Gaps, gaps, gaps - part 1

Part 2 of this report: Gaps, gaps, gaps 


The financial management of complex military programs is improving, but military capability is being eroded at alarming rate. This is what the NAO Major Project report 2012 exposes. The thick of the cost escalation is due to inflation factors that sit outside the MOD’s possibilities of control. In fact, after five years in which this expenditure voice wasn’t updated, expected fuel costs for the Voyager air tanker’s service life have been revised, and they account for an expected cost growth of 336 million pounds. Fuel cost is not something the MOD can do much to control and dominate, as the NAO itself notes.

In total, there has a net total increase of 637 million pounds over a number of programs, most notably FSTA (Voyager) and the CVF aircraft carriers. Other programs are now under control and costs connected to them are falling, so that the increase in expected expenditure compared to last year is ultimately  worth 468 million.

The Voyager tankers are also incurring a 31 million pounds cost increase due to inflation, 2 million for the implementation of additional safety measures and 24 million due to France stepping out of the frame: it had been hoped that the French air force would buy Voyager services to remedy to the shortage in air to air refueling capability, but an agreement wasn’t found and ultimately France is planning to order this year the first few of its own planned 14 A330 MRTT.  

The FSTA program for Voyager tankers has also achieved savings in other areas, however, with a noticeable reduction of 98 million due to the refinancing of the PFI deal.

The final balance of savings and cost increases, however, puts the Voyager on top of the list of the naughty boys, with a net increase of 257 million.

CVF follows, reporting a 217 million cost increase, in no small part due to the switch from STOVL to CATOBAR. The NAO report covers the CVF situation prior to the switch back to STOVL and F35B, which will be covered in the 2013 NAO report. Until then, it will be difficult to say what the real impact on the program was in terms of potential delays and additional costs. Later this year the NAO will release a new report into the delivery of Carrier Strike, so we might obtain the up to date, valid information from it. There’s many questions still waiting to be answered regarding the CATOBAR saga.

The A400 Atlas C.1 cargo plane program reports a 163 million net increase in costs, mostly due to the Export Levy payment made by the UK as part of the multinational agreement to keep the program alive. The UK share of costs is 175 million.

In theory, EADS will hand the money back if export orders are won in the future, but we’ll see how it actually goes. The MOD has prudently decided to consider this money as a cost increase. If it'll return at some point in the future, all the better.

Importantly, the NAO also observes:

In recent years we have reported several times that the Department has had to slip projects or cut equipment numbers to bridge the gap between estimated funding and the forecast cost of the defence budget. These decisions were not value for money and meant that new capabilities were not available on time. There are no such instances recorded this year, though difficult decisions may still be necessary as part of the Department’s drive to keep the Equipment Plan in balance.

If financial management is showing improvements and discipline is starting to have a beneficial effect on accounts, the situation for military capability is however dire in several areas. Particularly worrisome are Air-Air-Refuelling, airlift, embarked AEW and Amphibious support helicopters.

At various points to 2017, there will be critical gaps in air transport and air-to-air refuelling capability. From 2022, there will be approximately a one-third shortfall in tactical transport aircraft against the stated requirement. On the ability to move passengers and cargo by helicopter, the Department has accepted that while there will be a shortfall against the full requirement, it believes that current plans will deliver a sufficient capability, and the risk will be reduced by using other defence capabilities.

Main contributors to the reduction of planned expenditure are Typhoon, Type 45 and Astute (boats 1 to 3) which have been able to hand back the major part of the 169 million pounds recapped in 2011/12 over the programs examined in the report.
This money was contingency funding that proved not necessary and could be put back in the central money pot.

The entry in service of several capabilities, however, has slipped to the right by a combined 139 months. An enormity, with the Brimstone 2 and Meteor missile programs being the biggest contributors, with twin 23 months delays to report.
CVF reports a 9 months slippage, but as we said, the "photograph" of the NAO has been in this case been made outdated by the switchback to STOVL: construction of the ships as of now seems to be going strong, several milestones have been hit earlier than planned on the assembly of Queen Elizabeth and i'm consequently willing to guess that the NAO report 2013 and/or Carrier Strike report will rectify this particular data. 

Anyway, delays and gaps. This is where the pain comes. Let's look at the military capability, and see what the situation is.

A400 Atlas C.1

Entry in service still expected in March 2015, no further delays on the horizon.

The plan is to hit IOC in 2015 with 70 Squadron RAF fielding the first 3 Atlas cargo planes.
Full Operating Capability will be hit over 2017/18 with 12 airplanes operational.

The first UK airplane, MSN16, is expected to be delivered in 2014. It will the 16th production A400 aircraft, but the UK took the conscious decision in previous planning rounds to be patient and wait a little, in order to receive all aircrafts at production standard and with software SOC 1.5: this standard means the aircraft is fully ready and cleared for all kind of airdrop operations and is ready for the Air Tanker role, although the RAF so far does not plan to procure AAR kit for the Atlas.

The early planes, delivered to France and others, come at standard SOC 1, which is very much an early release, with some limitations.

SOC 3, expected in 2018, will add the full capability for low-level tactical flying and Special Forces role.

It is also confirmed, as announced for the first time in 2008, that the madness of not having fuel-inerting system on the RAF A400 has been terminated: the MOD has paid some 6 millions to have fuel inerting pipes installed and has invested to add a Portable Removable On-Board Inert Gas Generation System. This greatly improves safety.

The installation of full Defensive Aids Sub-System (DASS) has also been brought forwards, and the full range of countermeasures, including Directed Infra Red Counter Measures (DIRCM) will already be on the first airplane delivered.
As of now, however, it would appear that DASS is funded for the first 9 airplanes only. Obviously, this is unacceptable, and it will have to be corrected as soon as possible in the next planning rounds. 

22 airplanes remain planned for entry in service by 2022, when the C130J is expected to retire. The NAO however reports that the Atlas alone are insufficient, with a one-third shortage in tactical airlift capability anticipated. Not a case that, prior to SDSR 2010, the C130J's OSD was 2030, and not 2022.

