My name is Sir Humphrey, and I’m the author of a small blog called the Thin Pinstriped Line.

Some of you may know me from ARRSE, PPRUNE and Warships1, where I post (or posted) under a variety of different usernames. I originally set my blog up to write about some of the issues in Defence at the moment, and try to look in more depth at what was really going on in some issues which were being inaccurately reported by the media. It’s also served as a means of providing some more in depth analysis for other issues as well.

I was contacted by the owner of this site, and asked whether I’d be interested in occasionally writing some articles here too. I’m delighted to say that I’m now able to do so, and that from now on you’ll be seeing the odd longer analytical piece from me on a variety of issues. I won’t be posting here every week, but between this site and my own blog, you should see a fair amount of my work. My aims here remain the same as on my blog – to look a little deeper into the story, and try to present a more positive (dare I say balanced) perspective than may sometimes be seen in the media. My one philosophy though is that in the MOD decisions, no matter how odd they appear, are almost always taken for a reason that makes sense – the challenge is making sense of these reasons!

In terms of my professional background, I have a strong background to a lot of the issues described on this site, and have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  Hopefully this will come through in some of the pieces that I do. As always with my pieces, I am happy to discuss via the comments page or on my blog.

For my first piece here, I’ve combined the three articles on my blog about the Falkland Islands, to try to turn them into a single article looking at the nature of the threat, and the challenges faced by an attacker to the islands. Enjoy!

[This is a more sensible post than my article about our pants, TD]

The reality of the Falkland Islands dispute – why quiet diplomacy matters more than willy waving and why the Falkland Islands are unlikely to be invaded again.

A perennial favourite headline of so many newspapers, particularly tabloids, is to proclaim that Argentina threatens the Falklands, that the Royal Navy couldn’t possibly mount a task force again, and that western civilisation as we know it is threatened by the fact that a  territorial dispute exists between Argentina and the UK. For this inaugural Think Defence article, I want to try and look beneath the dispute, to try and examine the real level of threat to the Falklands, and to also explain why it is highly unlikely that the Argentineans could repeat 1982 without some spectacular investment, planning and luck.

Argentine Bellicosity

The Falklands are an election issue, and an easy means of unifying the Argentine people against an external wrong that must be righted. At its most simple, the dispute has little to do with any geographic claim, but instead provides successive Argentinean leadership figures with an easy means to distract attention from any internal domestic woes, or political problems.

Almost without fail, the Falklands will be mentioned in any Argentinean political campaign, usually to much alarm from the UK media, but this is as much a reality of Argentine politics as an election campaign is in the UK when the parties roll out the tired old cliches of protecting the NHS, investing and whatever else is the mantra of the day. In other words, to talk of the Falkland’s in an Argentine election is normal – its when they don’t get brought up that we should start to worry.

In recent months, there has been much alarm in the UK over the fact that Argentina appears to be placing pressure on other South American countries to ban Falkland Islands registered vessels from ports, to increase pressure on the UK getting access for its military assets staging through South American countries, and to try to raise the issue at every opportunity in international fora.

The reality is that these efforts have achieved very little – international initiatives are commonplace, and many countries sign up to them, not because they passionately care about the issues at stake, but because it is easier to go along with something in order to keep your neighbour sweet, so you can call in the favour when you need it. It is highly unlikely that Brazil or Uruguay particularly care about the Falkland Islands, but they do care that they share borders with a large nation with a reasonable economy, and that annoying them over something like the Falklands is more hassle than its worth.

So, even though the press would have us believe that the world as we know it is threatened by these statements, the truth is that nothing has really changed, and that the dispute remains primarily one between the UK and Argentina. What could change this? In reality, it is hard to see a situation emerging where Brazil or Uruguay would willingly close access to their ports permanently, or send vessels to side with an Argentine cause – it would cause immense economic damage, and the potential political fallout would be enormous. Is Brazil seriously willing to risk isolating itself for an attack on a foreign nation in support of Argentine goals?

The reality is that we’ll probably see Argentina continue to try to press the small advantages in local organisations, and see very verbose declarations which will then be seized on by the Argentines as evidence that others support them. Then, in reality, nothing will change and Argentina will continue as before. The moment that the UK should really begin to worry about wider South American support for the Argentines position is when they follow through on pledges, or begin to link wider diplomatic support or pledges of assistance to movement on the Falklands issue. Until this point, declarations are little more than worthless – great if you want to feel good about something, but in reality delivering nothing of tangible value.

UK Diplomatic Response

There are some who feel that the UK should be far more assertive over the Falkland’s, and take a tougher line with countries that support the Argentine position. The question is what would this achieve? Having worked in the diplomatic arena, it is clear that while in the short term highly emotive statements make the originating country feel good about itself, it quickly causes more harm than good. If the UK threatened to sever relations, or cut off trade to countries which supported Argentina’s stance, then what would actually be achieved? In reality such a move would isolate the UK in South America, do immense damage to our long term reputation in the region, and bring countries on the fence into the Argentine camp.

It is important to remember that diplomatic actions have very long term consequences – arguably the UK is still dealing with the aftermath of messy colonial incidents from the 19th century today as a result of its possession of the Falklands. If the UK sought to view its entire relationship with South America through the prism of the Falklands, then there is real danger that our longer term ability to influence, support and work with many countries would be harmed. Countries remember insults for far longer than compliments – in many ways diplomacy is like children at school arguing over who likes or hates one another the most. Flexing the UK muscle now would merely irritate and in the longer term, isolate us and do more harm than good to our position.

What can the UK do to counter the constant Argentine charm offensive? Well for starters it needs to be realistic about goals – the UK has to ensure it retains good relations with the continent to ensure that 8000 miles from home, 2000 people and 1500 plus service personnel remain safe, secure and with open lines of communication in perpetuity (or until the Falkland Islanders determine they want another way of life). Pissing off your neighbours, acting like the local bully and generally throwing your weight around won’t achieve this – it will achieve the opposite.

The UK has to try to secure a form of quiet diplomacy in South America – an accepting policy which realises that other south American countries have to live with Argentina, and that they will sign up for things, but equally one which applies discrete threats / carrots / sticks at a point where nations will not be publicly humiliated, nor in a way which merely fuels Argentina’s policy goals. This means not reacting in a manner which will make tabloid readers feel good about themselves, but which ensures continuity of access to ports, airports, logistical facilities and prevents South American nations from feeling isolated, humiliated and unwilling to make concessions to the UK.

The worst thing the UK can do now is to go on an aggressive diplomatic offensive – it would play straight into Argentine hands, and make our life much harder. Our primary goal is to keep the Falkland Islands secure and British for as long as they want to do so – this goal is much easier to achieve when other nations are unlikely to back Argentine actions.

In the next part of this article, we’ll look at why the Argentines lack the ability to invade the Falklands, and also why, despite the best efforts of the Daily Mail, it is unlikely that a small team of special forces soldiers (even if they had escaped from a military stockade to the LA underground), could take out the UK garrison in one night.

Part 2 – Planning Considerations to capture the Islands

Following on from the earlier piece about the diplomatic issues surrounding the Falklands, Humphrey now wants to take a look at the reality of the challenge facing any potential aggressor, and to show the planning considerations that any J5 planning shack is going to have to think about when looking at a successful attack on the islands.

Firstly, a mild disclaimer – unlike many Falkland Island commentators (FI), Humphrey has actually been to the Falklands, and has a very good understanding of the military structure and capability on the islands. Because of this, the author is not going to discuss some specifics, and may seem vague in other areas. This is because he is one of the few people left who think that PERSEC isn’t a dirty word.

Secondly, unlike some websites / publications, Humphrey has no time for the concept of ‘ORBAT Porn’, by which he means the lining up of two paper ORBATS between two countries, and deciding that as X is greater than Y, Y wins. It’s pointless, silly and as seen in countless wars over the years, almost always an inaccurate means of predicting the outcome of a crisis.

For the purposes of this article, Humphrey is looking at the current balance of power as it stands NOW. Not in 10 years, not if Argentina gets new LPDs, not if the UK gets CVF, and not if the Death Star parks in orbit and uses its super laser to wipe out all penguins.

The first part of this article looks at wider planning considerations that need to be taken into account when considering an invasion. The next part will look at specific considerations relating to the islands defences.

Situation

The first, and most critical question that must be asked when considering an invasion is ‘why’? The Falklands serve as a useful lightning conductor to Argentine leaders – whenever distracted by political problems at home, they can quickly rally support around the concept of the Falklands issue. Invasion not only removes this as a lightning conductor, but also opens up a range of longer term problems – a quick invasion without bloodshed followed by Argentine occupation is a good idea in theory, but a leader would have to be certain that this could be achieved. Failure would result in them losing office, power, and probably liberty as well.

Whenever considering the Falkland Islands, one has to ask ‘what does the President of Argentina personally gain from an invasion’? The reality is that unless they have the most successful invasion in history, it’s likely to be the end of their presidency. Few people willingly relinquish power until they have to – it is hard to envisage circumstances where an Argentine leader would do so over the Falklands.

Military Planning

But, assuming the go ahead was issued, then the first planning consideration when considering the invasion of the islands is what is the defined Argentinean end state? In other words, what is their view of campaign success? In 1982, the Argentines arguably defined their end state as the initial occupation of the islands militarily, and did not plan, nor assume any requirement to fight beyond this point. The author would argue that any future Argentine plan needs to define its end state as ‘the successful capture of the islands, followed by the mounting of a sufficiently robust defence as to prevent their recapture in perpetuity’.

One of the problems with looking at this potential conflict is that everyone assumes that if Argentina invades, then the UK will immediately turn around and launch ‘Task Force 2′, followed by a short bloody war in which the UK either kicks Argentina off the islands again, or is sent home humbled and never again enters the South Atlantic. Humphrey would suggest that this is unwise to consider – after all, UK planning is based on holding the islands for perpetuity (where perpetuity means ‘for as long as the Islanders want us to remain’), and that if Argentina seeks to capture the islands militarily, it needs to be ready to defend them in perpetuity as well.

So, the first thing to ask is whether Argentina has sufficient military capability to not only invade the islands now, but also defend them in the long term without a major increase in defence spending.

The next issue when planning such an invasion is the level of violence and casualties one is willing to inflict upon an enemy force to achieve mission success. In 1982, the Argentine attack was predicated on landing roughly battalion sized forces to take out a sub company (barely platoon) sized formation. Its often forgotten that Argentine SF made a deliberate attempt to destroy the marine barracks, presumably hoping to take out the marines in their beds, rather than have a fight.

The world has changed dramatically since 1982 and the arrival of 24/7 media coverage, global news and analysis and the internet & other social media means that any attack or use of force will be questioned. To force the UK defending forces to surrender will mean either denying them the ability to fight or to sustain, or inflicting sufficient casualties to make the ground commander decide further resistance is futile.

Let’s put this in context for a moment. The FI are garrisoned normally by up to 1500 military personnel, and supported by a range of logistics and infrastructure that will enable the garrison to continue fighting for a considerable period of time without requiring external support. For an Argentine attack to put the UK garrison in the position where it has to surrender due to an inability to sustain itself, we have to assume the loss of air and maritime resupply for a prolonged period of time, backed up by an aggressive land campaign which reduces stocks. This would seem to require a maritime and air presence beyond that which the Argentines currently possess.

Similarly, to put the defending force in a position where it has lost sufficient casualties that it feels it has not option but to surrender, one would need to inflict realistically more casualties than the UK has lost in Iraq & Afghanistan combined in over 10 years of fighting, and inflict them in a time scale probably measured in days. This would again require a very aggressive campaign, and one which would be quickly portrayed in global media as an exceptionally aggressive and brutal attack by Argentine forces.

The reality would be for Argentina that any attack has to be done in such a manner so as to force a surrender, without causing a massacre. Unless this occurs, then global opinion will swing firmly against Argentina, and it is likely that UNSCRs, or even possible military support from allies may be offered to the UK in any attack. Argentina has to be seen to be a liberating force in the manner of the Indians in Goa in 1961, and not the Iraqi ‘annexation’ of Kuwait in 1990.  In other words, a short military attack, limited resistance and then general global apathy, despite anguished pleas from the defending power (in this case Portugal, which the author understands still technically claims Goa is a part of its empire).

So, even prior to the launching of an invasion, Argentina is faced with a series of high level policy & political challenges – these can be summarised below:

1. What is their justification for war?
2. What is their desired end state?
3. How do they recapture the islands using minimal force?
4. How do they hold onto the islands in perpetuity?
5. How do they manage international reaction to the invasion?
6. Can they afford an international crisis / incident on this scale?
7. Is it really worth it?

The next part of this article will look in more depth at how an Argentine commander would need to consider options, based partly on their ORBAT, but also partly on the defensive considerations

Part 3:  The reality of capturing the Falkland Islands.

In earlier posts, the author has looked at the threat posed by Argentina to the Falkland Islands, and has suggested that if you ignore bellicose public statements, then the reality is that the islands are unlikely to be attacked by Argentina anytime soon.

In this final post on the subject, the intent is to explore some of the challenges surrounding any potential aggressor who wishes to attack the islands, and the sort of planning considerations that they need to consider when factoring in an attack. This is perhaps more timely given that yet another senior general (Sir Mike Jackson) has now claimed that if the islands were lost, then the UK could not recover them.

The challenge

Any potential aggressor intending to occupy the Falklands needs to plan an assault around the following factors.

1. A remote airbase with good ground defences, and located a not inconsiderable distance from the nearest credible port is the centre of gravity.
2. The defending force is well equipped, and has considerable operational experience accrued over the last 30 years of occupying the terrain.
3. There are multiple defensive structures dispersed across the facility which would require potent munitions to deny.
4. The facility is located some distance from international airlanes, and is unlikely  to see significant commercial air traffic. There are multiple satellite facilities to provide radar coverage. There are air defences present, both air and ground based.
5. There is a not inconsiderable maritime force located in the region, which is self-sustaining and which may include an SSN.
6.  Any attack has to be conducted in a manner which denies the defending force the ability to reinforce, and must force a surrender of all occupying forces in under the  time it  would take to begin the reinforcement plans from the UK.
7. Any prolonged attack is going to lead to calls for talks, and be highly damaging to international opinion against the aggressor. A swift fait acompli is essential to secure victory.

What this means is that any Argentine commander has to consider some immensely challenging tactical problems which in turn build in time delay. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, and it is likely that any assault will encounter delays. Lets now examine these considerations in a little more depth.

When considering the defence of Mount Pleasant Airfield (MPA), commentators who have not been to the islands often make the mistake of assuming it is a small facility which could easily be overrun. The reality is somewhat different – it occupies a large area of ground, and has many highly dispersed facilities. While the main admin / life support hub is located in the near legendary ‘death star’ complex, the remainder of the facility is spread over a large geographically dispersed area. This means that any assault has to factor in the challenge of denying multiple facilities, many of which may be defendable, and in doing so while operating on unfamiliar terrain.

To even get close to the facility would require a significant march by troops. Not exhausting in itself, but it would probably require insertion of special forces by SSK – this limits the locations that landings can be conducted. The terrain of the islands is not particularly conducive to building shelters, and the islanders are exceptionally suspicious of outsiders. At best the Argentines could hope to land a small SF force (roughly 50 men), which then has to avoid detection while it marches to the airbase.

At this point, it then has to conduct an assault against a large, well defended facility which is designed for the purpose of being used to fight a defensive battle, and they have to do so against a garrison which outnumbers them 30-1. They have to complete this assault and force the British to a position where they wish to negotiate for surrender prior to the airfield commencing reinforcement flights.

The airfield was designed in the 1980s at the height of the cold war, and reflects much of the thinking at the time. It is likely that it could easily be repaired in the event of a denial attempt, and there is likely to be sufficient room to permit landings in the event of damage. It would take a very significant attack to deny the runway to the point where it could not be used further. Such an attack would require equipment and munitions accuracy beyond that currently possessed by Argentina.

Any air movements, either transports to land troops, or bomber attacks are going to be picked up by early warning radar stations. There will be significant warning of inbound air attacks, and there are plentiful defences in place to handle them. Any air attack has to conduct a long overwater transit, and then will only have seconds on station to deliver its munitions. It will be doing so against a force likely to be expecting it. Similarly, if transport aircraft were inbound, then if needs be, they need not even be shot down. The base could merely park sufficient vehicles across the runways at regular intervals so as to prevent the plane from landing. While some bad fiction writers postulate about the idea of an Entebbe style strike, the reality is that the planes have to land first to deliver this strike. Again, a failure to land first time and commence the assault will see the reinforcement plan kicking into action.  Also, given the lack of air traffic in the region, one would hope that it is unlikely that anyone would be fooled by an aircraft faking an SOS message and then landing to disgorge hundreds of armed troops.

The defensive structures of the base suggest that significant munitions would be required to deny some facilities. It is all very well landing 50 SF, but what happens when people deploy into trench and bunker complexes which require artillery or mortars to deny? This then requires the landing of further troops ashore with the ability to call in support fire – in turn this requires both the ability to find a beach where a surprise landing can be carried out and artillery moved into position to conduct fires missions, and to do so without being detected. Again, the author would suggest that the sighting of an Argentine battery digging in, would be enough to trigger the reinforcement plan activation.

The rule of thumb is that an assault against well dug in and defended troops, particularly well motivated ones, with reasonable supplies, is that it requires a ratio of 3-1 attackers to defenders to be certain of success. Assuming a garrison of 1500, this means that Argentina would need to move sufficient troops to land 4500 troops on the ground to conduct the attack. More troops would be needed to provide support, and logistical work. Let’s assume 5500 troops are needed to be certain of putting the attack force together.

Firstly, the Argentine navy doesn’t have the ability to conduct an amphibious operation carrying 5500 troops. In fact, very few navies do. Even the Royal Navy, arguably one of the worlds more potent amphibious forces, would struggle to deliver more than 1500 personnel in its current structure. To successfully land the troops, supplies and equipment needed to crack MPA in a conventional assault, Argentina would need to be build the world’s second largest amphibious force, develop the doctrine and training required to ensure that they could land successfully, and then ensure that their troops are capable of doing so without messing the plan up. These troops are then required to land, march a significant distance to the objective and conduct an assault against a well dug in force which is likely to expecting them. Significantly, this force will have got a reasonable amount of operational experience, compared to an Argentine force which hasn’t seen action for 30 years. The Argentines are expected to do this while maintaining complete surprise, as if the reinforcement plan starts, and more UK troops are flown in, then they go from 3-1 ratio, to likely 1-1, or worse. Oh, all the while, Argentina needs to maintain the element of complete surprise while building up, training and delivering this invasion force to the Islands.

The other key point – if Argentina has built an amphibious fleet, and then sails it with deliberate intent to the islands, it needs to be certain that the UK maritime assets have been denied. Otherwise, they will need to be prepared to encounter a range of maritime capabilities, potentially including nuclear submarines that will present a significant tactical challenge.

The final point – this attack has to be done in a manner which denies the defending forces the ability to operate, and for their commander to feel he has no option but to surrender, and this has to be done in less than 24 hours, or else reinforcements will arrive. This would require an untested force engaging a defensive force which has spent 30 years preparing the ground for this fight. The fight will have to occur on the defenders terms, and would pose an enormous tactical challenge to the aggressor.

There is some suggestion in some quarters of fantastical ideas of cruise liners disgorging SF into Stanley – which would be a challenge given the lack of adequate berths, or alternatively somehow capturing the town. While this would be challenging, it still comes back to the earlier issue of a lack of manpower to actually get on the ground, and also the fact that MPA is the centre of gravity. In extremis, the loss of Stanley would not lose the UK hold on the islands. MPA is the key, and it remains a well-defended installation.

While much remains uncertain, and while this author deeply hopes that such a situation is never tested for real, he would suggest that any potential attack against the islands using current Argentine ORBATS would result in a very bloody and humiliating defeat for Argentina, and one that is completely unnecessary.

UK policy is not to lose the islands in the first place – the author would suggest that the current force laydown ensures that this remains a realistic policy goal.

TD has recently regailed us with posts on the Post Afghan vehicle lottery and on aspects of operational mobility (just to back up his veritable reference work on bridging!), including his awesome series of specialist mobility video postings.

In the comment threads, plus those on earlier articles there is countless discussion of wheels versus tracks, CVR(T) 2.0 versus FRES SV etc. Personally I have always thought that “wheels versus tracks” is a non-existing argument – in fact we very obviously need both and we should use the right tool for the right job wherever and whenever we can.

However my thoughts on Future Force 2020 and what the army might look like evolve every time I read another interesting article or re-read interesting comments in the various threads. The evolution of the “perfect” post Afghanistan force structure for the British Army is apparently a cause close to many of our hearts, even ex-Navy men like me ! However as none of us are endowed with the ability to read the tea leaves of the geo-political future, we can’t really do anything other than attempt to design a force structure that meets the requirements of the SDSR, with a balanced set of capabilities that has the ability to enable a flexible response by UK forces to a potentially very broad set of contingencies.

Following this train of thought, I constantly return of two of TD’s enduring themes:

1. Massive commonality of vehicle type – with the aim to reduce logistics burden and through lifecycle cost by maximising maintenance benefits and simplifying the spares holdings etc.

2. Providing niche capabilities – providing NATO and ad hoc coalitions, or other alliances with specific ‘niche’ capabilities that lever what we are good at, or what we are already equipped to do.

Using these lenses to view the expeditionary requirements of the SDSR, with HMG’s confirmed desire to meddle in other people’s backyards in order to safeguard our national security interests, my own thoughts on force structure and Tables Of Equipment (ToE) have swung back and forth as the debate rages in the comment threads.

For example, I have never been a ‘fan’ or proponent of the 8 x 8 wheeled AFV as a replacement for tracked medium weight vehicles. However a few vociferous commenters are great fans of the concept, and their arguments with respect to strategic self-deployment, and operational mobility in theatre are not completely without merit. On the other hand, although just about everyone admits that the day of the 60 tonne plus MBT are really not over, with even the COIN-istas admitting their utility, the questions remain as to how often we might require their capabilities in any great numbers, and what is the best way to retain their certain advantageous capabilities.

Questions, questions and more questions…..

I would like to examine a few of the questions that pop up in my mind before indulging in a little bit of “fantasy fleet” force structure design.

Question 1 – do operational requirements outweigh the cost benefits of massive standardisation ?

If we could standardize on 3 ‘fighting vehicle’ fleets (not including MBT) with:

• 1 tracked medium family (upgraded Warrior or FRES SV),
• 1 wheeled Medium family (FRES UV) and
• 1 light wheeled family (Foxhound);

plus some oddities like RM Viking, then would the cash benefits outweigh any potential operational flexibility costs ?

Question 2 – does filling a ‘niche’ mean going to extremes ?

Our NATO allies are divesting themselves of MBT’s and reducing their numbers of high end tracked, medium to heavy weight MICV / AIFV type vehicles, well most of them are – the U.S. and Turkey to a lesser extent. So should we aim for that niche, do a U-turn on MBR’s and go all heavy at one end and all light at the other ? Keep all our Chally 2′s and Warriors, upgrade them, get FRES SV into service, and build up the capabilities of our elite light infantry units at the other end of the capability spectrum ? After all we are no longer fighting the cold war, so do we need a the equivalent of TA infantry battalions in Saxon, able to zoom along the autobahn to re-enforce BAOR ?

But as I suggest, with the SDSR requirements, this is hardly a likely niche to focus on, is it ?

So could we go the other way ?

Reduce heavy armour and tracks to a minimalist capability, relying on allies to bring the tanks if we end up in another GW1 / GW2 type scenario ? Does the French, Italian, and U.S. (Stryker brigade) all wheeled brigade type of force fulfill the requirements of a what is largely an expeditionary force ?

Question 3 – is there a middle ground, some heavy tracked, and some medium wheeled ?

Can we truly afford to keep the “full spectrum’ war fighting capability of Challenger 2 regiments, Warrior armoured infantry, FRES SV ‘Formation Recce’ and find a suitable FRES UV wheeled armoured vehicle to replace all those thousand plus FV432 and CVR(T) variants, Mastiff’s, Wolfhounds and Ridgebacks ?

Can we dismiss ‘massive commonality” in favour of operational flexibility in the shape of some big, weighty well protected 8 x 8 to replace some tracks (say Patria AMV or RG41), while buying a cheaper 6 x 6 or 4 x4 (say RG35) to take on all the supporting roles ?

Question 4 – what roles for the reserves ?

People keep noting in the comments that fast paced armoured manoeuvre warfare is no role for part-time soldiers. I am not sure I agree. The assertion might be true the way the TA is structured right now, but other nations don’t have a problem with reservist armour crews – perhaps taking a leaf from the Israeli training manual we would only allow ex-full time ‘professionals’ into such units ? I have seen the big halls full of Challenger and Warrior simulators in Germany; spending a whole weekend buttoned up in one of those has to be a solid training experience !

We recently discussed the tooth to tail ratio with respect to the reserves – should the focus be on CSS units rather than on infantry and armour ? Perhaps this is the wrong way of looking at things ? Perhaps we should be asking if we need to rely on reservists to augment full timers on long term enduring operations, or instead should we aim to only fall back on a large scale short-ish duration call out of large numbers reservists if we commit a full (large) division to a short term high intensity operation ?

I would like to suggest two straw man options for people to pull to bits. However first I would just like to digress to cover the two “intervention” brigades, the units that SDSR FF2020 state are “out of the rotation” for a long enduring operation – 3 Commando Brigade RM, and 16 Air Assault Brigade

For each of these brigades, with 4 infantry units, I would use the existing vehicles to provide an “armoured support group” such as that which already exists for 3 Cdo with it’s Vikings. For 16 AAB (which I would change role and title a bit, but we don’t need to go there right now) we could use the 100 plus Warthog’s plus some additions. For both vehicles we should purchase some dedicated 120mm mortar versions with the STK SRAMS for example. The Warthog group might get some recce variants based just on the front module as I suggested previously.

Straw man force structures

Of course we can mess with the structure of the MRB’s and other units as required to fit our own agendas J For both potential solutions there are sizing options we can consider too, however I don’t want to explore all the variables, just to really examine the vehicle fleet options:

#1: The high end – low end option – mixed MRB’s

So straw man number 1 is a high-low mix, with nothing in the middle, but with a mixed set of capabilities based on both tracked and wheeled vehicles within the MRB. So five identical MRB’s of:

• 1 x FRES SV family based Brigade Recce Regiment
• 1 x Armoured Infantry Regiment on upgraded Warrior
• 2 x Mechanised Infantry Regiment on FRES UV family based on RG35 variants
• 1 x Artillery Regiment – resurrected LIMAWS based on single pod of rockets, and M777 on RG35 or other wheeled chassis.
• CS – Combat Engineers with tracked as required (FRES SV family)
• CSS – mostly FRES UV based

A am sure a squadron of Chally 2, a TA regiment of AS90 and an extra infantry battalion could be attached as required ? Should there be 4 infantry battalions as the norm and if so, can 1 be “Light role” as they would in the peacekeeping / peace enforcing / COIN scenarios they would be guarding bases etc and could patrol in Foxhounds if required ? Or should the deployable Brigade be capable of putting all it’s infantry on the move under armour, for more “intensive” scenarios ?

