British Army - Delusional About Air Power
 

General Carter on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40534771

Leaving aside his missed opportunity to explain why we need a regular army beyond the "armies are the business" explanation I do sense that the British Army has a rather closed view of modern warfare.

Gen Carter points to history as a reason why we need a regular army but appears to overlook modern history where air power has been either the lead or sole power used. In equal regards he failed to explain what the 2 recent regular army 'boots on the ground' campaigns have achieved. We are rapidly approaching 16 years of conflict in AFG and 14 years in Iraq.

Worryingly this attitude is reflected at lower levels in the British Army. Indeed, at a recent symposium I endured a brief by a Colonel and his team expressing the weakness of air power by using Kosovo as an example. He seemed to take great pride in the fact that the campaign took many more weeks than expected. Yep, he used the term 'weeks' without a hint of irony.

Of more concern was the boundless optimism in the ability of the British Army to operate under an air threat or against modern stand-off weapons launched from the air/land/sea environment.

The British Army finds itself at a crossroads, admittedly not of its own making. Recent history has not definitively shown the value of 'boots on the ground' and perhaps more specifically, not shown the value of relativity low numbers of 'boots'. Turning to General Carter's history books it is impossible to find a land-centric campaign that achieved enduring success with a force as small as that currently fielded by the British Army. If you need 'boots on the ground' you need lots of them and this is simply beyond the gift of the current force structure.

Right now General Carter has only one regular army operational deployment located on the eastern fringe of Europe. Beyond operating as political trip-wire, should Russia flex its muscles again, I am not sure what military effect these 'boots' would offer. General Carter needs to use his time more effectively to explain why a regular army is needed and what numbers and capabilities are required to keep them relevant.

We need all three. Navy, Army and Air Force. They all do a great job in their own arena.

Budgetary restraints aside, I can't believe we still engage in discussions about which is better than the other.

BV

I think it is more a comment on the delusion that the UK still has an "army" as opposed to a large Home Guard with insufficient numbers to deploy to attempt more than a police action - and as proved in both Basra and Helmand province.

The truism that "quantity has a quality all of its own" applies in much greater force to the PBI than airframes.

Maybe Sir Nick needs to go to the cinema this month and watch this:



It always amazes me whenever it starts going wrong for LAND that they start exclaiming "Where's bloody Air Force". Dunkirk is a classic example of this. The RAF were taking the Germans on well inside the German lines to try and stop the Luftwaffe from getting to our lines. Just because the RAF weren't visible overhead Dunkirk then their tiny minds told them that they didn't turn up. Indeed, some of those unfortunate to get shot down and survive were excluded by the Navy and Army from being allowed from getting on a boat back to Blighty. It's reported that fighter ace Al Deere, a RAF Boxing Champ, had to chin the boarding officer to get on a boat as they were not letting the RAF board (w-anchors). Deere became a fighter ace in ONE day at Dunkirk and went on to command during the Battle of Britain. As an indicator of the quality of his character he was one RAF Halton's most popular commandants, inspiring young men who went on to serve in the 50s, 60s and 70s. If it wasn't for the RAF then the rescue of so many at Dunkirk just would not have been possible - maybe Sir Nick and his subordinates should remember that...

LJ

As a committed civilian , albeit one borne int he 1950s when we really did have armed forces on a large scale (but then so did everyone else) it does seem to me that we could get rid of the tri service approach and just have a defence forces approach. That might get rid of some of the sqaubbles?? and would get rid of the 3 admirals per ship allegations wouldnt it? It wouldn't affect front line folks but logistical and admin functions could be streamlined. After all they all report to a defence ministry even if they a have been the aggressor more often than not lately and might have to invade Spain over Gibraltar if the Daily Mail is correct .

Suggesting you can win a war with just air power is a basically flawed idea. You can bomb all you like but you will never 'connect' with the people you seek to subdue in anything other than a kinetic way. Yes, you may make short term gains but you won't achieve the long term objective. for that, you need boots on the ground and he is correct.

The problem with Afghanistan is that nobody knew/could define or more importantly agree on what the final objective is/was.

BV: you cannot dismiss 'budgetary restraints' so easily. Committing to an Army of 82,000 in his 2015 election campaign probably seemed like an easy decision for David Cameron when it was put to him, but with the Forces' overall manpower not similarly defined it effectively hobbled the Navy and Air Force and prevented them manning capabilities that were and are in much greater demand. The RAF leadership's policy in recent years has been to make their representations privately, but that didn't build any public or media pressure on the Government to announce an Air Force manpower floor in 2015. Part of the distasteful Whitehall game this all may be, but that doesn't mean it is unimportant or inconsequential and it's unreasonable to expect us not to take a view.