In the immediate future, the situation is just as complex, with measures urgently needed to improve availability of C130Js and a further delay having been imposed to the retirement of the last 8 C130K to October this year, at a cost of 16 million. The end of the old C130Ks has had to be delayed several times in a row now, and this of course has a cost.

The Urgent procurement of 2 BAE 146 Quick Change tactical cargo aircrafts cost 47 million pounds.



AIRSEEKER

The procurement of 3 Rivet Joint airplanes for COMINT and SIGINT tasks is on track, but reports a 4 million cost growth due to exchange rates variation.
At full operating capability, the Rivet Joint force will consist of 3 airplanes, 4 trained crews, 2 deployable ground stations for data processing, ground infrastructure for support (at the Main Base, RAF Waddington) and a ground intelligence analysis and exploitation facility (to be built at the Joint Services Signals Unit, RAF Digby base).


C17 number 8

Cost for the 8th C17 was 215 million.

There's no mention in the NAO report, but rumors are circling about the incoming purchase of UK9, a 9th C17 strategic cargo aircraft. A 10th serial number is also reserved for an eventual 10th aircraft.
The ambition to have 10 machines has been there for some time, and the lease or purchase of a further 2 C17s was reportedly on the table lately, also because the withdrawal from Afghanistan will require powerful air transport capability. The NAO believes that there will be Strategic Airlift capability in excess of requirement from 2016 onwards, but i do not quite agree: this is one of these capabilities that very rarely, if ever, can be in excess of requirements.


Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft - Voyager

The Voyager is currently operative as a transport and aeromedical evacuation platform only. It entered active service on April 4, 2012, and by December 2012 (when the third Voyager airplane arrived at Brize Norton) 16.000 personnel and other one million kgs had been airlifted in well over 1000 flying hours.

Of course, though, the main mission of Voyager is refuelling other airplanes in flight, and this is currently not yet validated due to leaks that were detected in various parts of the AAR flight envelope. Corrective measures have been agreed and are being implemented.

Air to Air refuelling IOC should be achieved within September this year, with one airplane fitted with both Wing pods and centerline fuselage station.
Air Tanker and the RAF, following problems in trials with the Cobham-designed High Speed-Variable Drag Drogue (HSVDD) fitted to the hoses of the Voyager have taken the decision to remove the HSVDD from the wing stations of Voyager tankers, reverting to the old Sergeant-Fletcher-designed drogue present on Tristar and VC10.

Aviation Week explains:

The HSVDD is designed to refuel aircraft at between 180 and 300 kt., a much wider speed range than previous drogue systems. However, a series of flight trials in 2011 found that the drogue or basket was venting and separately spinning, causing hose oscillation.

Although those oscillations were solved by mid-2012, results of trials with Tornado GR4 were still not satisfactory. The return to the Sergeant-Fletcher drogue has instead resulted in success with both Tornado and Typhoon.
The HSVDD will be maintained on the Centerline Fuselage Station, which is mostly intended for use in refueling of large aircrafts: trials have successfully been completed to validate AAR with C130J, and in 2014 the trials will be carried out with the E-3D Sentry AWACS.

FOC for FSTA is the provvision of a full fleet of 9 "core" tankers, 7 of which will be fitted for centerline refueling station and 5 fitted with it. The expected date for achievement of FOC is May 2014.
The centerline fuselage station is essential to provide Day and Night air refuelling to large aircrafts such as Sentry, C130 and, in future, A400 Atlas. The other 5 tankers, as known, are "on call" and might be released when not needed to serve as passenger airplanes on the civilian market. In reality, it has long dawned on the MOD that this is unlikely to happen, while it is more likely that european partners could buy Voyager AAR hours and services in the future. As mentioned earlier in this article, it had been planned that France would buy Voyager hours, but this plan did not go ahead.

To remedy to the potentially dramatic gap in AAR capability, the old Tristar tankers will serve beyond their planned OSD of July 2013, being in service until March 2014 at an extra cost of 7 millions.
The VC10 was expected to cease service in March 2013 but the RAF will try and operate them for at least a few months longer, out to September, but the closure of the maintenance line at St Athan will be the deciding factor: at one point, not far into the future, it'll be simply impossible to keep the VC10 flying any longer. 
 
The 3-point Voyager tankers (2 Wing stations plus centerline fuselage station) are known as Voyager KC3, the others as KC2. 
All aircrafts are fitted for a full DASS fit of electronic countermeasures and, following a 124 million measure in PR11 they are being fitted for platform protection (cockpit armor and other survivability features) for use in war theatres.



Astute-class submarines

The NAO report confirms that Astute has been trialing the installation and use of a "payload bay", which is actually the CHALFONT dry deck shelter for carriage of Special Boat Service operators and equipment, all the way up to the Swimmers Delivery Vehicles.

Planned expenditure for boats 1 to 3 reduced by 94 million pounds between April 2011 and March 2012.
Astute boat 4 and 5 had a significant cost growth connected to the slow-down of production connected to the delay of the Successor SSBN program to 2028. 

The NAO certifies that the delays imposed to the delivery of the 7 Astute submarines is preventing the Navy from achieving the planned availability of deployable SSNs.

The NAO reports that Astute boats 1 to 3 are forecast not to meet their Top Speed requirement, but all other requirements to be met. There is also an element of hope in the fact that the NAO notes that

initial trials in Boat 1 have been deliberately constrained but unrestricted trials will be conducted prior to Operational Handover.

so that HMS Astute could still demonstrate it can be as fast as the Navy hoped.

Boat 4 and 5 are expected to meet all requirements, but there are still risks, mainly due to some elements of planned capability not having been given the final go ahead and funding. In detail:

- Spearfish torpedo upgrade is now funded and on the way, with excellent progress to date
- An integrated communications and radar solution for Astute Boat 4 is now funded
- Naval Extremely/Super High Frequency Satcom Terminal approved by HM Treasury in December 2011 (not clear if the approval is for fitting at build only from boat 5 onwards, report is contraddictory as the same element is not funded in the Boat 4 table and funded in Boat 5 table)
- Astute Capability Sustainment Programme still awaiting HM Treasury approval

Despite the drama kicked up by the Guardian's articles, the Astute submarine program seems to be actually in good shape, and things appear to be improving.