The aim here is to keep the FRES SV and Warrior upgrade programmes as they are, already funded etc. but add a single large family of FRES UV to replace a lot of existing old vehicles and make as much as possible of the “massive commonality” them at the wheeled, lower weight end.  Of course we would add Foxhound family based vehicles as required.

If you think about it, this is not radical at all, we would just be looking for the money to buy a lot of RG35 series vehicles, built in the UK if required to replace lots of old, mostly tracked vehicles. You could still mess with whether or how much of the MBT capability sits in the reserves or main force etc.

#2: High – middle – low

I want to be deliberately more contentious with this one, so hang in there with me, and just follow it through:

Heavy end:

• 1 x Regular Armoured Brigade – 2 x MBT Regt. & 2 x Armoured Infantry (Warrior)
• 1 x Reserve Armoured Brigade – as above

The Reserve formation would actually be twice as big, but with whole fleet management of the vehicles the concept is 2 regiments or battalions would share 1 regiment or battalions worth of vehicles. This means of course in time of call up we should have no problem getting a full complement of warm bodies for the ‘war time establishment’ of the units, plus probably some additional as ‘battle casualty replacements’.

The regular armoured brigades units would operate their squadrons / company’s on the 1 in 4 rotation, so that at any one time there should be a 12 tank squadron and a company of Warrior carried infantry available to the deployed MRB, with another available to support the ‘intervention’ brigade(s).

Medium wheeled:

• 4 x MRB each with:
• 1 x Brigade Recce Regiment on 8 x 8 AFV (e.g. Patria AMV or RG41)
• 1 x Armoured Infantry on 8 x 8 AFV
• 2 x Mechanised Infantry on 6 x 6 or 4 x 4 (e.g. RG35)

Potentially some Combat Support units would need the more expensive 8 x 8 vehicles. Combat Service Support would be mainly on the 6 x 6 or 4 x 4 platforms.

Notice that I am not mixing tracked FRES SV for Brigade Recce with the rest of the MRB on wheels. So we could go the cheap and easy short term route and ditch FRES SV family and rely on upgraded Warriors OR do the exact opposite and lever the investment in FRES SV and replace Warrior with FRES SV Protected Mobility variants.

The heavy armour units have potential to cause some of you varying amounts of apoplexy too. I would suggest 4 squadrons of 12 Challenger 2’s (4 x 12 = 42 + 2 = 50), plus a Recce squadron of 16 Warrior Recce variants – so I guess that’s a Type 66 Regiment ?

Also as TD has described for us previously, the upgrade path for Chally 2’s main armament is not an easy one; not easy to fit a 120mm smooth bore, nor easy to start production of a top of the range kinetic energy round for the current rifled gun. Two suggestions to fan the flames; put the Jordanian Falcon turret on them, or sell them off or scrap em’ and buy some second hand Leopard 2 A5 / A6’s.

The fifth Brigade / Formation Recce Regiment should have a vehicle able to support the Vikings and Warthogs of the intervention brigades – I am not going to map this to TD’s weight categories / break points , I will let you do that.

So, how many infantry battalions would we have all together in this heavy, medium, light and wheeled plus tracked force structure:

• 5 battalions in the ‘intervention’ brigades (1 in 3 Cdo, 4 in 16 AAB)
• 2 Armoured Infantry (tracked) on Warrior
• 4 Armoured Infantry (wheeled) on 8 x 8
• 8 Mechanised Infantry (wheeled) on 6 x 6 or 4 x 4
• 2 Cyprus garrison battalions
• 1 School of Infantry / Warminster battalion
• 4 London Public Duties Guards battalions

Unfortunately I guess this would need us to bring back the “arms plot” and rotate units through specialisms in order to mix in the nice jollies to Cyprus and chicks sticking phone numbers into bearskins, with the rotation of MRB’s into the latest trouble spot.

In summary, my second straw man proposal provides an army with everything from elite light infantry for airmobile ops (Paras in 16 AAB), to specialist armoured infantry in tracked AIFV’s, through similar troops but in wheeled vehicles, to mechanised infantry delivered to the edge of the battle area in less tactically mobile 6 x 6 vehicles (and hopefully we could afford to buy some of these for a decent amount of the reserve infantry too !). However although it offers a “well balanced” force to take on a “full spectrum” of operations, it would introduce a whole raft of different vehicle types:

• MBT and associated engineer support vehicles
• Tracked medium weight AIFV – Warrior AND FRES SV, or maybe consolidated on just one type
• Wheeled medium weight AIFV – for example the Patria AMV family or the BAe RG41 or similar
• Wheeled medium weight APC / FRES Utility Vehicle family – for example the BAe RG35 family
• Lighter weight wheeled family – Foxhound family in various versions
• High Mobility Protected mobility vehicles – BVS10 Mk2 Vikings for 3 Cdo Brigade Armoured Support group and STK Warthog for 16 AAB Armoured Support Group
• Light weight specialist vehicles – Supacats, ATV’s etc etc…..

Is this model affordable and sustainable ?

Discuss…………

Post Afghanistan, depending on what that might end up becoming, as the Army transitions to Future Force 2020 or what comes out of the 2015 SDSR, many of these UOR vehicles and items of equipment are going to find themselves subject of a decision.

That decision is quite simply to retain or dispose.

Take CVR(T) 2.0 as an example.

CVR(T) is due to be replaced with FRES SV but with the in service date for FRES SV slipping ever more distant into the future and obviously, not available in Afghanistan, a UOR created the Mark 2 version.

A total of 50 vehicles were ordered for £30m, final deliveries this year, compare this with the development costs of £500m for the development contract alone for FRES SV Scout and a couple of other variants. CVR(T) 2 involved re hulling and adding in a range of additional system and improvements whilst taking many major sub systems from older vehicles. CVR(T) 2.0 is now available in the Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle, Spartan troop carrier, Samson repair and recovery, Sultan command post and Samaritan ambulance variants, all of which have been delivered as part of the UOR.

From BAE

All models are based on the Spartan design which allows blast attenuating seats to be fitted for all crew members and an alternative escape route. The new hulls are fabricated from modern aluminium alloy which will reduce maintenance costs. Other improvements include redesigned and repositioned driver foot controls to reduce lower limb mine blast injuries, improved appliqué armour to improve blast and ballistic protection, upgraded torsion bar suspension to improve vehicle mobility, revamped fuel system and tanks, a heavier-duty winch on the Samson variant and a new power distribution system.

Since the introduction of the CVR(T) Mk2 to Afghanistan, two Scimitars have been hit by IEDs. In the first incident the crew all survived. In the second, tragically, the commander and gunner were killed following a rollover. The driver survived.

We have discussed the viability of the CVR(T) platform for modern operations many times and whether it is wholly suitable for the future, despite sunk costs being sunk costs and UOR sunk costs even ‘sunker’ the commercial attraction of 50 vehicles for £30m is hard to ignore.

Spend some more and commonality with the new Warrior turret might be possible, upgrade the engine and transmission, switch to band tracks and all of a sudden you have a much improved vehicle.

I am not actually suggesting that this is a good idea and this is probably not the thread to repeat those old arguments but this is just to illustrate how a make do and mend approach might seem attractive in light of increased pressure of the budget.

A recent Janes Defence Weekly reported on a Royal Navy lessons learned document in which the two major shortcomings were a lack of precision land attack capability and organic unmanned ISR.

Janes quoted Colonel Pierson RM, the Deputy Director of NATO Operations in Libya;

It was evident that the Libya campaign showed the need for precision fires, [perhaps the Lockheed Martin] Guided Multiple Rocket Launch System (GMLRS), from the sea base, deep into enemy littoral territory.

He added that there was a requirement on RN Warships for;

Unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), such as the brilliant live feed, full motion video provided by [Boeing] Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle

Looking at both these lessons learned it is obvious that both these clear gaps in capability are where the Royal Navy has lagged behind many other naval forces.

Incidentally, I note we discussed the issue some time ago, how very bloody clever we all are!

I know I might get accused of sounding like a stuck record but these are the kind of obvious capabilities that get left beyond whilst pursuing a certain large programme, it crowds out investment in moderately priced equipment that delivers huge value in likely operations.

We might also reflect on the cost, especially in comparison with carrier borne or land based fast jet aircraft and Apache helicopters. Whilst not replacing either, the simple fact that we keep getting reminded how much the world population coalesces around coastlines when discussing CVF/JCA is something that cuts both ways.

If we can improve our ability to deliver strike up to a couple of hundred kilometres inland from surface vessels does it reduce the demand for the RAF and RN’s fast jets?

Anyway, onto the post…

Organic ISR

The ability to extend the sensor reach beyond the horizon is of obvious benefit and usually this would be carried out by a frigate or destroyers helicopter but when there is a threat from ground fire helicopters become more difficult to deploy so many solutions exists for deploying sensors (and sometimes weapons) using unmanned systems.

It is depressing to think that the Royal Navy has been so slow to unmanned party, the reasons are of course largely financial but despite testing a number of systems like the Insitu Scan Eagle several years ago nothing has been introduced into service.

One might assume that an unmanned air vehicle operating from a ship must be vertical take off and landing, like a helicopter, but that is not necessarily the case although the emerging VTUAS requirement would seem to dictate a vertical take-off and landing solution.

The initial target date seems to be around the 2020 to 2024 mark, incredible given the range of low cost off the shelf solutions available and obvious need now.

The debate seems to be whether to opt for something that is just used for ISR or a system that offers a greater payload for weapons or even stores. Greater payload generally means shorter endurance and range so there is a balance to be struck. Whilst carriage of larger payloads may be useful, to match the endurance of the smaller ISR systems would mean multiple vehicles, increasing cost and of course, most ships are not overflowing with space.

A few options;

Schiebel Camcopter

Similar to Skeldar, the Camcopter S-100 from Scheibel has an hour longer endurance than Skeldar at 6 hours and can carry a range of sensor and communication payloads weighing 34kg in total. An external fuel tank can also be fitted to extend endurance to 10 hours.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Camcopter and LMM

It has also been shown armed with a single Lightweight Multirole Missile from Thales.

Lightweight Multi-role Missile

The Camcopter is in service with the UAE, being introduced in German naval service, has been demonstrated from a French Gowind class offshore patrol vessel and Libya also ordered 4 systems in 2009, wonder where they are now!

Gizmag wrote a good article on the Camcopter, click here, in which they describe the cost of a two air vehicle system complete with control station, payload, ground equipment, logistics package and training to be in the order of $2m

Click here to read the brochure which includes an interesting picture of the Camcopter being used to drop leaflets.

Saab Skeldar

The Saab Skeldar V-200 is the latest version of the Skeldar rotary wing UAV in both land and maritime variants. Although having a much shorter endurance than the ScanEagle the advantages of VTOL and hover in flight are obvious.

Saab have also demonstrated the Skeldar operating from a CB90 which highlights an interesting combination of smaller patrol craft operating at distance from the host vessel and extending their ISTAR reach even further.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The maritime version has a 40kg payload, an endurance of 5 to 7 hours and uses a diesel engine, important for ship safety reasons.

The Skeldar has an interesting ISO Container system that houses the air vehicle, all maintenance equipment and spares and can be configured to have a roof mounted landing and take off platform so the whole system can be easily hosted aboard a variety of vessels and transferred just as easily.

Firescout

The Northrop Grumman MQ-8B is a mature vertical take off and landing unmanned system with a long development background and proven deployment credentials with US forces. Developed from the Schweizer 333 it is a much larger aircraft than the Camcopter or Skeldar as shown by a comparison of payloads, for short missions the Firescout can lift over 300kg. Normal endurance is between 5 and 8 hours.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Its stub wings also allow the carriage of a variety of missiles such as Hellfire or guided 70mm rockets.

MQ-8B Fire Scout

RQ - MQ 8 FireScout

Click here for brochures.

Hummingbird

Although still a rotary winged UAV the Boeing Hummingbird is very different from the others and arguably, much more cutting edge. Its unique propulsion system allows the rotor speed to be varied and this provides advantages in altitude and endurance, where it can operate at 15,000 feet for in excess of 20 hours carrying a payload of up to 130kg.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Hummingbird was tested with the FOliage penetrating REconnaissance, Surveillance, Tracking and Engagement Radar (FORESTER) system, click here for an in depth article, although it had a few problems in Belize

Click here to view the embedded video.

Moving beyond Gorgon Stare is the DARPA sponsored ARGUS-IS project being developed byBAe.

This ambitious programme will create a 1.8 Gigapixel camera system able to cover a 40 km2 area at 15 frames per second from an A160 Hummingbird or Reaper UAV. To process this enormous data volume it will use an airborne processing system to deliver up to 65 windows that users can zoom into or out of on demand. The software makes the difference; its advanced target recognition algorithms provide movement detection and target tracking.

Other payloads might include the ubiquitous EO sensor pod, SAR or multiples of the same.

It is ARGUS that has been in the news recently with a planned deployment to Afghanistan very soon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If one compares the Hummingbird with the Fire Scout, the former can fly higher and longer but carry less.

Boeing / Insitu Scan Eagle

The ScanEagle has an interesting history, initially introduced in 2001 to assist tuna fishing fleets it has evolved into a mature, low cost, flexible and highly effective family of vehicles and payloads. A few months ago it notched up its half million flying hours milestone.

In Libya the Scan Eagle demonstrated its capabilities and after, Insitu released a press release

“What happened over that period of time, no one expected,” says ScanEagle Detachment Officer in Charge Lt. Nick Townsend. “ScanEagle was locating contacts of interest that no one else could find. After the dust settled, ScanEagle was credited with locating a host of contacts of interest due to its ability to capture superior image quality and to operate covertly at relatively low altitudes.” Captured imagery was delivered from the ship to the task force via secure networked channels provided by the Secure Video Injection system from The Boeing Company, Insitu’s parent company. The UAV-provided, near-real-time video helped enable quick, tactical decisions.

The video below demonstrates just how compact and easy to use the launch and recovery equipment is, incidentally shot from the same USS Mahon that operated the Scan Eagle in Libya.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Scan Eagle launch

To reinforce just how compact the Scan Eagle launch mechanism the image below shows one being launched from US Navy Mark V Special Warfare boat.

To see the full specs, loads of video and images click here to go to the Insitu website.

ScanEagle can be upgraded to NightEagle specification only a few hours.

The Scan Eagle is a mature system and has many optional extras and a full range of sensors and supporting payloads in addition to mission planning and image analysis tools. It really is an off the shelf system.

Integrator

Scan Eagle has a bigger brother, the Integrator that can carry a larger payload yet still use the same launch and recovery method. The Integrator has been selected by the USN and USMC to fulfil the Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) requirement.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boeing Integrator

One of the strengths of the Scan Eagle and Integrator is the modular payload bay that has had many systems already integrated; electro optical, infra red and synthetic aperture radar as imaging payloads for example. Other useful payloads include communications relays of various types and an intelligent ships AIS interrogator that matches a received AIS signal with imagery to confirm the identity of a ship.

The 24 hour endurance is certainly impressive but limited to sensor payloads.

Click here for a brochure.

Gazelle and SW-4

These are interesting not only because they are conversions of existing manned helicopters (like many of these rotary UAV’s) but because of their UK connection, which makes them likely contenders for any RN programme.

Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ proposed an unmanned Gazelle and described their solution as ‘short term and low cost’

The unmanned Gazelle would use the control systems of the Northrop MQ-8B Firescout which does kind of beg the question why not just buy the much more mature Firescout in the first place.

Using the Gazelle as a platform makes sense – it’s a proven system with low support and operating costs. We could bring in a capability a lot sooner than the navy currently believes is possible,” he said.

Re-inventing the wheel?

Speaking at DSEi 2011, Qinetiq’s assistant technical director of avionics, Jeremy Howitt, said;

Qinetiq would be responsible for programme management and integration activities under the proposal, which would also include flight test activities from the West Wales UAV Centre at Aberporth. Unmanning an aircraft is the relatively easy part. The difficult part is providing the multiple levels of redundancy and failure management required that allows you to deliver military effect. We could do an initial demonstration within 12 months, and within the order of £10 million

12 months and ten million quid for a demonstrator, mmm

Given that Gazelle is due out of service soon and the maturity of competing systems it is hard to see the advantages of reinventing the wheel.

At around the same time Agusta Westland (now owners of the Polish helicopter manufacturer PZL-Swidnick) announced a possible conversion of their SW-4 light helicopter.

SW-4 Unmanned, that will another directorship please!

The first unmanned flight was scheduled for early this year.

Both these were aiming for an endurance of 8 hours depending on the payload weight.

Precision Land Attack

The Future Maritime Fires Concept Phase is due to complete in around mid 2012 so no doubt the lessons from Libya will play a large part in informing the study. With the cancelling of the BAe 155mm TMF project the choice of a naval gun has narrowed but there are also missile and UAV delivered systems worthy of consideration.

Question

Julian Lewis (New Forest East, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on the replacement of existing warship guns by ones of 155mm; and if he will make a statement on his policy, with special reference to (a) the future frigate fleet and (b) Type 45 destroyers.

Answer

Peter Luff (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Defence Equipment, Support and Technology), Defence; Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

No decision on the calibre of the new Maritime Indirect Fire System (the new naval gun) has yet been made. This will be taken when work to consider the available options under the Future Maritime Fires Concept Phase is complete in around mid-2012.

The Maritime Fires Concept, of which the Maritime Indirect Fire System (MIFS) is part, is being delivered in conjunction with the Niteworks Partnership and is expected to be met by a medium calibre gun or MCG. The other part of MFS is the Maritime Indirect Fire Precision Attack (MIFPA) is expected to be delivered using missile systems, potentially Fire Shadow.

Guns

The existing 115mm/4.5” Mark 8 Mod 1 gun aboard Royal Navy vessels has its origins in the late sixties and has given excellent service. The HE Extended Range round uses base bleed to propel the round to a maximum range of 27.5km and the existing illumination nature is also still available. In order to maintain a sustained rate of fire of 16-20 rounds per minute and accommodate the more powerful ammunition types the barrel is 62 calibres long. It has seen extensive service including action off the Falkland Islands (8,000 rounds), Iraq and Libya.

As we know though, there is not a large installed base on which to spread development costs of precision, proximity and IR illumination or smoke natures so the open market seems an obvious place to look, especially given the 155mm TMF concept has been cancelled.

There are a number of options but probably only two realistic ones, the BAE 5” Mark 45 and the Oto Melara 127mm Compact and Lightweight.

The Mark 45 Mod 4 from BAE, as used by the US Navy, South Korea, Denmark, Australia and others, is a 5”/127mm system with a 62 calibre barrel and is capable of a rate of fire up to 20 rounds per minute.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Oto Melara system comes in a Compact form and the newer Lightweight version with a 64 calibre barrel.

In 2010 Babcock and Oto Melara signed a Memorandum of Understanding to offer the Light Weight Medium Calibre Gun System to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the Type 26 frigate.

To quote the sales blurb;

The Oto Melara 127/64 LW gun is capable of firing up to 35 rounds per minute. The production turret weighs less than 29 tons and the ‘peppered’ muzzle brake with an aluminium shield keeps cost down, improves maintenance and reduces radar cross-section. The gun uses an advanced ammunition handling system, consisting of four revolving drum magazines holding 56 ready-to-fire rounds of more than four different types, allowing flexibility in ammunition selection and a high rate of sustained fire. It is capable of anti-surface and anti-air defence, and area engagement. The new Vulcano ammunition is capable of precision engagement at ranges previously only achievable by missile systems but at a fraction of the cost.

Very impressive.

After many years of very expensive trials the US Extended Range Guided Munition was cancelled, leaving the USN without precision gun launched land attack but Oto Melara have continued to persevere and have introduced the Vulcano range of munitions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Vulcano has both an extended range unguided and long range guided nature that is used with the 127mm to deliver rounds out to 120km.

I don’t think it is in service yet though.

There is also of course the mental 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) from BAE that will equip the USN DDG-1000 Destroyer but given that we seem unlikely to build a new ship class around the needs of this gun, it’s for interest only.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Guns have several distinct advantages, the ability to fire different natures, apply their effects over a wide area (pin point precision is not always desirable) and to sustain operations over a longer period are just a few of them but missiles generally speaking, at least in this context, can fire at greater ranges and potentially apply a larger warhead with greater precision.

Missiles

Off the shelf there are surprisingly few options.

The report that sparked this post mentioned GMLRS, the famous 70km sniper.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A maritime MRLS/GMLRS is not a new concept, the US Navy initiated a study into something similar called the Precision Over the horizon Land Attack Rocket (POLAR) that used the MRLS rocket as its base, although the motor was nearly a third larger. This was cancelled in favour of the Land Attack Standard Missile that was also itself, subsequently cancelled.

Navalising a land based system is no trivial task and the principle problem with this idea is managing the corrosive exhaust. Others include maintaining corrosion resistance, re loading and compensating for the ships movement (the guidance system may not be able to cope with a moving launch platform)

There may be simple design rather than scientific research answers to some of these or simply accepting compromises. Instead of reloading at sea, simply accept that it is an alongside task, instead of expensively making everything corrosion resistance design in semi protected components and accept a higher frequency of replacement and instead of creating a complex exhaust gas management system or replacing the propellant design the system so that it can only be fired (not sure what the proper nautical term is) at right angles to the axis of the ship, thus venting the majority into the sea.

Now, none of these might be feasible and there might be other issues but could some of the disadvantages be overcome with compromise?

Not sure.

What is certain is that a naval GMLRS would be invaluable, potent, have some degree of commonality with land forces and be relatively low cost.

What is even more intriguing is that should we be able to integrate a GMLRS launcher aboard an RN vessel open up the possibility of using the same launcher for the 300km BROACH warhead variant, ATACMS, 1 per pod. The Israelis also make the 150km EXTRA rocket that fits two to a G/MLRS pod.

Standing 25km offshore (with that indefinite poise thing) a ship launched ATACMS would be able to attack targets up to 275km inshore.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The images below shows a 300km radius circle.

300km radius, San Carlos Water as centre

There are minimum range and many more thorny issues to consider with ship launched ATACMS/GMLRS but they remain an intriguing prospect.

A more conventional and off the shelf option is the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM3), in service with Norway and Poland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With a 150km range the NSM weighs 400Kg with a 125kg warhead and can attack a mix of land and surface targets. This would also have the added benefit of being integrated onto the F35 for commonality all round. The Stand Off Land Attack Missile, based on the Harpoon is another option.

Another system that is likely to be a shoe in is the Team Complex Weapons Fire Shadow that is a difficult system to characterise, half missile and half UAV it is called a loitering munition.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fire Shadow will be deployed to Afghanistan this year. I must admit to being a sceptic on the Fire Shadow in a land environment but in a maritime environment it has many plus points.

If we really want to spend a fortune the CVS401 Perseus concept missile from MBDA will also provide plenty of options, potentially replacing Storm Shadow, cue, an enormous bunfight between the RAF and RN.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We might also consider that our ISR UAV may also be used to deliver precision ground attack at range. The Camcopter has been shown with the Lightweight Multirole Missile and the Fire Scout has also been demonstrated with a wide variety of missiles.

The LMM is now in manufacturing phase and will be deployed on Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters. Arming a UAV with multiple missiles would provide a low yield land attack system.

Summary

To summarise, there seems a tremendous variety of military off the shelf equipment that we could take as a base and integrate into UK systems, the UAV into the Watchkeeper infrastructure for example so it does not look to be a compelling case for a UK development.

The need to extend the reach of surface vessels, I carefully avoid the use of the term major combatant because vessels lower down the flightiness ladder can equally benefit, with both ISTAR and attack capabilities is obvious.

We could still deliver improved land attack capabilities without an investment in maritime UAV’s because target identification and guidance can come from other ‘platforms’ but the availability of an organic UAV would greatly enhance the ability of a frigate or destroyer without requiring others or relying on a manned helicopter where it might be difficult to deploy.

The Gazelle and SW-4 unmanned developments from QinetiQ and Agusta Westland look interesting but what do they really bring over and above the Fire Scout, Camcopter or even the Scan Eagle, all of which are available now.

Land attack from surface vessels is a capability area that the Royal Navy is comparatively weak in but this can be addressed without resorting to a mahoosive project. We should not forget, whilst bemoaning the lack of capability in this area, that the RN is one of the few nations able to deliver cruise missiles from submarines, a fearsome capability if there ever was one.

Whilst we might consider cruise missiles as strategic in their effect the ability of the lower cost systems should not be dismissed.

Let us equally not forget how CVF with Apache and in the future JCA will also provide a significant land attack from the sea capability, however costly.

With a relatively modest investment the RN could have a multi layered system of systems (sorry) that can deal with a wide variety of operational needs.

This original thinking envisaged 8 identical Brigades and 3 deployable Divisional HQ’s, each larger than a conventional Brigade and broadly configured for enduring operations like Iraq or Afghanistan.

In 2009 a report in Daily Telegraph;

He announced that the time between fighting on operations would be increased from two years to two-and-a-half years by re-ordering the Army’s brigade structure into larger units that could be sent away less often.

In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, during which he addressed the issues of equipment, troop numbers and training, Gen Dannatt said: “Many families and marriages have unfortunately fallen victim to the relentless pace of operations.

“A gap of one year between operational deployment is not unusual. Often soldiers are spending much of the year before deployment away from home in training and preparation. This is unacceptable.”

It was a question of how much could be asked of soldiers, he said, adding: “We have seriously stretched our soldiers – both their good will and their families’.”

Clearly, the underlying thread was to ensure sustainability for a long operation or even continuous operations with each Brigade deploying for 6 months every 3 years.

From the existing brigade/divisional that defines the function of a Brigade as armoured, light role or mechanised the Multi Role Brigade will be homogenous. The final composition is not yet known and even well past the SDSR much of it was still under discussion, there have been reports that the final establishment of each brigade will be announced soon.

I find it rather silly to try and speculate which units will be disbanded or which ones will be where and what unit, the details will reveal themselves soon enough.