On the actual question, the General needs to explain what British troops are specifically needed to do. Land warfare is a messy business: close, personal, often among the people. Soldiers are killed. Deploying them is the greatest sign of commitment a leader can make, in contrast to air power, which by comparison can almost be turned on and off like a tap. We saw our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan encumbered with ridiculous armour, using TTPs designed for own-force protection ahead of mission success, being outmanoeuvred by enemies who were prepared to bide their time and sometimes to die in great number because it was their battle, their territory, their people being fought for. We are unlikely to face battles of our own sufficiently visceral to free British regular troops from the political bubble-wrap in which they inevitably operate. In Afghanistan pre-2005, Libya 2011 (which was a military if not political success) and Iraq 2015-date we used handfuls of soldiers with significant air and naval power to propel indigenous ground forces to success - and the achievement of our military objectives - at practically no political cost. That is the model which has found favour and against which the General appears to be mounting a defence, dismissing its success with the politically-charged word "proxies". I'm sure the Iraqi Security Forces don't see themselves that way...

TB7

I beg to differ old stick. You can win wars immediately with air power, or latterly sea power, alone. You just need the resolve to make the consequences of continuing seem so bleak that your enemy is forced to make unconditional surrender...

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cp...ges-906253.jpg

...a lesson we seem to have forgotten having fought Bliar's little skirmishes in the past 20 years. Maybe if our backs go to the wall again in a total war and big strategic weapons are used again then those with memories of the little land-based skirmishes will be re-educated.

LJ

Pax Britannia, Mountbatten set that process in motion when he had the MOD created from the individual ministries, then it was stalled. Seconding RAF aircrew to the RN as the FAA ran down and more recently creation of Joint Commands was in vogue. Creation of a single staff college is another step. The problem is that everyone comes from a single service background with a better ethos than the other services.

You need real leadership to surmount single service prejudices. Ultimately a single initial training centre subsuming Sandhurst, Dartmouth and Sleaford Tech would be needed.

Then remember, the Canadians went the whole hog and now back again.

PN

I suspect we are very nearly there and in a similar way to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) we will see the UK's Joint Forces Command (JFC) and PJHQ take a more leading role over the single services - just like the ADF or the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). There are other similar models outside of the Commonwealth.

However, I am deeply opposed to 'single gateways' as they really are flawed on so many levels. Each Service has an ethos it needs to develop and nuture - those differences makes us who we are and more effective in our lead environments. Also, the idiotic notions of training officers, NCOs and Other Ranks on the same establsihments have been proven to be a bad idea many times over. As ever, we ignore the lessons of others at our peril.

LJ

You know you're getting old when this perennial pops up for the umpteenth time.

Two's In. I agree, it's frustrating isn't it...:ugh:

I'll third that.

Remember well the resistance to CAF and its eventual demise back into three discreet services - each with its particular strengths and weaknesses.

At a time of ever-increasing threat both localised and globally, I just CANNOT understand the reduction in both military and civil security forces.

Beancounters rule the world. There'll be tears before bed time.

The RAF seem to get upset when they aren't the centre of attention.

The reality is that the teeth arms only come across air power when it is in support of them, cementing their perception that everyone is there to enable them to close with and kill the enemy. There are still twitches amongst non aviation aware people when AH request kill boxes and type 3 controls to mop up armour on exercises.

That is true, but irrelevant. Obviously they only come across it when they are deployed in the same theatre, that does not mean that air power is not deployed, just that they are not present.

I have a paper I used in my last Uni paper on warfare which has a map which shows the 20+ drone sites the US (not USAF) has deployed throughout Africa supported by civil company recce business jets (surprising resembling those used by the UK and others) and conducting armed operations in support of their host nations. I would imagine the same is true in Asia.

LB, i quite ageee, I was responding to PB, a committed civilian.

The problem with Joint is that the lead command often thinks Green and not Purple. Two shades of blue seems to work apart from the regular argument over ownership of fixed wing air.

Didn't Green think the Harrier was a Brigade level asset?

Nobody seems to be asking WHY successive Prime Ministers are committing UK resources to invade, bomb and attack countrys with what is a trite and standard response of protecting us at home.

7/7 and attacks since show that doesn't seems to be working that well.

The hiding of the report done by Home Office on funders of UK Terrorism tell us what we need to know.
If it was Iran funding it then it would be headline news with demand for sanctions and bombing raids.

Instead UK is acting as someone's bitch so we can sell billions in arms to them while committing men to do their bidding overseas so the wealthy of said country can come and buy more lush property in central London.

In 2001 I kept asking a simple question................... What was purpose of invading Afghanistan................... 16 years on and thousands of death later there is still no response.

