Defence Acquisition for the Twenty-first Century

[CoffmanStarter]

Some members may have seen a brief reference to this publication in 'The Times' today ... I'm still wading through the tome ... but have read enough to think other PPRuNers might appreciate a read. Clearly the release date has been timed ahead of the SDSR 2015.

The recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq came at a heavy cost to Britain's military capabilities. However, rather than replenish the forces with the equipment they needed, spending reviews in the last parliament saw defence expenditure so drastically reduced that the equipment used up in the campaigns cannot be replaced. These cuts have left all three services with large deficiencies in key areas.

There is now considerable doubt among military experts that Britain will be able to maintain its NATO commitment of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, and this is at a time when new challenges and mounting uncertainty in the world are likely to require our armed forces to be used at short notice, and in circumstances which demand a more agile and adaptable military.

These issues have not received the attention they deserve. There is even less acknowledgement of what is at stake in downscaling Britain's defence production capabilities and capacity. Key defence industrial programmes can take decades to mature and R&D requires a much greater investment if it is to produce benefits. Without immediate action to reverse this situation, the UK will lose even more of its important technological capacity and know-how that cannot easily be recovered.

Defence Acquisition for the Twenty-first Century

lays out a completely new case for the UK to adopt a radically different acquisition strategy; one which is much more cost effective and would allow for the adaptability, agility and flexibility essential to modern militaries.

Main document (PDF)

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/DefenceAcquisition

Main CIVITAS HomePage

http://www.civitas.org.uk

[Wander00]

Where is the Executive Summary?

[CoffmanStarter]

Wander ... As best as I can determine at the moment ... Page 24 and the final page (Back Cover) ...

[Heathrow Harry]

Sorry about the centralised text - it's a bugger to cut & paste


The recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq came at a heavy cost to
Britain’s military capabilities. However, rather than replenish the forces with
the equipment they needed, spending reviews in the last parliament saw
defence expenditure so drastically reduced that the equipment used up in the
campaigns cannot be replaced. These cuts have left all three services with large
deficiencies in key areas. There is now considerable doubt among military experts
that Britain will be able to maintain its NATO commitment of spending two per
cent of GDP on defence, and this is at a time when new challenges and mounting
uncertainty in the world are likely to require our armed forces to be used at short
notice, and in circumstances which demand a more agile and adaptable military.
These issues have not received the attention they deserve. There is even less
acknowledgment of what is at stake in downscaling Britain’s defence production
capabilities and capacity. Key defence industrial programmes can take decades
to mature and R&D requires a much greater investment if it is to produce benefits.
Without immediate action to reverse this situation, the UK will lose even more of
its important technological capacity and know-how that cannot easily be recovered.
Defence Acquisition for the Twenty-first Century
lays out a completely new case
for the UK to adopt a radically different acquisition strategy; one which is much
more cost-effective and would allow for the adaptability, agility and flexibility
essential to modern militaries.
The book sets out the challenges ahead for defence acquisition and proposes
novel changes to the structure and culture of MoD and Whitehall generally to help
the UK to meet those challenges. Among other suggestions, it makes the case for
maintaining Britain’s industrial capacity to manufacture equipment when it is
needed, rather than focusing on maintaining the standing capacity of the forces; it
proposes establishing a system of long-term investment for defence with financial
arrangements that extend beyond the life-cycle of a parliament; it recommends
exploiting the huge pool of talent available in smaller enterprises rather than relying
solely on increasingly inflexible and unsustainable prime contractors.
In a series of supporting essays, the book also discusses the wide range of issues
which shape the environment for defence acquisition, including Britain’s strategic
posture; the rise of managerial culture and loss of technical skills in Whitehall; and
the introduction of unproven structures of management, such as government-
owned/contractor-operated organisations

[Heathrow Harry]

In recent years UK governments have reduced the defence budget, but with no compensating reduction in the scope of equipment and services they require, only a reduction in quantity.