The SDSR described the MRB’s as

We will restructure the Army around five multi-role brigades, keeping one brigade at high readiness available for an intervention operation and four in support to provide the ability to sustain an enduring stabilisation operation. Key to the utility of these multi-role brigades is their “building block” structure, allowing greater choice in the size and composition of the force that might be deployed, without having to draw on other elements from the rest of the Army as has been the case in recent times. With suitable warning time, the brigades could be combined to generate a larger formation.

The multi-role brigades will include:

Reconnaissance forces to gain information even in high-threat situations;

Tanks, which continue to provide a unique combination of protection, mobility and firepower; and

Infantry operating from a range of protected vehicles.

The brigades will be self-supporting, having their own artillery, engineer, communications, intelligence, logistics and medical support. Territorial Army personnel will be fully integrated into the new structures, in both specialist roles and reinforcing combat units.

The basing review reported on the location of the 5 MRB’s

Army brigades currently stationed around Catterick and Salisbury will make up three of the five multi-role brigades. The other two MRBs will be based in the east of England, centred on Cottesmore, and in Scotland, centred on Kirknewton, south-west of Edinburgh. The MRB centred in Scotland will require a new training area, and positive discussions are being taken forward with the Scottish Government. Two major units and a formation headquarters will be based at Leuchars, increasing the number of posts there from 1,200 to more than 1,300. Consequently, the Typhoon force due to be built up there will instead be built up at RAF Lossiemouth. Other MRB units will be moved into Glencorse, Caledonia, Albemarle barracks and eventually Arbroath, as we intend over time to bring the bulk of the Royal Marines together in the south-west. We are also planning to place Army units in Kinloss in around 2014-15, continuing its long-term relationship with defence.

Taken together, this represents a significant increase in the defence footprint in Scotland of well over 2,000 posts. This is in line with the Scottish tradition of supporting our armed forces and is a recognition that these are United Kingdom forces under the Crown, protecting the citizens and interests of this United Kingdom. With the move to five multi-role brigades, we have concluded that 19 Light Brigade in Northern Ireland will be disbanded. Other units returning from Germany will move into the vacated bases and we remain committed to maintaining a permanent military garrison in Northern Ireland; 160 Wales Brigade will remain in Brecon.

In addition to the historic pattern of enduring operations the influencing factor in the MRB concept is that in those same operations a range of capabilities have been used, from heavy armour to light infantry including artillery, engineers and the other enabling functions.

When these other capabilities have been used they have been pulled in from all over the Army, creating disruption and upsetting established rotation patterns.

So it is these three factors that have informed the creation of the Multi Role Brigade; sustainability within harmony guidelines, likely operations and reduction in disruption.

I must add that I think there is another factor at play, that is the retention of Regiments by dispersing them but that of course is a cynics view!

Iraq and Afghanistan have informed the Army structure, thinking and equipment for over a decade and the MRB is recognition that the future may well encompass an Afghanistan style enduring operation but also something that requires a more traditional combined arms manoeuvre approach.

Each Multi Role Brigade (MRB) will consist of 6,500 personnel and comprise a mixture of an armoured regiment, brigade reconnaissance regiment, armoured infantry battalion, mechanised infantry battalion, light role infantry battalion and a cast of supporting functions. The Combat Support functions such as artillery have also started the transformation process with RA Close Support Regiments, for example, likely to comprise both Light Gun and AS90.

Incidentally, the Australian Army is walking the same path, I think they may have actually come up with the original idea, under Project BeerSheba.

From this article in Defense Update

Planning for the next phase of the Adaptive Army Campaign, the Army will form three new Multi-role Maneuver Brigades with the 1st, 3rd and 7th Brigades. Each brigade will be supported by two reserve brigades. Adapting to a mission dependent formation, each brigade will be able to generate 7-10 subunits. Under Plan BeerSheba ten battle group maneuver units will be formed to support this formation. The Multi-Role Maneuver Brigades will include infantry, armor, artillery, engineers, logistics and communications and will be fundamentally alike in structure, to enable sustained operations within a new 36-month Force Generation Cycle. The six Army Reserve Brigades currently operating under the 2 Division forming the Reserve Force will be more focused on stability operations. These units will be structurally aligned with their regular counterparts. Through the training cycles they will be involved in major exercises with their partnered Multi-role Maneuver Brigades.

I wonder if this is similar to what the British Army will actually end up looking like.

What I find hardest to understand in this is exactly how it is going to be achieved with 82,000 regular soldiers.

The SDSR based 5 MRB’s on a total Army number of 95,500, not 82,000.

The only way I can square the circle is by assuming that CSS will be sliced to the bone, the Territorial Army will play a considerably larger role than even the SDSR considered and what we consider a battalion or regiment will no longer look the same in FF2020.

Another possibility is merging some of the CSS functions to reduce the rank overhead, the Royal Support and Everything Else Corps remains a distinct possibility although this will provide a relatively small saving.

If the CSS functions are going to be sliced in order to preserve historic regiments and the illusion of numbers then this is nothing short of a re run of Options for Change and Frontline First, a reorganisation the Army has been rowing back from constantly since it happened. Afghanistan has shown that the British Army at the scale as configured for that theatre is not sustainable without extensive ‘partner’ support, i.e. US logistics and transport.

So beyond the ‘how are we going to do this’ question we might also ask if the concept of the MRB is sound anyway.

If you envisage a horizontal line that represents the span of possible operations, the MRB is designed to cover as much of that line as possible. At the margins are where the MRB will be either too heavy, too light or comprising not enough of capability x or y.

If the MRB’s does not cater for those margins then it is logical to assume that the deployed MRB will have to pull formed units and/or personnel  from non-deployed Brigades, thus throwing those carefully planned rotation schemes out of sync. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, we have been doing it for centuries, but it is a problem that the MRB was supposed to solve.

Of course the MRB may mean it is less of a problem than normal and that may be acceptable.

I have also not seen any mention of the enduring deployments of Brunei and Cyprus, where they fit into the grand plan, perhaps they will sit outside of the MRB.

It also takes the path of least resistance with 3 CDO and 16AAB, i.e. leaving them alone.

I am not sure if this is wise.

The Army has an image problem, its performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to have fallen short and its leaders equally assumed to be politically astute but essentially spineless careerists with not a creative thought in their bodies.

The ability to change its own future is very limited.

Whilst the official line is that the MRB is the only game in town, General Nick Carter has been looking at alternatives and although details are sparse it seems they are getting a little traction. General Nick Carter is a proper military thinker and anything he comes up with should be taken very seriously indeed.

Underpinning the this thinking is that the armed forces should not be configured for the most likely type of operation but one that presents the most danger to the UK or the most operationally challenging situation.

This, the armed forces in general, and Army in particular, must provide genuine options against things that cannot be foreseen or easily prepared for. They must therefore be configured for high intensity operations against competent enemies. Reading between the lines, he believes that the MRB is mediocre and does not provide enough combat power to do anything much at all, or offer sufficient deterrent or even much worth in a coalition.

In my previous posts on the Future of the British Army I have wondered the same thing about the MRB and suggested a return to the Heavy and Light formations, concentrating combat power, modularising the supporting functions rather than attaching them to formed brigades and concentrating the capability at a Divisional level.

General Carter envisages more numerous but smaller infantry and armoured brigades with very little or no permanently attached CS and CSS.

He also sees a greater forward role, mentoring, building local security and generally seeking to prevent rather than react with a more integrated approach with DFiD and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Hi concept seems to be forming around the idea of 4 brigades structured in heavy and medium formations with those being predominantly regular soldiers. The basic position is that the TA cannot be safely relied upon to provide infantry and armoured capabilities but CS and CSS could take a higher proportion of a reserve element although this is difficult to see with highly specialised trades.

I find myself agreeing a lot with this newer concept, especially concentrating combat power, moving CS/CSS to a divisional level and engaging in more conflict prevention activity.

Some thoughts and questions…

What roles are an increased reserve component going to fulfil and how exactly are they going to play a greater role without additional primary legislation. Not sure the new Engagement Model and Whole Force Concept have this question adequately addressed.

Could the Royal Armoured Corps and Royal Artillery merge, many of their roles in ISTAR seem to have a lot of crossover and with the likely reduced need for the Queen of the Battle to engage in monster counter battery and battlefield preparation activities their shift to ISTAR and fire support (artillery, air coordination etc) would not be a wholly bad thing.

Tour lengths, the MRB nails up the 6 month tour but as we have seen from Afghanistan in some cases this is too long and some, arguably too short. We need to retain flexibility rather than put uniform boundaries around everything.

To what degree do we go purple, a tri service electronics, communications and vehicle support command for example. Or is this far enough, the problem seems to have been presented as an Army rather than MoD problem. A look at the units deployed in Afghanistan will show that all three services have representation, not necessarily in their traditional roles.

Contractorisation, how much of the Royal Engineers, Royal Logistic Corps, Royal Signals and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers can we outsource to civilian contractors or hybrid units with retained reserves like the RAF’s FSTA aircraft fleet.

Can we extend the Whole Fleet Management concept to people for certain support functions?

These may save personnel but would have a significant impact on morale and unit cohesion so in a final analysis may not actually be worth it but it still leaves the problem behind.

Does an MRB have enough combat power and sustainability given it is likely the original 1-2 Light Role infantry battalions will likely be 1 and not 2?

Does the General Carter vision of mainly regular combat brigades (inf, armour) with non-organic CS/CSS that have a greater proportion of reserves and an increased concentration on conflict prevention appeal to anyone, I find it compelling?

One thing is for certain, creative thinking is needed because having the same but smaller is not really an option.

What is encouraging is that the latest generation of officers with experience of the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan know full well what the problem is and I have no doubt there is some creative thinking going on.

My fear is that the creative thinking and bold solutions will be stifled by political influence, careerism and vested interests.

Let’s hope not.

In this post I was attempting to take a top down approach to defence and foreign policy. Looking into the distance future to decide what policy decisions we could make today to improve our position in the world of 2050. We are not a massive country we must pick our battles and we really have to accept we cannot do everything.

Unfortunately we degenerated into the standard Army vs. Navy debate (not sure why no one ever stands up for the RAF). Few people seemed to disagree with my broader strategy or foreign policies but many people got bogged down with an Army of less than 100,000.

I realised my proposals on reforming the army away from divisions and brigades to instead 21 self-contained expeditionary units was controversial. I spent allot of time looking at this and I was sure that I would cop allot of quite possibly justified flack for it but no one seemed to care about that only that we kept numbers at the magic 100K level.

When we do not face a clear and present danger of a conventional threat we must find ways to justify defence expenditure to the public. Having the ability to deploy 10,000 troops in Afghanistan (7% of total) rather than 6,000 (4% of total) is not something either I or the public understand as a benefit. We must not forget that these extra 40,000 troops cost around £5 billion per year and keeping them in theatre an extra £2 billion per year (£70 billion over 10 years). That’s the cost of a high speed rail network running down both the East and West coast of the UK linking every major city in the country with each other.

If leaving the Army at 100,000 allowed us to conduct major independent deployments then I would consider scaling back on the naval expenditures I outlined but it doesn’t. It only allows us to make contributions to US lead coalitions. It may give us the second in command status but as we have seen over the past ten years this matters very little. I certainly can’t justify £7 billion per year to achieve this.

Several commentators were focused on the fact that 4 tanks were not enough to drive all the way to Bagdad. However these people are really not getting the entire debate. They are stuck in the nostalgic past or bitter present rather than looking at a realistic future. Even with 250 tanks we can’t drive all the way to Bagdad on our own. We simply cannot afford an army large enough to do this. In many circumstance on small scale deployments or even fighting insurgents a small amount of armour can be very useful. However the British Army seems to me the only one that does not realise this. They seem to feel forces either have to be light or heavy. After hearing some of the comments of its officers I am starting to understand why the army seems incapable of thinking out-side the box.

A force that relies on numbers of people alone highlights our weak position.  The populations of the future super powers start at 200 million and rise to over a billion. How does a pissy little island with a population of 60 million make a difference in a world like that?

The answer is we play to our strengths. We use our safe geographic position” we are an island you know” to focus the largest part of our military forces on an area that relies not on numbers but on technology. We are able to concentrate our efforts on a naval force in a way that almost no other nation can match. It was said and not unwisely that “Armies fight Wars Navy’s win them”.  By wars I am not talking about brining school’s to little girls in the mountains of Central Asia but real peer on peer conflicts by major powers trying to grab resources. Almost everyone seems to have in their mind that this simply cannot ever happen again. They point to the fact that the threat of nuclear weapons as with the Cuban Missile crisis negates this as a useful strategy. However if the past has told us anything it is that offensive and defensive technology will eventually balance out. The armour and guns of the battle ship were undefeatable until someone invented the aeroplane and the torpedo.

Missile defence has taken 30 years and billions of dollars to develop but it is now a reality. It’s not great but it’s getting better all the time. Meanwhile ICBM’s have reached a technological impasse. They have changed very little since the 1960’s. Yes things like stealth MIRV’s may help to keep them effective against current BMD systems using radar and missile based interceptors but what happens with BDM systems start deploying lasers and LIDAR or a range of other weapons and sensors. I am not talking Star Trek here but the world we are already moving into today. We have to understand that a world were nuclear weapons are defeat able will be a very different and more dangerous one than the world we live in today.

Many people asked why I was so against China.  China is the natural peer enemy to look to. One way or another Russia is finished. Its population is dropping so quickly it really cannot represent the threat that it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It has all the natural resources it could ever require.  China’s star is rising and un-like every other major rising super power it’s not a democracy. China is increasingly belligerent to its close neighbours in the South China Sea and it has one aim, to gain more and more resources to build its economy more and more. This would be fine if there were not so dammed many of them.

Just 200 million Chinese out of 1.3 billion have begun to reach the kind of per capita GDP of the average Mexican. That move was largely responsible for shifting oil prices from $10 a barrel in 1998 to $140 a barrel in 2008. What will happen when the other 1.1 billion Chinese decide they want to live like the average Mexican or worst still like me? Will they pay $400 – $500 a barrel for oil? Or will they do what the Germans did in the early part of the 20^th Century and make a play to simply take what they need.

Other people asked me what we could ever hope to achieve against a force as great as China. My answer is that we could hope to deny them the use of the sea and the resources that can be brought from across it while at the same time building a coalition that can stand against them. The very same strategy we employed to defeat the French and Germans in the past. I am not war mongering here. I don’t want to fight China. However the only way to make China revert to peaceful means in a resource constrained world without the threat of nuclear weapons is to let them know they can be countered no mater were they turn. Large as it is China is still only 20% of the World. If they know the other 80% of us can and will stand against them then it becomes a simple equation for them to avoid military action. Today the USA along with a little help from NATO balances this equation. However the USA can no longer shoulder the burden on its own. We must do everything we can to help them.

As a small pissy island we have to think outside of the box when it comes to providing defence capabilities. Involving civilians and reservists in everything from Armoured Divisions and strategic lift to flying UCAV’s and providing sufficient satellite bandwidth can allow us to retain or in some circumstance enhance existing capabilities on a realistic budget.

We must demonstrate very clearly to the British people the benefit of our armed forces. Building something that can allow us to act independently should the government decide to do so or make a contribution to an international coalition while giving us the ability to influence allies and foes while enhancing our standing in the world is a way to do this. Maintaining a force which only allows us to subsidise the foreign policy of the USA does not.

I did not start out writing this article as a way to cut the Army in favour of the Navy. However I cannot see any other way to achieve the goals I outlined. While many people doubt the military effectiveness of carrier battle groups the one thing that is undeniable is their political statement. I think it is difficult for either current or ex-service personnel to understand that sometimes it’s not the very real and meaningful cooperation that goes on every day like counter terrorism or MCM that influences political leaders but big shinny pieces of metal with lots of fast pointy things on them. It should not be like that but there it is.

The key to achieving my strategy is to get India and Indonesia along with our current FPDA partners to form an alliance which does not include the USA but is every bit as close and effective a force as NATO is today.

I hear you all laughing but in the world of 2050 the defence budget of these players will likely far surpass the budget of NATO. We need to be the little lynch pin that holds together not just India and Indonesia or America and Europe but India, America, Europe and Indonesia together with the rest of the free world. Only this way can we truly matter in the world of 2050.

The only way I can see to do this on the budget we have is to send a large permanent fleet to the Far East and build an RAF and Army which can be supplemented by other European nations to act when needed. If anyone can come up with a better solution I look forward to reading it.

One way or another, the current run of disastrous campaigns will come to an end soon. We have to pick our heads up out of the mud of Afghanistan and look to the future in a way we have never done before. If we don’t we risk becoming the very thing we all seek to avoid, the Belgium of the 21^st Century.

Putting Our Money Where our Mouth Is

If power points could kill the MOD would be the greatest military force since Alexander the Great. Government is constantly outlining new and interesting ways to cooperate with emerging powers while actually doing very little. This is not a way to get India to buy a few Eurofighters or Brazil a couple of frigates. We need to make substantial investments and changes to our force structure to enable us to show these new potential allies as well as our existing allies that we really are worth working with.

Budget

Lest face it, no matter what the budget is it’s never enough. America proves this point. However we cannot hope to achieve the strategy I have outlined with a budget of 2% of GDP. We really need a budget of 2.5%. The reason for this is it allows us to maintain a bigger defence budget than France. Being Europe’s prime actor is central to these ambitions and we cannot do this without the largest budget in the EU.

While we may find it a difficult pill to swallow today in the post 2015 world it will likely be easier. We could simply cut the foreign aid budget back down to 0.2% to achieve this however the knock on effect to Mercedes and the German economy may be catastrophic. 

Taking away Intelligence and other considerations the total budget for our Armed Forces in today’s prices would be £32 billion roughly £4 billion higher than it is today.

Thinking Outside the Box

As a relatively small nation we must come up with new cost effective ways to generate substantial capabilities. Defence diplomacy is far more about having a capability than using it. Most major military structures we build will hopefully never be used. We need to look at ways to incorporate reservist, auxiliary and even civilian personnel so that we can build large forces when we need them without breaking the bank in the majority of time when we do not need them.

Military Objectives

Under my proposal we would have two main military objectives

• Holding a line running from Thai border through Malaysia and Indonesia to the Philippines against Chinese ambitions and god forbid in a time of war Chinese naval forces. This would not be unlike the role we played for NATO holding the GIUK gap.
• Allowing Europe through us to act on the world stage by employing a substantial force projection capability anywhere in the world.

Coalition Enabler

Our primary area to focus on is building on our ability to enable a medium sized coalition without substantial US cooperation. By medium sized I am talking about an air war compromising around 100-200 strike planes or a ground force compromising 50,000 – 75,000 personnel. Essentially an operation the size of Kosovo.

There are many things we need to be able to do this and many things we do not need. We do need to supply almost all C4ISTAR capability. We do not need to supply tens of thousands of ground troops. We do need to provide air and sea lift capability but we do not need to supply hundreds of fighter bombers. Every European NATO member has fighter bombers and well trained ground troops. What they lack is the ability to supply and control them especially when operating far from home. Libya showed some of the glaring omissions in European defence capability and it is these things we should look to principally provide through our armed forces.

We should approach every member of the EU and ask them to form small professional combined arms battle groups that can be used to supplement our forces on out of area operations. This would be far more effective than asking Germany to buy transport aircraft while we provide tankers and Poland provides air defence.

Small Expeditionary Units of around 2000 men are well within the capability of almost every European nation big or small. 

Imagine if every European country provide just a single battalion sized battle group with 6 fighter bombers and 4 attack helicopters. We would have an expeditionary force equivalent to 3 reinforced divisions with an air force of 180+ strike aircraft when combined with our own.

Europe operates a similar structure today with around 18 of these battle groups however they do not go far enough in providing substantial capability and they find it almost impossible to deploy without NATO assistance.

Cap badges and Sacred Cows

To get the best out of our budget we must do everything we can to end the constant inter service rivalry and cap badge considerations. While I would stop short of combining all three services into a single defence force in name I would essentially like to see large elements of all three services combined. In addition I would transfer all existing Regimental and Battalion standards to TA units while professional Army units should simply be numbered. (I know this sounds petty but when dealing with squabbling children you sometimes have to be petty)

Guard’s regiments along with the Red Arrows would all go. If we need Guards for Buckingham Palace or anywhere else the Palace should employ people to do just that rather than using professional military forces (it would make a good job for ex-service personnel). We do not expect the SAS to stand around in funny hats all day while tourists take pictures so why should we expect any other soldiers to do this.

I have no idea about the cost of the Red Arrows but it’s ridiculous that an Air Force that can barely deploy a squadron for combat should expect to be able to send a squadron of its best pilots to airshows for displays.

With a smaller Army we also need to look at disbanding the Gurkhas. Don’t get me wrong I have great respect for the Gurkhas but they are now as expensive as any other British soldier. There are also many moral considerations in using mercenary forces for operations. They are simply too hard to justify in the modern world with a much smaller army.

The Army

Here is where things start to get controversial. We have maintained a relatively large Army since World War Two. The reason was that in the event of a Soviet Invasion of Europe the Channel meant very little if the Reds swarmed all the way up to Calais. For that reason the Army and the RAF replaced the Navy as our principal means of defence.

However in a world where not only we but the whole of Europe face almost no conventional threat can we justify such a large expenditure?

Many would point out that the Army has been massively involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years and that we need a large Army to conduct COIN operations. I would argue the opposite. If an operation requires 100,000 plus troops it’s probably not worth doing. If it really is worth doing then we should look to contribute a much smaller force as part of a broad UN or NATO coalition.

Our current set up really only allows us to do one thing. Provide assistance to US lead operations. If we cannot conduct independent operations then our current force and the £40 billion a year we spend on it simply adds up to a subsidy of US foreign policy.

(Just to put it in to context, £40 billion is the cost of a high speed rail line from Glasgow to London, Four times the budget of NASA and two times the total amount spent by government and industry combined on R&D in the United Kingdom.)

Would the UK have been served any less if we had only put in 20,000 troops at the start of Iraq or if we only had 4-5000 in Afghanistan today like Germany and France. Would America be any less our friend because of it?

Even with a force of 100,000 plus soldiers we can never hope to have anything more than a minimal influence on US policies or operations. The issues our army has had in the operations we have fought in alongside the US over the past 10 years have probably done more harm than good to our relations with our cousins across the pond. The British Army should never be seen as a liability. However in many instances in both Iraq and Afghanistan that is how it has been viewed. A smaller better equipped force should allow us to hopefully negate many of these issues deploying inside US formations to assist them rather than trying to deploy our own formations that are too small to do the job.

We also really need to ask the question of Why an Army with 100,000 plus personnel with assistance from RAF and Navy ground forces finds it so difficult to maintain a force of 10,000 troops indefinitely?

I am not trying to bash the Army. I think the British Army is possibly the best force of its type anywhere in the world man for man. However even at 100,000 it’s small in comparison with most large nations. It’s expensive too, sucking up nearly £15 billion or 60% of our armed service budget.

Would India rather have a single UK Armoured Division on its borders trying to fend off 200 Chinese Divisions swarming over the Himalayas or 10 Astute Submarines sinking the Chinese Navy and holding the straights of Singapore? Probably the later and I know where I would rather be serving on that day.

We also have to look at the individual components of the Army. While 16AAB has been on near continuous deployment since it was formed, 7^th Armoured has done very little in 20 years. To get the most bang for our buck we need to reorganise the Army so that all forces are deployable by land or sea anywhere in the world.

Possibly the best example of this is the US Marine Corps. Marines have been on the front line of every conflict since 1991. They have far surpassed the capability and performance of the much larger and better equipped US Army from Afghanistan to Bosnia. The key strength of the Marines is a focus not on Amphibious warfare which they have done little off but on Expeditionary Warfare. Marine Forces are by their very nature deployable combined arms groups with their own Armour, Artillery, Aviation and logistics. These forces permanently operate under a joint command, train together and fight together.

In my mind this is a far superior structure than the one we presently have with ad hoc battle groups being made up from specialised structures such as Armoured and Mechanised Brigades. Integration of RAF squadrons with Army units should hopefully serve us better in providing air support and maximum effect on operations.

I would like to see a British Army and Royal Marines of 60,000 full time personnel based around 21 British Expeditionary Units (BEU’s) with the RM removed from the Navy and fully integrated with the Army.

We would have the following two types of BEU’s.

7 Amphibious BEU’s (Call them Royal Marines if its prevents arguments)

14 Land Assault BEU’s

British Expeditionary Unit Structure

This would be a combined arms group similar to the US Marines Expeditionary Unit built around a reinforced infantry battalion with around 2000 personnel. It would have the following components.

Combat Group

4 Main Battle Tanks

16 Armored Fighting Vehicles (Amphibious)

16 Amphibious Assault Vehicle’s (Amphibious Units)

Land Attack Units would have 32 AFV’s total

6 field guns

Aviation Group

4 Attack Helicopters

3 Light Utility Helicopters

12 Medium Helicopters

4 Heavy Lift Helicopters

Eventually we should look to harmonies all our helicopter fleet so it is able to deploy from sea or land. This might see us shift at some point away from the Chinook to the CH53 for example.

6 F35B   (Amphibious Units)

6 Eurofighter Typhoon (Land attacks Units)

2 A400M with Air to Air Refueling Capability

Logistics Group

Various Support Vehicles

Deployments

We must also end the current situation of being top heavy in brass. If I look back in history a brigade was managed by a colonel or a brigadier. Now it’s a Major General or in some instances a Lieutenant General. The Army is not the only offender here the Navy is just as bad having as many admirals as ship’s.

1 BEU deployed under a colonel

3 BEU’s could deploy under a brigadier (light brigade)

6 BEU’s could deploy under Major General (light division)

Deploying 6 BEU’s would be our maximum capability in a force comprising some 14-16000 men. Hopefully in any deployment we would look to add European Battle Groups as well to supplement the capability of the force.

Forward Deployed Units

We would forward deploy one of these units to Brunei to replace the current Gurkhas battalion stationed there. We would also have a second amphibious unit stationed in the Far East with the Amphibious Ready Group.

Strategic Reservist Force

A strategic reserve would be created to replace the majority of the TA. Some specialist TA units would continue to serve alongside regular army units. However the majority of the TA would be re rolled into a much improved force built around an armored division.

The TA structure would be improved with pay being increased as well as training hours. TA officers would be required to attend a much longer course than the current two weeks at Sand Hurst. Any officer above Captain would be full time post as would senior NCO’s

Training hours would be doubled with improved minimum fitness requirements being enforced. Soldiers pay should be at least tripled to try and attract more people into the force.

