Defence Review Result at End of October
Not having seen the PM on the box, I can only go by the very disturbing article in the Sunday Times which hints at what the NSC were debating. If true, we are about to become the only major European navy that includes an amphibious capability, without a naval air arm (or indeed carrier capable aircraft), except the Dutch.
How is it that the French, Spanish and Italians can learn lessons and in some cases create a specific naval air arm, whereas the UK cannot? I assume ASW is also about to get binned as a capability on that basis......
If the PM is also saying AD fighters have had their day, he's clearly not understood the lessons of 9-11. Truly, the treasury goons (informed by the likes of Dannatt and that braniac Soames) are writing this review.
How is it that the French, Spanish and Italians can learn lessons and in some cases create a specific naval air arm, whereas the UK cannot? I assume ASW is also about to get binned as a capability on that basis......
If the PM is also saying AD fighters have had their day, he's clearly not understood the lessons of 9-11. Truly, the treasury goons (informed by the likes of Dannatt and that braniac Soames) are writing this review.
Yes, Dannatt needs a truly good shoeing for his "boots on the ground" comments - if we had been given the assets to do the air campaign properly in Afghanistan then would it be going differently for us now?
Here is a history lesson from the RAF's last piece of desert action that was properly resourced (and not half-hearted like GW1 and GW2):
"During the fighting in the Western Desert of North Africa, the Royal Air Force conducted a land-based interdiction campaign against Axis motorized transport supply columns which was guided by intelligence. It was this campaign, and not the Ultra-driven sea interdiction campaign, which was responsible for the destruction of the bulk of Axis supply. The impact of land-based interdiction totally destroyed the morale and fighting ability of the Axis forces at El Alamein in late 1942, and set a pattern for operations which was replayed with success throughout the remainder of the war."
If any of Mr Cameron's aids read this then please take heed...
LJ
Here is a history lesson from the RAF's last piece of desert action that was properly resourced (and not half-hearted like GW1 and GW2):
"During the fighting in the Western Desert of North Africa, the Royal Air Force conducted a land-based interdiction campaign against Axis motorized transport supply columns which was guided by intelligence. It was this campaign, and not the Ultra-driven sea interdiction campaign, which was responsible for the destruction of the bulk of Axis supply. The impact of land-based interdiction totally destroyed the morale and fighting ability of the Axis forces at El Alamein in late 1942, and set a pattern for operations which was replayed with success throughout the remainder of the war."
If any of Mr Cameron's aids read this then please take heed...
LJ
Of course, if I were being flippant, I would just point out that the Afghan air campaign as it was, was more or less wrapped up within a few months. If memory serves, we had more or less run out of targets by New Year 02.
It's hardly Air's fault if the ground forces were inefficient and have dragged their portion of the operation out for almost a decade, the result being we have now mortgaged our entire military capability to put the equivalent of a Bde+ worth of combat power on the ground.
And before you ask, yes I am being tongue in cheek.
It's hardly Air's fault if the ground forces were inefficient and have dragged their portion of the operation out for almost a decade, the result being we have now mortgaged our entire military capability to put the equivalent of a Bde+ worth of combat power on the ground.
And before you ask, yes I am being tongue in cheek.
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Not having seen the PM on the box, I can only go by the very disturbing article in the Sunday Times which hints at what the NSC were debating. If true, we are about to become the only major European navy that includes an amphibious capability, without a naval air arm (or indeed carrier capable aircraft), except the Dutch.
Fox's leaked letter said:
Deletion of the amphibious shipping (landing docks, helicopter platforms and auxiliaries) will mean that a landed force will be significantly smaller and lighter and deployed without protective vehicles or organic fire. We could not carry out the Sierra Leone operation again.
Had seen that, which is also utterly barking.
What sort of organisation entirely recapitalises it's amphib force in the noughties, only to bin it for something that really only works in concert with it? We're back to the all or nothing argument here - you can't do amphibious (which by the way is NOT opposed amphibious) without organic air. There is also little point in having naval air on it's own. so fund a fleet properly, or collapse on OPV, MCMV, SSK and for the RAF, Typhoon, E3D and a limited number of tankers, plus maybe MRA4 for the support to deterrent . The army can collapse back on a single armoured reg and some deployable infantry (a la Eire) for peacekeeping.