Meteor BVRAAM

Technically, the missile is doing well, finally, in development and firing trials with a 3 months reduction in the trials period expected to be needed. However, the MOD was 11 months late in signing contracts and, worse, the Typhoon software development continues to be horrendously slow. The missile will be ready soon enough, but Typhoon won't get the software and the radar improvements necessary to properly employ Meteor in time. The FOC is described as full 6-missile fit, 2-way datalink and cockpit symbology and functionality, but the June 2017 ISD date could end up being valid for just the four missiles in semi-conformal positions under the fuselage.

The result is the slippage from an ISD of July 2015 to June 2017, with a consequent 50 million pounds cost to keep AMRAAM missiles stocks longer than planned. Worse, it might not be enough, and availability of AMRAAM missiles by 2017 risks being dangerously low.


JULIUS and Chinook New Buy 

The MK4 and 4A Chinooks upgraded are now entering in service and the first HC4 has even deployed to Afghanistan. However, the program accumulated several months of delay compared to earlier planned dates.

Delivery of the 14 new Chinooks (HC6) for service has also suffered delays and the MOD has prudently assumed that the IOC for the new Chinooks will take longer than hoped, now expecting it in November 2014, some 6 months later than earlier assumed.


Complex Weapons 

The NAO Report does not cover the Selective Precision Effect At Range (SPEAR) Capability 1 segment, unfortunately. This is relative to spiral development and evolution of the Paveway IV bomb, including the development and provvision of different kind of warheads, including a low-yeld, low collateral damage and a bunker-buster option. Improved capability against fast moving targets and longer glide ranges are also expected to be explored.

In July last year, Raytheon and Qinetiq completed ‘sled trials’ at the UK’s Pendine test range on the bunker-buster warhead, we know.

The Compact Penetrator warhead has the same outer mould-line and mass of the current Paveway™ IV enhanced Mk 82 warhead and has demonstrated a significantly increased penetration capability through the series of target engagement trials. Raytheon UK and QinetiQ have been working closely with Thales under the UK’s Weapon Technology Centre Compact Penetrator programme. The 25 month initiative will also undertake operational environment assessments, such as transportation, handling and air carriage.

Over the course of 2012, three orders for Paveway IV bombs were placed: a 60 million order in April to replenish stocks after operations in Libya, plus a 14 million in July and a further 25 million order in December.

The NAO does talk of SPEAR Capability 2, however: this is the development of the Brimstone missile.
Capability 2 Block 1, specifically, is the Brimstone 2 missile, a major improvement from the current UOR-derived Dual Mode Brimstone.
Brimstone 2 adds improved seeker and Insensitive Munition-compliant warhead and rocket motor, plus other improvements. It was to be introduced this year, but unfortunately trials imposed a 23 months delay as issues with both warhead and rocket motor emerged, the NAO reports. Warhead problems are fixed, lethality is confirmed and Critical Design Review passed, but the motor is still a problem. Seeker and electronics have been validated with 3 successful launches.
In 2013 there is going to be an IOC phase mating the improved seeker and electronics of Brimstone 2 to existing warheads and rocket motors, as an interim capability on the way to full release to service. A "minor concession" on performance has been agreed to enable MBDA to fix the rocket motor, presumably as a way to control costs, instead of wanting every tiny bit of capabilitity no matter what the cost. 

There was to be a SPEAR Capability 2 Block 2, but the decision was taken to delete this point of decision and just continue to spiral-develop the Brimstone 2. It is intended that in the early 2020s the Brimstone 2 or developments of it will replace the US-made Hellfire missile on the Apache attack helicopter. Hellfire OSD is 2021, and the NAO shows that Concept Phase has now begun on preparing Brimstone to act as replacement.
Brimstone 2 will be used on Tornado GR4 and Typhoon. F35 is not mentioned, at the moment. Integration on Typhoon is part of the Typhoon Future Capability Programme 2, for which we have no dates as of now. Almost certainly after 2015, unfortunately.
Tornado GR4 will be retired from service in March 2019, and by 2018 the RAF hopes to integrate Brimstone and Storm Shadow on the Typhoon.

A SPEAR Capability 2 Block 3 remains planned for the early 2020s (2022 or 2024). This could be a replacement missile in the same weight and mass class, or another development of the Brimstone.

SPEAR Capability 3 is a new 100-kg stand-off weapon (100 to 180 km range) specifically thought out for internal transport into the weapon bays of the F35, but we can expect to see it on Typhoon too, one day. The NAO provides a breakdown of the activity done so far, and the list is quite impressive, showing a great amount of progress:

Spear Capability 3
(i) Request for Quotations (RFQ) for seekers released - February 2011
(ii) Initial discussions about demonstration and manufacture/integration issues with Typhoon - May 2011
(iii) Assessment Phase subsystem downselect, Concept Design Review and Phase 2 Gate Review completed - July 2011
(iv) MBDA commenced launcher study because BRU-61 launcher found to be incompatible with chilled airframe design - August 2011
(v) Warhead supplier recommendation endorsed by Portfolio Management Board; Systems Design Review Complete; BAE Systems under contract for Phase 1 of Airframe and Propulsion Flight
Demonstration. Draft System Requirement Document issued - December 2011
(vi) Contract let with Hamilton Sunstrand for Turbojet Technical Assistance Agreement - January 2012

SPEAR 3 resembles the US Small Diameter Bomb and uses the same arrangement, with a launcher/pylon carrying four weapons. It is however a turbojet-powered missile and not a gliding bomb. Each F35B will carry a quadruple pylon in each weapon bay.

Another chapter is Fire Shadow, the loitering munition for the Royal Artillery, which saw the first 25 or more weapons delivered to the Army in March last year. Requirements have more or less been met, and development is continuing, but the MOD decided not to send Fire Shadow in Afghanistan for in-field experimentation and validation as had earlier been planned.
Fire Shadow is now "under review" within the Army, as is the whole of the unfortunate Indirect Fire Precision Attack program of which it is a part: the fear is that this "review" will ultimately be the final, lethal blow to IFPA, which has been so far a near complete failure:

- AS90 upgrade and 52 caliber barrel was cancelled
- Sensor fused 155 mm anti-tank shell was cancelled in 2010 after contract award in 2007
- LIMAWS(G) and (R) for lightweight self propelled gun and MLRS launcher were both cancelled
- Arming the Watchkeeper drone is an option on hold
- Fire Shadow seems to have an uncertain future at the moment
- Procurement of ATACMS (Large Long Range Rocket) for the british MLRS launchers was cancelled in Planning Round 11
- Procurement of a guided 155 mm shell is effectively on hold following deletion of funding in Planning Round 2011, but the intention is to deliver the precision artillery shell by 2018

The list is a graveyard, and makes it very evident that the effort of the Royal Artillery to modernize its kit has been frustrated again and again.