This force would able to deploy as an autonomous armored division alongside six BEU’s from the professional Army. To demonstrate this capability we should practice a full scale deployment to the Gulf once every 5 or 6 years and even look to combine the with EU forces to form a Corps.

In addition to better pay there would be better compensation given to employers to replace people on deployment.

The Army would maintain a deployable Corps HQ under a Lieutenant General which would be capable of commanding both UK Division’s as well as additional coalition forces.

Special Forces

22^nd SAS would be left intact as an autonomous force.

Foreign Military Training

It makes far more sense to train other people to fight their own wars than it does to send our own troops. While the British Army does a great job of this on a small scale it really needs to do more on a larger scale. Establishing a regimental sized force that will allow soldiers to concentrate on this task is probably a much better structure than our present set up which is somewhat ad hoc. This will allow soldiers to concentrate on building their career in this highly specialized area. We could also look to give soldiers the proper language and cultural training to better facilitate this. If someone is going to spend his entire career training Middle Eastern nations he can learn Arabic for instance.

Taking out the RAF elements this structure would comprise a force of around 65,000 full time personnel in the regular army with 50,000 in the TA Reserve.

The total budget would be around £9.5 billion per year.

The RAF

The RAF would lose many of its elements and responsibilities. All helicopters would be transferred to Army control. In Addition the deep strike mission currently carried out by the Tornado would transfer to the Navy to be carried out by the F35C. Ground support would be conducted by a mixture of F35B and Typhoon Tranche 3. AWAC’s would be carried out by the FAA flying the 16 E2D Hawkeyes.

The RAF would be enhanced in other areas especially around C4 ISTAR and Strategic lift.

We would maintain the current Voyager fleet at 13 Aircraft

Double our purchase of A400M up to 42 and equip half for air to air refueling

Increase the C17 fleet to 10 Aircraft

Increase R1 Sentinel to 5

Increase Rivet Joint to 5 (Or consider the new P8 AGS)

Purchasing 12 P8 Poseidon’s

Typhoon fleet would be held at 160

The RAF would have an enhanced capability to launch standoff weapons with the A400M being given the ability to launch up to 12 storm shadow.

ELINT and Maritime Surveillance

Libya showed we were lacking in ELINT capability. Increasing the Rivet Joint Fleet to 5 should help this. Maritime surveillance is an area we no longer have any capability in. Purchasing a fleet of 12 P8 Poseidon’s should allow us to increase our ELINT capability as well as allowing us to once again conduct maritime surveillance. The MRA4 would have been the perfect aircraft to do this but unfortunately that program is now dead and buried and the thought of developing another maritime aircraft based on the A320 is probably too much to bear.

Electronic Warfare

This is an area we have very little capability in. A purchase by the Navy of F18G Growlers should give us an enhanced capability for radar jamming and suppression of enemy air defences.

Transport Aircraft

This is the type of platform we can never have enough of especially when we need them. What makes matters worse is that many of our allies have almost no capability preventing them from deploying forces without major assistance.

The US Air Force has been trying for a decade to develop a strategic reserve of these aircraft in civilian hands that can be used in times of crisis by the military. The BC 17 is a slightly modified version of the C17 where military radios are locked away and the mid-air refueling point is covered up. The aircraft can be converted back to military service in just 1 hour.

US Air force studies have concluded that each aircraft can generate around $50 million dollars per year in revenue. The C17 is particularly useful for the oil and gas industry being able to fly outsized loads into small airstrips.

America is having many political issues with this set up. There has been a general shortage of C17’s since the war on terror started. The FAA has caused problems giving exemptions for the aircraft to operate over America in civilian hands and the US senate has also caused many issues.

Setting up an RAF Auxiliary along the lines of the RN Auxiliary could allow us to operate a civilian organization that the RAF could call on when needed. Setting this up with 10 modified C17’s and possibly expanding it in future could allow us to build the second largest strategic lift capability in the world. This would give us a major capability to aid other European forces when deploying while not hampering the budget in times of peace.

In times when the professional RAF fleet is not being fully utilised we may also consider having RAF crews flying commercial cargo.(Every little penny helps)

Air to Air Refueling

Libya showed us that we and the rest of Europe are desperately short of this capability. Even the USA is massively short of tankers when it deploys a large scale force often relying on us. Equipping 21 of our A400M’s for refueling would give us a large strategic reserve for purely air operations such as Libya. Calling up all the Voyagers as well we might be able to provide 30 aircraft the total number required for Libya.

We also need to consider converting at least some of the voyagers to using the US Air force boom system. This will allows us to better help the USA in large scale deployments as well as being able to refuel our own C17’s and Rivet Joints. Any aerial refueling of UCAV’s in the future is likely to be much easier to do using this system than the current drogue system.

UCAV’s

We should expand on the BAE Taranis program and develop our own UCAV designed for deep strike and reconnaissance roles. We should optimise the system to require minimal human input. (I don’t think we have really looked at the potential savings of UCAV’s if we do not have to maintain hundreds of trained pilots)

The primary role of this system will be SEAD on the opening night of any campaign. The extremely long range capability of these craft should facilitate our ability to fly them from home bases here in the UK.

If we do this right we might hope to have a large amount of the servicing, armouring and maintenance of these craft done by civilian staff organized into a reservist force. There are literally thousands of civilian personnel with the capability to perform these tasks just as well as full time RAF personnel. Imagine if we build 200 of these and keep 150 in storage. The 50 on active service will deploy with the RAF as usual while the 150 reserve units will stay in hermetic storage waiting for periods when needed. Any operation might see us being able to deploy 150 + of these on the first night then dropping down to a smaller amount for ongoing support of an operation with the reservist units only having to deploy for the first few nights of an operation. We may even be able to consider using civilian pilots as the USA does in a tactical reservist unit to control them. All of these civilian reservists could stay in the UK meaning they would have no risk of being in a combat situation.

Total Budget for the RAF would be around £8.5 billion

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy would become our main force. There are a number of reasons for choosing to enhance the navy over other services. Firstly any major threat we face will come from far away. To reach us it will have to come by sea. Secondly and more importantly no one else in the world other than the US has a major Navy. Allies only want allies if they have something to offer. The main thing that we can bring to the fold in any alliance be it with Europe, the USA, India, Indonesia or Brazil is a naval element.

While all of these nations will likely build upon their naval capabilities they will always have to predominantly rely on their armies for security. Our safe regional and geographic situation allows us to concentrate our resources in ways few other nations can. Being able to provide major naval elements to either joint exercises or deployments gives us major diplomatic leverage.

The technological lead established by our navy also gives us a major advantage in a way that the other two services cannot hope to match. It’s difficult for the Army to maintain a lead when most of its kit is purchasable on the international market. China and Russia have already developed 4^th generation aircraft which are nearly as good as ours and are currently developing 5^th Generation capability something we have struggled to do. However our navy especially the SSN fleet maintains a technological lead on a par with even the US Navy.

In other areas such as ASW and MCM we have capabilities that not even America can match.

India has not even begun to develop its own SSN’s. Brazil has started but its first generation subs will likely not be completed until 2030 and will be two full generations behind ours. China has made great efforts in this area however they still have nothing comparable to our newest vessels.

While we have all heard the same lame arguments “we are an island you know” and the UK is a “maritime nation” we all know these to be irrelevant. When a fighter jet can cross the channel in less than a minute no nation is an island. Many Caribbean counties have bigger registered merchant fleets than we do. While the UK has more freight travelling to and from it via the sea than any other nation most of this is crossing the channel on ferries, hardly justification for Carrier Battle Groups.

However in a world were resources are the key issue and a world where scarcity and control of these resources will drive the politics of the future the navy offers dimensions and capabilities well beyond that the other services can offer.

How long would China last without the ability to import food, minerals and most importantly oil. Simply holding the Straits of Malacca for a few months would be enough to bring the entire country crashing to its knees. If we can defeat the second most powerful country in the world where does that put us on the world power scale?

To achieve these goals we would require a fleet with:

3 Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers

3 Juan Carlos style LHD’s

6 Bay Class LSD’s

12 Type 45 Destroyers

12 Type 26 ASW Frigates

12 Type 27 General Purpose Frigates

32 Multi mission minor war vessels

12 Point Class RoRo’s

15 SSN’s

4 SSBN’s

Other Auxiliary Vessels such as tankers and stores ships

Naval Structure and Deployment

The Naval fleet would be split into two active duty fleets

Western Fleet Head Quartered in Portsmouth

Eastern Fleet Head Quartered in Penang, Malaysia

In addition there would be a Home Fleet for vessels in refit or waiting in reserve.

Western Fleet

Western Fleet would be responsible for all home waters, the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Western fleet would have One Carrier Strike Group and One Amphibious Ready Group assigned to it. It would also have 4 Squadrons of minor war vessels and frigates.

Forward Deployed Squadrons

South Atlantic 2 GP Frigates, 2 Minor War Vessels (Based Falkland Islands)

North Atlantic 2 ASW Frigates, 2 Minor War Vessels (Based UK)

Mediterranean 2 GP Frigates, 2 Minor War Vessels (Based Cyprus)

Home Waters 2 GP Frigates, 2 Minor War Vessels (Based UK)

In addition there would be 4 SSN’s independently attached to the fleet as well as a fifth one assigned to the carrier strike group.

Eastern Fleet

The Eastern Fleets principal responsibility would be to build the 7 Powers Defence Association into a real and credible force. This would be our main contribution to this alliance. Eastern Fleet would be responsible for all waters East of Suez. It would comprise One Carrier Strike Group and One Amphibious Ready Group based in Penang. In addition it would have three Squadrons

Western India Ocean and Gulf 2 Type 45 Destroyer, 4 Minor War Vessels (Based Oman)

Eastern Indian Ocean 2 GP Frigate 4 Minor War Vessels (Based in Penang)

In addition the Eastern fleet would have 4 SSN’s stationed at Diego Garcia. The RAF would also deploy 3 P8 Poseidon’s to the Joint Air base at Butterworth Penang.

The Choice of Penang is an important one. It’s close enough to the South China Sea to make deployment easy enough without being too close as to irritate the Chinese. It’s far enough away from India to avoid causing diplomatic tensions while being a day closer to the Gulf than say Singapore. There is also a joint air base in Penang run by Australian and Malaysian forces making it much easier to base air elements there.

Carrier Strike Group

Each Carrier Strike Group would comprise

1 Queen Elizabeth Class

2 Type 45 Destroyers

2 Type 26 Frigates

1 SSN

1 Fast fleet Tanker

1 Logistics and stores ship

The Air Group of the Carrier would comprise of

20 F35 C

4 F18 G Growlers

4 E2D Hawkeye

4 Merlin ASW

4 UCAV’s

Amphibious Ready Group

Each Amphibious Ready Group would comprise

1 Juan Carlos Style LHD

2 Bay Class LST’s

1 Type 45 Destroyer

1 Type 26 Frigate

Each amphibious ready group would be capable of deploying a single Amphibious British Expeditionary Unit. The LHD would have an air wing of

6 F35 B’s

4 Attack Helicopters

3 light Utility Helicopters

4 Heavy Lift Helicopters

12 Medium Helicopters

Forward Basing

By eliminating the wasteful current procedure of 7 ships to 2 on deployment we can put more of our navy to the places it is needed. If we are going to spend much more time training with foreign partners especially in the Easter Indian Ocean we need to be closer to the areas of operation. Ships sat on the dockside in Portsmouth do no one any good.

All vessels would rotate on a 2 year basis spending 2 years with one fleet, two with the other then standing down for 2 years for refit.

Forward deployed vessel will operate in pairs allowing for 1 to be either at sea or ready to go while the other is on route home or at the dockside. Most modern naval vessels can achieve 90% + readiness and having these units deployed close to area of operation allows us in times of need to have both at sea.

Crews at smaller forward bases such as Cyprus, Falklands, Diego Garcia and Oman would be rotated back by aircraft on a periodic basis. Crews stationed at Penang would stay for the duration of a two year deployment and families would be transferred alongside them.

The total budget for the Navy would rise to £14 billion per year slightly less than double the current budget.

Intelligence

We already have an excellent intelligence service provided by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. It is difficult to tell if this service is underfunded due to its secretive nature however we should recognize that intelligence in the modern world is more crucial than ever and it’s a major asset we can bring to any party.

Space

This is one area the MOD is completely lacking in. Space today is vital for any operation. Imagine how important it will be in 50 years. Three main areas of space jump out at me that we need to work on.

Reconnaissance

In the past the UK has always relied on America to provide space based reconnaissance. While this has worked out well most of the time we have had several problems in the past. These issues are normally more to do with inter service rivalry in the US military than inter country issues. Even the Pentagon finds it difficult to get imagery from the NRO.

The other issue with relying on US data is we cannot then show it to other allies such as France, Brazil or India. We are fortunate to have a fantastic private sector capability in the form of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL). They have already worked on a 2 m resolution imaging satellite called TOPSAT for the MOD with a total cost of just £20 million. They are now working on a Radar imaging version which will cost around £40 million (Including launch costs). Developing a constellation of 5 photo and 5 radar satellite’s would give us the ability to image any part of the planet every day in all weathers. A capability that only the USA enjoys at present.  It also gives us a major diplomatic tool in both sharing information with our allies and also helping countries such as Indonesia and Brazil to develop their own capability.

Communications

With the need for all forms of satellite communication increasing we should consider expanding our Sky Net system to include 5 communications satellites. Satellite Communication is a major coalition enabler and something we will likely never have enough off. UAV’s in particular will place a much greater burden on these systems in the next 10-20 years and we must be ready to handle this. Using a PFI system is likely the best route for this allowing us to give over bandwidth to other nations and even possibly civilian traffic when we do not require it.

Missile Defence

One way or another missile defence will begin to play a large part in defence thinking in the 21^st century. In a world where private individuals can build vehicles capable of intercontinental sub orbital flight for a few hundred thousand dollars simply relying on the principals of MAD will not be sufficient especially if we have to consider the possibility of a Nuclear Armed Iran able to target London.

Missile defence will be expensive. We should only develop this as part of a European or NATO structure. However this should not simply be a US system with a couple of radars and missiles in Europe but an autonomous NATO command.

Balanced vs Unbalanced

You may say this is a hideously unbalanced force. Maybe it is, however Nelson or Wellington would likely view a budget that gave 65% of money to the Army and 17% to the Navy as massively unbalanced.

Having a balanced force with a small budget only allows us to subsidies other nations capabilities principally America. While there is a moral justification for helping the USA maintain peace and security we cannot really justify spending so much money on this. Rebuilding our forces so that we are able to carry out some tasks on our own and getting other nations to supplement our forces seems to me a much better way. Trying to achieve balance will only lead to more salami slicing and a general degradation in all round capability.

The world of 2050 will likely be dominated by 6 major players:

United States of America

European Union

China

India

Brazil

Indonesia

When we are looking to strengthen our diplomatic standing we must be careful to avoid conflicts with other allies. For that reason we must focus our attention on a few key countries.

United States

It is hard to envisage a set of circumstances that could see us as anything other than close friends with America. However close friendship should not mean subservience, as we have seen many times over the past decade. We should always look to America as our main partner in any major conflict. We also have to look at what we can bring to the table to support America to maintain our special relationship.

We can help America in two ways and neither involves deploying 10,000 troops in F**knowswhereastan.

Firstly, we can be the linchpin that holds America and Europe together.

Secondly, we can help the USA to curtail Chinese ambitions especially in South East Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Europe

One way or another Europe will begin to assert itself more and more on the world stage. In the past the UK has tried to hamper this preferring instead for Europe to rely on NATO. However why do NATO and EDA have to be mutually exclusive. Why can’t one benefit the other? Why can’t a Danish battalion serve in a British commanded division under a US Lieutenant General as part of a NATO force? Europe having the ability to act on the world stage without the USA means America does not always have to be there. If you think we are weary of always having to be the ones to do something how do you think America feels. From Bosnia to Libya they constantly have to get involved to solve European problems.

America can no longer maintain the 4.5% of GDP it spends on its military. This realisation comes at a time when it is being forced to counter the rise of a new super power with a population 4 times its size. Looking around the world it sees very few people who can truly help with the burden.

Even with the piss poor military spending of most European governments Europe accounts for 25% of world military spending combined. Most of this is wasted on heavy fixed forces still waiting to counter the Soviet hoards rolling across the planes of Germany. Harnessing even a small portion of that money and capability into expeditionary warfare could give Europe some significant clout in world affairs.

We are the only country in Europe that can help to develop this capability. Europe will always struggle to form a coherent foreign policy view. Just look at Germany over Libya. This means that joint European owned assets will always be problematic to use. However building our forces as the spine that will allow Europe to act through a coalition of the willing will allow us to build relatively major force projection capability on a budget and will also give us the ability to essentially veto European action.

We must also start to steer Europe in the direction we want rather than just simply reacting to French and German moves for closer integration. The UK has always favoured a larger Europe based on free trade as opposed to the smaller one based on Federalism favoured by Germany. We must focus all our diplomatic efforts on brining Turkey into the EU. This should allow us to better counter Germany and France while giving Europe access to a massive and rapidly developing regional power.

We should consider a bi annual exercise deploying a European force based around a divisional HQ out of area to demonstrate our capability. In addition another bi annual exercise should be considered landing a reinforced brigade sized force of 10-12,000 troops from the sea. We should also look to deploy a full corps sized force every five years sending both UK professional forces and our reservist armoured division(more on that later).

India

India with over a billion people will probably be the natural nation to counter the rise of China in the 21^st Century in the way the rise of America countered the Soviet Union in the 20th. We must embrace India for this reason. We share so much with India from history to sport from our legal system to language. Yet we have virtually no military connection with them at all. If we are to develop the close ties we need with India we should be prepared to consider mutual defence treaties with them. We are already honour bound through the commonwealth to come to their aid. Would a formal treaty really be so different?

There are a number of areas were we may have contentions with India but none of these is impossible to overcome. The Joint British American base at Diego Garcia has long been an annoyance for India. Pressuring the USA to possibly allow Indian forces there may be one potential way to resolve this.

India’s difficult relationship with Pakistan can also cause problems however we should remember that Pakistan is an ally of China. It is not our ally. Even though the current situation in Afghanistan has forced cooperation, given the choice I would take India over Pakistan any day. Pakistan has nothing to offer us except problems.

 India should be entitled to full UN Security Council rights including a veto. We should make getting India this our prime diplomatic effort amongst other Security Council members.

We should also look to work with India much more closely in weapons development. India has great naval ambitions in the area but lacks the human and scientific resources we have. All areas should be considered up to an including the development of SSN capability. Every Indian SSN cruising the Indian Ocean is one less Chinese SSN we have to worry about.

Indonesia

A country with over 250 million people and some of the largest natural resource deposits in the world. The third biggest democracy in the world as well and we have almost nothing to do with them. While we have actually fought Indonesia in the past in the 1960’s and 1970’s the Indonesia of today is a very different country. They have virtually no formal military ties with anyone and like the rest of the region they are desperately worried over Chinese expansion. Again we should look to take advantage of this vacuum.

At present the only mutual defence organisation in the region is the 5 powers defence agreement. Expanding this to a 7 Nation organisation including India and Indonesia would allow us to formally ally ourselves with both nations and help to counter Chinese ambitions in the area. These countries are far enough away from China to mean that while the Chinese would be unhappy about it they are unlikely to feel threatened enough to do anything about it. It would also help the USA which is able to devote very little to the region in way of permanent assets which are mostly taken up in the waters of North East Asia around Japan and the Korea’s.

We should also look to lobby on Indonesia’s behalf for at least a permanent seat on the Security Council if not a full veto.

China

We will never be able to be allies of China. The Chinese have their own grand strategy and feel they need no help to achieve it. China’s main disadvantage is its lack of friends. No one trusts them and no major nation has anything to do with them. As India said recently “it is difficult to work with someone when they tell you they own everything”.

The rise of China does not have to spell doom for the world. The only way to achieve this in my opinion is to make sure that everywhere they turn they are countered.

If they know that other countries can and will stand against them and they find themselves unable to gain major allies then they will have little choice but to revert to peaceful means. In order to do this we and our allies must maintain the ability to prevent China from gaining crucial supplies. Especially oil from the Middle East.

Russia

Russia is a difficult country to deal with. Let’s not forget they used a Nuclear Weapon in London a few years ago. We have little chance of developing substantial relations with Russia other than through Europe. As such we should not expend any major effort trying to build bilateral ties with them.

In the long run with its population collapsing, its abundant natural resources and huge un-defendable boarders Russia probably has more to fear from China than anyone else. It would be allot easier for China to make a play for Siberia than the Middle East and the day that Russia’s Nuclear arms cease to be a problem is the day we may see that reality.

Brazil

Again a country we have relatively little to do with but with over 200 million people and massive offshore oil reserves one we should be working with much more closely. We should not forget that we share some common interests. The UK owns a substantial part of the South Atlantic sea bed which may one day be developed for oil, gas or mineral extraction. Brazil is lacking in its ability to properly defend many of its new offshore oil installations. A mutual defence treaty in the South Atlantic might serve us both. While Argentina is likely to try to hamper this we should remember that Brazil is not exactly a lover of Argentina.

Offering Brazil help with UN Security Council membership, naval training and cooperation and possibly even basing aircraft at Ascension Island should be enough to sweeten any deal.

Middle East

We have excellent relations with most Middle East governments. The rise of Iran is the biggest cause of concern for both them and us in the region. We should consider closer military ties and even formal defence treaties with Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman and also permanently basing naval forces in the region. Apart from being major energy suppliers these countries are also substantial purchasers of British military equipment and major focal points for British business.

Why Bother

Obviously these diplomatic and military efforts will involve a considerable expenditure on the part of the British people over the next 50 years. We should ask the question of whether or not it is all worth it. Should we continue to maintain a prominent role or should we follow the example of someone like Germany taking a back seat and letting others do the leg work. I would say yes. Britain does not have an obligation to do this but we do have a need.

On a per capita basis the UK has more inward and outward investment than any other G7 economy. We have more expats (5.5 million of them) than any other western country. British business is more plugged in to what goes on elsewhere than any other major nation. We have a vested interest to make sure that the world is a safe and stable place and that British companies can operate freely.

We should also look to tie our foreign policy and military cooperation with economic deals. From letting BP drill well and HSBC open branches to BAE selling guns.

Other Means

When looking to win friends and influence people in the world we should use every asset at our disposal. These assets are considerable and are probably the main element that can let us punch above our weight on the world stage.

Media

The UK’s news media is un-surpassed in the world. The BBC in particular is probably the world’s most respected news organisation. In a world where information is power we should not under estimate its impact. We should make a concerted effort to make sure that every person on the planet has access to the BBC World Service free of charge. We should not attempt to influence BBC coverage but instead allow the institution to maintain its high standards. The truth will point to itself and as long as we are on the correct side we having nothing to fear from the BBC’s impartiality.

We should also remember other UK institutions. Al Jazeera in particular has a major impact on the Muslim world.

UK PLC

Many of the world’s largest companies are headquartered in Britain. Companies such as HSBC, Shell, Rio Tinto and BP wield massive amounts of power and influence in the world. They can also help us to economically exploit opportunities in nations we hope to develop better ties with. I would like to see these companies given the opportunity to appoint a representative onto the National Security Council.

Sport and Culture

Our sport and culture has an impact on the world in ways that few people in the UK understand. In Asia many more people are concerned by the choice of manager for Manchester United than even the choice of the US president. Simon Cowell is better known than Winston Churchill and countries from China to Brazil bend over backwards to gain their own Grand Prix.

Remember most people on the planet today do not have a television. But in decades to come they will. We should give every support possible to these institutions to continue to maintain and expand their influence.

Foreign Aid

Perhaps the worst thing the last government left us with was a legal requirement to spend 0.5% of GDP on aid. Worst still we are required to increase it to 0.7%. The present government for reason only known to its self has refused to consider cutting this budget.

In an attempt to justify it they have now decided to spend more of the budget on supporting humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan to support the Army. So the same people who we already spend £4 billion per year on trying to bring peace and security to will receive more money. Worst still because of the security situation in Afghanistan projects cost massively more than they do elsewhere and we provide the guys we are fighting even more targets meaning our hard pressed troops have to invest even more blood and treasure defending them.

Will these same Afghans that we are helping buy anything off us? Will we be opening hundreds of HSBC branches any time soon?

Let’s put our foreign aid budget into perspective. At 0.7% of GDP we are talking £10 billion per year. Assuming 2.5% per annum GDP growth that’s £674 billion over the next 40 years. China builds high speed rail lines for $20 million a mile. With this budget we could build 53,922 miles of high speed rail enough to wrap around the world twice.

Currently this budget is basically divvied up around the world on a roughly even basis with £1 billion going to China and £1 billion going to India. It gets us nothing. If we concentrate this budget on a few key allies particularly India, Brazil and Indonesia then we can use it to buy substantial influence. Many of the world’s poorest people live in these countries so there is no moral imperative to say we should not do so.

We should also tie at least 20% of this aid to military aid. If India decides it needs 200 fighters to protect its self and we offer 50 Eurofighters for free, where do you think they will buy the other 150 from? If the Indian government has to spend less on defence it will spend more on helping its people develop. Selling our weapons to other countries helps us maintain relations and a modicum of control over their policies, “don’t piss of the Brit’s or you won’t get any more spare parts for your Eurofighters”.

It also allows us better interoperation capability and if we enhance the fighting ability of our allies we enhances our own defence.

Eurofighter and the Type 26 should be the two major programs to benefit from this through Brazil, India and Indonesia. We should also consider OPV and Corvette subsidies for India Ocean Nations such as Oman and Kenya to help tackle piracy.

These aid budgets should be used to gain formal defence treaties as well as special treatment for British Industries such as banking and oil exploration. We should also look to use this money to help influential British institutions gain access to these countries i.e. subsidising rural electricity schemes and satellite communication so more people can watch the premiership or BBC news.

This really seems like a win win to me. We help the countries and people we need most while enhancing our own diplomatic standing and at the same time securing tens of thousands of high tech British Jobs.

If we look at the past 50 years and extrapolate over the next 50 years we can see some clear trends emerging that will lead to opportunities and challenges for the future.

First Trend

Developing nations such as China, Brazil, Indonesia and India will continue to grow their economies. This means the little post World War II club on the Security Council will look increasingly irrelevant. China and the USA can be assured of maintaining their positions however Russia, France and the United Kingdom all look to be getting their hats in the next 15-20 years.

However from a strictly economic point of view old blighty’s position does not look that bad. One thing that the UK has that none of our compatriots has is a growing population. The UK will have the largest economy in Europe by 2050 if German population continues to decline. Russia’s population is collapsing faster than anyone’s and with its relatively low per capita GDP it may also find it difficult to maintain a seat at the top table. While we can’t maintain a top 5 slot for much longer economically we should be able to maintain a place in the top 10 for the next 50 years. We should also be able to maintain a top 5 position in military spending for much of the next 50 years.