There is no justification for any other force structure. You either bring something worthwhile and get some sort of leverage from it, or you pitch up with tokenism, in which case, pay the absolute minimum you can get away with.
What sort of organisation entirely recapitalises it's amphib force in the noughties, only to bin it for something that really only works in concert with it? We're back to the all or nothing argument here - you can't do amphibious (which by the way is NOT opposed amphibious) without organic air. There is also little point in having naval air on it's own. so fund a fleet properly, or collapse on OPV, MCMV, SSK and for the RAF, Typhoon, E3D and a limited number of tankers, plus maybe MRA4 for the support to deterrent . The army can collapse back on a single armoured reg and some deployable infantry (a la Eire) for peacekeeping.
There is no justification for any other force structure. You either bring something worthwhile and get some sort of leverage from it, or you pitch up with tokenism, in which case, pay the absolute minimum you can get away with.
I imagine Cameron is generalising from a not too well informed position when he talks of Air Defence Fighters having had their day. I think he means anything grey, fast and noisy. However, if he has his thinking too far skewed by the likes of Dannatt and Richards, then some pretty disastrous decisions regarding the long term may well be about to come from this review. It strikes me that Fox seems to understand this. But Cameron and Osborne are going too be very easily persuaded that less expensive kit for the Army checked at present strength and under the current media climate about war against the Taliban and so forth, means the Government may be about to make an almighty dreadful mistake.
FB
FB
Yup, I agree, an almighty b@llock is about to be dropped!
By the way, why do the Army need 6 Divisions with respective HQs for just over 113,000 people? Surely there should be a big chopper hanging over this lot?
The B Word
By the way, why do the Army need 6 Divisions with respective HQs for just over 113,000 people? Surely there should be a big chopper hanging over this lot?
The B Word
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N-A-B wrote:
and earlier,
The first it right. On the second, I beg to differ - and no, I'm not one of said HMT goons. I think that the real issues here are at least three-fold:
(i) SDR 98 was a political compromise between No 10, HMT, MoD, Foreign Office and Cabinet Office; everyone knew it was affordable only with some highly optimistic assumptions, and virtually all of them have been exposed - but it was in everyone's interests to pretend otherwise. The real cost of an SDR 98 sized force is probably in the £60 - £70bn p.a or in the order of 5% of GDP - about the norm for the late Cold War - and it was never funded.
(ii) The MoD never got a reality check about the underfunding, and therefore pruned capability and slipped projects rightwards - and we know from the NAO reports ad nauseum how effective this is in achieving value for money. Hence, the current lot inherited a budget overspent by at least £35bn over the next decade (and probably more). In other words, more than 50% of the annual procurement budget for the next decade. Gordon Brown and Comrade Bob have a great deal to answer for in not taking the tough decisions their policies required.
(iii) The current lot haven't been very Strategic in their thinking:
- Who are we as a Nation?
- What role do we aspire to internationally?
- How much are we prepared to spend?
are questions that appear to have been neglected. And exempting Trident and carriers from the purview of the review is risible, because they're so expensive and so alter the remaining choices to encompass the unpalatable, very unpalatable and extremely unpalatable.
Not very clever - and the likely (bonkers) result is the one Sir Malcolm Rifkind foreshadowed at RUSI before the election: the Tories are so wedded to Trident that they are prepared to slash (useful) conventional forces to keep it. Which in my view, is nuts.
So I have a great deal of time for the Treasury's position - "there's no cash and you lot have been incapable of managing your way out of a paper bag for the last decade or more, and sadly there's a time when the music stops."
It stops on 20 Oct 10, if not before.
S41
You either bring something worthwhile and get some sort of leverage from it, or you pitch up with tokenism, in which case, pay the absolute minimum you can get away with.
Truly, the treasury goons (informed by the likes of Dannatt and that braniac Soames) are writing this review.
(i) SDR 98 was a political compromise between No 10, HMT, MoD, Foreign Office and Cabinet Office; everyone knew it was affordable only with some highly optimistic assumptions, and virtually all of them have been exposed - but it was in everyone's interests to pretend otherwise. The real cost of an SDR 98 sized force is probably in the £60 - £70bn p.a or in the order of 5% of GDP - about the norm for the late Cold War - and it was never funded.