Much better news come from the Future Local Area Air Defence (FLAADS) which is the air defence missile system using CAMM as effector.
The NAO report suggests that not just the Maritime variant could be ready in November 2016, but the Land variant too (intended replacement for Rapier), although, as far as i'm aware, Rapier OSD is 2020.
Notable achievements include:

(i) Acheivement of Demonstration Phase Contract Award to deliver First of Class Platform - December 2011.
(ii) Successful completion of the System Preliminary Design Review - March 2012.
 
In 2016, FLAADS(M) will replace Sea Wolf on the first of the Type 23 frigates. It will also arm the Type 26 next generation frigates.

Finally, the Future Anti Surface Guided Weapon programme (FASGW) has hit a stumbling block. The Royal Navy and French Navy hope to join forces on FASGW(Heavy) to jointly develop the missile, but France is refusing to committ funding at this stage, and despite british pressure there has not yet been a decision on the way ahead.
The delay in launching the program is resulting in an expected delay of 19 months in entry in service of the new missile, which is needed to replace the old Sea Skua and arm the Wildcat HMA1 helicopter. This way, FASGW(H) will not be ready in 2015, and Sea Skua will have to be used for a longer period, with the very real risk that no money will be expended on integrating it on Wildcat, leaving the new helicopter clawless for the first part of its service life.

The definitive go-ahead has not been given to FASGW(L) either, but the Thales Light Multi-mission Missile is at a far higher technological readiness, and there is still time to order it in time for a 2015 entry in service on Wildcat.


The FALCON communications system finally entered service (Increment A for the Army and Increment C with the Royal Air Force signal unit), but it was several months late as well, and its UOR iteration for use in Afghanistan will not be ready in time either. The biggest plan change, however, is a March 2012 decision to distribute FALCON over the regiments of the Royal Signals (presumably the 5 Theatre Support Regiments) instead of concentrating it just in 30 and 22 Regiments.
This is presumably due to the conclusion that Brigade-level communications must be enhanced and FALCON is simply indispensable for all future deployments. This decision will have some impact on infrastructure expenditure in the next years, probably: under Project BORONA, 22 and 30 regiment (and a third regiment To Be Announced) are both due to be based in Beacon Barracks, Staffords, where infrastructure for storage and support of FALCON is to be built.
The NAO notes, in fact:

Whilst a lack of suitable garage space will not impact upon the capability, Army Headquarters is struggling to ensure that all intended locations have suitable secure storage for specialist items.

To enable the Urgent Operational Requirement, Falcon will utilise an Operational Training Equipment Pool and Operational Support Uplift Pool. This will be whole fleet management within 11 Signal Brigade. Not all receiving units will be able to garage Falcon but all units will have secure storage for access restricted items.

The NAO also notes that a series of improvements and interoperability mods to FALCON, developed for the UOR solution, are to be rolled out onto the whole fleet. Good news for once.
There is no mention of work on the next increment of FALCON, however, which is meant to introduce Network on the Move to maneuver forces. The Army's position is that improved communications are one of the most urgent improvements to be made, but at the same time financial realism means that the thick of the improvements will only go as low as to Battlegroup level, while the ambition was to bring network features all the way down to Company level.


The F35 and CVF sections are not of great interest this year as the NAO coverage does not reach the switch back to B and its implications.
It still lists, for example, a 31 million pounds saving from interuption of work on the Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing technique for the F35B due to the switch to C variant, but it has been undisclosed in these days that, as part of the return to B, SRVL activities have restarted.
It has also been announced that this winter the Ski Jump for HMS Queen Elizabeth will be shipped to Rosyth, despite the fact that it has not even been ordered yet. It would be great to have informations on these changes, but they are outside the period covered by the 2012 report.

On CVF we learn that HMS Queen Elizabeth, in the plan that would have seen HMS Prince of Wales fitted with catapults and wires, would have served for just around 9 months for ship trials and validation activies before being mothballed.
It is hoped that the return to STOVL will mean both carriers are kept and put in service.


Regarding Wildcat helicopters, the NAO report confirms that the requirement, following PR11 options exercised, is for 66 helicopters:

30 Wildcat AH1 (Army Helicopter 1 - battlefield reconnaissance)
8 Wildcat LAH1 (Light Assault Helicopter 1 - 4 converted AH1 airframes and 4 additional, new airframes)
28 Wildcat HMA1 (Helicopter Maritime Attack 1 - naval variant)

The reason why we continually hear the ministers speak about 62 helicopters is that funding has currently been set aside in Core Budget for 34 AH1 and 28 HMA1 machines: negotiations and decision-making to include the LAH order in the Core Budget haven't yet concluded. The decision is expected this year.
The LAH is expected to be destined to replace the Lynx AH7 helicopters used by 657 Army Air Corps squadron, which flies in support of Special Forces.
The AAC expects to have four squadrons on the AH1 Wildcat. The squadrons will be all under 1st Regiment Army Air Corps, following the merge with 9 Regiment, as announced in Army 2020. The regiment will be based in Yeovilton, alongside the Navy's own Wildcats and the common training facility.
6 Regiment, the reserve element of the Army Air Corps, expects to stand up a new reserve squadron  to support the Wildcat force. 

There is not yet certainty about the exact composition of the naval order, either: for what i've heard, 4 of the 28 helicopters for the Royal Navy will actually be in AH1 configuration because destined to the Royal Marines of 847 NAS.
The remaining 24 machines, all HMA1, would be distributed 5 in 702 NAS for training and 19 in 815 NAS, to form 19 Small Ship Flights. The Merlin HM2 will, i believe, continue to provide 6 Small Ship Flights for frigates and two squadrons for "large deployments" (up to 6 helos at a time, on carriers or large RFA vessels), even after the reduction to just 30 airframes as part of the upgrade to HM2. 