In 50 years we will be operating in a multi polar environment with numerous super powers, a position very much like that of the late 19^th and early 20^thCentuary.

Second Trend

By 2050 global populations will likely begin to peak around the 9 billion mark. The main problem we will face is resource constraint. While we can grow enough food to feed all these people we cannot produce enough energy and resources to give them all the same standard of living I enjoy today. While we have lots of oil and hydrocarbons the rate we can extract them at is limited. In the past decade 200 million Chinese people stopped cycling bikes and started driving cars. Oil prices went from $10 a barrel to $140 a barrel. What’s going to happen when the other 1.1 billion Chinese people decide they want to drive a car as well?

One of three things is likely to happen to address this:

One, the world comes up with a magical source of new cheap energy and we can go on as we do today.

Two, China will try to grab the resources it needs forcing us and the rest of the world to defend them.

Three, the big boys will decide that it’s not really fair that a few hundred thousand Arabs are sitting on the mother load and decide to divvy it up amongst themselves. At which point we really need to make sure we are one of the big boys and we get a slice of the pie.

The neutral model followed by countries such as Sweden worked well in a world where NATO ensured the peace and there was more than enough to go around. However it did not work well in the pre-World War I environment and it is likely to not work well in the middle to later 21^st Century.

Who is to say that nations will not revert back to empire building? Who is to say that new powers like China, India and Brazil will be as magnanimous as the USA today or Britain in the past? We can ill afford to unilaterally disarm in a world with so much uncertainty.

Third Trend

Technology will continue to develop and developing nations will catch up with us. This will lead to a number of different developments. Information technology will continue to grow and alter our lives in ways we cannot yet imagine. Who would have thought five years ago that Facebook could be responsible for toppling half the dictators in the Middle East?

As developing societies gain more access to information technology they are likely to become more democratic and more unstable leading to dozens of revolutions. Extremist groups are also likely to become more prevalent as they gain the ability to spread their message to a large badly educated audience.

Defence technology is also likely to change. We will rely more and more on Robots be they UAV’s, UUV’s or land based autonomous platforms.

We will also have to accept that the silver bullet solution of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) backed by undefeatable ICBM’s will not last forever. Missile Defence is a reality today. Imagine its capability in 50 years’ time. We have not had an unlimited state on state war for 66 years exactly the same amount of time we have had Nuclear Weapons. A world were Nuclear weapons no longer guarantee the peace will be a more dangerous one. We will likely have to invest heavily in missile defence at some point and we may have to consider increases in conventional forces.

We will also have to be prepared to maintain our independent nuclear capability and it may also be necessary to increase it in order to achieve the same effect. If China can intercept ICBM’s then we can’t expect that a total of 8 or 16 missiles are enough to provide a credible deterrent.

Fourth Trend

We may also have to face up to environmental change over the next 50 years with global warming leading to droughts, famines and other natural disasters. This topic is a favourite of the power point warrior gazing into the future. I do not want to put too much emphasis on it though. Most of these natural disasters if they do happen will happen in desperately poor countries with little in the way of resources. While it is only right that we do our part in providing humanitarian aid we must avoid the notion that we will send in the marines or anyone else to fix the problem or end a civil war. Civil war like it or not is a part of human development. We can’t stop it. It will likely continue to happen for 100 years or more until all nations reach a European level of development. It’s the oldest rule in the book that no outside military force should become involved in a civil war but it is one our politicians and military leaders keep forgetting.

If we can intervene in a small scale way as with Sierra Leone to support a democratic government or provide air cover for civilians as we did in Libya then we should. But our experience over the past 10 years has shown us that large scale ground forces on permanent deployment are not the answer. The Army is not a police force. We would never accept using it as such in our own country.

Why would we try to do this in other people’s countries?

Given these relative certainties we should be able to conduct our foreign and military policy today in a way that is likely to benefit us greatly when the time that we really need it comes. We have done this in the past and it served us well. If it had not been for major diplomatic efforts made towards the end of the 19^th Century would America have entered not one but two world wars on our side? Don’t forget we went to war with the USA twice and almost entered their civil war on the confederate side. We were hardly natural allies. We must make a concerted effort to identify the future super powers of the world today and make every effort to develop relationships with them as close as the relationship we share with the USA at present.

In the race to position ourselves for the future we have two major advantages over anyone else.

Firstly we know we are crap and can’t really do anything on our own. We realise we are not a super power and never will be. This means that we can be far more flexible in our dealings with other nations than for instance the United States can be. Our fore fathers realised this as well. Where possible we always built coalitions to attack our enemies. Be it for mutual defence against Napoleon or for mutual benefit as against Russia in the 1850’s.

Secondly most of the major players like us and trust us. We have excellent relations with the USA and the European Union who will still be the dominant economic forces in the world of 2050. We have decent relations with India and Brazil as well as a host of other major developing nations.

This allows us to form coalitions with a wide group on nations. Countries will allow us basing rights and provide us with support because unlike China they do not feel we will later attempt to colonise them.

Many of us have spent the last two years trying to get a handle on what position the UK can or should play in the world. This is far more than the government seems to have done since 1998 instead favoring muddling through moving from crisis to crisis while salami slicing budgets when the finances have dictated the need for cuts.

One thing we have lost in the post-cold war environment is the ability to look at grand strategy. Not simply assessing our security needs for the next 5 years but really looking at what the world will be like in 50 years and trying to steer our foreign and military policies to achieve our goals over that period.

I want to look into the future world post 2015 once we are out of Afghanistan and highlight the areas and allies we should look to cultivate to give us maximum affect in the future up to and beyond 2050.

While it is difficult to say what tomorrow will bring we can analyse economic and political trends over a longer period to get an idea of what we are likely to face. This type of analysis seems to be something that both the MOD and foreign office are now completely incapable of.

If we are going to continue spending £40 billion a year of tax payer’s money and hopefully more in future then we must demonstrate real clear value for this expenditure. Defence spending has the most illusive benefits of any government budget. If we were to cut it to zero tomorrow what would happen, who knows? If we cut the NHS budget to zero tomorrow then thousands of people would die. The British public do not necessarily consider things like the UK having the second biggest aerospace sector in the world largely based on R&D conducted by the military over the past 100 years.

Again and again we have come back to the debate on whether or not maintaining world power status (if we have it) is worthwhile. I come down on the side of yes we do have it. It is worth keeping and if we want to keep it we can.

In this series of 5 posts I will try to put forward my arguments for this and what foreign and military policy we will have to pursue over the next 50 years to maintain and possibly even enhance our present position.

Security and Defence Threats

As many of us have pointed out we have very little in the way of conventional threats that are likely to face the UK in the next 5-10 years. The threat of terrorism is relatively limited in its ability to impact our daily lives in the way that a Russian invasion would. We certainly cannot justify £40 billion a year to guard against this threat.

We can really only justify a substantial military budget on two grounds.

One, the ability to regenerate a substantial force should we need it in the future.

Two, the ability to defend and influence our allies and deter any potential enemies.

We can really only justify the second if we gain something from having those allies.

Since the end of the cold war we have increasingly used force to try and make the world a better place, whether bombing Serbia or invading Afghanistan. Some of these operations have met with great success while others have been failures. One thing we must realise is that we can no more bring democracy and capitalism to the world at the barrel of a gun than the soviets could bring communism.

Egypt and Tunisia have shown that if people want these things they will fight for them. We may need to help things along as we did in Libya but if it takes 100,000 plus troops on the ground for a decade or more then the juice is not worth the squeeze. No magnanimous international force appeared to take out Cromwell for us or bombed Edward the First as he invaded Scotland and butchered the people of Berwick. Today we are better for it. Our ancestors fought for democracy, nationalism and their freedom. They built enduring institutions and laws to safe guard these hard one freedoms.  We should not look to intervene in other countries development other than with limited means.

We must also avoid getting involved in areas where we have little substantial interest or potential gains. It is okay to intervene in Eastern Europe as it’s on our boarders. We can suffer losses intervening in the Gulf, like it or not we need their oil. Can we really justify major expenses of blood and treasure in the mountains of Afghanistan or the cities of Zimbabwe? We must remove the woolly liberal ideals that have often steered our foreign policy over the past 20 years and get back to a little naked self-interest. We must also make sure we have the military capability to back it up.

So, here is a question, in pictures…

What Are The Strategic Threats To The UK?

Or

To Adress These Threats Do We Need More of These

Or, More of This

This isn’t a guns or butter question, it is about asking Defence to justify its £30-40 Billion budget on the basis of actual strategic threats rather than short term transitory ones.

Energy, food and water security, climate change mitigation, a vibrant and growing economy and a sustainable transport and connectivity infrastructure  are equally as important as defence.

Given  the very low level of direct military threat can we as a nation afford spending 4 or 5 hundred billion pounds over the next 10 years?

Here is an example, the Qatargas LNG plant at Milford Haven cost about a billion quid, how much are we planning to spend on F35′s, FRES, T26 and Trident Successor

If the Government ever got off its arse and formulated a long term strategic plan for the UK there would of course be a place for the defence, but I ask you this.

Is the defence budget too high?

It appears everyone has been pitching in to the war zone that is “fantasy fleets” and so I decided to have a crack myself. I and others have often been challenged with what I personally believe to be the very tenuous argument of “well at least I’ve made a suggestion, what’s yours?”, by which logic a suggestion to take a long bath in high concentration acid would immediately be validated if no alternative course of action could be suggested.

The goal of this article then is to try and find something of a middle ground between the recent series of posts by IXION and that of DomJ.

The framework then for this is to play a relatively boring game of fantasy fleets, being that it will attempt to meld current financial reality with the current defence situation that faces the UK, while keeping in mind (but certainly not strictly adhering to) the governments plans for the armed forces as laid out in the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review, or as it’s otherwise known “that bodge job that was used as a cover for cutting spending”.

Just keep in mind that I openly admit now that I haven’t thought of every conceivable angle. There will almost certainly be holes that need to filled in here and there. It’s also possible that the numbers wont exactly add up, to the penny. The purpose of this is more to create a broad outline, into which others might colour in the details 9or I‘ll end up doing a second edition) and to promote a vigorous debate that potentially ends in plenty of well meaning swearing!

Overview

To suggest any sort of plan without first looking at the wider situation would be a waste of time. I’m sure we can all agree that cutting the Navy and Air Force down to one dinghy and one hot air balloon respectively in order to purchase an additional 3000 tanks would not be in the best interests of the nation. On the flip side, a 100 ship navy and a 1000 aircraft air force are of no real use if all we can send to seize and hold ground is a courageous and determined fellow with an ASP Baton and a dog handling team.

We must consider that money is tight (more on this in the conclusion), thanks to a combination of various politicians, American mortgage lenders and the major global credit rating agencies. In an ideal world I could take a scythe to the government budget overall, including the International Development Fund (overseas aid) which is projected by the treasury to top £9 billion by 2015. Unfortunately that’s not an option. We have to make the defence establishment fit the defence budget. We also have to consider that there are some tasks we must fulfil and others that we have a choice in, more or less.

The fairly obvious starting point is the protection of the British Isles, its dependencies, and its overseas territories, consisting of; England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands (Caribbean), the Turks and Caicos Islands (Caribbean), Bermuda (Caribbean), the British Virgin Islands (Caribbean), Anguilla (Caribbean), Montserrat (Caribbean), Gibraltar, Akrotiri & Dhekelia (Cyprus), the British Indian Ocean Territory (Diego Garcia), the Pitcairn Islands (South Pacific), the British Antarctic Territory, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (South Atlantic), Saint Helena (South Atlantic), Ascension Island and Tristan da Cuhna (South Atlantic).

In addition the UK is a member of many organisations that have treaty obligations, such as NATO and the United Nations, occasionally requiring the UK to contribute maritime, air and land forces as part of a multi-lateral coalition.

Now obviously all of these concerns are not equal in terms of how likely they are to require a UK military response. The Pitcairn Islands for example are considered sufficiently free from the threat of aggression to not warrant a strong, permanent Army/Royal Navy/Royal Air Force task force to be stationed there 365 days of the year. The Falkland Islands are another matter entirely.

I’m assuming that after 2015 the British Army will have withdrawn from Afghanistan, leaving little but a token presence to help the Afghan government in its ongoing quest for peace and security. It’s from this point onward that we need to start considering our place in the world and how we will deal with various threats to our national security.

The long and short of it is that we should not try and match every foreign foe ship for ship, plane for plane, and tank for tank, but instead to forge alliances and understandings at every conceivable turn with everyone who will do business with us, such that any enemy can be countered by a combined effort of several nations, with the British featuring prominently no doubt.

The operations over Libya make a fine point. Excluding the US and UK forces, the other nations involved managed to bring together over one hundred aircraft of various types and roles, plus a significant naval task force. This would be the preferable model that the UK would seek to repeat in the future, while still retaining the ability to conduct limited operations on an individual basis.

This means we need to be able to contribute land, sea and air components to a multi-national task force, and in particular we need to get very good at providing a degree of leadership and organisation to these elements in the absence of heavy United States involvement, by drawing on our pool of potential allies across the globe, either as a whole or on a limited, regional basis.

That requires a reasonably balanced force, which is what I’m going to try and achieve over the course of this article; able to deploy land forces for large, one off scraps or limited interventions; that can deploy aircraft for strike or policing purposes; and that can control or deny maritime lines of communication. All of this either alone or with international assistance.

It also signifies the first big change of the “Chris.B. Reforms” – merging the Ministry of Defence with the Foreign and Commonwealth office. It simply doesn’t make sense to have the nations military arm separated from the body that so often decides where it will be employed. Foreign policy and Defence policy are not neighbours, they are bed fellows. One is integral to the other.

As for what to call this new department, by all means I’ll take suggestions because I’ve no idea. The Defence and Diplomacy Office? The Ministry of Defence and Diplomacy? Who knows, but I’m sure someone will conjure up a suitable idea.

The diplomatic angle should not be underestimated. In the absence of large defence spending (in the 1950’s defence spending was about 10% of GDP, now it is about 2.7%) we can longer sustain the ability to act unilaterally on anything but the smallest end of the scale. The forging of understandings and diplomatic ties (though not necessarily binding alliances and treaties) will provide the foundation for the defence of British global interests for years to come.

Army

We might as well start the main reforms here and this is where I have struggled the most. At one point – many weeks ago – I sent TD a draft in which I scythed the army down to just three regular and two commando brigades, the intention being to sweep the rug from under the politicians feet and effectively wrap them up in it, curtailing their ability to deploy large British ground forces abroad.

But then I sat and thought about it for a while.

It occurred to me that the net result of doing this would not be to stop politicians from deploying ground forces, merely it would invite them to do so anyway but without the necessary mass required to have any effect and in such a way as to potentially harm British reputation with its partners. The case in point was brought up by James – I believe – of the French deployment of the 6^th Light Armoured Division to the 1991 Gulf War.

This paltry force (in size, not talent) consisted of effectively two infantry battalions, four wheeled reconnaissance regiments, one tank battalion and one artillery battalion. It found itself lined up on the Western most edge of the battle line, kept well away from the concentration of heavy fighting that took place around the Iraq/Kuwait border. The deployment of such a small force almost seemed unwanted and I feel it sends a poor message about the countries commitment.

And this is really the crux of the matter. The influence and “power projection” seemingly craved by us all comes from substantial action, from showing the people that matter that you are in for a penny, in for a pound. Just a few weeks ago I was re-reading a section from the book “Ghost Force; The Secret History Of The SAS – Ken Connor”* about the campaign in Oman, which contained an interesting story that relates to the idea of influence.

*(I highly recommend the book. Despite the sensational title, it’s actually more of the opposite. The book covers nothing really that you wont of heard/read of before, with the exception of the authors personal stories, but it does cast a different light on those events, cutting through some of the more rose tinted accounts to get to the practical heart of the matter, avoiding the hyperbole so often associated with “The Regiment” in favour of a much more calculated and honest view of things).

The story in question involved standing in the airport of an unnamed middle eastern state when a commercial airliner swoops in and with almost unseemly haste is greeted by a security detail and shuffled off to a quite corner of the airfield to be unloaded, before being turned around rapidly and sent on its way. An officer nearby commented to the author that while he and his people were grateful for the American supplies coming in, the fact that the Americans took great pains not to be overtly associated with them made them feel like the Americans were somehow ashamed. Contrast this with the British who openly walked around in uniforms, which gave the people confidence that the British were their true friends and would stand by them when needed.

That’s influence.

Real influence I mean. The sort of influence that comes from actually putting people on the ground and getting involved. Air show performances by the Red Arrows and gleaming vessels stopping off in ports is all very well, but it’s not real influence. It doesn’t fundamentally change the mindset of international partners, neutrals and enemies.

I’m often told that you can exert pressure on foreign governments using things like aircraft carriers and long range bombers. Unfortunately it would appear that people such as Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein did not get the memo’s in early 2011 and 1991 respectively, nor did the Serbian leadership in the mid to late 90’s. In 1982 someone forget to remind the Argentine military Junta that they were supposed to be influenced by our possession of considerable naval air power and nuclear weapons.

The simple fact is that having the tools is one thing, but it’s the ability to use them and the perceived will to use them that really matters. A good example of this effect can be found in crime statistics. Actual crime in the UK has broadly fallen on a consistent basis for years now, but the fear of crime has risen. People perceive themselves to be at much greater risk now, even though most people are actually safer than they’ve ever been in years.

So it is with defence and influence. It’s not the actual threat that matters, it’s the perceived threat. It’s not the actual level of assistance that can be offered to allies that matters, it’s the perceived level of assistance that counts. Stopping by for a bit of gunboat/fast jet diplomacy is not as effective or as impressive as a genuine commitment to provide training and assistance.

And so it is that if we seek to lead other nations in coalition operations, we cannot simply fall back on the excuse of “well, you’re the continental power, you provide the bodies and we’ll cover you!”. That does not inspire confidence in the likes of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and a whole host of other nations who we might one day call upon to aid us.

That type of approach smacks of expecting everyone else to do the hard grafting while we sit back in the relative comfort and safety of air bases and surface ships, giving orders from the rear. That will simply not suffice. When the next campaign comes around and we start asking the Danish army if it will provide some of its limited manpower to a big operation, they’re going to be rather inclined to say “no” if they believe that we too are not pitching in.

So although the British Army may not be as sexy as fast jets and sleek hulls, it is essential. It is the core around which everything else is built. It’s the job of the RAF to seize the aerial flank and to exploit it in support of the Army. It’s the job of the Navy to seize the Maritime flank and to exploit it, again in support of the Army. I think that’s the shift in thinking that we need to take.

On this note, the Army really needs to grow, not shrink. Five regiments of Challenger II is nothing to be sniffed at, but we can do better. The trouble is, as always, the budget. For that reason I’m going to lay out a slight re-organisation of the Army based on current(ish) manning, then plan for the future.

The starting point for me is the two commando brigades. Even thought strictly speaking the Royal Marines are Royal Navy, it is more appropriate to address them here. On that note I would retain both brigades, though with some changes that are relevant to the Army as a whole under these “reforms”; notably the shift toward brigades that contain three battalions/regiments of infantry/tanks, with their necessary support.

For that reason, 16 Air Assault Brigade would largely retain it’s current structure except that the two Parachute battalions (2^nd and 3^rd) would be permanently joined by the then current UK based battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, instead of having two infantry battalions attached on a rotation basis. All the other attachments, (Royal Horse Artillery, 16 Medical Regiment, etc) would remain.

In addition, the full Brigade of Gurkha’s (1x UK based battalion/1x Brunei based Battalion (rotating), plus engineers, signals and logistics) would be retained. 3 Commando Brigade would continue in its current structure, minus the 1^st Battalion, The Rifles, who would be returned to the regular forces (other than that, the Royal Marines as a whole would be left untouched). The Royal Gibraltar Regiment would stay on it’s own for obvious reasons.

As for the regular army, the first thing to do is to hand back the CBRN role to the 1^st Royal Tank Regiment, retrieving it from the grasp of the RAF Regiment (I have other plans for them…). 1^st RTR would still be responsible for the Main Battle Tank training squadrons and the commitment to the Land Warfare Centre.

Next thing is to dish out the five Challenger regiments, split between 5 brigades. The first two of these Brigades would be classified “Armoured”, containing a formation reconnaissance regiment, a tank regiment and two armoured infantry battalions (Warrior).

The remaining three would be split between three brigades classified as “mechanised”, containing one each of; formation reconnaissance regiment, tank regiment, armoured infantry battalion (Warrior) and mechanised infantry battalion

(Bulldog). Obviously these brigades would need to be supplemented with engineers, signals, medical, artillery and logistic support as needed.

That leaves one armoured infantry battalion spare which would be assigned to the Land Warfare Centre (LWC) and filled on a rotational basis. I’m assuming there is a reason why the army wants Warriors at the LWC. If Bulldogs will suffice then my preferred option would be to swap a mechanised battalion for an armoured one, leaving us with three “armoured infantry” brigades and now two “mechanised infantry” brigades.

Next come the light infantry which – excluding the elements of 3 Commando, 16 Air Assault and the Special Forces Support Group – would leave us with (I think) 21 light infantry battalions. On that note, I’m going to split them nice and neatly into 7 infantry brigades, each containing 3 battalions of light infantry, plus required support.

That does pose me with one significant problem; I need two battalions for the Cyprus Garrison. Obviously that would mean that one brigade would be left with a spare battalion sitting on its hands. If anyone has any suggestions I’m more than open to them. The possibilities I’ve considered are 1) attach the spare battalion to LWC, 2) use them as a replacement for the RAF Regiment in base protection, 3) (and my preferred option) find somewhere abroad to post them, like a certain group of Islands in the South Atlantic that shall not be named…

Royal Artillery wise we have five AS90 regiments to share about, along with a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) regiment, a light gun equipped regiment, three Surveillance and Target Acquisition (STA) regiments, and two air defence regiments. My presumption at this point is that these assets would be distributed as needed to the various brigades. I would also like to stand up a regiment (and this will please Jed to no end) equipped with 120mm towed mortars, predominantly for use with the Light Brigades (stop dancing Jed mate, it’s unseemly).

Ideally each of the above brigades would be co-located together for home basing in order to reduce the number of bases needed.

On to the underwater knife fighters, or as they’re known outside of this website, the UK Special Forces Directorate. This group would be left mainly untouched, with the exception of disbanding the two SAS reserve regiments. One of the things that sets the special forces apart from the rest is the amount and quality of the training they conduct. I fail to see how you can be a part time soldier while still maintaining the very high standards demanded of such a regiment.

At this point you’d do well to bear in mind the story that I included earlier by Ken Connor. The Special Forces would be required to do plenty of work overseas as an effective extension of the diplomatic arm, to build relations. If all the story are true then this is roughly what happens anyway. In the age we live in now the need for high quality bodyguards and counter-terrorist teams has never been more acute.

Brazil is an excellent example. In the run up to the 2014 World Cup they’re on a mission to clear some of the major slums around many of the big cities, sending in highly trained police teams to deal with the armed gangs that make their homes in such places. Brazil is also preparing its counter-terrorist forces for their biggest operation to date in guarding the event.

Mexico is another example. The country has experienced quite significant economic growth in recent years and is gradually building a pretty sophisticated manufacturing base. But all of that work could eventually be undermined by the rampant violence and in-fighting that occurs between the various major drug gangs in the country. A well trained hostage rescue and intelligence gathering force would be a major boost.

Although both countries are not exactly on the top of the list of future British Allies, at least not from a military perspective, they do both provide interesting examples of how British Special Forces can be deployed in such a way as to win the ear of Foreign Heads of State, which can lead to future basing deals, military cooperation, diplomatic support and even economic/commercial gain. Indeed all the arms of the forces would be involved in such “diplomatic” training activities.

Next up we need to talk vehicles, and with Afghanistan winding down decisions would also have to be taken as to which vehicles are worth bringing back and which are probably better left with the Afghan security forces. Vehicles like the Foxhound, Husky, Mastiff and Jackal are a double edged sword as far as I can see.

On the one hand we have them now and there is the possibility of integrating them into the main army. On the other hand many are badly worn and some are considered of dubious utility outside of the Afghanistan theatre, and that’s before we get into the logistics or trying to support such a diverse range of vehicles (the anti-thesis of TD’s “ruthless commonality” mantra).

For me their use after the Afghanistan war basically would involve the Mastiff, Ridgeback, Wolfhound and Foxhound vehicles being assigned to the light infantry as in order to provide them with a degree of protected mobility, with the Jackal’s and Husky’s  being transferred to the reconnaissance regiments.

This decision basically stems from the fact that the Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) has – to date – chewed up significant sums of cash with no discernable results, while among our commentators here at Think Defence we have James, who has experience with this kind of thing and has suggested the Jackal as a prospective scout vehicle.

Of course that still leaves us with the problematic situation of what to do about the Bulldog vehicle, which it was hoped FRES could one day replace.

The solution I’ve settled on is for a new vehicle, something under 20 tonnes. All I want is a vehicle that has good mobility, range and the ability to protect its crew from small arms fire and shell fragments, with the ability to be upgraded with armour packages in much the same way as our current Protected Patrol Vehicle (PPV) fleet can.

Variants would include infantry carrier, command, recce, light ambulance/medical evacuation, anti-tank and recovery. An air defence variant would be an absolute bonus. But recce, infantry carrier and anti-tank take priority.

I want to re-emphasise the point that I don’t want a tank. I don’t want a “medium weight” beast. This vehicle is designed to replace the Bulldog and the various FV432 variants, not the Challengers. For comparison purposes, the RG-35 by BAE Land Systems South Africa would be coming close to the heaviest end of the scale that I would except, at about 18 tonnes. Whatever it is, it also needs a tow hook for Jed’s mortars!

The full Warrior Capability Sustainment Program (WCSP) would go ahead as planned, including all the various Armoured Battlefield Support Vehicles (ABSV). I’d also want to have a closer look at the 155mm Archer artillery system for the Royal Artillery (already on order for Sweden and Norway) as a future replacement for the AS 90.

The Challenger tank would get it’s Challenger Lethality Improvement Program (CLIP) authorised, fitting a slightly modified version of the 120mm Rheinmetall L55 smoothbore gun (as used on the Leopard 2A6), plus a power pack upgrade in the form of the “EuroPowerPack” (made entirely in Germany…), which provides 1,500 hp in a smaller unit, with better fuel efficiency.

