they did the Canadian work as they knew the RN had no choice but to use them.
I really want to see us maintain the ability to build SSN’s in the UK however the current set up is just unsustainable and if we don’t do something then we will be left with nothing.
Personally I have seen quite a lot of criticism on ARRSE about British Army performance (particularly of senior officers), including those who are still (allegedly) serving.
However, as it is in the nature of the British, and the nature of professionals to be down on their performance and emphasise the negatives while overlooking the positives, I suspect that we performed a lot better than we should have with the resources available.
I lack actual experience of the Army to back this up, but as a professional I know all about looking at what you didn’t do as well as you like, and only focusing on that and overlooking what you do well – where I work we had an attitude that we were rather average at what we did, so we commissioned an outside audit of our performance by an independent consultant, whose job was to a) benchmark us and b) recommend ways to improve. We were all rather surprised to be told how well we did – and that the list of things we could improve was rather minor. Maybe the same is applying here to ARRSE and the British Army (not to mention that you cannot trust a drunk American to not revert to their national stereotype of everything they do is better than anyone else, and everyone else is shit).
Red trousers
I deliberately did not spec which Nordic country or service.
BTW I am mostly critical of the brigade up Army, and MOD as well.
We have brave capable soldiers, but we are lapsing back into the old: -
Best trained, most aggressive, but worst lead, worst equipped soldiers in Nato’ jibe from the 70′s.
@ Tubby – I would agree with your comments about the Army. Give the tough conditions in Basra and Helmand I think the Army has done a great job. True there has been a lot of f**k up’s and the objective may well be impossible but I don’t think we could argue that man for man anyone else has done better. It’s part of the British character to be overly critical about what we have done or what we are capable of. The only fair comparison is to look at others and on that basis I think we measure up well.
@ IXION – The kit the guys have today is a lot better than what I had at the end of the 1990′s. At least they have a rifle that can fire more than 5 rounds with out jamming and body armour with a chance of stopping something more than a 22. Body warmers we use to call them.
@ BB – “We should accept that we’ve shrunk our forces to a size at which they can no longer support these domestic industries, and reduce our procurement bill in the process.”
I agree, totally, if we have indeed gone beyond the point where the fleet is large enough to sustain a viable industry.
However, I am not convinced we have sunk below that level.
With subs we need a total of eleven on a 18-24 month drumbeat of production to maintain a viable industry.
19 escorts + 2 carriers + 3 RN LHD/LPD vessels equals a total of 24 hulls spread over 4 major classes.
Let’s say they have an average service life of 36 years, that still allows an eighteen month drumbeat, and a new class every nine years.
Sounds pretty viable to me.