The Wildcat AH1 risks being not fully capable because fitting of the Bowman Combat and Infrastructure Platform is not yet funded.
Similarly, the Wildcat HMA1 has not yet been given funding for the installation of the Data Link 22 (which in the next few years will replace Link 11, which works only in Line Of Sight), limiting the capability of the helicopter to share data Beyond Line of Sight.
The Royal Navy is prioritizing surface ships when it comes to funding of Data Link 22, but fitting it to Merlin and Wildcat will be a priority in the near future.

The Wildcat AH1 should be in service in August 2014: this represents a delay of 7 months, due to the training facility having been ordered only recently. The Full Mission Simulator won't be operative before december 2013, the Cockpit Procedures Trainer is only planned to go live in February 2014, the Aircraft Systems Trainer in November 2013 and Weapons & Avionics training solution in February 2014. This of course makes much harder to prepare personnel.
The HMA1 variant should still manage to enter service in January 2015.

 

Lessons learned, lessons forgotten?

We are still waiting for a "Lessons Learned" report about Libya operations (promised, but not yet in sight) and it will be interesting to see what such analysis ends up saying, but what about previous "Lessons Learned" exercises? Did they have success in informing the successive decisions regarding force structures and equipment?

Yes and no.

An emblematic case is the 2003 Iraq War lessons learned exercise, in which some of the observations made were promptly forgotten in the following years, when the moment came to apply the lesson learned to facts.

For example:

The deployed fleet of 116 Challenger 2s fired a total of 1.9 tonnes of Depleted Uranium (DU) and 540 High Explosive rounds, whilst the 36 AS90s and the [39] 105mm Light Guns fired around 9,000 and 13,000 artillery rounds respectively; some 2000 of the former were bomblet shells. The Challenger 2 was used to provide very precise firepower effects, in circumstances where the risk of collateral damage prevented the use of artillery. This was crucial when operating in cities and towns such as Basrah and Az Zubayr. Artillery was critical in preventing freedom of movement of enemy forces in the open battlefield.

22.000 rounds of heavy artillery fired, despite the unprecedented availability of air support, demonstrate that there is still plenty of need for the timely delivery of barrages of artillery. In addition, over 9% of the artillery shells fired were bomblet carriers for wide area attack and anti-tank duty. It is a significant amount, which makes it hard to accept the wisdom of cancelling the SMART 155mm guided submunitions carrying shell, which the RA tried to purchase following the retirement of the earlier unguided submunitions dispensers, banned for the danger they represented because of the high number of unexploded munitions they would leave on the field.
It also continues to call into some real question the constant cutback over the number of artillery guns available to the army.  

Another interesting passage is about the old, not-very known Swingfire missile, and might come as a surprise to many:

The Swingfire anti-tank guided weapon system, which is fitted to some UK reconnaissance vehicles, was also of great utility during the combat phase. It was the longest range, integral weapon system available to reconnaissance units and was used in approximately half of their attacks despite representing only a quarter of their main weaponry.

The Swingfire missile, mounted on the FV102 Striker vehicle, of the CRV(T) family, proved highly effective and very useful, and was intensely used during the operations of Recce formations maneuvering in Iraq. 12 such vehicles were employed in 2003, on a total of 66 CVR(T) vehicles deployed on TELIC, so this is quite a proof that, despite their relative lack of fame, they were kept in high consideration.
This valuable system, which mounted 5 missiles ready to fire and 5 reloads under armor in a small, highly mobile vehicle, was lost without a real replacement when the Javelin ATGW entered service in 2005. Excellent weapon, but with only about half the range of Swingfire, and not vehicle mounted: the troop of 4 Strikers in a Recce regiment has been notionally replaced by 4 Spartan APCs carrying Javelin teams.
Only two years had passed from the experience in Iraq, yet no real effort was made to replace the capability: there were, tentatively, Overwatch vehicles with missiles in the aborted LANCER program (armed with Brimstone, no less) and one such variant was also expected to be part of FRES SV Recce Block 3, but we are back to ground zero once again as the Block 3 itself seems destined not to happen, with the indispensable variants moved down into Block 2 instead, which is, in itself, far on the horizon.

A solution, off the shelf and extremely capable, is available in the form of the SPIKE NLOS, from Israel, which is a multi-mission weapon with a range of 25 km, which would give unprecedented coverage and accurate firepower to formations on the ground.

Sandcat SPIKE NLOS, carrying sensors, quadruple launcher and 6 reloads. A lot of firepower available on call.

While there's no official confirmation, it is widely believed that the Royal Artillery's UOR missile system "EXACTOR", operated by two Troops from the batteries of 39 Regiment, is the M113-mounted SPIKE NLOS.

Thanks to its very long range and small sizes, we do not need a FRES hull either: a quadruple launcher, with space for reloads, was shown on a Sandcat 4x4 protected vehicle, which is comparable in dimensions and architecture to the Foxhound. The UK could field this kind of capability with a relatively little investment, and rather quickly too.
South Korea ordered 67 SPIKE NLOS missiles in 2011, along with an unspecified number of launchers of unknown architecture for some 43 USD millions. It is also widely believed that non-standard M113 vehicles spotted in british colors at Camp Bastion are connected to the mysteryous UOR missile system known under the name "EXACTOR", which is believed to be the SPIKE NLOS.
Two Royal Artillery Troops regularly work with the EXACTOR system in Afghanistan in any given day, and there might be an hope for a future order beyond the UOR scope. We'll see.  

The worst part, in any case, is that these are just two cases of lessons identified, learned, and forgotten, among many others. 


Anyway, speaking of the Foxhound, the good news of today is that the vehicle has been delivered to the troops in Afghanistan. There is also the definitive confirmation of the follow-on order, announced months ago, for a second batch of vehicles: the total value of the Foxhound orders is 270 million pounds (180 + 90), covering 300 vehicles. The Foxhound is produced by General Dynamics Land Systems : Force Protection Europe, and while it started as a UOR, it is already firmly part of the Core Defence budget and of Army 2020.
It promises to bring much enhanced mobility and protection to the troops, and if it will live up to its many promises it will be an excellent addition to the Army's capabilities.