As for helicopters, the Army Air Corps would retain it‘s current and planned assets of Lynx and Apache. The Army would also get its full compliment of Watchkeeper drones that are on order.

Looking into the future of the army, perhaps 2020 and beyond, I’d be keen to take the opportunity to invest in three completely new tank regiments to supplement those already in existence. The idea would be to take one of the armoured infantry battalions out of one of the armoured infantry brigades listed above and just put it to one side for a second.

In it’s place I’d put one of my new tank regiments, creating a proper spearhead armoured brigade that had two tank regiments and one armoured infantry battalion. The spare infantry battalion that I put aside would now be put in a new armoured brigade with the other two new tank regiments. This brigade would also need its own formation reconnaissance regiment, so I suspect the 9^th/12^th Royal Lancers would be split back into the 9^th Queens Royal Lancers and the 12^th Royal Lancers to accommodate this.

I’d also like to see the light infantry expanded yet further, with another 9 battalions raised to help the formation of 3 new Light Brigades, taking the total number of light brigades to ten. Further, consideration would be given in consultation with the Army about reducing the length of operational tours from six to four months, in order to combat stress and fatigue in the service while hoping to improve retention rates.

Right, now if you’d kindly wipe that face paint off and stop hiding in that bush, we’re off to sea.

Royal Navy

We’ll start then right at the heart of the matter… the Type 26 Frigate.

Simply put, I think the Type 26 has the potential to be the F-16 of the naval world. Not quite as numerous, I’ll grant you, but if done right I believe Type 26 could be a big seller and would finally put a sock in BAE’s mouth about the demise of British ship building, a tenuous argument at best.

Anyway, Type 26.

Basically I would like to play this smart and if it was me pulling the strings and writing the checks then I would be very keen to achieve a balance between what is acceptable for UK defense and what is best for UK plc. That means working in partnership with the prime contractor to ensure that Type 26 is capable of properly fitting the needs of the Royal Navy without adding so much cost as to drive away other potential users.

The cornerstone of this is to ensure that the ship doesn’t get dragged off into being some kind of 21^st century battleship. I greatly fear more than anything the tag that has been attached to Type 26 of being a “general combat ship” or “general purpose frigate”. That to me absolutely smells of the possibility of creep in the design.

Let’s be clear. It’s an Anti-Submarine Frigate first, after which it becomes just a general, run of the mill patrol frigate for basic tasking. That has to be the core of the design. For that reason I would – in my now quite literal fantasy fleet – seek to have Type 26 primarily built around three features; low acoustic signature, the Type 2087 towed sonar Array and the provision of torpedoes.

Now obviously an anti-submarine vessel such as this needs a decent attack sonar too, which is a given, plus room in the hanger for a Merlin helicopter to supplement the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) role, but ideally – and given the breadth of potential customers – it should be capable of handling a Chinook helicopter on the flight deck, even if not being able to store it.

Radar would be provided by the BAE Artisan 3D radar, which I believe is being fitted gradually to a number of Type 23 frigates already. Missile wise I’d like to see Type 26 fitted with the Sylver A50 Vertical Launch System (VLS), which is the same missile cells currently used on Type 45. It can hold both the Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles (which share a common “dart”, just a different booster) as well as being able to take a quad pack of the planned Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) which is a radar guided derivative of the Advanced Short Range Air-Air Missile (ASRAAM) in service now with the RAF.

Notice here that I’ve deliberately avoided both the Sylver A70 launcher and the American Mk.41 VLS, precisely because I’m not interested in over burdening the design with land attack capabilities. I also quite fancy the internal volume that would be saved, which is why I’d like to see the next design choice incorporated, one that is likely to get some people hot under the collar.

See I’d quite like to see Type 26 sacrifice the traditional forward gun mount in favour of a Goalkeeper Close-In Weapons System (CIWS).

The reason for this is two fold. First, like I said, I want that premium internal space that would be saved from reduced deck penetration. Secondly, I just don’t think the Naval Gunfire Support (NGS) role justifies the expense of a large main gun, especially when the loss of space is factored in. The use of this feature has been somewhat limited in the past, and it’s arguable that the need for the ships to close with the shore for bombardment purposes puts them at an unacceptable disadvantage against air and land based attacks.

So why all the desire for free space? Well the more stuff that can be piled up down the front end of the vessel, the more room there is at the back for an empty mission deck, onto which could be loaded vehicles if a suitable ramp facility was provided, maybe ISO containerised systems (Rules of getting an article published on TD, #1; mention ISO containers!) or even just serve as a temporary accommodation space for embarked troops, supplies, or some kind of make shift casualty receiving area. The flexibility to various customers, including the Royal Navy, will be a great selling point.

I’d also like to see two ramps incorporated into the back of the vessel, likely behind or possibly underneath the flight deck, each capable of the rapid launch and recovery of small boats. For an example of what I‘m talking about, take a look at this YouTube video of the new Gowind Offshore Patrol Vessel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bad computer graphics aside, you can see that the back end of the finished vessel has a definitive split for the two ramps. This would permit a multi-mission capability, where on ASW missions a rig for the Type 2087 sonar could be installed on one side, while still allowing the other to be used for a small craft or indeed for a second sonar unit if you so desired. On general patrol missions, or for foreign customers, both ramps could be used for boats.

As for number of vessels, the Type 26 would be bought at the very least as like for like replacements of the Type 23, with the strong possibility of additional purchases if the costs could indeed be kept down. The Type 23 is not due out of service for many years yet, so there is plenty of time to get this relatively more simple vessel ready. In the meantime the Type 23’s would be supported and upgraded as needed, including the integration of the CAMM, which almost doubles the air defence range compared to Sea Wolf.

Now I guess we had better stop dodging the bullet and tackle the Carrier issue?

So we basically have one Carrier on the way, the Queen Elizabeth, and another which has had the steel cut and some work started. And unless someone else plans on stumping up the cash to buy it – in which case they’re more than welcome to support British industry – then work would be stopped and Prince Of Wales would be cancelled outright.

Queen Elizabeth would be taken into service, she‘s basically too far along now it would seem… and be plopped right into extended readiness. Unless of course someone wants to buy her, which again they are more than welcome to.

The argument that she could be used as an Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) was one that sounded very appealing at first. I sat and thought about it; 40 helicopters! That’s enough space for an Apache Squadron, a Merlin Squadron, and two Squadrons of transport helicopters such as Puma. Quite a hefty capability.

But then it occurred to me, how many of those could be operated at any one time? What would they do all day? And could we find alternative platforms to operate helicopters from in the short term, knowing that Queen Elizabeth could be brought up to speed in emergency situations if needed?

The answer I think is; yes.

Take the two Albion Class Landing Pad Docks (LPD). They have no hangar, but do have plenty of space on deck for helicopter operations. Currently they are operating on the basis of one at sea, one in extended readiness. In 2014 HMS Bulwark is due to go in and HMS Albion will come out (HMS Bulwark is the current Flagship). This policy would be kept going for the foreseeable future.

HMS Illustrious, the former “through deck cruiser” turned LPH, is due to be decommissioned in 2014. This plan would be scrapped and she would be kept instead be put into a state of extended readiness, with a bit of servicing just to eek out a bit more life. The Amphibious Assault Ship/LPH HMS Ocean will have just come out of it’s planned refit in time to take over. These ships would be kept in service, providing the core of the deployable maritime helicopter force, until replaced by a new Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) vessel. And as it just so happens, I know where we can find one.

Or two.

http://www.baesystems.com/Businesses/SurfaceShips/PlatformsandProgrammes/AmphibiousVessels/index.htm

Missile defense systems, guns for self protection, room for 250 tons of stores, can carry 800 troops, enhanced damage control features, an on board surgery, X-ray machine, intensive care unit, pharmacy and even a dentist, with thought given in the design for disaster relief operations from the start, along with a vehicle deck and facilities, plus a well deck and davits for landing craft. 

We can even call them Ark Royal and Hermes if it makes people happy. Maybe Eagle?

This – in my opinion – is much more in keeping with the kind of operations that the UK actually conducts and is likely to conduct. In the future it’s also conceivable that they could carry the F-35B, once cost and risk has gone down. The above linked ship would provide the rough standard for the tender and the goal would be to bring the first vessel into service, at which point Illustrious would be sold off/broken up and Ocean would be taken out of service, but not completely dumped, not until the seconf LHD had arrived.

In addition, and especially in light of the recent TD article surrounding the plans of fitting the AN/APG-81 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar to Merlin helicopters in the form of the Lockheed Martin Vigilance Pod, the Navy would be tasked with leading the drive to introduce the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) which would eventually to span the entire British armed forces. This would permit CEC equipped helicopters like Merlin to monitor an air threat axis for targets, sharing targeting data with Type 45/Type 23/Type 26 combat vessels.

To accommodate this some Merlin helicopters would be set aside to fulfil the dedicated role of a Fleet Airborne Warning Squadron (FAWS). In addition to providing radar coverage for a task force, the FAWS would also be able to use the air to ground modes of their AN/APG-81’s to assist land based forces and to enhance the intelligence picture for ground commanders who are about to commit forces ashore. 

The transfer of upgraded Merlin’s from the RAF to the RN would go ahead as is currently planned, with a goal to upgrading these helicopters a little further in order to integrate the Sea Skua anti-shipping missile.

Of course at this point and before I meander off too far, there are still two questions to be answered. One is what will be built in the place of the second carrier, because presumably British ship building will be threatened once again (despite the ongoing construction of the Astute-class submarines, the start of the Type 26 project and the plans for the LHD). The second is what becomes of the F-35?

The answers are 1) Type 45 and 2) dead.

Number two will be addressed in more detail later when we get round to the RAF. Suffice to say that the Royal Navy would now transfer its unneeded Hawk trainers to the RAF, retaining only those that they require for the training of crews in air defence and ground (fleet?) controlled intercepts. Number one however is something I’m fairly adamant about.

The Type 45 has turned out to be something of a success, despite the government cut backs which have seen program costs spread across half as many vessels as originally planned and bad press that doesn‘t reflect the progressive approach to fitting the ships out with various weapon systems.

The ship builds upon many of the lessons learned over the years and has apparently been doing rather well on exercises involving the United States, with Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope commenting just this October in an interview with Defense News that “We still dine out on being told “could we please switch off our system because we were constraining the training.” We are proud of that, and that shows that we are playing in the right ballpark”. I’m sure the Admiral meant to say cricket ground, a temporary slip of the tongue.

(On a brief note, how much does that above quote suggest the Americans are still yet to learn the lessons of Millennium Challenge ‘02?)

I still think Type 45 has some growth to it and that comes predominantly from fitting the vessels with Harpoon launchers to give them a proper Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) capability, and in the case of my fantasy fleet building a Block II/Mark II/Flight II/Stand II/Timbuck II class of two more vessels, which apart from coming “fitted with from the start” with torpedoes and Harpoon, would also come with 16 shiny new Sylver A70 VLS cells, the space for which has been provisioned between the current VLS and the 4.5” gun.

The Sylver A70 is compatible with the Aster 30, but apparently not the Aster 15? Still, if an all Aster load were used then there would be room for 64 missiles. The A70 cell is also compatible with the CAMM quad pack, should you so chose to misuse these cells.

Of the course the main reason for fitting the A70 cells is to permit the use of future upgrades of the Aster family that are expected to introduce a dedicated Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) version, and for using the naval variant of the Storm Shadow Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) used by the RAF, that has now been tested in both a vertical launch cell and from the torpedo tube of a French attack submarine (SCALP-N).

And for similar reasons to the ones stated in the Type 26 section, the 4.5” main gun would be removed and replaced with a Goalkeeper CIWS, which combined with the aft CIWS should preclude the need to carry two on the sides. The original six Type 45’s would be refitted at the earliest opportunity to match this new batch/standard.

Moving on and the current fleet of Astute-class submarines is expected to end at 7 (Astute, Ambush, Artful, Audacious, Anson, Agamemnon, Ajax). There is a problem though. Recently it was revealed that the government – in its infinite wisdom – has decided to slow down the pace of submarine production, incurring a cost that would be sufficient to buy an extra boat and still have some spare change. The reason for this is to avoid a gap in submarine construction between the Astute-class and the replacement vessels for Vanguard.

Thanks to that bit of budget fudging I’ve now got room to speed production back up again and essentially get an eighth boat for free. What’s more I’m going to order – at the very least – another four. This seems like an optimistic thing to suggest, given the state of the budget, but I’m going to pay for it by toying with the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent.

Simply put, the chances of the UK activating its Continuous At Sea Deterrent (CASD) in a unilateral manner are basically non-existent. The CASD is a true relic of the cold war and doesn’t properly reflect the position we find ourselves in now. That’s not to say that we don’t need nuclear weapons as the ultimate weapon of self defence, merely that they can be employed in a cheaper and more realistic manner.

That manner is a cruise missile derived system, designed not so much to seek retribution against an initial attack (though that is an option), but more along the lines of being able to light up any potential threat to our Sovereignty.

This new deterrent would take the dual form of submarine carried weapons and air launched weapons, similar to the French system. The air launched side of the issue will be handled later when I get round to the RAF but for now, suffice to say that the Astute class would become the bearers of this new weapon. It would naturally be made very clear to the world that these were weapons of self defense, not aggression, and that the then current at sea submarine tasked with carrying them would never be sent to a conventional theatre of operations, lest anyone start getting nervous.

This would basically remove the need for a Vanguard and Trident replacement, with a much lower cost alternative that would still be able to provide the ultimate deterrence against hostility towards our homeland.

Come 2020 a study would be kicked off (of course the basic work can begin now) regarding an Astute replacement. If it can vertically launch cruise missiles instead of having to shove them out of the torpedo tubes then mores the better.

Next up is the Type 42 Destroyers which are due out of service completely very soon, being replaced one for one by the Type 45. My line of thinking here is just out of pure curiosity surrounding how much life their hulls have left in them and whether they could be stripped of most of their fancy stuff and left with a very basic fit out of defences, allowing conversion into either Fast Armed Transports (that would spend a lot of their remaining life milling around at base until needed), Electronic and Signals Surveillance Vessels, or even conversion to small scale hospital/medical ships, for a bit of medical diplomacy around Africa and South East Asia.

The future of Mine Countermeasures and Hydrographic Survey would be pooled into one ship, which I believe is the current plan anyway. This vessel should be built to meet the Mine Hunting/Countermeasures role first, Hydrographic second, and a third minor capability for use in fisheries patrol etc, which should help to give it a boost on the international market. And when I say minor patrol role, I mean minor. A 20-30mm forward gun, plus some medium (7.62mm) machine guns for protection should suffice. A small sum would be spent on research into Laser Bathymetry and Synthetic Aperture Sonar, as highlighted in Article 10 of TD’s “Future of the Royal Navy” series. The total purchase would be on the order of 20-30 vessels, depending on the Navy’s requirements.

We near the end of the Royal Navy section by looking at the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), an organisation that continues to baffle me. I understand that the Auxiliary are civilians, but the organisation is beholden to the military? I will need an adequate explanation from someone with more knowledge on this matter as to why the RFA couldn’t just be merged into the Royal Navy, becoming the floating equivalent of the Royal Logistic Corps.

As for their vessels, the three Bay-class Landing Ship Dock (LSD), capable of deploying the Mexeflote,  would be reduced to one at sea, one kept in extended readiness, with a rotation taking place every few years (Rules for getting an article published on Think Defence, #2; mention Mexeflotes). The third vessel would be scrapped/sold. The RFA would also be provided with a two ship class to replace RFA Diligence, the fleets at sea repair vessel. Like Diligence, these would be required to meet the highest standards of ice breaking. A long term plan to replace the Navy’s sole casualty receiving ship RFA Argus (due out of service in 2020) would also be put in place.

The main decision however that will define the future of the RFA is that of the Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) program, to replace many of the RFA’s smaller and older vessels. My thinking on this is simple; the Wave-class Fast Fleet Tankers have proven to be very capable and versatile vessels so I would simply ask the makers – BAE (I thought British ship building was dying?) – to create a new class of six vessels based off the Wave-class, preferably ones that have a degree of flexibility in terms of the proportion of liquid versus solid goods that can be carried. Again, the details of this are something that would require an experienced hand to guide me.

Right. Take that cardigan off, leave your fisherman’s friends at check in and pull your goggles down, because things are about to take off!

Royal Air Force

We might as well attack the burning issue head on this time, that being the fate of the F-35 Lightning II and the wider question of Carrier strike. As mentioned earlier, under the “Chris.B. reforms” HMS Queen Elizabeth would be effectively laid up. Carrier Strike would continue to be absent as result from the Royal Navies arsenal. It would remain that way for the foreseeable future.

In short, in my estimate Carrier air is not essential to our defence, it’s a luxury. Our ability to deploy Harriers over the last 30 or so years has been greatly beneficial, as carrier based striking power always will be, but not essential. There was no mission that failed without the presence of a carrier. For all the talk of the Falklands War, Harriers contributed a little over one-third of all Argentine aviation losses. Given the budget situation then I do not believe the best way to spend that money is to purchase two carriers, spend what seems like a grossly over priced sum to fit them with Cats and Traps (see the recent Parliamentary Answers for details) and then equip them with F-35 fighters.

From the Royal Air Force’s perspective though that puts them in something of a quandary. Because while not doubt the officers mess is currently ringing to the sound of Champagne corks popping and cheers of “hurrah for the Chris.B. reforms!”, there will be a moment when one bright spark suddenly stops mid sip, calls for a hush and then points out that without the F-35 there may be no Fleet Air Arm… but there will also be no Tornado replacement for the RAF either.

Champagne down.

On checking the document again what they’d see is that in fact the Tornado will be replaced, just not with the F-35 and not in similar numbers. See I’ve been doing some numbers and based on the available data, there is simply no point in replacing Tornado with the F-35, be it the A, B or C version. When overall performance is combined with the future weapons load out of Typhoon and compared against initial purchasing, training and long term maintenance costs, it makes just as much sense to stick with Typhoon.

Simply put, the Typhoon is better. The F-35 will still be a very capable aircraft, I even wrote an article to that effect a while back. But with the need to operate from Carriers removed an enlarged Typhoon buy makes a lot of sense for the RAF, as well as the heavy involvement of British industry. It’s win-win in my eyes. There fore a Tranche 3 Typhoon purchase would be made to replace the Tornadoes, with the purchase of around 72 aircraft to provide (on paper at least) six squadrons, down from the estimated original F-35 purchase of 150 airframes.

But with great (combat) power comes great responsibility and that means a few things need to be addressed.

The hotels situation for a start. Suffice to say that if accommodation cannot be found on base or next to it, then the two factors of location and minimal cost to the taxpayer should converge beautifully to divert personnel away from anything with more than two stars above the door. I’m also yet to see a satisfactory explanation as to why Group Captains command wings, Wing Commanders are put in charge of Squadrons and Squadron Leaders command flights (what are all the Flight Lieutenants doing?).

Getting into the more serious business, there needs to be a fundamental shift in priority at the highest levels towards the various roles that the RAF performs outside of interceptions. As I said earlier the RAF should be considered doctrinally as an organisation that seizes and then exploits the aerial flank in support of operations on the ground.

To this end I’m planning something a little nefarious and involves a stalwart of the RAF and an export success story; the BAE Hawk.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Oman have all purchased a version of the Hawk known as Hawk 200. This is a single seat variant, with greater range owing to slightly higher fuel capacity and a slightly modified wing. It’s capable of carrying short range air to air missiles, Maverick air to ground missiles and even a Sea Eagle anti-shipping missile on the central pylon. Radar wise it’s fitted with a modified APG-66, similar to the one fitted onto Argentine Skyhawks. It can also fitted with a refuelling probe.

Personally I think a batch of these would go down nicely for some Quick Reaction Alert duties. It’s cheaper to fly, cheaper to maintain, and frees up the Typhoon fleet for more pressing matters such as training alongside the army and navy. I understand that its climb rate isn’t what you’d expect out of an interceptor, mainly because an interceptor it is not.

But I personally believe that for shadowing Russian airborne patrols and acting as a squadron of air support for the Falklands (as opposed to a flight) it is more than adequate, and in the case of the Falklands may bizarrely be more capable on account of its ability to carry an anti-shipping missile.

Now, while the ability to obtain air superiority/supremacy is important, it also needs to be acknowledged that Close Air Support (CAS) for the army, transport and ISTAR are all of equal importance.

That starts with the RAF needing to properly fund the ability of Typhoon to use the full gamut of air-to-ground munitions, including Brimstone, all marks of the Paveway bombs that are kept in the inventory, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, the development of a comparable sensor pod to the Tornadoes RAPTOR, and the funding of a replacement for the Air Launched Anti-Radiation Missile (ALARM) which would equal that missile in terms of operating modes (such as the “loiter” capability) while also improving on range. The RAF would also need to dig out the gunnery manuals and get cracking on some air-to-ground gunfire support.

It also means taking greater strides to increase cooperation with the little green and dark blue men who march or sail beneath them as they whiz through the skies. One of the complaints for example that seems to repeatedly come up is the time lag between the collection of data by RAPTOR in Afghanistan and its arrival at the those places where the information is most desperately needed. This fundamentally has to change. The RAF needs to get deadly serious about how it interacts with and supports the Army and Navy.

I’m reminded of the story of Elwood Quesada, who retired from the USAF in 1951 as a Lieutenant-General. During World War Two the then Lieutenant-Colonel Quesada (who would go on to reach the rank of Major-General before the end of the war) became a champion of tactical air support for ground forces, including the conversion of anti-air radars for use by ground controllers to better organise waiting attack aircraft, as well as being the first to institute a policy of using actual trained fighter pilots as forward air controllers in order to improve the coordination and effectiveness of air attacks against ground targets.

While these tactics are common place now, this is the kind of thinking that needs to permeate all levels of the RAF. It needs to be considered a core mission of the RAF, up there with protecting UK airspace. Being directed in against ground targets under the control of a ground director should be as second nature to a pilot, if not more so, as his air-to-air combat skills.

I would also require as part of the “Chris.B. Reforms” that the RAF keep a squadron of Typhoons at permanent readiness, with the ability to deploy at 24 hours notice to a foreign base in support of operations overseas, with the ability to deploy two further squadrons in the following 48 hours if needed. They’ll need tanking support and armaments, with a plan in place to provide rapid resupply as well. In short, if I’m going to take away the Carriers from the Navy then the RAF had better bloody well get very good at replacing them.

The Typhoon would also find itself in the odd situation, something it certainly wasn’t designed for initially, of becoming part of the countries nuclear deterrent. The Typhoon would be required to carry and launch an Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM), probably of new design, which would carry part of the UK deterrent, either at targets approaching through or fixed to mainland Europe, or potentially at a seaborne enemy task force, as part of the organised defence against serious aggression.

Lastly before we leave the land of fighter jets and move on to slower, less sexy machines, we need to address the Tornado again. As I said, I’d like the Tornadoes to be replaced by Typhoons in the long term, but I’d also investigate the possibility of keeping a small compliment of one squadrons worth of Tornadoes (using the out of service machines for spares) for their ability to carry two Storm Shadow missiles, as well the continued use of RAPTOR pods. This is not a high priority though. If it were to go ahead, the option of swapping out the engines for something with a higher by-pass ratio and no afterburner (I’m thinking fuel efficiency here) would be looked at.

Ok, on to the slower and less sexy, less pointy stuff.

The first thing that should leap out here is air to air refuelling and through a cack handed, bodged piece of financial hooliganism the RAF will indeed field 14 Voyager aircraft based on the Airbus A330. My desired plan would be to speak to the group involved with the Private Finance Initiative and see if some accommodation could not be made to allow the RAF to incrementally buy the aircraft over a number of years. It’s perhaps at this point that I should mention that I would permanently ban the MoD from ever again authorising any PFI contract.

To supplement the Voyagers we have the Atlas transport aircraft, more commonly known as the A400M (although “Grizzly” also seems to be gaining traction?). Although these will spend the bulk of their life doing transport work, they can be set up to perform aerial refuelling, a capability which I think would be a huge bonus for them to have, not least in the context of coalition operations. I would also look to extend the Atlas buy, possibly nicking some of the slots that the Germans are trying to sell off to reach a total buy of around 30 aircraft, replacing the venerable Hercules as these aircraft are retired (again, some might be able to be kept to perform AAR).

Continuing the theme of air transport, and in light of the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it might be worth considering the purchase of 3-5 Antonov An-124’s. Hiring them out only when you need them is one strategy and certainly that’s worked ok for us, but the trouble comes that when you urgently need them, often so do other people.

Having a small squadron (flight?) in our back pocket could come in very handy, not least because it’s immense carrying capacity (as much as 150 tons) could realise some long term savings by cutting down the number of flights needed to a given operational theatre, allowing other transport squadrons to ease off the pace and save some of their airframe hours.

For those wagging their fingers and bemoaning the An-124 being out of service, it actually appears that Russia is committed to a purchase of up to 20 new build (An-124-150) aircraft. There was even a proposal put forward a few years ago now to build versions of the aircraft with Rolls-Royce RB-211-524 engines. Perhaps a revival could be on the cards?

For reference, the An 124-150 version has an expected life of around 50,000 flying hours and to give you a few payload over range figures, we’ll use some example ranges that people are likely to be familiar with; roughly 90 tons payload from Ascension Island to the Falklands, or about 130 tons from the UK to Cyprus. Not bad says I.

The biggest gap that currently exists however is the Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) capability now that Nimrod MRA4 has been binned. Most suggestions to replace this aircraft point to the P-8 Poseidon, based on the Boeing 737-800 which has been developed for the US. This also creates an unexpected opportunity because the 737 is also the basis for an Airborne Early Warning & Control aircraft (AEW&C, or AWAC‘s in older parlance), in service now with the Royal Australian Air Force (“Wedgetail”), Turkish Air Force and the Republic of Korea Air Force, whilst also purportedly being evaluated by the Italian and United Arab Emirate air forces.

This would allow one aircraft type to replace two as not only could Nimrod be replaced, but also the aging Sentry AEW&C aircraft could be replaced. I’m intrigued by this, but even more so by the EADS/CASA (Airbus) C-295 aircraft, a twin turbo prop powered light transport aircraft that comes in both MPA and AEW&C versions. The MPA version is in service with Chile and Portugal while the AEW&C version is a recent development incorporating a radar built by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMFQH1tVv-A).

The things that interests me about the C-295 are;

• likely lower running costs for a turbo prop aircraft vs. full turbine,
• reported 11 hour loiter time,
• can purchase base transport variants (71 troops/20,000 lbs payload) as a supplement to lift fleet while still retaining a degree of commonality,
• unlike the Boeing offering, C-295 has a probe for in-flight refuelling allowing its range to be extended by RAF tankers

Likely purchase numbers would be 5 AEW&C and 10 MPA.

