Harrier Demise - Help!
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Harrier Demise - Help!
Out of curiosity as to what was the 'nuts and bolts' of the decision to remove Harrier, I poked around online looking at parliamentary records and various reports and articles.
Using online public sources to get this kind of detail is like trying to play the piano wearing boxing gloves. You can generate some noise that will vaguely resemble the right tune, if you are lucky.
Given the choice to remove Harrier or Tornado, I think it likely that any air force would have acted to keep its larger fleet of aircraft, so I didn’t focus on that issue. I tried to get an idea about the prevailing circumstances that led to the need for this decision.
Having pieced together more details of the story it provoked several questions I was unable to answer. I made some FOI's but not all were able to be answered. I would like to ask for help from people here if they can shed some light on my questions. The MOD spending strategy is one question I have.
The desire to save money was the reason put forward for removing Harrier. According to parliament figures (Nov. 2010) Harrier cost £100 million per year (0.3% of defence budget of about £37 billion).
In 2008 the practice of delaying projects to reduce short term spending was used on some projects.
A decision to delay the QE carriers was taken that reduced the MOD spend by £450 million in the next four years but increased the MOD spend after that by about £1,124 million. Additional costs of £650 million were identified, making a total net cost increase due to the delay of £1,324 million.
Figures in the Main Project Reports 2009 and 2010 were used to estimate the costs due to delays and the saving of £450 million. I don’t know if these figures were later revised.
I did a very ‘rough and ready’ calculation comparing the cost of delay to the cost of borrowing (hopefully I got my sums right; my ‘noggin’ aint worth much these days).
Had the £450 million been borrowed instead of delaying the QE carriers, a ten year interest only loan (as an example) to 2018 would have cost interest in 2018 real terms of about £168 million, using historical figures for government interest payments and the Bank of England inflation data.
Borrowing costs of £168 million, compared to costs due to delay of £1,324 million (this figure is a conservative estimate and likely to be larger in real terms at 2018), gives a saving in the region of £1,156 million (£918 million in 2010 terms).
Even at a fixed rate of 5% interest it would have been cheaper to borrow rather than delay.
While these figures may not be precise they give an idea of magnitude. Borrowing would have been significantly cheaper and with no need to delay the carriers by several years.
The large saving could have paid to keep Harrier or carrier strike going for a further several years.
Does anyone know why in 2008 borrowing instead of delaying the QE carriers was not considered?
Using online public sources to get this kind of detail is like trying to play the piano wearing boxing gloves. You can generate some noise that will vaguely resemble the right tune, if you are lucky.
Given the choice to remove Harrier or Tornado, I think it likely that any air force would have acted to keep its larger fleet of aircraft, so I didn’t focus on that issue. I tried to get an idea about the prevailing circumstances that led to the need for this decision.
Having pieced together more details of the story it provoked several questions I was unable to answer. I made some FOI's but not all were able to be answered. I would like to ask for help from people here if they can shed some light on my questions. The MOD spending strategy is one question I have.
The desire to save money was the reason put forward for removing Harrier. According to parliament figures (Nov. 2010) Harrier cost £100 million per year (0.3% of defence budget of about £37 billion).
In 2008 the practice of delaying projects to reduce short term spending was used on some projects.
A decision to delay the QE carriers was taken that reduced the MOD spend by £450 million in the next four years but increased the MOD spend after that by about £1,124 million. Additional costs of £650 million were identified, making a total net cost increase due to the delay of £1,324 million.
Figures in the Main Project Reports 2009 and 2010 were used to estimate the costs due to delays and the saving of £450 million. I don’t know if these figures were later revised.
I did a very ‘rough and ready’ calculation comparing the cost of delay to the cost of borrowing (hopefully I got my sums right; my ‘noggin’ aint worth much these days).
Had the £450 million been borrowed instead of delaying the QE carriers, a ten year interest only loan (as an example) to 2018 would have cost interest in 2018 real terms of about £168 million, using historical figures for government interest payments and the Bank of England inflation data.
Borrowing costs of £168 million, compared to costs due to delay of £1,324 million (this figure is a conservative estimate and likely to be larger in real terms at 2018), gives a saving in the region of £1,156 million (£918 million in 2010 terms).
Even at a fixed rate of 5% interest it would have been cheaper to borrow rather than delay.