Foxhound vehicles inside a RAF C17, fitted with their TES kit, inclusive of cameras for 360° situational awareness

Foxhound on in-theatre trials following delivery to Camp Bastion

I'm a bit puzzled by the choice of armament mounting, though: two pintle-mounts for GPMGs on top, one on each side. The gunners sticking out of the hatches are going to be very, very exposed when manning the guns.
Didn't a RWS make a lot more sense...?

Quick News - UPDATED 23 May

350 million pounds in design work for Successor Submarine (Vanguard Replacement): announcement expected in this week.

UPDATE: announcement delivered. 328 million pounds for BAE in design work, 4 million to Rolls Royce for initial work on integration of the PWR3 nuclear reactor into the new submarine and 15 million to Babcock for initial work on solutions for in-service support.

The expenditure is part of the 3 billion pounds budgeted in 2010 for early SSBN design activities and long-lead orders. The 3 billions will be progressively committed to the program by year 2016, when the Successor Submarine program will meet its Main Gate decision point. By then, the design is expected to be at least 70% mature, and long lead orders will have been placed for the first 3 vessels, for a value of 380 million pounds for the first down to six for the third.
Expenditure on the fourth submarine will only happen (eventually) post 2016, when the decision is taken, at Main Gate, about the fleet consistency. The committment to retain Continuous At Sea Deterrence (CASD) is a strong factor in favor of a 4-boats fleet. While CASD is in theory possible with 3 vessels, there is no marging at all for problems that, occasionally, do pop up.  



8th RAF C17 handed over by Boeing: wow, that was fast! 200 million pounds well expended.



Voyager troubles: in order to meet delivery targets, at least one more of the RAF's Voyagers will be converted in Spain and not in the UK. Work ongoing to solve the fuel leak problem with Tornado in-flight refuelling.



NATO signs AGS contract: 1.7 billion dollars for the 5 Global Hawk Block 40 drones, to be based in Sigonella. Everyone in NATO expected to contribute to support costs, but France and UK want to offer Heron drones and Sentinel R1 airplanes respectively instead of cash. That would save the Sentinel from retirement in 2015, so it is double welcome if confirmed.



A new Squadron to stand up on RAF Leuchars with Typhoon jets: I Squadron RAF to return officially on 15 September this year as Typhoon squadron, after having been a Joint Force Harrier GR9 squadron until 2011.
Once I Sqn was expected to be a JCA/F35 squadron, among with IV squadron and possibly 800 and 801 Naval Air Service squadrons. Plan has changed in recent times, however, and IV Squadron identity went to the Hawk T2 training squadron already.
Who gets the F35?
And has something changed regarding Typhoons transferring to Lossiemouth, with Leuchars to become an Army Base?
We might not know until near year's end, when a new, updated Basing plan for the forces is expected.



Big export win in Saudi Arabia: officers and pilots of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will train british style, using 22 Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers, 55 Pilatus PC-21 and 25 yet-to-be-chosen primary training aircrafts, procured in a 1.6 billion pounds deal with BAE systems.

Airplanes that don't want to die

The C130K just wants to continue to be of precious service. Its retirement has been delayed at least twice, and it seems likely that a third reprieve is imminent as part of Planning Round 2012.
There are some 8 old C130K left in service in the RAF at the moment, and the plan was for them all to be retired by year's end. However, the C130K is the favorite airplane of the Special Forces, and carries all of the (classified and not) additional kit that SF ops require, from the two large underwing additional fuel tanks to additional radios and navigation devices.

The 25 C130J of the RAF were to get a software upgrade (Block 7) as part of the international, US-led C130 upgrade and maintenance program. This software upgrade would enable the addition of all of the SF kit into the airplane, making it possible to retire the old K, but the upgrade has been delayed several times. A spokesman for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics said the upgrade will “enter Phase II flight tests this summer. We are awaiting a schedule for [installation] from the USAF.”
In other words, the software is still being tested, and it is not currently available, while the RAF had been planning to have Block 7.0 software embodied on its C130J by September 2011, so to give the go ahead to Project Hermes: the installation of SF gear, to be done by November 2012. The following month, the K fleet would be gone forever.

Now this plan is no longer current, and when you add to the picture the delays to the A400 Atlas (in 2008 it was planned that it would enter RAF service by December 2011) and the incoming needs and challenges of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, you see why keeping the C130K left for some more time makes a lot of sense.
We will see if the option is approved under Planning Round 12. The issue is, as always, finding the money for keeping the fleet running for a longer time, but it seems very likely that the 8 C130K will continue to fly, probably in 47 Squadron, the one earmarked for SF operations. 

The need for additional airlift to support the withdrawal from Afghanistan is such that the RAF is getting, as we know, an 8th C17 and 2 BAE 146-200 QC airplanes (these procured as UOR), but there reportedly are at least two more options being considered as part of PR12: keeping the Tristar running for longer in the air transport role, and leasing a couple of USAF C17 to rise the fleet consistency, at least temporarily, to 10. 

In the long term, a most welcome development would be, in the case, the retention of the two BAE 146 post-Afghanistan and, if they really are leased, the eventual definitive purchase of the two C17.
That would be a major boost for the air transport fleet, one that is always very much needed.

According to the SDSR, the C130J out of service date has been anticipated to 2022, but there is reportedly already talks and hopes of actually retaining at least a part of the fleet. The way to do it could be similar to what is happening with the K: Special Forces ops. The A400 might well be too big for most SF ops, and anyway the Atlas would have to be fitted with specialist equipment for the job: why not keep around a squadron of C130J, already kitted, for SF support...? 