The conventional defence budget is now closer to 1.5 per cent of GDP than two. They have persisted in a policy of a government-sponsored oligopoly of prime contractors (‘primes’) – the political-industrial complex −delivering the equipment and the services, in an attempt
to pass risk from political to industrial responsibility and ‘simplify’ acquisition. They have compensated for some of the reduction in volume by contractorising equipment support and services to the existing and a few new primes.

BAE Systems remains the dominant prime, but it is now more American than British. Indeed, most of the primes are now foreign-owned. The inclusion of through-life support has had the effect of reducing the equipment acquisition and research budgets, making the equipment primes less able to provide next generation systems. However, there are no requirements visible for major new systems that would keep the primes busy and encourage investment.
The current budget cannot fund the existing generation.

With this as our starting point, we need to consider how the political/industrial complex needs to evolve to meet UK needs if we want to rebuild our competitive stance.
Such a change implies a different defence industrial strategy that will confer asymmetric advantage to the UK.
............................................................ .......................




I suggest that this requires:
•
Reform of the political components of the political/industrial complex to change ownership of defence and research strategy to parliament rather than government. We must educate the politicians interested in security and re-skill the departments, especially MoD, changing the attitudes and behaviour of its staff, raising aspirations, and reintroducing technical competencies. This requires new leadership that will operate in collaboration with and in support of existing personnel, many of whom already possess the necessary skills and
knowledge, and to empower them to set aside existing procedures and processes. The challenge will be for ministers and officials to provide and enable this leadership rather than writing off the problem as being just too difficult.
•
Development of an appropriate funding system to support the log-term investment required by defence whilst retaining parliamentary oversight
•
Building our acquisition capability and capacity on the basis of our whole industry and economy, not just on a separate defence industry. This does not just refer to pieces of equipment. The future capabilities and capacities we will need are just as likely to be
services with people as their main component − think intelligence or cyber.
We do not want to preserve or rebuild the old forces we had; we want to build new, relevant forces which will be radically different.
•
Adopting a defence industrial strategy based on supporting the network of existing SMEs and those that would emerge from dismantling some of the primes. The dismantling process would need government facilitation and advice from the financial sector. Encouraging management buy-outs would keep the local organisations and empower them to
get rid of the top layer of redundant management. These companies will need to do both civilian and military work if they are to succeed. As we have noted elsewhere in this study, the UK’s Formula One provides a most successful example of this kind of network system. The strength of the new network of smaller companies would depend upon an effective
network for the industry, perhaps created from the existing trade association.

MoD would need to provide strategic leadership to the research side in co-operation with academia, industry and commerce. With the reduced scale of our forces, increased emphasis needs to be placed on design,and the (highly successful) model of a Soviet Design Bureau or the US Skunk Works, combining design,R&D and prototype production, and generating
competition between designers rather than betweenproducers (as production runs will be so small).
•
Rebuilding the UK advanced manufacturing sector, stimulated by research investment
•
Rebuilding the defence research programme. Without this, we will not be able to produce anything special which will give us an edge, or which others will want to buy. We need to harness academic, civilian and defence research, and to understandhow to acquire and exploit world knowledge.
•
Reconsidering academic policy to support UK students in departments that are able to support MoD needs, or establishing if this can be achieved by dramatically expanding the Defence Academy to create the equivalent of a major technical university.
•
Recognising the need for industry/academe/government collaboration in order to develop
rapidly new capabilities in support of experimental formations at an advanced capability development centre, based on a merger of the Centre for Defence Enterprise with Dstl and the Defence Academy. This would also house a dramatically enlarged technical
intelligence capability.

[Mechta]

Rebuilding the defence research programme. Without this, we will not be able to produce anything special which will give us an edge, or which others will want to buy. We need to harness academic, civilian and defence research, and to understand how to acquire and exploit world knowledge.

As was done by RAE, RARDE, RSRE and so on. One used to be able to find an acknowledged expert in just about any field within the perimeter fence.

[Wander00]

All fine and dandy - a lot there we older people recognise, but where wouldl the necessary investment come from to start the ball rolling?