What does the willingness of successive Prime Ministers to carry on perpetual war on people amount to.

Sadly politicians have been bought and paid for.

Racedo,

Your comments are, to my mind, right to the heart of the current problem. In recent years and recent conflicts the most senior members of the armed services have not, to my thinking, done their jobs well.

Ultimately, their task is to ask 'Why?' and also 'What do we do after defeating the opposition- what is the follow on plan for the peace?'

ONLY when they have satisfactory answers to those questions should they agree to deploy troops.
Neither of those questions were satisfactorily answered or even asked, evidently, in either Afghanistan or the Iraq case. My view is that as a result those senior servicemen were acquiescing to what were in effect illegal orders.

Politicians are always being bought and paid for, that it seems the Chiefs of Staff effectively have been as well - or are too worried about job security to stand up and be counted - is very disheartening. They above all must never be 'yes men' - or women. At one time they would have stood up to idiotic political follies.

As for the rest of the discussion - dear lord - the folly that 'wars can be won by air power alone' has been disproved many times by now. Without air power, winning is going to be 'challenging', to say the least. All three services are typically necessary, but ultimately only 'boots on the ground' can take and HOLD ground. That is why the Army - or the Marines - are always necessary in the end.

On another note - what do the Canadians think/say went wrong with the single service concept?

Which time do you mean?

If nothing else racedo, an entire generation of Afghanis have achieved a full education without too much interference of the Taliban.

I think the general is right for a (small) sub set of conflicts.
It probably seems more of a truism (to him) because of the conflicts we have been fighting since 9/11.

But I think he would be wanting all the standoff he could get if say Russia took a excursion into the Baltic for example.

I can see the Army moving more and more towards UAV's for CAS - just a another support arm like artillery - who will control them? It will continue to muddy the waters on Tactical Airpower. If it flies it should be airforce obviously makes the most sense but politics gets in the way.

what chance the RAF would go along this road? http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...uirements.html

And if not why not?

Technically it was not an invasion, we were invited it and it was not expected we would fire a shot.

Pedant alert!

IIRC the people who did the inviting were rebel war lords trying to overthrow the recognised (but awful) Govt at the time

Incorrect, the truth being the other way round.

TIME.com Primer: The Taliban and Afghanistan - TIME

Q: Is the Taliban the recognized government of Afghanistan? Do they have domestic opposition?

A; Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's government, and international recognition as a legitimate government remains the movement's most important foreign policy objective. The country's seat at the United Nations is still held by representatives of the government overthrown by the Taliban in 1996, to which the opposition Northern Alliance remains loyal.

HH: you have to be correct to be a pedant, otherwise you're just a spoiler:

UN History of Afghanistan

[Edit: ORAC beat me to it!]

Leaping now to the defence of senior military officers on strategic decision making, it has to be said that they have surprisingly little influence on policy. There is almost an allergic reaction to the idea of the military having a say in Government decision-making with the result that the Foreign Office and its alumni in advisory posts, usually adopting a contradictory position of promoting Western ideals while resolutely supporting the Sunni Arab states, get to call the shots. As CDS during Libya, General Richards tried to point out the likely pitfalls of ousting Gadaffi, only to be told he was a 'purist' and promptly ignored. Since Trump's election I had wondered if military realism would finally get to, er, trump fashionable civilian idealism, but judging by the recent push against Assad I'm not so sure...

The exception I will make to the above (and perhaps the reason for those allergic reactions) is Iraq 2003, where a careful reading of Chilcot makes clear that there was a concerted effort by senior elements in the Army to get an armoured division involved as part of the usual "use it or risk losing it" schtick, and that proceedings were skewed by offers of forces that had been made without political authorisation. Look at the executive summary of the section below, plus paras 230 to 251 (especially 240) and 965 to 980. Barely-disguised self-interest at play. Bad, very bad; fortunately a new generation of young officers has grown up with the consequences and is determined not to make the same mistakes, which is why pronouncements like CGS's are not especially helpful.

Chilcot Section 6.1

The Taliban ran Afghansistan and the " representatives of the government overthrown" didn't dare show their faces

To suggest they were the Legitimate Govt is like the farcial proposition that the KMT on Taiwan ran China from 1948 - 1972 or that Mr Lincoln's writ ran in the Confederacy..................

Very interesting Easy - I'd missed that

HH, you claimed they were the recognised government, which they were not.

Stop trying to use weasel words to shift your position - it just makes you look eve worse. Just admit you were wrong and move on.

Even down to the tactical/small/mini UAS level?

Harumph. Anyone remember airliners flying into the twin towers in New York?