(ii) The MoD never got a reality check about the underfunding, and therefore pruned capability and slipped projects rightwards - and we know from the NAO reports ad nauseum how effective this is in achieving value for money. Hence, the current lot inherited a budget overspent by at least £35bn over the next decade (and probably more). In other words, more than 50% of the annual procurement budget for the next decade. Gordon Brown and Comrade Bob have a great deal to answer for in not taking the tough decisions their policies required.
(iii) The current lot haven't been very Strategic in their thinking:
- Who are we as a Nation?
- What role do we aspire to internationally?
- How much are we prepared to spend?
are questions that appear to have been neglected. And exempting Trident and carriers from the purview of the review is risible, because they're so expensive and so alter the remaining choices to encompass the unpalatable, very unpalatable and extremely unpalatable.
Not very clever - and the likely (bonkers) result is the one Sir Malcolm Rifkind foreshadowed at RUSI before the election: the Tories are so wedded to Trident that they are prepared to slash (useful) conventional forces to keep it. Which in my view, is nuts.
So I have a great deal of time for the Treasury's position - "there's no cash and you lot have been incapable of managing your way out of a paper bag for the last decade or more, and sadly there's a time when the music stops."
It stops on 20 Oct 10, if not before.
S41
S41
Would never have categorised you with the treasury goons in any case - your arguments are always logical and informed, even if we differ from time to time.
However, I don't believe that the SDR98 cost was anywhere near the figures you quote. The real problem has been the continual in-fighting, largely driven by the in-year DEL cap that has led to the barking decisions to push projects to the right, with the known consequences (additional navel-gazing, increased cost), compounded by the conduct of two largely unfunded wars where despite cyclops' protestations, spending in real terms was at best flat at worst in decline. That's not due to Bob, it's largely due to Gordon, as evinced by Hoon the Loon in his evidence to the Iraq inquiry.
Add to that a significant overhead cost (IiP, diversity, Data Protection act to name but a few) that won't go away and it's difficult to argue with a treasury case that our budget is f8cked. However, that in itself is not an argument for cuts - surely it's an argument for proper strategic debate, along the lines of your point iii, with some sort of pause in the axe to get the house in order.
I fear that Dannatt along with Soames (read back a few years and there's a consistent message) has spun a yarn that Dave n George are keen to buy - including the myth about Scottish shipyards - Portsmouth, Appledore, Merseyside, Derbyshire and Tyneside are all contributing significantly. Hopefully Fox gets it and is not grandstanding, but based on the editorials, it's a faint hope.
There must be a case for re-examining the the DfID budget (£12Bn pa) which is the great hope for soft power, but in reality is more likely to be borrowing money we haven't got to put in the pockets of political leaders who couldn't generate it legally.
Would never have categorised you with the treasury goons in any case - your arguments are always logical and informed, even if we differ from time to time.
However, I don't believe that the SDR98 cost was anywhere near the figures you quote. The real problem has been the continual in-fighting, largely driven by the in-year DEL cap that has led to the barking decisions to push projects to the right, with the known consequences (additional navel-gazing, increased cost), compounded by the conduct of two largely unfunded wars where despite cyclops' protestations, spending in real terms was at best flat at worst in decline. That's not due to Bob, it's largely due to Gordon, as evinced by Hoon the Loon in his evidence to the Iraq inquiry.
Add to that a significant overhead cost (IiP, diversity, Data Protection act to name but a few) that won't go away and it's difficult to argue with a treasury case that our budget is f8cked. However, that in itself is not an argument for cuts - surely it's an argument for proper strategic debate, along the lines of your point iii, with some sort of pause in the axe to get the house in order.
I fear that Dannatt along with Soames (read back a few years and there's a consistent message) has spun a yarn that Dave n George are keen to buy - including the myth about Scottish shipyards - Portsmouth, Appledore, Merseyside, Derbyshire and Tyneside are all contributing significantly. Hopefully Fox gets it and is not grandstanding, but based on the editorials, it's a faint hope.
There must be a case for re-examining the the DfID budget (£12Bn pa) which is the great hope for soft power, but in reality is more likely to be borrowing money we haven't got to put in the pockets of political leaders who couldn't generate it legally.
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If the enduring legacy of our involvement in Afghanistan is to absurdly skew our forces to just fight a group of mediaeval peasants, at the expense of being capable of deploying forces that can operate at a distance from our own shores, across a broad spectrum of military roles, any state-player who has less than good intentions towards the UK is going to laugh their ass off.