[tucumseh]

The foreword does not sit comfortably with the main paper. Fox is too politically correct and cites failures such as BOWMAN, Snatch, Nimrod without offering the reader the truth. They weren’t just cock-ups; they were cock-ups that were predictable, predicted, notified and ignored. For example, at least 3 of the authors would know he misses the main point when discussing BOWMAN; that the HF upgrade/replacement was specified, trialled, contracted, delivered and in-theatre before the main BOWMAN contract was even awarded. All in a 2 month period. As they say, think about that. Take as long as you need. Instead of just slagging BOWMAN, why not discuss the success that was this upgrade and why senior staffs went absolutely effing mad at it raising the bar of expectation?

That applies universally. If you’re going to condemn the Nimrod programme, let’s see an honest assessment. Let’s learn from successes as well as failures. At the moment, we do neither. Asking why this approach, suggested many times to Ministers, Defence Committee and the PAC, has never been adopted would answer many of the questions raised in the paper (and reduce its daunting length).

The paper itself is, I suggest, pretty hard going for all but very few. A number of times I tried to get my head round what was being suggested or discussed, then realised they had just dreamt up new names for long-standing mandated policy. Natural Systems and Evolutionary Development? Just read the regs and implement them. That is if you can find a copy, as MoD don’t have one!

But the paper contains a lot of good stuff. I like the robust criticism of the Senior Civil Service and lack of domain expertise. It makes good points about UORs, although the Faster/Better/Cheaper way (above) is ignored or simply not understood. It is rightly sympathetic towards Bernard Gray, who gave it a good shot but was let down by staffs not realising that what he wanted them to do was largely mandated anyway. However, nor did Gray. His was an ingenious solution to a non-existent problem. Years spent on GOCO. You want to implement it? Spec 5. You want to cost it? Spec 19. Both get you over 90% of the way and neither have been amended since January 1991! But with the passage of time those who have been there and done it are long gone, and never been replaced. The paper says this, but doesn’t know why.

Good effort. 6/10!

[John Farley]

Thank you tucumseh.

[CoffmanStarter]

A fair bit of fortitude is required to stick with the main paper (I've not read all of the supporting papers). For me there are a couple of immediate standout points of fact ... (1) We, as a Country, no longer spend/invest enough on Defence R&D and (2) The current model where the UK Defence strategy is 'owned' by the incumbent Government, and therefore subject to change/refinance every five years, is outmoded (the paper references the US Model as a possible approach).

I'm also interested in the commercial drivers that will need to operate to facilitate the proposed 'networking' of UK SME's to deliver an effective, responsive and robust solution as proposed ... this is not made clear in the paper and is a primary 'enabler'.

I'm still struggling to see how, for example, the proposed solution would meet the demand for a new Front Line aircraft type ...

It would have been good to have a 'Blueprint' example to take the reader through a couple of scenarios.

The above said, as Wander00 mentions, all this needs money ... and in the current climate ... unlikely to be made available.

[NutLoose]

The trouble I see, is you are now playing a constant catch up, the military is so small, under equipped and under funded, it means that there is no slack in the system to take up accelerated wear and tear on the hardware when you go to war.
Then when you retire fleets such as Jaguar, Harrier and the like early, the knock on effect is the other fleets then have to fill that capability gap and their original planned replacement dates suddenly becomes critical as they burn through their fatigue lives, a false economy as you are binning capability for short term savings which means funding needs to be brought forward to replace the fleets that survive.

When we had a industry and design capability, we were producing a first rate item and selling to the World, Military cast offs were often refurbished and sold on third world countries offsetting the cost of replacements, you also had a young low houred fleet.

Unfortunately with the demise of the Military capability, overseas product purchases and reduction therein, the industry has had to reduce to their output, closing lines and shutting down design offices... Once you go down that route, it is a hard thing to ever pull back that capability and you then you have to rely on foreign products.
It amazes me that we have got into this position, when the likes of Sweden can still produce homegrown combat aircraft and vehicles.

[ShotOne]

What's the point of doing all that, tucumsuh, when the key point of this paper is that the existing system needs fundamental change? This is about a whole new way forward, not a post-mortem and a bit of tweaking for what's gone before. Good luck to him...though sadly not a chance it will actually happen though!