Another airplane that does not want to die is the Sentinel R1. Its performances in Afghanistan and Libya are helping it, and Raytheon UK is valiantly fighting alongside the RAF to give government all reasons to retain the small but precious fleet in the long term.
The UK is now likely to retain Sentinel R1 (a good news once in a while!) and offer it as its participation in the NATO Air Ground Surveillance programme. This way, the UK will be able to access to the NATO-owned fleet of 5 Global Hawk Block 40, which is likely to be reinforced by a fleet of 7 Heron TP drones made available by France and by 5 EuroHawk (the German variant of the Global Hawk, kitting for Signals Intelligence).
Such an AGS fleet makes for a formidable expansion in the capabilities of the Alliance, and for the UK access to this array of sensors is very desirable. Contributing the Sentinel, instead of cash, is a double-win as it helps the RAF to make the case for the retention of the precious, nationally-owned capability.
Raytheon UK, on its part, is offering the MOD a low-cost software mod that would allow the Sentinel's radar to effectively scan the sea and track surface contacts, relieving a bit of the problem caused by the loss of an MPA platform.
They are also trying to save the 5 Shadow R1 airplanes, also doomed post Afghanistan as of SDSR, by, again, offering to fit a naval-search radar on them to expand their (classified) mission capabilities.

The retention of Sentinel and Shadow, and an improvement in sea-search capabilities would both be more than welcome news.
But one thing should be made clear: a Sentinel capable of tracking ships and boats does not a Maritime Patrol Aircraft make, as the MPA's most unique and precious capability, and the one really missed, is that of detecting and attacking surface and subsurface targets. 
And Sentinel will never be able to track subsurface targets, and never will be able to attack any kind of target, as it has not weight growth margins to enable modifications for weapons carriage.

Reinstating a true MPA capability as soon as possible should be very high on the list of "To Do". 

One rare good news

After the recent report on the request for Urgent acquisition of two BAE146 QC small cargo planes to support Afghanistan ops, there is now an announcement that the RAF is to get its 8th C17 cargo plane.
While a further expansion of the fleet was never ruled out, and while a requirement for at least another C17 was long standing and recognized nearly publically, it remains a true surprise to hear of this order.

Perhaps the fact that, by 2013 at the latest, Boeing will close the C17 assembly line according to current schedule and plans did force the MOD to speed thinking up.
Further details should be released later today, and i will update the article when they come.

A rare but very welcome good news, and an excellent enhancement to a very important capability of the RAF.
The 200 million pounds investment has been announced today by David Cameron.

According to the MOD:

The newest C-17 is currently being built by Boeing in the USA and is due to come off the production line next month. It is then expected to enter service with the RAF in July 2012.

This suggests that the UK bought it directly from the USAF last order. Almost certainly the USAF will not fund an additional plane to replace it, but we will know it in the coming period. The airplane is of course going to join the other 7 RAF C17s at Brize Norton, within 99 Squadron.
There will be no impact on the planned C17 production line closure at Boeing.

Meanwhile, today the Parliamentary Defence Committee released its report and analysis on Libyan ops.
Makes for an interesting read.
Main two points of interest, regarding equipment, are the very high praise for the Sentinel R1, which looks more and more safe despite the SDSR retirement rambling, and the confirmation of the Committee's warning and recommendation of proceeding with both CVF vessels, kitting both as aircraft carriers to ensure that carrier air is available around the clock.

Future Force 2020: considerations on NATO

Previous posts in this series: 

1) Future Force 2020 - Considerations on Strategy 

NATO

When you follow matters of Defence like me, and have such a big interest and passion for the UK's armed forces in particular, you are bound to mention NATO many, many times. But in as few words as possible, how does NATO actually work when an operation such as Unified Protector over Libya pops up? What capabilities does NATO posses? How does it resource its ops, how does it get assets from the member countries? What is the Smart Defense approach, and what is happening with the "pooling of capabilities" drive is gaining strength due to the budget cuts maiming armed forces in Europe and now, to an extent, even in the US? 

I thought it would be interesting to write a piece providing some answers to these questions, as part of my Future Force 2020 considerations, before i post the big Army post. NATO is a cornerstone for the UK's defence policy, so we need to have a clear idea of what it implies and what it offers.

NATO HQs and Installations  

In itself, NATO is a relatively small central command structure. It currently has a so-called peacetime establishment of about 13,000, which is being cut back to about 8,500 following the agreements in Lisbon in 2010 , and there are military structures at NATO headquarters.

NATO has 2 Strategic-level Commands, Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk, Virginia, USA; and Allied Command Operations, more commonly known as Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), in Mons, Belgium.

At Operational Level, two Joint Force Commands exist, one in Brunssum, the Netherlands, and one in Naples, Italy. Following the latest restructuring plan finalized last year when it was reported that Northwood might close, these two commands will be converted into larger joint force headquarters able to deploy 500 of their 850 personnel and will have a marked regional importance, with Naples becoming the focal point of NATO ops in the Mediterranean.

The land, air and maritime component commands are being reduced from two each to one each. The land component commands in Madrid and Heidelberg will be closed and replaced by one in Izmir, Turkey, grouping together land components available in NATO, providing command and control of land operations, and conducting multi-corps operations. Izmir in exchange loses its current air component command, while the one in Ramstein, Germany, will take on new tasks like missile defense. While staying easily capable to revert to a wartime structure such as the current one, used for air operations against Libya, thanks to the excellent command facilities available in the base.

The maritime component command in Naples will be closed, leaving the one in Northwood focusing on maritime surveillance.

NATO’s Coalition Air Operation Centers (CAOCs) will be reduced from four to two, with the others adopting a national or multinational character. The four current CAOCs are in Larissa, Greece, Finderup, Denmark, Poggio Renatico, Italy, and Uedem, Germany. The latter two will continue as part of the new NATO command structure and remain static, providing air policing and air command like Poggio Renatico has done for operations over Libya.

In addition, a new deployable air command and control center detached from the CAOCs will also have air command functions. The deployable air control system, recognized air picture production center, and sensor fusion post (DARS) in Nieuw Milligen will be combined with a new deployable air operations center in Poggio Renatico providing air command and real time control of fighters like that being provided over Libya.

The new Command and Information (C&I) Agency will combine the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), parts of the NATO Communication and Information Systems Agency (NCSA), and NATO Air Command and Control System Management Agency (NACMA). The NCSA’s 18 deployable communication modules (signals companies) totalling 1,300 personnel will be transferred to SHAPE.