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Without wishing to tread on your point too much, could I just point out that "medieval peasants" (not the words I would use) have rather a good track record at kicking ass when their home turf is invaded.
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But this is all Chicken feed to the fact the caption competition has dissappeared off page one 
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Point taken and I'm very cogniscent of how capable the Taliban are on their home turf. But they are only one specific type of foe. When you look at some of the rather more potent capabilities of some of their immediate neighbours (Iran - nearly-nuclear, double-digit SAMs et al, bonkers; Pakistan - very actually nuclear with great internal instabilities) it makes one think that the next war (god forbid) could look very different to the current war.....
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I doubt that "mediaeval peasants" could quite so effectively cause coalition forces their current Protected Mobility concerns without the serious assistance of one or more state actors in the region, notional allies amongst them
The wider issue, as has been stated elsewhere, is avoiding the trap of shaping our forces for the next 20+ years based on the idea that Afghanistan is "the War" rather than "a war". Single service bickering and positioning must be pushed to the background in order to do what is right for the country rather than the current distateful jockeying for advantage.
I will be as interested as the next man as to what is announced on 20 Oct but having seen the lack of quality of many of those set above us I fully expect to be disappointed for myself, my service and most importantly for my country.
MB
The wider issue, as has been stated elsewhere, is avoiding the trap of shaping our forces for the next 20+ years based on the idea that Afghanistan is "the War" rather than "a war". Single service bickering and positioning must be pushed to the background in order to do what is right for the country rather than the current distateful jockeying for advantage.
I will be as interested as the next man as to what is announced on 20 Oct but having seen the lack of quality of many of those set above us I fully expect to be disappointed for myself, my service and most importantly for my country.
MB
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Father Jack HackettPoint taken and I'm very cogniscent of how capable the Taliban are on their home turf. But they are only one specific type of foe. When you look at some of the rather more potent capabilities of some of their immediate neighbours (Iran - nearly-nuclear, double-digit SAMs et al, bonkers; Pakistan - very actually nuclear with great internal instabilities) it makes one think that the next war (god forbid) could look very different to the current war.....
You instantly lose the likes of the predators for example that use satellites to talk to home base, think of what we use these days that links in real time or relies on satellites, it would be frightening, and of course you would bring crashing down major companies that rely on it from telecommunications to Tv channels....... frightning indeed.
Just have to fly the Predators Line of Sight for a bit until the next satellite goes up. Anyway, I suspect that this would be the least of our worries if someone set off a nuke in space - it would probably be game over in about 15 minutes flat for everyone!
The word "strategic" seems to be a misnomer in this review.
My learned friend Mr Boffin is correct to point out that amphibs without carriers do not make sense, and vice versa. Without that capability, you need a much smaller maritime force and can support only a small expeditionary force.
Also, trying to shrink the overall budget without addressing the nuclear force leads to imbalance on the 1950s scale, with the big money going to anything nuclear-related (bombers, interceptors, Bloodhounds and Buccs) and everything else (eg conventional fighter-bombers) on table scraps.
And Cameron's comments on "fighters designed to dogfight the Soviet air force"... Spare me, Duncan Sandys has been reinfarkingcarnated.
Say what you like about the FJ community, but those aircraft can deploy to a base and, within a 600-mile radius, perform close air support, ISR in contested airspace, protect land forces from air attack (whether by Sukhois or hijacked 737s), hold at risk any target except a submarine or a satellite...
My learned friend Mr Boffin is correct to point out that amphibs without carriers do not make sense, and vice versa. Without that capability, you need a much smaller maritime force and can support only a small expeditionary force.
Also, trying to shrink the overall budget without addressing the nuclear force leads to imbalance on the 1950s scale, with the big money going to anything nuclear-related (bombers, interceptors, Bloodhounds and Buccs) and everything else (eg conventional fighter-bombers) on table scraps.
And Cameron's comments on "fighters designed to dogfight the Soviet air force"... Spare me, Duncan Sandys has been reinfarkingcarnated.
Say what you like about the FJ community, but those aircraft can deploy to a base and, within a 600-mile radius, perform close air support, ISR in contested airspace, protect land forces from air attack (whether by Sukhois or hijacked 737s), hold at risk any target except a submarine or a satellite...