Nutloose, it sounds like you just want cold-war spending levels. That would be nice but it's not going to happen

[West Coast]

Nutloose, it sounds like you just want cold-war spending levels. That would be nice but it's not going to happen

I would say Vlad will have a lot of input validating or refuting that statement. I don't mean that as a smartass comment aimed at you, I just believe in general terms budgets will adjust as the landscape does.

[NutLoose]

Nutloose, it sounds like you just want cold-war spending levels. That would be nice but it's not going to happen

Thats not what i was trying to get across, as stated the budget will adjust to the climate we are in.

What I was trying to get across is as you ditch fleets and capabilities the remainder then has to take up the gap left by those and as such their utilization rockets to a point where a carefully planned and orchestrated procurement is thrown into turmoil.

If when you buy as an example 100 Tornados and factor in it's planned out of service date as say 01-01-2025, but suddenly due to the Jaguar being chopped early, the accelerated life usage on the Tornado may mean the out of service life creeps forward to 01/01/17, which means the replacement is needed 8 years earlier, but fiscal planning at the MOD had previously planned for the budget in 2017 to be used to renew the Armies Armoured personel carriers. So now your budget no longer stretches to what your require, does that make sense?

Also the other point I was making is it's ok to say BAe has shrunk to the state where it can no longer produce, but that is because rather than buy in house, the budget over the years has been steadily used to source from overseas suppliers, BAe are a business and cannot afford to simply have the capability there to produce nothing, and purchasing overseas is ok as long as you remain friendly with your source Country, you also then have the problem that you cannot then sell your latest wizzbang on to Johhny Foreigner when you retire it to earn some sheckles, due to the Country you bought it from not allowing it.

[Not_a_boffin]

The problem with the collection of essays is that while they quite correctly identify some issues, particularly with lack of skills within MoD - and actually now within industry - it is spectacularly light on credible ways of making things better.

Much of the equipment acquisition prose is actually aimed at Land/infantry specific capability requirements. Real consideration of air and maritime capability requirements is rather less well-defined - unsurprisingly, because you actually need a real alternative to saying "BAE=evil, do something else".

In essence, it's an updated version of the RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs, not Royal Marine Artillery!) but with added robots, because......"robots!".

[ShotOne]

Nutloose, I appreciate your point and apologise if I put words in your mouth but this isn't about how much, it's about how. Sure, we'd all like more. As would the NHS, Police, Roads...... The point is more subtle than that and it's not all about "more". BAe, for instance, aren't evil. They simply are not flexible and responsive enough and don't work in the way we need now. Look at the F1 analogy. BAe couldn't build a winning F 1 car even with a billion pounds

[NutLoose]

Nothing to apologise for, I simply didn't get across what I meant :)

[Heathrow Harry]

i thought it was quite thought provoking but I'm not sure we can be in a situation where we haven't developed or ordered kit (or people) but expect them to be there when we need it

Either we shorten development times by a factor of 5 or we go for small, incremental changes to kit we already have I think

[unclenelli]

They've buggered about with the figures to include "peace-keeping"


Now "peace-keeping" infomerly known as humanitarian is now part of military spend.

This brings them above 2%.

So the **** we spend on patrolling the Med and catching immigrants is now within the Def budget, rather than Borders Agency



We catch, them, hand them over to the Borders & Immigration, who release tham back to whence they came!

[MrSnuggles]

NutLoose:

It amazes me that we have got into this position, when the likes of Sweden can still produce homegrown combat aircraft and vehicles.

Well, my patriotic nerve is a tad offended by "the likes of Sweden" - I think we Swedes are hilariously neutrally double-standard-y! And we do have some skilled engineers, tsk tsk. :ok:

Anyway, your statement is only partially true. Hägglunds, the designer and manufacturer of our national armoured vehicle pride is actually owned by BAE Systems. That's right, my British friend, you have bought yourselves some Swedish serfs and all the armour that comes with it. Also, BAE Systems aquired (spelling?) Bofors, where we manufactured the legendary Carl Gustaf bazooka (or whatever... it was SWEDISH so it was GREAT!) and dabbled in bribery. :8

The only thing we still have is SAAB aviation, SAAB Scania and Volvo lorries, Volvo heavy duty machinery and a SAAB-Kockum collaboration that will start producing submarines for the Baltic Sea. (It's a very special water in the Baltic sea so standard submarines isn't suitable for that environment.)

