UK Maritime Patrol Aircraft - An Urgent Requirement

[Roland Pulfrew]

except the previous requirement which became, apparently, an ex-Requirement

Nope, the requirement is still extant, it never became an ex-requirement, just the solution to the requirement was "not brought into service". Which leads me to:

He has studiously avoided the reason why MRA4 was cancelled, implying it was simply a savings measure. No one in the Treasury will swallow that one, no matter how hard he tries to protect and spin.

The quoted line at the time was that not bringing the MRA4 into service would save £2B over 10 years ie a savings measure (and also a wet finger in the air); now if you know different..............

[Deepest Norfolk]

There is no money, people keep saying.

Yet, there is enough money to donate to India, a country with nuclear weapons and a space program, enough money to cover their purchase of a fleet of brand new MPAs.

There's something wrong with our priorities.



DN

[tucumseh]

Nope, the requirement is still extant, it never became an ex-requirement, just the solution to the requirement was "not brought into service".

The endorsed Requirement (RMPA) was met to the entire satisfaction of a raft of senior officers and officials, who signed at every stage to say they were content. It is now an ex-requirement; it has expired because the money (and more) has been poured down the pan and there is no longer an endorsed requirement to replace this replacement.


Unfortunately, in signing off these milestones these senior staffs ignored professional advice from every other quarter in MoD, that only a complete idiot would sign the RTS, and until one could be found it couldn’t enter service. Post Haddon-Cave, and especially post-MoK (when Lord Philip confirmed ACAS had made a false declaration when signing the Chinook RTS), no one willing to make such a declaration stepped forward. Therefore, the programme could not be completed, because there was no valid safety case or Master Airworthiness Reference. The Mk2 didn't have them, and was known not to have them in the early 90s, and neither did the MRA4. These were known risks from Day 1; the mandated mitigation (stabilisation) was ignored. Yet, the same risks existed on other programmes in the same Directorate General, and were successfully mitigated. That is where any inquiry should start.


It is perhaps true that £2Bn would be saved in Through Life costs, but that "saving" was not the reason for cancellation. It was merely a notional change to the balance sheet as a result of cancellation. Spin in other words!



I fully agree money CAN be found, but it would require Minsters (and the Head of the Civil Service and PUS) to insist on implementing the mandated regulations and procedures for avoiding waste. They won't. Flatly refuse. No way. And DE&S are on record as agreeing. Instead, they chop programmes and cut staff and capability. That, my friend, is called a bloody great elephant in the room. I hope a means of circumventing it can be found.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

OK, the slightly longer version.
There is no money for new defence aircraft, especially replacing one which has just been cut.

Further details.
If priorities are readjusted with no change in threat:
Whoever cut Nimrod now looks like an idiot.
Anyone who admits their bit of Defence could be cut in favour of a new MPA knows they will find their bit cut, and there'll still be no MPA.

Or, the longer version

Will a new MPA help the current government get re-elected better than other things they could spend that cash on? No

[Just This Once...]

If anyone states it differently...

Quite a bold statement given that I have a fair idea who some of the other contributors are. Oh and I have a damned good idea who I am and where I work; I tried to lie to myself but my integrity seemed to get in the way.

[RandomBlah]

107.

I have a bit of spare time, I'm bored. I'll bite.

It doesn't matter what the RN are doing. I'm sure the RN are planning behind the scenes that contains an element of paroachialism to get one over on the RAF (just like the RN tried to scuttle the RAF Seedcorn project when it was in the planning phase "we should be doing that"). Sadly, this is the type of behaviour that got the country's defence into this mess in the first place.

The studies that will inform a decision are being conducted on a national defence asset basis- not single service. it would not be in the interest of the country for a future MMA to be operated in isolation by either the RAF or the RN; it would be a Joint asset. it is also not in the interest of the country to procur a MPA - we need an airplatform that can deliver more than just what people know as the more traditional maritime type capabilities.

As for the Seedcorn folk, I wouldn't get too focused on them staying very long beyond their return of service (certainly not long enough to train ab initio RN personnel), because the majority will not.

Incidently, I'm quite happy that I managed to write a post without mentioning that there is no money. Oopps.

[ShotOne]

I've read again and again "there is no money" ignoring the inconvenient fact that joe Taxpayer has in fact already paid enough to equip several squadrons of new maritime patrol aircraft and the money has been utterly wasted. This is not entirely the fault of service chiefs but neither are they blameless!

It's very easy to throw up ones hands and say "they" are to blame but until the procurement system is sorted, we will continue to waste billions. If any company had bungled a procurement to this extent, most of the board and top management would have been dismissed. Has anyone been censured, let alone sacked..? It would be nice to think that the lessons have been learned but I wouldn't bet on it.

[tucumseh]

I've read again and again "there is no money" ignoring the inconvenient fact that joe Taxpayer has in fact already paid enough to equip several squadrons of new maritime patrol aircraft and the money has been utterly wasted. This is not entirely the fault of service chiefs but neither are they blameless!