While these figures may not be precise they give an idea of magnitude. Borrowing would have been significantly cheaper and with no need to delay the carriers by several years.
The large saving could have paid to keep Harrier or carrier strike going for a further several years.
Does anyone know why in 2008 borrowing instead of delaying the QE carriers was not considered?
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It comes down to two basic things, the Country is being Governed by halfwits and f*ckwits.
I mourned deeply the demise of the Harrier as much as the next man.
One of the reasonable reasons I've been told is that she was unable to be retro-fitted with the next gen of armaments and avionics and still be able to perform to the best of her (uniqueish) abilities.
That and the above mentioned Gov halfwits and f*ckwits sealed her fate.
One of the reasonable reasons I've been told is that she was unable to be retro-fitted with the next gen of armaments and avionics and still be able to perform to the best of her (uniqueish) abilities.
That and the above mentioned Gov halfwits and f*ckwits sealed her fate.
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The only discriminators were Storm Shadow and RAPTOR, and there is a compelling argument to suggest that those are key.
I don’t think that there is any truth to the lack of upgrade potential - indeed at Cap EA the Harrier was Saturn capable and had a path to a MIDS capability.
For a time the jet could carry 6 x PW4 plus Sniper whereas the Tornado could carry fewer - I think because the SMS had an issue born out of its original KRET functionality.
At the end of the day though it matters not!!
I don’t think that there is any truth to the lack of upgrade potential - indeed at Cap EA the Harrier was Saturn capable and had a path to a MIDS capability.
For a time the jet could carry 6 x PW4 plus Sniper whereas the Tornado could carry fewer - I think because the SMS had an issue born out of its original KRET functionality.
At the end of the day though it matters not!!
The only discriminators were Storm Shadow and RAPTOR, and there is a compelling argument to suggest that those are key.
I don’t think that there is any truth to the lack of upgrade potential - indeed at Cap EA the Harrier was Saturn capable and had a path to a MIDS capability.
For a time the jet could carry 6 x PW4 plus Sniper whereas the Tornado could carry fewer - I think because the SMS had an issue born out of its original KRET functionality.
At the end of the day though it matters not!!
I don’t think that there is any truth to the lack of upgrade potential - indeed at Cap EA the Harrier was Saturn capable and had a path to a MIDS capability.
For a time the jet could carry 6 x PW4 plus Sniper whereas the Tornado could carry fewer - I think because the SMS had an issue born out of its original KRET functionality.
At the end of the day though it matters not!!
True though - it matters not.
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Harrier's planned OSD was earlier than that of Tornado. Additionally it only had a limited RTS for single mode seeker Brimstone and no RTS for dual mode seeker Brimstone. Furthermore it could never carry Storm Shadow and its Sniper pod capability was far inferior to the Tornado's RAPTOR.
Ergo its weapons were effectively the CRV7 and PWIV.
If you were going to bin a capability to save £££ (and I'm not saying that was the right thing to do) then it made sense to keep Tornado and sack Harrier off.
Ergo its weapons were effectively the CRV7 and PWIV.
If you were going to bin a capability to save £££ (and I'm not saying that was the right thing to do) then it made sense to keep Tornado and sack Harrier off.
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In fairness Harrier could carry both TV and IR Maverick.
And years in Afghanistan had (counter intuitively) extended the fatigue life.
Also Harrier was a far smaller fleet (74 ish in total) so a better candidate for savings.
Still - doesn’t matter!
And years in Afghanistan had (counter intuitively) extended the fatigue life.
Also Harrier was a far smaller fleet (74 ish in total) so a better candidate for savings.
Still - doesn’t matter!
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Harrier was a good aircraft with a unique capability. Unfortunately, the aircraft itself is not a weapons system - it could not carry a large enough payload over long distance and the Harrier was limited in this when compared to other platforms.
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Think you'll find there was more than just weapons capability in the mix... ergo... go back a few years to when Typhoon was just being rolled out, the Mod had a large cache of blue collar workers, working under various guises, with associated pension costs, including a nice shiny new hangar at an airbase in south wales fixing aeroplanes, that they wanted to offload. Enter Bae with an offer to take on all the blue collar workers, if Mod agreed Bae could be sole maintenance provider for Harrier, Tornado, and Typhoon. So, the deal was done, and it was found that the hourly rate being charged by Bae, was over twice what it had been costing Mod directly. However the only way out of the contract and associated high maint costs without having to pay Bae a huge penalty clause was if the fleet was scrapped or otherwise disposed of.... or something like that.