Sticking with aircraft of an electronic nature, Sentinel would be kept in service, as would the Shadow (Beechcraft Super King Air), both of which provide valuable ISTAR services. The planned purchase of 5 additional Reaper unmanned observation/strike drones, to go with original 5, would also go ahead.

The RAF would retain its current fleet of Puma and Chinook helicopters, and would also take delivery of a small batch of new Merlin helicopters, enough to replace the old Sea Kings in the Search and Rescue role. Which is where I’m going next with this.

With the RAF operation of the MPA, the RAF would remain partially on the hook for providing the domestic Search and Rescue capability, which would absolutely not be leased out on a Private Finance Initiative (PFI). I say “partially” because the Navy would also need a search and rescue capability for it’s LPH/Future LHD, and because the RAF would also be required to develop a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) component for the recovery of downed pilots.

This would entail the formation of a Joint Search and Rescue (JSAR) team, that would need to field a single class of helicopter (Merlin) suitable for both domestic duties in support of the Coast Guard, military operations from a RN vessel and travelling from a fixed base and penetrating into hostile territory. The frontline military squadrons would regularly rotate through the civilian assistance role.

This is where the RAF Regiment come in, who would retain their role in the protection of UK air bases here and abroad, but would also provide the ground security element to CSAR operations. They’d need to get used to operating off of Navy vessels as part of their role (imagine if a Tornado had gone down over Libya for example).

As for the future of the RAF fast jets, what will happen now that I’ve robbed the UK of its planned stealth aircraft? My preferred option would be to give BAE a call and see if they cant make that rather attractive “Replica” test mock up they have fly…

Space

Not a separate command I know, but I think the MoD should press for extra funding for the UK Space Agency and work with them to develop our satellite communications ability and also to build imaging satellites; some which would point out at the stars so that we might learn more about the universe, and some that will point in at the Earth, so that we might learn more about those that wish us harm.

This has been a reported issue for a while now and though Skynet 5 is supposedly a big improvement on the previous Skynet, you can never have too much bandwidth, especially as the world of the military shifts towards greater numbers of unmanned vehicles.

Industrial

Alright, so again not technically a military issue but the impact of projects for the MoD has a knock on effect, as we’ve seen several times now. Bad projects that over run can slurp up money from the budget that should be spent on getting the correct equipment to the front line.

I think the first that needs to be instituted would be to put the Kybosh of future partnerships with foreign nations on defence projects. The list of problems caused by such collaborations is almost endless. Typhoon took nearly ten years just to get a final agreement done. The Horizon project dragged out many years before we finally left. There are concerns that if the UK buys F-35 then we won’t get software codes vital to ongoing maintenance and upgrades.

The problem is we just can’t agree with the rest of the world on anything. We don’t want gun ports in Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) because we consider such vehicles to be battle taxi’s, not battle stations. We wanted the higher powered radar for the Type 45 because we anticipated situations were we would use it away from carrier support and where it would need to throw up a much wider anti-air umbrella than our Italian or French counterparts needed. We insist on putting Boiling Vessels inside just about anything that moves.

The whole point of these partnerships was to reduce costs by spreading out the load. The end result has been the reverse, with costs spiralling at every turn as projects get endlessly delayed while countries fight over the details. That has to stop.

As does the delays part. This is a government failing and I accept that the MoD has little sway over this, but the endless stream of delaying projects and extending out the builds in order to shave off chunks of money in each individual fiscal year, while piling up the costs in the long run, has to stop.

In addition, the way we put together contracts has to change, accepting realistic cost estimates from industry in exchange for full auditing of their spending and sub contracting on MoD work, to the last man hour.

Retention

We need to make the British armed forces the employer of choice for bright young people in the UK, which means emphasising the various skills they can earn and promoting a better understanding of how valuable those skills are to civilian employers, especially some of the higher paid, more technical jobs. One impression that I’m always left with after watching any recruitment advert (for any service) on the telly is how little attention is given to the range of qualifications that can be earned by armed services personnel. I think if more young people understood the advantages that they would have post-service, then they would be more inclined to sign up.

Conclusions

The purpose of all this has been to develop a military fit for the 21^st century, capable on land, sea and in the air, able to deploy a division sized force of either a light or heavy nature, with special forces support, strike aircraft and ISTAR assets attached, with the way being prepared by Naval TLAM strikes

In addition to the military side though I think the senior officers should be pushing the government actively to look at things like energy security in a more – and I hate this word – “holistic” manner. That means, for example, giving the guys at Green-Tide Turbines in Cambridgeshire a call and asking them what they mean when they say they’ve developed a 5Kw tidal turbine that can be laid safely on the bottom of most river beds (like the Thames for example) and can generate electricity much cheaper and more reliably than wind turbines.

Or they could just ask the government to fund defence properly.

The current funding situation faced by the armed forces is shocking. This is not a nation at peace, this is a nation at war. Coupled with how keen politicians seem to be to throw our military weight around at any and all opportunities, it is bordering on the criminal that they are so poorly funded.

At a time when foreign aid money has pushed over £6 billion and is projected to rise to over £9 billion by 2015, along with contributions to the EU (post rebate) of about the same figure, I find it hard to believe that “we are all in this together”. The country knew from the start that wasn’t the case, but now it’s frankly taking the piss.

This government, like governments before it, likes to act is if we are a mini-USA. If that is the case and indeed to the government truly wants to flex it’s military might at will across the globe, then may I suggest increasing funding to around 4% of GDP, as our American cousins do, which would put defence spending back up closer to £50-60 billion per year.

 I’ll finish with another quote from that Ken Connor book I was talking about earlier, something that we’ve all become accustomed to by now.

“The amount of in-fighting that goes on between the different branches of the forces, even in the face of a campaign like the Falklands War, would shock the British public.” 

You can buy Ken Connor’s book “Ghost Force – the secret history of the SAS” from Amazon, at this link;

Thank you everyone who commented, requested clarification and helped, I’m resubmitting with explanations, detail and the pound of flesh Jed demanded J

So here goes

I’d start, with the “war fleet”, of which we would have two, each one “active” for 6 months of the year, or 8 months, or 4 months, or whatever else makes everyone happy.

Active would be “ready to at short notice go and beat some unfortunate foreigners to a bloody pulp”.

Inactive would be everything else, overhaul, training, diplomacy, exercises ect.

The Carrier and fast air is I hope fairly self explanatory, shoot down enemy aircraft, possibly bomb enemy targets, provide close air support and reconnaissance.

It’s the QE class, because that’s what we have, and the Rafale, because I believe thatFranceandGermanyare about to have a massive falling out, and we’ll buy it hoping to influence French opinion in our favour.

I assume some sort of ISTAR platform will also arrive, hopefully not that silly Sea King, but have no real idea whether we will end up with the Hawkeye, something funky based on the V22 or something else entirely.

This will also function as the flag ship, to what extent that means anything anymore

The Amphibs, the reasoning behind numbers simply being so that the entire force could be landed in a single group.  Well, obviously not quite, a single group, each ships group of four Chinook would need to make 5 trips to offload the ship “battalion” and even with 4 LCUs it would take 13 trips to deposit the 50 warriors of an armoured infantry battalion.  But we’re talking 11 hours rather than the 11 days Sutton took, or so I hope.  To my none military mind, that sounds like a smashing capability.  I’m wedded to neither Bay nor Carlos, feel free to suggest better ships, or just assume they are better.  I’d much prefer something with a much greater cargo handling capacity, but am open to a third heavy landing ship specifically to vomit ISO boxes onto a beach.

Why Chinook?  Again, its that realism (lol) bit, I’d prefer a bigger lift, I’m sure that there is something bigger than the CH53-k planned in the long term, but we have Chinooks.

AAW Destroyers

Standard Darings, so PAAMS, a gun and a Lynx.  Bow Sonar, Harpoons, Torpedo tubes ect would be nice, but not worth squabbling over.  There purpose is, rather predictably, to shoot down enemy aircraft that Carrier Air misses.  Why Lynx?  Why not?  Again, I’ve just taken it “as is”

ASW Frigates

Daring Hulls with towed array sonar, bow Sonar, torpedo tubes, Harpoon (or similar), a gun and a dumbed down PAAMS (would be nice if it can still speak to PAAMS for a joint radar picture) and ASW Merlins because again, that’s what we have.  Why Daring hulls, well, because steel is cheap and air is free and we already designed the things and made the tools.  Purpose, sub hunting and “sacrificial” outer pickets

Missile Cruisers

Daring hulls, a dumbed down PAAMS and say, 256 cruise missiles each.

Purpose is to provide a massive opening barrage that even the most phallicly challenged would be satisfied with.  Shock and Awe gets kind of a bad deal, but if anything, it worked too well.  Destroy out enemy air capability, either direct hits on aircraft, or just by knocking out airfields.  Yes I know, airfields can be repaired, but BROACH is going to seriously damage an airstrip, and if you put 50 holes in an airport, just how quickly can it start launching aircraft again?  How many military airports is the other side likely to have.  Don’t we have 4?

On top of that, command links are an obvious target to bombard.

After that, its hard to say, it really depends on the situation.  Are we issuing a “back the hell off” warning, or do we intend to topple the government come hell or high water.  Transport links, mobilised ground forces, “die hard” military, infrastructure.  Communications are iffy.  We certainly want them disrupted, but I can see the advantage in allowing just enough to survive to allow terror to spread through the ranks, what’s the point in winning if the people shooting back don’t realise its time to give up .  Personally, I think slaughtering a load of conscripts is a bit unfair, I’d much rather they rebelled and joined us or buggered off home.

SSGN

Astutes with 4/6/8 Trident Tubes.  Iffy I know due to nuclear/none nuclear issues.

Purchase Cost is now £37,168,000,000 and operating costs £4,102,000,000 for each of the two fleets.

These would kick the doors in, deploy a pocket division and support it in theatre, as part of a coalition, great, or alone if required.

Said Pocket Divison, I know even less about, but I would put manpower somewhere around 5000, and would hope it contained some heavy armour, some IFV and a rather large light infantry component.

The original suggestion was 10 “Battalions” each of roughly 500 men.

Armour Battalion.

Now, this, is probably going to sound really really really stupid, but since no one will provide more accurate numbers, you’ll just have to live with it.

12 Challenger 2s, 24 CVRTs (and a replacement PDQ), unknown number of logistics/engineering vehicles and a 500 strong crew.

I realise its not exactly Kursk, but until the enemy can get heavy and/or numerous anti tank weapons into the area, and if/until it gets its own armour into the area, 12 Tanks are likely to be a bloody scary force.

I’m not a massive fan of electronic land scouts, if you want to see what’s going on on the ground, its likely to involve being shot at and shooting back.  Or so my “land warfare papers” tell me.  Not that I have a problem sticking longbow on top of the 4 Chally leaders and some audio grabbers on the rest.

2 Armoured Infantry Battalions,

Fairly easy, 50 warriors a piece, each with 7 dismounts and three crew.  I realise theres a logistical failing there, I may have a solution.  I can only hope 10 guys have the technical wherewithal to keep a warrior serviceable for a few weeks.

An Artilery Battalion

12 Rapier

12 AS90

12 105

I figure they don’t all have to in use at the same time?

4 Light infantry battalions (possibly one Para and one RM special forces lite)

I’m quite happy to distribute weapons to whoever wants them, I don’t really get why we have separate SHORAD/LRATGW troops.  Motorised, (landrovers) rather than Mechanised (bulldogs).  I kinda figure these can follow on behind the Armoured infantry, making sure logistics keeps functioning, manning strong points after the warriors seize them ect.

An Engineer Battalion

I kinda figure these would like, build a port/dock type thing, or operate a pre existing one, deal with damaged vehicles and maybe logistics?

And a “Headquarters” Battalion

Which would cover command, signals, medical and I suppose an RMP detachment.

Its interesting to note the entire Royal Marines budget in 08/09 was £620mn, I assume that includes Warthog/Viking ect. 6 Royal Marine Brigades of over 8,000 men would come in at a mere 3bn.  Unless the Army funds any RM work  Do the RM have any sort of organic engineer capability?

I’m happy to break the Engineer Battalion down into REME/Eng/Log Detachments if that improves things

So anyway, what does the Strategic Raiding Pocket Division do?

Well, my thinking was based on the Falklands, roughly fight a 120 day “war” that involves around 30 days of positioning (sailing there), 30 preparatory work (bombing everything), a further 30 days of high intensity fighting (shooting anyone who hasn’t yet surrendered) and then a further 30 days of “clean up” and awaiting relief (tea and medals).

But in the real world, I suppose the first “big” task, is it in a single stroke solves Europes Rapid Reaction Force problem.  It provides a force the rest ofEuropecan latch onto if and when it decides it wants to do something violent.

Perhaps its “headquarters” aren’t big enough for this?  I don’t know, the huge command staffs in NATO armies confuse me, I cant remember the last time my line manager told me to do something, I occasionally bug her for help, but maybe once a month?  Even if it cant “command” a division, its certainly the forced entry / teeth components of one.  I don’t know enough to create deployable divison HQs

As a NATO component, it would counter attack against the Northern Fleet in Murmansk Oblast, which would hopefully have a “Pariseffect” on the Russian leadership and force a ceasefire.  It wouldn’t matter if they were at the very gates ofBerlin, withoutMurmansk, they don’t have a nuclear deterrent inEuropeand so would be forced to retreat back to pre war borders.

In the future?

Well, who knows what the future holds, but I cant imagine we will ever be in a position where we have too much forced entry capability, currently only the US can do that at any scale, and France on a small scale.

Nor do I imagine that we will ever be in a position where we have too much available firepower.

It gives us the capability to act alone in protection of our interests, and to enable our allies to act in coalition interests, we bombard the target to create a crack, go in first and seize a port, they follow on and overwhelm the defences entirely.

It was mentioned that “what we really need, is forward based allies”, and I very much agree.  But what is more likely to win us friends overseas than both the capability my fleet represents, and the commitment to use it?

What would make Chile feel more secure?  The status quo?  Or my fleet?

The lead elements held at 2 days readiness and taking an active role in combat 10 days later (northernArgentinacomes into range).  Within 30 days, the Pocket Division will have landed in theTierra Del Fuegoand seized the island.  What more could anyone ask?  An armoured division forward deployed inGermanyis only of any use toEastern Europe.  Its very useful to them of course, but only them

Lets assume War betweenIndiaandChina, how should we secure Bangladeshi Independence?  A UN resolution?  A 6 month long build up of ground forces that arrives after the wars over, and would be over ran in days anyway?  Or deploying my Raider Fleet and threatening to join the war against the side that first infringes Bangladeshi neutrality?  We couldnt hope to win a land war against either, or occupy them even if we did, but in the midst of a war, neither can afford us bombing the crap out of their airfields and such, it would be a near instant loss.

In the past?

Libya 2011

Preparation – Bombardment destroys much of theLibyaheavy core.

Invasion – Land forces deployed in support of Libyan rebels, providing logistical support, specialist functions, and for lack of a better term, “Stop Lines”, frequently, the TNC ran out of ammunition, and in the face of a mild counter attack, retreated 200 miles.  If a British Light Infantry Battalion and a couple of Tanks dug in a mile behind the rebel Lines, retreats would have a fixed rally point, behind which we could protect and resupply the rebels.

Iraq 2003?

Shock and Awe – We could have provided far more support in the bombing campaign, fireing some 600+ missiles in a single barrage.

Al-FawPeninsula– Could have been taken without additional US forces.

Basra– Little land contribution, Fast Air from the carriers and transport helicopters possibly detached from the Al-Faw Occupation ground forces.

Umm Qasr – No change (suppose I need to specify some mine sweepers, but they could have come from the Diego Garcia fleet

Occupation – Al Faw, Umm Qasr, training of Iraqi army within that zone.  Someone else would have to manageBasra.

Afghanistan 2001

Shock and Awe – Again, much greater contribution from Submarines, Cruisers and Carrier.  The Carrier allows some recon capability rather than simply destructive force.

Special Forces – Para Battalion can be dropped in with US forces, rest can be airlifted in without heavy equipment once airfield secure.

Occupation – Possible occupation support, again, realism about areas controllable, 20:1 ratio to be respected, which puts Laskhar Gah out of reach, requiring two “Pocket Divisions”.

The Development Solution budget to be put under the control of the PD and spent on their terms, by them if they wish (IE, not sub contracting out toUKstaff who wont leaveKabul).  Personaly, I believe the best bet would have been to erect temporary accommodation, bribe the locals, level the town, and rebuild from the ground up.  Add a curtain wall with towers, train the second sons as a town militia, build in water, sewage, solar lighting, gobar gas and build out narrow alleys, funnels and ambush points.

Sierra Leone

Pretty much do what we did, but on a far grander scale.  Barras unlikely to be required, but doing it with Rafales bombing enemy heavy machine gun posts would no doubt have been much easier.

Kosovo 99

Preceding Bombardment – Carrier air (supported possibly by land fighters) and cruise missile bombardment would be far in excess of what we actually did.

Ground War – Ground forces could have been deployed to directly challenge, or at least threaten, Serbian forces refusing to retreat.

Bosnia 92

Well that was a complete disaster, but who knows what a small but military capable force ready and able to deploy aggressively could have accomplished.  Cant imagine how things would’ve been worse.

Iraq 91

Preceding bombardment.

Much stronger barrage from cruisers perhaps negating need to send tornados against airfields.

Much smaller land component

Falklands 82

Air War – Proper Carrier air defeats Argentine Airforce, cruiser strikes against mainland disable airbases.

Sea War – Argentine fleet forced to port by submarine threat, directed on to target by AWACS

Land War – Availability of armour and helicopter logistics sees Goose Green surrender with little loss.  Remaining Argentine positions fall under combined arms advance, Argentine forces incapable of harming Chieftain, aggressive use of which only curtailed by mine fields.

In the Spirit of Ixions recent threads, I thought I would write down my thoughts on what the UKshould do.  These are my current thoughts, although I claim no ownership of them, and have stolen most of them from others anyway and I am happy to adjust my thinking.

I’ve suggested functions and ship classes, based on what we already own, whats already out there, and what we might conceivably end up with, fell free to make suggestions

I’ve guestimated purchase costs from wikipedia and a few other sources, and operating costs from the 08/09 Mod Accounts.

I’m not wedded to any of these numbers, and will not take it as a personal insult if anyone wishes to suggest better numbers, however I’d rather people didn’t just shout “that’s ****”.

So here goes

I’d start, with the “war fleet”, of which we would have two, each one “active” for 6 months of the year, or 8 months, or 4 months, or whatever else makes everyone happy.

Active would be “ready to at short notice go and beat some unfortunate foreigners to a bloody pulp”.

Inactive would be everything else, overhaul, training, diplomacy, exercises ect.

Purchase Cost for the Two Fleets is £34,168,000,000 and operating costs £3,922,000,000

These would kick the doors in, deploy a pocket division and support it in theatre, as part of a coalition, great, or alone if required.

Said Pocket Divison, I know even less about, but I would put manpower somewhere around 5000, and would hope it contained some heavy armour, some IFV and a rather large light infantry component.

The original suggestion was 10 “Battalions”,

A dedicated Armour Battalion,

2 Armoured Infantry Battalions,

An Artilery Battalion

4 Light infantry battalions (possibly one Para and one RM special forces lite)

An Engineer Battalion

And a “Headquarters” Battalion

Its interesting to note the entire Royal Marines budget in 08/09 was £620mn, I assume that includes Warthog/Viking ect. 6 Royal Marine Brigades of over 8,000 men would come in at a mere 3bn.  Unless the Army funds any RM work  Do the RM have any sort of organic engineer capability?

Added to this, I’d want TD’s precious presence squadrons, however, I’d give them serious teeth.

Base one fleet in theUK, one on Diego Garcia, and just to ensure there are no ‘misunderstandings’, one on theFalklands.

As above, these are just suggestions rather than absolutes, I’d be open to mixing some Bays in there, or something else?  TheUKfleet would probably want more mine hunters than the Diego Fleet and so on.  The SSNs are there to ensure any warship picking a fight with aClydedoesn’t make it home afterwards.  And of course, why not?

I haven’t covered the RAF, at all, and the army in very little detail, but, I have limits.

Feel free to make suggestions and I’ll try and write it up.

If my costings are within reason, and we accept the 6x Royal Marines in place of the army, then the suggestion clocks in at around £14bn per year, compared with the current budget of £17bn.

These posts were started by yours truly thinking about in particular the RN and the numbers game.

One thing led to another and started me thinking about the other forces and defence in general.

I really don’t mind if people disagreed with anything I wrote free country and all that.

I would like to make it clear there is no agenda here to ’cut as such’. Insofar as there are cuts, it is to live within the actual budget. Not some, ’UOR credit card funded’, or fantasy ’If we hang on long enough there will be more money’, budget. I mean the actual Budget.

Within that budget, the idea was that we would have enough money to properly train troops to use the equipment we have, and fund enough real world logistical support for their proper use; and above all else to actually defend this country, from most likely threats.

I notice that such critics as there are of my proposals, some of whom airily assert that you cannot pick your enemies and where and when and how you fight, and the future is uncertain: Do not by and large then put up any likely threats other than the ones I mentioned which require armoured divisions. Although I make it clear that I am not omniscient and am quite happy to be told there are others.

I could not agree about the uncertainty of the future more!

But we cannot have enough men or equipment to be ready to fight any conceivable threat; like I said the Martians could land in the car park tomorrow, anyone suggesting a space lazar program?

As for the SDR style reassessment of the UK’s foreign commitments I make no apologies:-

• Just because we do business somewhere.
• Just because we are in NATO
• Just because we are 2^nd best mates with the USA.
• Just because wherever was once pink on a map.
• Just because there is trouble in some third world toilet
• Just because the umpteenth round of massacre and counter massacre kicks off, in some ethnic / religious war that has been going on for centuries; and will be going on long after our great grandchildren are dead .
• Just because the USA wants to go and kill someone.
• Just because we are ‘globally engaged‘. (Whatever that means).
• Just because WASAWPYK. (We Are Still A World Power You Know).

Trying run some sort of barging basement superpower capability is just dumb. Really

dumb.

We are ‘Bloody Belgium’. We could also be Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil etc etc etc.

Specific posts

I think it’s fair to say that the Army and the Air force posts were not that controversial.

The navy, OMG the navy, always on this site it is the navy where the wars start!

To those who were of the opinion that we do not need a coastguard style force, that’s OK by me, that’s a reasoned debate etc.

However as predicted there were those who seemingly denied not only that the RN should do it, but that anyone should do it because that would attack the RN’s Budget. The ‘we’re not floating rozers’ crowd were out in force.

That is less understandable. Keeping a pristine RN by leaving gaps in our security is bizarre.

Ok, I accept the scrap the ‘fast pointy Ships’ was an extreme proposition. That part of my post approached (but did not quite reach) trolling. I am not that sure I would go that far myself. But but but….

We cannot go on as we are. The numbers game is catching us up, and we will eventually get caught out.

The CVF and all it’s works will reduce the surface RN to a single bargain basement, one trick pony. ‘Easy Carrier Battle Group’ or perhaps ‘Ryan naval airpower’ IF we can make it all work.

Airy assertions that ‘something else will have to be cut, and the money found’ are just plain pipe dreams. We are not going to have 12 destroyers or 24 frigates or any other increase in numbers that will make a real capability shift.

I would reiterate I if we were going to play world power we should do it properly, I dream of 3 nuclear CBG and a couple of division sized amphibious forces, but it ain’t gonna to happen.

TD mentioned he thought I was ‘isolationist’ I’m not I’m a realist.

I will start with making an apology, for making no apologies about my resistance to CVF, nor my deriding them as white elephants.

They are IMHO the biggest pissing up the wall of defence budgets in history. I remain opposed to them and all their works!

However, we have done that debate to death, so as with the RAF or Not RAF issue I intend to duck (as much as I can) the issue.

In the other posts I have tried to not be equipment led, as TD said equipment is not strategy. I have either ignored it, or made some vague suggestions. I do not think this can be done with RN to the same degree. It is one of the few areas where I knowingly differ from TD (not in opposition to CVF), but in that CVF is a strategic decision, because of it’s effect on the future structure of the RN, so Sooner or later we must hear the patter of less than tiny elephant feet.

Further IMHO (again! But it is my post) there is plenty of evidence from published statements by serving, and recently serving senior naval officers, that the RN of all the armed forces, is living in a fools paradise, almost to the point breaking free from it’s reality moorings.

That’s a big statement I intend to make good on it below.

This was a depressing post to write because I am pretty sure it will start a row, it was this post that started me thinking about all the others, in this series.

Lets follow the same format as before and start with Home Islands defence.

‘We are an Island you know’ – You don’t say, no ones mentioned that before..

Ok in terms of threats to UK mainland means they must cross water whether they come on the water or though the air. Not very far in some cases, with modern 155 mm guns chunks of southern England are in range of field artillery, never mind Tomahawks etc. !

Once again though we have no state actors likely to be up to no good, Russian subs perhaps, but that’s about it. And after all its not like our subs don’t sniff around Murmansk they aint gonna start anything for a very long time to come…

What about terrorism? Well here I genuinely think the RN is hardly in the game.

The smuggling of drugs, people, and even cheap booze represent real threats to UK.

These support terrorism and organised crime and it goes on under the RN’s nose. It is not deployed, trained, equipped, or inclined to help. The amount of commercial traffic that goes through the channel and rocks up at Felixstowe is huge. The dangers of a Mumbai style attack are real and present, and half a dozen marines in a couple of RIBS off Portsmouth is not up to the job.

The recent panic about not having a frigate in home waters for a while, completely missed the point, 1,2 or 3 would hardly make a difference.

We NEED a proper patrol force, protecting our fisheries, checking ships , watching for suspicious movements, and checking ships in out and going in and out of ports, armed to go at the drop of a hat. We need such a force to properly defend the borders of our nation all of which are wet.

One of the problems of the RN is that the very suggestion will bring howls of derision. Splutters about it being a job for the coast guard / police Immigration /customs etc. in other words anyone else but the RN. A handful of River class vessels go nowhere near what is required. If such coast guard force was funded and equipped properly, then the RN would cry about all that money and manpower being spent on ‘Not proper warships’. The RN not only does not want the job it does not want anyone else to do the job either

So as a force for defending the UK mainland from the most substantive threats to that UK mainland, The RN is next to useless. I have been re assessing the idea (posted by others), that the RFA should take over that role and come to the conclusion:- perhaps it should, with armed marines for doing the shooting.