It's very easy to throw up ones hands and say "they" are to blame but until the procurement system is sorted, we will continue to waste billions. If any company had bungled a procurement to this extent, most of the board and top management would have been dismissed. Has anyone been censured, let alone sacked..? It would be nice to think that the lessons have been learned but I wouldn't bet on it.

Quite.

Lacking a public inquiry into the waste, my recommendation to anyone here is to write to your MP and ask him to acquire the Nimrod RPMA/N2000/MRA4 Post Project Evaluation (PPE) report. It is mandated, and PPEs are the method by which MoD (allegedly) "learns lessons".

Only they don't. Why?

First, PPEs are thrown in the bin if they contain any embarrassing truths. Right up front in an accurate MRA4 report would be the FACT that the actions of a few 3 Star RAF officers (e.g. successive AMSOs) in the late 80s/early 90s denuded MoD of both funds and staff to permit such a programme to be stable or viable. For example, funding to maintain Safety Cases was withdrawn, which is why the MR2 one was pants, meaning MRA4 had no stable baseline.

To make it stable the programme manager (and because it was an RAF programme this would be a relatively senior person - the RN and Army are generally happier to have competence over rank in charge, whereas the RAF equates the two) would have to highlight the actions of his senior predecessors, which seldom happens. He hamstrings himself from Day 1 through this self preservation. It also creates a difficult tension in his team; for example, on RMPA there was an immediate outcry from very experienced RAF and civilian engineers who predicted exactly what would go wrong. When this happens, motivation is hard because you're just waiting for the inevitable sh**storm. There is a constant outflow from the programme because if is dispiriting knowing you are going to fail, through no fault of your own.

I still have the PPE I wrote in 2000 on a related programme, that warned the mutual 2 and 3 Stars of these very points. It detailed every single activity required to make the programme viable, and how it overcame the fact that the resources had been declined by the same 2 Star. It concluded the programme was successful because the 2 Star was completely ignored.

It merely repeated many previous reports. I was carpeted, and told that it would not be recorded or actioned because there was a new rule requiring PPEs only to be submitted two years after completion; whereas hitherto it was a living document and problems were reported immediately. This was the same ethos that scuttled the constant reporting and feedback mandated in the Safety Management System. In other words, the person who knew what to put in the PPE would have to be recalled from his next post to write it, which as you know is never going to happen. To make sure it didn't, the files would be destroyed. That is why I don't think there is an accurate MRA4 PPE. Too many people, especially some named and praised by Haddon-Cave, would be exposed.

So, not only do MoD refuse to learn from successful programmes (i.e. the majority), the act of protecting the guilty means they can't learn from mistakes either.

Yes, the procurers made some relatively minor mistakes on Nimrod, and it is great sport castigating them, but as ever the Services (especially the RAF) only look at the final act. The Systems failure that undermined their ability to do the job left procurers floundering from the outset. Of course, MoD personnel policy (jobs for the boys, no experience required) meant many didn't realise they were floundering. Again, that is a systems fault, not individual. It needed one person with balls to declare planning blight at this stage and you would still have an MPA capability. And it would have been delivered more or less on time (around 2004, as per original plan; given a pre-requisite programme had an ISD of 2003 it was never earlier despite the N2000 moniker). That ISD was achieved, 5 months early, 30% under cost and to a better spec, but no-one asks why. Again, too embarrassing.

There is a common thread here folks and the solution involves streamlining the entire procurement/acquisition system, empowering the programme manager (instead of him often being a junior in the "team") and chopping out at least 2 levels of "management" from DE&S and DEC. For a start, where was the management oversight on Nimrod (and Chinook Mk3 - same person)? His primary role was to review at least the top 10 risks each month, and oversee mitigation. Well, from 1995-2001 he was also my 2 Star and the only times I spoke to him he told me gross, deliberate waste, fraud and unsafe aircraft were "of no concern to MoD(PE)" and he was not interested in hearing of risks. Right, strip out that line of management. Next.....

[Madbob]

There's always money to be had when our political masters need it. The problem is that defence is not a high enough priority at the moment and that it doesn't affect the possible voting patterns of the electorate in the same way that spending on the NHS, Education and Social Security has. For that reason we always end up sucking the hind tit........unless there is a "patriotic" war to be fought e.g. the Falklands War as distinct from other "interventions" of late such as Afganistan or Libya.

Our political masters still think we can deliver where it matters and this is dangerous IMHO as we could all too easily find ourselves engage in Syria or some other scrap. Even a UN peace-keeping job in somewhere like South Sudan or the C.A.R. would stretch us to breaking point.

All D.C.'s talk about having two aircraft carriers under construction will not cut any ice unless they are fully crewed, by people with the right experience/training, AND a full complement of aircraft plus all the paraphernalia that goes with putting ships like that to sea, with stores ships and tankers in support, with hopefully a frigate/destroyer/SSN in support.

With HM Treasury sanctioning over £375Billion of quantantive easing to stimulate the UK's economy all it would take would be say 5% of that total to be injected into the defence budget and we would be able to procure new MPA's, additional F-35's AND stop the loss of trained personnel through forced redundancy which is leaving the armed forces with critical skill shortages esp. in aircrew, engineering and medical branches.