It was inevitable that the Americans would respond with the utmost vigour to such a provocation. If Bin Laden ever thought otherwise he was seriously deluded. That was the day that at least some countries also decided that one of the most repugnant regimes ever to stain the soil of Afghanistan had to be got rid of, if not for the long term benefit of the people who live there, but for their own too. To have not done anything, to let them get away with it, to leave the source of such attacks undamaged would have been an invitation to carry out more of the same.

Interestingly Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait have decided to take action on Qatar for the same reason. However Qatar is vulnerable to economic sanctions, Afghanistan was not. If Qatar hangs on for a few months, we'll be looking at a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf just in time to cut off our gas supply by Christmas. Sure, the USN or possibly even the RN could swipe the little corvettes used by SA, UAE aside, but somehow I don't think they will.

Frankly, CGS is taking aim at the symptom not the disease here. Air power has unequivocally reduced the toll on ground forces and this has become ever-more prevalent since Vietnam. Armies are vital - they take and hold territory; close with the enemy, and have almost exclusively delivered the terms of victory by hand. However, as GWI clearly showed, after a significant air campaign waged against strategic and tactical targets alike, the ground war was over in less than 100hours. This is an over-simplification but let's not forget that Saddam possessed the 5th largest armed force in the world at the time.

CGS seems to erroneously infer of an "air power is THE solution" mindset, whereas the reality iis, air power is often the safest and most expedient political instrument to use in the first instance. Just because it deploys early doesn't mean it's the only solution - indeed, it's own weaknesses are made up by having other force domains from Land and Maritime to meet the campaign aims and objectives.

In this instance I disagree with the General, mainly because he's pointing the finger to preserve cap badges. The politicos need to be convinced by positive messaging for a standing Army of XX,000, not through asserting half a story to denigrate the very forces that are proven to reduce his very soldiers' battlefield casualties and greatly amplify its efficacy.

Indeed, but even with blatantly obvious examples from the very near past, here we are having the same arguments.....like putting a brigade minus into an area the size of wales perhaps? Then screaming for help from air/aviation.....plenty of examples of boots on the ground, sadly the owners were back in the UK wondering where their limbs are......how quickly we forget.

Rotate too late,

Exactly. My son was a grunt in Helmand during the "surge", lost his best mate to a .50 while next to him, came back a changed man. Air had no assets to support during an 18 hour (yes, 18 hour) engagement. I feel as though I've lost someone who was my pride and joy as well as being proud of himself.

In my day Northern Ireland and the Falklands just didn't feel as shabby.

NEO

NEO,
I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. As an ex AH driver, I saw first hand the shocking futility of that campaign. I'd would very much recommend charities like combat stress to your boy. It's a sign of the times that he needs to rely on charity but they do bloody good work. He's not alone, trust me.

RTL

In 1979 after Viertnam overthrew Pol Pot who had slaughtered 25% of the population guess who held onto Camnodia's seat on the United Nations.

The History Place - Points of View: Cambodia's Twisted Path to Justice by Ben Kiernan

Guess who insisted they keep it.

Oh I remember because I lost a friend in New York that day.

I also remember the nationality of the country where they were from............ oh wait it is those peace loving Saudi's who fully recognised and supported the Taliban Govt.



Is this the Qatar that supplys UK LNG, who owns major shareholdings in UK, buy lots of arms from US and UK. €12 Billion from US at the moment.
Why are US/UK supplying major Terrorism sponsors.

Isn't it great those peace loving Saudi's....................... what again are they doing in Yemen ? What are their troops doing in Syria ? Libya ? and other countrys are telling everybody about Terrorism.
How much again have they spent in funding their Wahabbi extremism around the world in the last decade ?

Keep drinking the Koolaid if you think Qatar is alone in doing it.

Thanks very much. He was supported by Combat Stress for about 3 years then they said he'd had all the help they could give him. Now he just muddles on (still sleeps on the floor, can't abide being touched) and barely gets through each day.

He won't speak to me about what went on out there, despite being born in a military hospital while I was away in NI for the umpteenth time. No empathy; he says I wouldn't understand.

Breaks my heart.

NEO

And almost all the terrorist acts committed in Europe and the UK areeither from European or British citizens or nations such as Tunisia etc. But we don't blame those nations, we blame and seek out to destroy those individuals and organisations who's ideology they follow.

If British ISIL jihadists were to commit a major atrocity in the USA would you wish them to bomb the UK in response, or ISIL?

Chilcot's Inquiry is full of absolute gems. Having been involved in the planning stage for the capabilities requested/required (Air, Maritime & SF) and how taut they were, I was astonished that the Land component could offer an argument that they had to have a major role - not because of a requirement but just to keep the British Army happy. Worryingly this dangerous folly gained traction and support at the highest levels:

[Page 294]

I'm sure that Army morale was suitably bolstered. WTF?