The FAA should be running the patrol aircraft. (at least). Which should take a careful interest in shipping movements etc.

What about abroad.

Well lets talk numbers, it is the sheer crushing reality of the numbers game that depressed me, and should depress others, on this venue. There will not be a huge resurgence in numbers in my lifetime, in effect we have got to learn to live with it the cash taps will not be turned back on in any way that is really going to change things, and extra frigate here, a couple of tankers there, will not make much difference.

I am going to ‘Think outside the box’ (when I can find the box I put all those management clichés in).

We have 6 destroyers and 13 frigates and a total of about 60 commissioned ships (according to Wikipedia). That means that on station if we can keep using the usual 3 to 1 ratio we can deploy 2 destroyers and 4-5 frigates at any one time. So assuming that some Falklands like emergency maximum effort deployment takes place we get it up to 3 type 45 and 6-7 frigates. That’s about enough to cover one CVF and accompanying amphibious ships carrying a brigade made up off marines plus supporting army units. With no other fighting ships available for anything. Zero Zilch.

Lets think about that for a moment. Assuming the dark blue mafia had got its way and the newly commissioned fitted with cats and traps HMS QE, had been deployed of Libya. Together with supporting amphibious units. The entire Combat RN would probably have had to go. Problems off the Nameless Isles forget it. Iran kicks off in the gulf, forget it. We will have nothing fighty to send.

Whether CVF goes or stays we are going to be very short of surface ships.

For the future of the RN abroad I assume that the CVF happens in some form. (I caution that ships have been broken up on the slipway before now, and built and sold on new as well). If so TD’s idea of having a single combat fleet of CVF T45 6 or 7 T26, is in effect the only way to go if we wish to retain any high end capability. TD’ has suggested the ‘Hard David’ approach frankly we have no choice we are already David. We can do one medium sized maritime operation at a time and that’s it. The trouble is it looks like the numbers are only going to get worse… IF we continue down that line.

Looking at it long term how can we continue this way?

It is at this point that the ‘More money is just going to have to be found’ crowd appear (usually in the telegraph), well it aint gonna happen.

What else can we do?

Rear echelon elements will have to be ‘cut’ to produce increases in deployed / deployable forces.

Admirals of the fleet car parks (North), all need to go.

The Command structures needs to be slashed.

The Marines go to the Army.

RFA takes over All the amphibious ships.

In order to boost numbers we need to adopt the forward presence idea (more in post 5), we need a presence ship that can carryout the Caribbean patrol, nameless isles, Eastern Med etc, it should be big enough to have a long range, it should carry support and special forces, it should be armed against terrorist attack and it should be manned by the RFA to keep it cheap and more ‘socially acceptable’ when deployed in dodgier foreign climes.

The saving grace of the RN is it’s submarine force.

These are the capital ships of today their destructive power against anything but first class opposition (and most first class opposition), almost total.

I am going to pose some questions about flying the flag abroad.

1) Could we ditch the ‘combat surface fleet’ and rely on the subs and a few more of them?

2) If we did, would we keep the amphibious ships. (If the forward presence ships are for example something like the endurance class as discussed )?

3) Maritime transport of armed forces to combat zones, does not necessarily mean a ‘Halls of Montezuma’ style maritime assault. The availability of even 1^st generation anti tank missiles makes landing craft etc, very vulnerable targets, in any opposed assault. After all in G1 the USMC were desperate to storm Kuwait from the sea. The potential casualties made it impossible. So why bother with it?

4) Could the RFA run a couple of dozen presence ships? Possibly of 2 types Replacing Minesweepers and River class as well as the foreign deployments?

5) If not RFA, would the Navy agree to do it just to stay afloat?

Independently of the above question, I do not propose to re hash the forward presence idea/ debates here. But it has to be the way to go. Remember this I am working inside the existing budget, trying to get some genuine reach.

Now I am out of circulation until Sunday so you can all have ago at me whilst I am away…

OK this is gonna hurt….

Firstly, Can we stow all the Brylcream, rubber soled homosexual jokes. All the stuff about staying in 5 star hotels whilst real soldiers have sand in their cracks. In other words all the inter service rivalry, snide remarks etc. This is a supposedly serious post

Why do we have an Airforce?

I have argued before we do not need one, and why I think that. It has upset a lot of people, but I remain to be convinced that a separate Air force does anything to meet the needs of our Land and sea forces, and contributes nothing that can’t be done by the others (with concomitant savings), to our strategic reach.

Or to our defence.

TD has issued an injunction not to do attack the RAF on pain of …. Well pain. [TD, don't mind 'attacking' the RAF, just do it from a basis of fact]

I am not going to rehearse the arguments; fee free if you want, I will restrict myself to discussing Air Power.

What do we want airpower to do?

Well to defend UK Airspace.

From what?

We also require the ability to ‘reach out and touch’ other enemies.

The tone of these posts in general is that the Russians Aint rocking up at Calais with armoured divisions in in tow. However the air threat to UK airspace, including the Russians poking around the Shetlands, and in addition the 9/11 scenario; is still real. So against the tone of these posts, IMHO, there actually are some threats. So whereas the Army aint going to be manning the beaches to repel invaders, the Air force actually might have to do the like and does train for it. And unlike the Army where law enforcement in reality deals with most if not all of the land based anti terrorism work; the police forces of the UK aint going to run F16’s to defend their counties Airspace!

Let us discuss:-

Structure

Some people more plugged into Air force practice than I am; have at some lengths explained to me and others how in practice if you have 14 or so aircraft on squadron strength then your lucky if 3 of them are ready to go. So if you have say 180 of a type ‘in service’ then 30 or so will be in store for rotation etc. Leaving 150 of which, at any one time perhaps 30 or so will be ready to go at the drop of a hat; (or an order to bomb Libya).

This has lead me to question the squadron structure itself. Surely if those figures are right,(and they a round ups and downs of published figures) then the squadron should go.

We should be deploying aircraft units large enough to independently supply, a serious free standing usable fighting force of aircraft. I would suggest we are into units almost of wing size; 36-42 aircraft so that 10-12 should be ready to go at any one time.

‘We are an Island you know’ and a pretty small one at that.

Bases

Lands end to Cape Wrath, is about an hour at high subsonic speed in a fighter most of the modern ones have a 1200 or so mile range. So should we be looking to reducing our airbases down to no more than say 3; one in the west country one in East Anglia And one in Scotland? The concentration of resources at a few bases, should lead to simple economies of scale in support etc. I have lived under the flight path of Lakenheath and Mildenhall, when they were busy main US airbases in Europe. The number of air movements would (to a casual observer) seem to have been much less than say Birmingham or Newcastle International Airports. I can’t see an argument against ‘super bases’ each with (say) a Typhoon wing and an F35 ‘wing, together with transport squadrons/wings (Transport planes of whatever type we operate) seem to have higher availability). One can do primary training, one basic, and one type specific. You can base tankers at one, AWACS, at another, etc . This concentration would in a cold war scenario have been vulnerable to 3 strike annihilation, that scenario is unlikely and 3 (or if you want 2, 4 or 5, I am not absolutely wedded to 3), bases simply has to save money, we also need to address the 100 people on the ground for every one in the air, type figures.

Organisation

We should adopt my proposed Army structure of ‘Home and Away’ Commands based at two of the 3 bases with ‘special forces command at another; with units standing down and working up in rotation. The Idea is to produce enough aircraft to defend UK airspace, and above all else to produce a usable deployable Unit of about full squadron size for each of the main types of combat aircraft, with the necessary logistical support. In short an Airforce ready to ‘do a Libya’ at very short notice

To discuss the fighting Air force is to discuss aircraft.

I do not want to get too equipment specific in any of these posts, however the staggering cost of modern fighter aircraft, still leaves me short of breath.

Those who have argued the toss with me over this can claim victory! I have reluctantly been dragged kicking and screaming to the altar of the hightec supersonic, super fighter, like Typhoon and F35. I still think were being stiffed on the deal, but it’s like living in rural England, you want broadband it’s BT or BT, no matter how crap they are.

However; and it is a very big however, we do need to look at support, making sure we actually have the missiles and the programs to fit those missiles, and clear them for use at a reasonable rate. If we paying the national debt of a small third world nation per plane they we MUST get full value out of them!

For the purposes of this argument reaper wings etc should be treated the same way.

BTW all of the above is not designed to cut spending on the Airforce as with the Army post any ‘savings should be ploughed back into increased inventories, of missiles and extra training.

‘Cuts’ proposed are: -

RAF regiment

BTW what are RAF police for?

Numerous base staff from closed bases that are not required at super bases.

The same cuts in the hierarchy as the army should follow.

There you are.

Of course it could all be done by people in Dark blue or Green rather than light blue…. Also I have tried not to get into F35 v Grippen or whatever.

BUT whatever strike aircraft we have, it should be capable of operating of the carriers, IF we have any .. And that is another story……

I have been accused of being anti RAF Anti Navy but not yet anti Army, still the day is young..

Given that there is no credible, likely, short, or medium term threat of actual state invasion of the UK mainland, or any other member Nato we might realistically beable to help’s mainland. Jus because we are in Nato does not mean in land terms we can do any more good for some of our fellow members than our guarantees did Poland in 1939.

Just why do we keep an Army?

I mean it, I really mean it Why?

I can see a role for one but not the current one it clings to.

All of our wars since ‘The last unpleasantness with Germans’ (as my late father-in-aw always called it), have, including the Nameless isles been elective, (even if I was in favour of that one).

Korea, Gulf 1 and 2, Afghan: – We were not needed, (quiet at the back oh no weren‘t), It all would have happened anyway without us. I will ignore / not bother with the various Malaysian and African scraps of the imperial kind.

In short then we have been in the habit of sending our soldiers out around the world to fight and die; in cases where we felt able to, and justified in so doing. And mostly as part of a coalition.

But not just that.

We have sent proper armies, Divisions with heavy kit etc. In that we have been in the same league as the Americans for retaining that capability. Ok not in anything like the numbers but none the less we have tried to keep the ability to send a couple of armoured divisions worth of troops, (if not actual division structures), to the Middle East and beyond, and to try to support and supply them in fighting a ‘Hollywood style high concept war’. Only the French in Europe attempted anything like that capability. Even the Soviet Union would have struggled to do that.

However IMHO, It has frankly lead to little more than trouble and blood; some ‘prestige’ I am sure, but how much in Pounds Shillings and Pence, and real world influence?

More importantly; How has it contributed to our defence.

What would we lose if we ditched it the capability?

North Korea would have kept out of south Korea. Sadam would still have fallen. The US would have fought Afghanistan alone, but still would have fought it.

I genuinely struggle to see what intervention by large scale, heavy armoured forces that the UK has carried out have done us any good long term.

Before people start shouting ‘Special relationship’ the US is both suffering serious Relative economic decline; (in 1945 it was more than 90% of the world manufacturing economy, by 2011 less than 35%); A debt crises (but then aren’t we all), and more importantly a refocusing of its priorities, away from Europe.

It was special when it suited the US now it does not. I invite those who believe in it to consider how we got all that logistical support in Gulf 1 and 2 but not exactly a ringing endorsement of Suez or Northern Ireland….

Has the time come to stop trying to fool the world, (who increasingly aint fooled anyway), that WASAWPYK. (We Are Still A World Power You Know).

So the first challenge to the old order is this:- Construct me a scenario in which we:-

1) Would deploy support and supply unaided by allies a British armoured division abroad?

Or

2) Where a coalition of Heavy Land forces would not be sent because the UK could not contribute/ (in other words where our forces were necessary).

And

1) In either scenario why is it worth keeping it?

Our successful foreign interventions, like, Sierra Leone, and the Falklands have been with lighter forces in… Drum role ‘Strategic raid’ type scenarios.

But why!

Why mess with the current deployment of the army, or even the MRB plan?

We have had some successes, some tatty short lived glory and some benefit from doing it this way so why stop?

WELL….

If there is any of the HM armed forces that is long on fur coat and short in the Knicker dept it is the Army.

The RLC has never really been given the trucks the manpower etc to supply at distance large scale, forces we have been totally dependant on the US for G 1 and 2, and to a lesser degree in afghan. There were scandals! I say again Crimean type scandals, regard the supply of our forces in both conflicts, covered up in part by US largess. The tales of no bullets for officer’s side arms 3 magazines a man, body armour, etc etc. Much of our equipment is old (Bulldog for heavens sake is as old as I am)! And a lot of stuff is in desperate need or repair/upgrade. (The fact that FRES is a cluster fu*ck does not mean the idea is unsound). Many of our formations are in reality still at the Bedford and land rover scale of equipment. So Even if we can play big armoured formations we cannot play for long.

In short should we stop trying to play Goliath in high heals and padded jackets, and try and be a harder David….

MRB is an attempt at that but only an attempt, it is still wedded to some idea world power dom.

MY proposal is:-

First we need to take a serious axe to the upper ranks. Brigades need to be commanded by brigadiers beyond that there is not any reason for more than a handful major generals Lt generals and one 3 star in charge of the whole shebang. Up or out should be the norm, if you haven’t reach colonel by 40 sorry your out. We can lose 2^nd Lt and Lt colonel from the rank structure as well. Whole areas of power point warriors and Ponti’s need to go.

Second ditch the guards in all their donkey walloping and bearskin wearing glory. They can become a territorial unit, trained in crowd control and security, and paid for out of the police budget, and the tourism budget.

Thirdly Rock Ape’s and marines go to the army. TD is of the opinion that the RAF should run anything that flies because it makes no sense to have 3 air forces 2 tiny and one small. For a variety of reasons I disagree, but the same logic applies to Popski’s private armies of the RN and Airforce.

Fourthly The marines the Raf Parachute section, Para’s SAS SBS/artillery spotters/ Forward air controllers etc should all be part of an special forces command with it’s own home and expeditionary units. Ranger Battalions for stuff like amphibious and air assault. We should have a full battle group with special forces support ready to go at the drop of the hat, with special forces support

I have heard many arguments about the difference in roles between the paras and the marines I have considered them all researched their past current uses, and have come to this opinion…. They are self serving bollocks. In practice both units have been used interchangeably for decades and it implies marines are too stupid to jump out of aircraft or the paras too short to wade ashore from landing craft.

Thirdly we need to reorganise and equip to fight strategic raids and nothing higher.

Eg why do we have 5 nominal divisional structures in UK ? I propose a 2 division structure for the army. One home Division and one expeditionary Division.

The home division should be made up of 3 brigades North middle south (feel free to argue amongst yourselves for boundaries and sexier names). The brigades should be structured for training and support and made up primarily of reserves / territorial’s and units on rotation from the expeditionary Division, working up or down. It would also have a role similar to US national guard to help in times of emergencies. I am not the only one who was annoyed that during the last 2 cold snaps lots of perfectly capable if not equipped with snow plough and gritter equipment sat idly by… It should be commanded by a Lt General.

The Expeditionary Division should be made up of nearly ready to go/ ready to go units units having worked up in the ‘home division’ before transferring to expeditionary command. The brigades deployed to the Expeditionary division should be 1MRB (in heavy configuration) and 1 (in Light Ratel style- see below), and one special forces brigade as proposed.

Equipment wise we need to upgrade / replace, but I do not want to be too equipment specific. Arguing about FRES SV etc. Above all else we need to be able to supply and support these units on our own. Frankly this is where it really gets controversial.

There remain on the historical a number of recent conflicts of the all out war variety; where better trained, better lead, more technologically advanced armies have destroyed ‘heavier’ armed forces of the massed formation variety. The Chinese for all their bogey man status are struggling to create a more professional better equipped army, that is smaller…

One of my favourite conflicts was the ejection of the markedly superior Libyan forces from Chad by opposition forces using missile armed technical’s to engage armoured formations. The recent Libyan conflict became was really one sided and the rebels barely had a tank or 152 mm artillery piece to their name…

Many people I respect on this site have argued strongly in favour of heavy armour and heavy artillery.

Both are serious logistical drags.

IMHO we have reached the point where the rising APC reaches the falling tank. It should be perfectly feasible to move to a single heavy chassis sharing engines/transmissions/ tracks internal systems etc. Merkava style but in the 40- 50 ton bracket. (This is a bit blue sky thinking I know) but we cannot afford specialist vehicles in the penny packets we can afford to buy. We should get out of the separate heavy tank business. 155 mm artillery should go truck mounted we should loose the heavy tracked heavy artillery.

One major thing what’s wrong with a Ratel style APC based on the MAN Chassis is?

It would fit the UK road and rail loading gauges, be self deployable, logistically cheap (relatively), give it GPMG and 40 mm grenade with anti armour missile capability, and use it in largish numbers….. Forget boxer etc.

This is not about flying armour everywhere but is about reducing the amount of logistics needed by each vehicle when it gets there.

The Air angle of this needs to be looked at. I remain of the view that the AAC are the right people to run Army transport helicopters and inter theatre transport, not the RAF where it remains very much a 2^nd class part of the service. 3 air brigades 1 home 1 foreign (organised as above with units moving in and out of each as maintenance etc requires) and one for the special forces.

As for numbers all this would at a rough estimate reduce the Army to approx 55,000 regulars and 20,000 TA (I am prepared to see those numbers as approximations and they may vary somewhat either way.

The whole point is to cut the army to fit it’s logistical cloth, and to recognise that we cannot take on comers any more.

A harder David.

But not in terms of having some small units of top notch kit which we don’t train with properly or can support properly

The idea is what we have we can use and use fully. Such an army would be easier to move abroad and use in the way we have actually used it/had to use it in the last 60 successfully.

And by the way the reduction in numbers and dead wood should fee up some cash for proper pay rises for the fighting soldiers.

This is part 1 of 4 (I think). In which I pose some questions and propose some views on the defence of the UK.

• What are we defending?
• Who are we defending against?
• How can we defend it?
• What are our defence forces for?

Without wishing to start my own SDR I would suggest that questions like what are we defending, against whom and why are simply not being asked enough.  I am not trying to find answers for all the immediate crises and threats, merely trying to look into the middle distance to try and thing beyond current equipment limitations, without getting into nuclear powered hover ships territory, and not limited to addressing the threat from Iran because the threat may come from Brazil or Bohemia in 10 years time.

There is huge inertia within the defence community.

Equipment wise: – On a par with the Army officers who argued in the 1930’s that there was still a place on the battlefield for the ’well bred cavalry horse’. The navy sticking with sail long after the practical marine steam engine was in use.

Strategy Tactics and force structure: – There is an assumption by many commentators both professional and amateur, that; we have always had a policy / presence, because it has always been done this way, with this type of kit, then that is how it should be done.

The concept of defence itself; against whom? – Witness almost the requirement for bereavement counselling, for our armed forces when the Russians went home. Some middling/senior members of our armed forces simply refused to accept it for some years.

The IMHO quite ridiculous clinging to some sort post colonial role.

We must lose the historical baggage, the technical baggage, and the top heavy nature of our armed forces to be much much lighter on our feet, as the world changes.

Question 1- What are we defending?

What follows is ‘stating the bleedin obvious’

I take it that we are defending the following:-

Within UK itself

• The territorial integrity of the UK (including the Islands that shall not be named); from foreign state control / invasion.
• The freedom of action within the territories of the UK for the Democratically elected govt of UK from foreign influence.
• The safety and security of the citizens of the UK whilst in it’s territories from foreign state attack.
• The safety and security of the citizens of the UK whilst in it’s territories from foreign none state actors- Terrorists in other words.
• UK based non state actors home grown terrorists.
• The fellow travellers of the above serious organised crime

Outside the UK

• Protection of UK citizens abroad from physical attack.
• Protection of UK economic interests from physical attack, be it by actual action or status or presence.
• Promotion of status of UK both economically and politically.
• ‘Keeping the British end up’ in Nato/UN with the US etc

Some of those are sweeping statements and enclose several concepts you can perhaps add some more.

‘Inside the UK’

Lets start with the first 3 points together.

“We are an Island you know”

Eschewing all the Dark blue shaded historical bullshit what does it (if anything) mean?

It means unlike all the other western nations (excluding places like Ireland and Iceland), We simply have (since the Act of union) only faced only 2 realistic existential threats of invasion, each lead by Napoleon and Hitler. To this day we simply do not have a realistic short or medium term threat of state power lead, cross border invasion. No one is going to role up at Calais at the head of 20 armoured divisions for the foreseeable future. The Third shock Army has gone and it aint coming back, no matter how fondly the Armoured fighting vehicle crowd remember the time when it was.

The only state threat to the HMG ‘s writ and the safety of it’s citizens is Chinese electronic attack. We need to defend against this. (Leaving aside the idea mooted on the radio this week that the US elects some religious nutter as president who wants to Nuke the UK because Harry Potter’s Wizardry offends his Christian beliefs).

The forth point is a real threat that the various state and non state sponsored terrorist organisations can launch Mumbai or other style attacks these are accounted by almost all serious analysts as the most likely threat of actual attack. We need to defend against this.

The last to threats are for the security services and the police to deal with.

‘Outside the UK’

We need to defend against / promote all of these to the best of our ability.

Question 2 – Who are we defending against?

Really this is a good question, and it is one that is simply not asked enough.

Lets ignore the 20 divisions at Calais scenario.

Lets concentrate on the foreign threats to our foreign interests.

I do not intend to detail the lists of potential threats but they are obvious and out there.

Various countries / people who are in charge of big parts of some countries are really not very nice, and are pissed off at us, for various reasons both real and imagined.

They have very different capabilities and aims, these change so have to be flexibly dealt with. But these capabilities should not be underestimated.

Question 3 How can we defend against attack?

We can defend against it by: -

1) Maintaining Financially successful economic policy to support economic stability

2) Maintaining a successful economic policy to pay for armed forces

3) Maintaining armed forces operating by land sea and air appropriate to our real status in the world, and our real economic interests and, foreign commitments.

Let’s address the first two, I invite those who obsess about F35 CVF and FRES, to ponder this: The Euro crises could finish European defence spending for a generation, in effect driving the whole continent’s military equipment into the 2^nd rate category, cutting manpower and capabilities, without a shot being fired.

Point three is what the next three posts will address in a force specific way.

Question 4  – What are our defence forces for?

Within living memory, (just) We have been not just a world power but THE world power. For a hundred years no one challenged in a serious way the Pax Britannica. An empire whose military power was built in part on:-

‘Whatever happens we have got

The Maxim Gun and they have not’.

Or as the great Military Philosopher Capt E Blackadder said:-

‘If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and took his country’

This power has gone, Gone, GONE.

I have said it before on this site and I will say it again.

There is amongst some of the posters on this site a layer of post colonialist, almost racist self delusion that somehow:-

1) Much of the world gives a stuff about what we think

2) We have some capability plus button that allows us to ‘ Punch above our weight’ etc etc, simply because we are British and Johnny foreigner ‘don’t like it up em’; or will run at the first whiff of grapeshot’.

3) Johnny Foreigner cant buy / use good kit and won’t fight when he gets it.

4) ‘We are a world power you know.’

We have just had / are still having 2 disastrous elective foreign adventureistic wars (more on Libya later); based in part on attempting at being as TD put it ’All fur coat and no Knickers’ world power . These wars have been/ are going to be disastrous for UK defence.

We have to stop doing this!

We have UK govt policies on everything going on everywhere this means we have to have people in the foreign office working on everything going on everywhere. Like wise some power point warrior will no doubt be shining his arse on a seat working out the military options for say UK intervention in Somalia / North Korea etc.

We once gained a world wide power and a world wide set of commitments as a result. However Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Some of those commitments remain even though the world is no longer pink. Unfortunately so do some of the attitudes. But But But! Cry the rosy colonial glow crowd (and I quote):-

“We are not bloody Belgium you know!”

Well IMHO its about time we got our heads round the fact that we sort of are.

Future far away foreign adventures (insofar as we should get involved in any) will be as part of alliances and not just Nato US etc. TD’s forward presence ideas rely on local alliances just as much.

Questions to be asked:

Why do we have to have a policy on North Korea? They do not give a stuff what we think and we will not be intervening there?

Why do we have a policy on Palestine.? I am sure the leaders of the middle east are all very polite and all that but save as we are part of the EC, or mate of the US they really don’t care. The Israeli’s in particular have an attitude of -

‘We are better mates with the US than you are, so jog on pal’.

These are two examples there are many more.

Also the technological cat is out of the bag.

For example:-

Modern civilian technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate. There is an old joke amongst Astro – Physicists is that what with the advances in technology, and the time dilating effects of relativity, there is no point in attempting a manned mission to Alpha Centuri; as it will be passed on the way there by the first scheduled passenger services!

A lot of modern civilian technologies are frankly superior than what would have been regarded as super secret high tech only a decade ago, and they are changing the world. Kenyan tribal cattle herders now carry satellite phones. Such countries are never going to bother with national land line systems or terrestrial TV systems they are old technology.

The idea that the west can embargo / control high-tech weapons technology over anything but a short period is fantasy, it’s done a bang up job stopping the Iranians Nuclear program!

Look at what the rebels did with Google earth in Libya. Check out your local Maplins Just think:-

• GPS Blue Tooth Phone, so you know where you are and what direction you are heading. Check
• Decent high resolution digital camera to ID target. Check
• £200 model helicopter check

£1000 or so plus a few hundred computer nerd hours getting it all to talk to one another, = A serious over the horizon targeting capability for an anti ship missile, Fire control drone or recon RPV

Could T45 spot it? Could it even target it? Who cares! Blow £70 grand an send 70 of them and wait for the T45 to run out of missiles. It is just one example (ok I know it will not be quite as simple as that), but technologically tricks like this will only get easier and cheaper and the results more capable. A real example is the IED arms race in Afghan and attempts to jam RPV control signals by the Taliban.

So the west can embargo from BAE, Ericsson, etc.  

Who cares clever nasty people will buy it from Argos!

From the point of view of conventional weapons suppliers they are increasingly out of the loop anyway. There has been talk of a global frigate or even a Colonial sloop. Something for sending to ‘strange sounding places with far away names‘. When I banged on about the possible threats to a CVF battle group from so called third world countries I got derided, I would refer those heavy on derision to the recent news from Syria…. 

When and if we venture in defence of our interests out of the North Atlantic and the Med we had better go mob handed and loaded for bear or very carefully and cleverly and with the permission of the local big wigs. 

In other word TD’s forward presence ideas.

IMHO these are a real attempt to deal with declining military and economic power and to maintain ‘bang per buck’ (not in the technical equipment sense more in the influence sense), and whilst TD may not agree with everything I say I tend to find myself agree with most of what he writes…

Pt 2, 3, and 4 to follow.