Just my 2c's worth. Rant over.

MB

PS

Do this and the government might also persuade me to vote for them in 2015!

[Biggus]

So you just want another £18.75 Bn spent on defence.....

Whatever it is you're smoking or drinking, I should stop it if I was you.

[The Old Fat One]

I defy anyone on either side of the debate to tell me that this thread has bought anything new to the party.

If I was a Mod here, I'd be deleting new MPA threads and insisting people stick to a central one. That way we would only be getting posts with a better percentage of new and/or relevant information.

Everything (of value) in this thread has been posted many, many times before.

This does not help the debate...it dilutes it. This is an important issue...it deserves better.

[tucumseh]

tofo

Know what you mean but isn't it sad that despite knowledgeable people posting facts on the threads there are still those who don't accept them. When that happens you probably need to repeat them otherwise they might just be the next ones to make the same old mistakes. Lacking a public inquiry, posting here is probably the best of any debate. At the very least, you learn how easy it is for MoD propaganda to become accepted fact.

Another key aspect is this. Many purport to know what happened with MRA4 and other failures, but I'd like to know how many met their legal obligation to report the systemic failings through their management chain. When I did, I was told I was the only one in MoD who thought as I did. Still got the letter, and last month MoD confirmed they stand by it (which has led directly to me being called to give evidence to the HCDC). I knew that to be wrong, because at least 3 colleagues did the same. Also, of course, the RAF Inspector of Flight Safety chipped in, numerous times. Had Haddon-Cave mentioned IFS's reports, his own Nimrod Review would only have needed to be a few pages! As a civilian I was used to being ignored, but ignoring IFS is something far more sinister.

[Violet Club]

Moving On

TOFO

I too had a look at this thread to see if there was something new, and like you said...

So, try and move things along a little, there *are* options for the UK to reconstitute an MPA force, but not if the rationale starts with "we need P-8s to fight China".

There is not no money - there is only some money - so instead of hankeringfor gold-plated unobtainable solutiuons, like we do every time, we need to take a cold, hard look at some cheap and un-sexy solutions that will let us get back into the air and protect our seas.

Objective No. 1 is to reinstate the capability and the force 'footprint' at whatever minimum level is attainable. Accept and tackle the budget problems head-on and there is still an opportunity to get acquire new aircraft and get flying. Do that - and thyen take stock.

Endless rehashing about who done what to MRA4 and gazing across the pond at P-8 (which is not a happy programme) will get us nowhere. Time for something smaller, cheaper and real.

[Frostchamber]

In fact there's a deliberately unallocated pot of around £8bn (from memory) and a whiteboard of candidate projects to use it. Ministers have been dropping increasingly heavy hints that the MPA issue is recognised and will be addressed in the SDSR. Hammond says technological advances have opened up new options for the mix of platforms, so it sounds to me like something based around a slack handful of manned airframes complemented by some UAVs doing whatever they are able to do could be on the cards. The treasury could always snaffle back the unallocated pot as savings of course but that would be sending a difficult signal about how fiscal rectitude is rewarded. Then again there's an election looming too. But those risks aside, the current trajectory suggests that some form of MPA will emerge from the SDSR.

[dervish]

I'm confused. If the RN are to take over MPA, who is going to staff the Staff Requirement, or whatever its called today? Will they ask the RAF to do it all and append an Admiral's signature? Will they ignore the past and start afresh as if nothing has happened? Will the beancounters allow this? As tuc rightly says, it will be a minefield because of long memories in political circles about the trouble Nimrod caused all parties over the years. AVM Roberts' piece is irrelevant as this is nothing to do with establishing a requirement. It is everything to do with explaining why the RAF wasted so much and ended up with nothing. If I were the RN I'd steer clear.

[Lima Juliet]

Endless rehashing about who done what to MRA4 and gazing across the pond at P-8 (which is not a happy programme) will get us nowhere. Time for something smaller, cheaper and real.

Well said...

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by Biggus

At least there was an Air Vice Marshal Andrew Roberts who (as a Gp Capt) was Stn Cdr of Kinloss 1977-79, so do the sums......

Ah, the Silver Fox.

Now how have we managed with out an essential MPA since . . .

[Pontius Navigator]

On the Chinook now versus MPA in the future (force balance), how would we have managed in WW2 is we had said we won't need all those Lancasters in the 50s but we will need lots of Lancastrians. We should balance our forces.

The Chinook is needed NOW. Year after next it should not be needed in as large a number so the older ones should be scrapped. The money saved stopping running redundant helicopters can then be diverted to MPA or whatever.

That is reality.

[Frostchamber]

Maybe, although the reality is also that one lesson of history is that you don't know what your next conflict is going to be. The idea (and possible public perception) that because we're not currently using something in anger means we don't need it is a tricky one.

[Pontius Navigator]

Frost, my point is that rebalancing must come after a current conflict to try and guess what will be needed next time round. Indeed the CVS is really one such. I think the RN is in such a balancing phase as they are only peripheral to Afg are they not?