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Sounds about right, another bunch of Halfwits and f*ckwits writing contracts and signing them off.
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When I read that the MOD saved £450m but were happy to pay £1,124m to do so (with another £650m added later), my first reaction was that had they taken a Wonga loan it would have been cheaper. I thought I was missing something, but the answer appears a simple one!
Given comments here, plus other projects dealt with similar, sounds like industry had a field day.
Given comments here, plus other projects dealt with similar, sounds like industry had a field day.
The comments on Harrier and Tornado capability are on the mark, but I think the OP’s question is one of finance. The situation described was ‘ops normal’ for MOD in the 2000s, which is the only period I can speak for - it may have been true earlier. Unaffordability of each year’s programme was routinely dealt with by punting costs into later years, which worked for long enough to get 1* and 2* tours safely complete until 2010, by which time the whole edifice was on the point of collapse with a wave of expenditure that could be delayed no more, forcing radical decisions to cancel. Borrowing to fix it would have effectively endorsed the poor behaviours that got us to that sorry juncture. From the vantage point of almost 10 years on, SDSR 2010 simply forced some decisions that should have been taken years earlier... and I include binning of MRA4 in that. We wouldn’t have needed to have endured a decade-plus capability gap if that decision had been taken earlier.
Regrettably, things don’t look too dissimilar now.
Regrettably, things don’t look too dissimilar now.
Last edited by Easy Street; 16th Jul 2019 at 22:56.
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Surely one of the main factors they never seem to mention is when you chop one asset early, the knock on effect is that you then screw up the planned lives / usages of your other assets, often shortening their planned end of service lives, increasing their usage to compensate for the lost asset and thus requiring expensive midlife updates etc or replacement which both cost financially and haven't been foreseen / planned for within the timeframe. Plus you then have a surplus of trained and qualified staff that need downsizing which again screws up your future manning planning.
So which aircraft was used to replace the Harrier?
The F-35 is just beginning to come on line so unless something filled the "gap" there was no additional use caused was there?
If you have a surplus number of Harrier Engineers and Pilots....can they not be cross trained for useful employment on other types?
Or were all those folks shown the door and made redundant?
Except for the Star studded bunch of course.
The F-35 is just beginning to come on line so unless something filled the "gap" there was no additional use caused was there?
If you have a surplus number of Harrier Engineers and Pilots....can they not be cross trained for useful employment on other types?
Or were all those folks shown the door and made redundant?
Except for the Star studded bunch of course.
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SASless,
I think that it’s more a case of a capabilitybeing missing than ‘someone didn’t fill the gap’. Libya happened immediately afterwards and the Tornados and AH did some great work - but so would the Harriers have done. Obviously the target sets would have differed.
I think I’m right in saying that the vast majority of RN maintainers were found roles. A significant amount of the RN O3/O4 cadre walked (6 each) - as did a couple of O5 and one O6. (Bear in mind the cadre only supported 8 O5s).
I got the impression that the RAF manners did a good job of looking after the junior officer cadre on their side of the fence but that may not be how they viewed it themselves.
The seniors (O6 plus) in the RAF seem to have done alright.
I think that it’s more a case of a capabilitybeing missing than ‘someone didn’t fill the gap’. Libya happened immediately afterwards and the Tornados and AH did some great work - but so would the Harriers have done. Obviously the target sets would have differed.
I think I’m right in saying that the vast majority of RN maintainers were found roles. A significant amount of the RN O3/O4 cadre walked (6 each) - as did a couple of O5 and one O6. (Bear in mind the cadre only supported 8 O5s).
I got the impression that the RAF manners did a good job of looking after the junior officer cadre on their side of the fence but that may not be how they viewed it themselves.
The seniors (O6 plus) in the RAF seem to have done alright.
(1) Osborne was trying to reduce Government spending and borrowing, so borrowing money to sustain the Harrier was never an option.
(2) Binning Harrier also allowed them to bin Ark Royal (and vice versa) so the savings have to be seen in conjunction (A simplistic view, but these are politicians we are talking about)
(2) Binning Harrier also allowed them to bin Ark Royal (and vice versa) so the savings have to be seen in conjunction (A simplistic view, but these are politicians we are talking about)