[Chugalug2]

SO:_
What's the point of doing all that, tucumsuh,
All what? All he said was implement the regs. Seems simple enough isn't it? It isn't? Then there perhaps is where the trouble lies, there perhaps is where the culprits lie.

Name and shame and then try to reform, rebuild, and regain that lost knowledge and ability. If you simply go for:-
a whole new way forward
you will achieve neither and continue the waste of life and treasure. The last man who believed in a year zero was a certain Pol Pot...

[O-P]

ShotOne,


BAe build parts for F1 cars, does that count?

[Thelma Viaduct]

Oh well, diddums, suppose that's what you get for wasting billions of taxpayer £s on BS wars that are not our concern.

[ShotOne]

"Implement the regs, identify the culprits". By all means, chug. Just don't kid yourself that by doing so you'll be ushering in a new era of defence procurement. In the civil world, those responsible for a failed project generally lose their jobs, so yes, I agree and share your disgust at the apparent lack of accountability. But will the name and shame of a few "culprits" really get us better defence equipment? It'll only ensure "the regs" are followed to the letter, no decision, however trivial without the full committee and lots of meetings and minutes to make sure everyone's covered.

[tucumseh]

Shot One

What's the point of doing all that, tucumsuh, when the key point of this paper is that the existing system needs fundamental change? This is about a whole new way forward, not a post-mortem and a bit of tweaking for what's gone before. But MoD often goes too far and we see change for the sake of change. The point I made is that there are good people who have implemented perfectly good mandated regulations and procedures, producing exceptional kit to time, cost and performance - and very often bettering all 3. But they are denigrated, despised and marginalised. To do so raises the bar, and we can't have that, can we?

If this can be achieved, why do we need a fundamental change? What we need is to teach new staffs how these successes were achieved, and give that a shot.

In the civil world, those responsible for a failed project generally lose their jobsWho is responsible in MoD? Take Chinook Mk3 for example. The "gold standard cock-up" according to the Public Accounts Committee. Read their report - MoD claimed it could not identify the person with "management oversight". There were about 6000 people at AbbeyWood who could simply look up the staff list and tell you his name and phone number. And that it was the same person who had the same responsibility on Nimrod MRA4. Certain staffs are protected species. Why?

[dervish]

Magz Macleod captures seagull photobombing Red Arrows in Stornoway | Highlands & Islands | News (http://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/1323834-magz-macleod-captures-seagull-photobombing-red-arrows-in-stornoway/)

Reds incremental acquisition upgrade already under way. :ok:

[JFZ90]

I'm really not sure how helpful all these clever essays are.

Grouping of SMEs? This seems based on F1=good, how do we copy that? It seems to miss the point that what F1 does (well) is build technology that lasts 5 minutes and throw it away after a week, to some tightly defined rules. Not really a model for an aircraft to last e.g. 20-30 years.

At the end of the day, if you want to replace e.g. Tornado, then you need something like e.g. a productionised Taranis. A bunch of SMEs won't knock that up in a shed - it is an expensive long term business. No real shortcuts.

Whilst expensive to do domestically, as France and Sweden show, all it takes it a decision to get on with it - and stick it out through the inevitable bumps.

See APT and TGV.

The UK spends so long agonising about how to do things, beating itself up and spending hundreds of millions on CM2Hills and Bechtels to reinvent what is basically just a project management office (abbey wood). Project management always has its ups and downs and technically risky projects can incur delay and cost growth - or are difficult to effectively estimate the cost and schedule for at the outset - depending on your point of view.

UK could make Taranis happen - if it wants to. Need some ballsy politicians to say, lets just do it and ride out the inevitable bumps. Watch as the French do just that with Neuron, smirking at the indecisive Brits squander their technology base!

[Art Smass]

"BAe build parts for F1 cars, does that count?"

They used to build aircraft - shoulda stuck with that