Save for the closure of the Naples center, Italy was a big winner in the restructuring, even more so since Sigonella air base was selected to host the NATO Air Ground Surveillance system as well: Italy had a powerful negotiating position since while the plan was fleshed out, operations in Libya were ongoing and Italy was menacing to retire its support and deny its bases to the Alliance’s airplanes. 

Smart Defense Initiative

“I know that in an age of austerity, we cannot spend more. But neither should we spend less. So the answer is to spend better. And to get better value for money. To help nations to preserve capabilities and to deliver new ones. This means we must prioritise, we must specialise, and we must seek multinational solutions. Taken together, this is what I call Smart Defence.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
30 September 2011

The Smart Defense Initiative is about pooling capabilities and jointly fund multinational solutions to common problems and shortcomings identified in the Alliance. Some of the recognized issues are insufficient ISTAR, Air to Air refueling, Strategic Lift (particularly air lift) and other particularly relevant strategic enablers.

At the time of the constitution of the NATO Heavy Airlift Wing it was estimated that buying 4 C17s (then down to 2 plus one offered by the USAF…) collaboratively would cost to the 10 partner nations in the HAW initiative some 13 million dollars a year. If all those countries had acquired a single C17 for themselves, they would have had less capability at a annual cost of at least 11 millions more.

Smart Defense is about making sure that investments cover as much as possible the need of the alliance.

The noble target, however, is met only with words most of the time, since the firm commitment, when the moment of putting the money in arrives, is often not made. One evident case of this is the long-running NATO AGS effort, which much would do to close the gap in ISTAR: over the years, several nations withdrew and the funding was reduced and the system downsized again and again, and to this day it remains at risk.

Now, also following the Libya experience and the release of the new US strategy, Smart Defense is gaining new, vocal support from member nations.

The May 2012 meeting of NATO in Chicago will show how serious the commitments really are, and what can really be done.

Smart Defence is one of the devices that countries hope they can use collectively to meet some of the capability requirements. But we need to remember that, although Smart Defence will be a multinational initiative and facilitated by NATO, nations will choose, or not, to invest and then choose, or not, to make the capabilities available. By helping to produce common standards, however, with a common approach to and identification of where the most pressing gaps are, NATO hopes to be able to encourage countries to fill the gaps that are most important, and to give them some help in the way in which their co-operation is structured.

NATO Capabilities

NATO has very few commonly funded, NATO-registered enabling assets, and there is no fighting unit owned by NATO. Almost the entirety of the military capability available to NATO belongs to the nations of NATO -so it is the US defence capability, the British defence capability, French, German, Polish and so on. Whenever there is a NATO operation, it is those national capabilities that are brought to bear under the NATO commanders.

In peacetime NATO collectively looks at the defence planning process in the member countries, and tries to influence decisions by making known what it would like to ask of individual nations. NATO keeps track of the capabilities available to each country, and periodically a review is made to asses where the shortages are.

At the end of the day, on every single NATO operation, a member nation could decide for reasons of its own - legal, political or whatever - that it is going to withdraw that capability at very short notice or not provide it all. The alliance solidarity prevents most people from doing that most of the time, but it is a perpetual tension between national sovereignty and collective endeavour that is a perennial issue for the alliance.

On this I’ll expand later. Now I will briefly expand on those few NATO-owned capabilities that are available.

The most famous is the NATO AEW & Control Force, the common fleet of E3A AWACS radar airplanes. This is made up by 2 Components (unofficially but effectively 3 from when France re-joined NATO): the E3D Component is the british-owned fleet of 7 E3D Sentry AWACS, based on RAF Waddington. The “3^rd Component” I mention would be France’s own fleet of 4 E3F AWACS, which is now available for NATO ops following the return of France into the alliance. For those who do not remember it, France withdrew from NATO's integrated military and leadership structures in March 1966, because then president Charles de Gaulle refused to allow the French armed forces to submit to the US command of NATO’s SACEUR. In the 90s, France of course collaborated with NATO in Kosovo, as part of a slow, gradual rapprochement that continued with ops in Afghanistan, the entry of French officers in NATO structure by 2004 and then the final return in 2009.

The NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force (NAEW&CF) force is a multinational service, commanded by a German or US officer and centered on the Main Base of Geilenkirchen, in Germany. It lines 3 operational squadrons plus a Training Wing, this last under Italian responsibility. The fleet currently counts 17 E3A Sentry AWACS: the original force numbered 18, but one plane was written off following a catastrophic incident in Greece in recent years. There was also a Training and Cargo fleet, part of the Training Wing, which had 3 B707 in cargo variant. These were used to train crews for the AWACS and also to carry personnel and cargo in support of the AWACS squadrons in their operational deployments. The 3 planes could be configured for palletized cargo and/or passenger seats, but have all been retired between 2010 and 2011, with the cargo needs of the force being met by chartered services from civilian contractors instead. 

Currently, the full member nations in the AEW Force are: Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The UK, as seen, actually provides direct support via its own fleet. France to this day is technically only an observer, at least officially, and “ensures that its own AWACS are interoperable with the Allie’s ones”. Canada is however pulling out as part of budget cuts announced in June last year, and will no longer support the AEW force.

16 Nations (UK and US excluded) collaborate to crew and run the NATO force.

The Force maintains three forward operating bases (FOBs) at Konya in Turkey, Aktion in Greece, Trapani in Italy, and a forward operating location (FOL) at Oerland, Norway.

A force being created now is the NATO Air Ground Surveillance. This will consist of a NATO owned and operated fleet of 5 (down from 8) Global Hawk Block 40 drones, fitted with a powerful ground surveillance radar capable to track static and moving surface targets, like the Sentinel R1 system of the RAF does.

The ground segment will provide an interface between the AGS Core system and a wide range of command, control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C2ISR) systems to interconnect with and provide data to multiple deployed and non-deployed operational users, including reach-back facilities remote from the surveillance area.
The primary ground segment component will consist of a number of ground stations in various configurations, such as mobile and transportable, which will provide data-link connectivity, data-processing and -exploitation capabilities, and interfaces for interoperability with C2ISR systems. The AGS Core ground segment will also include dedicated mission support facilities at the AGS main operating bases (MOB), and ground stations for flight control of the UAVs. The main operating base will be located at Sigonella Air Base in Italy.

The AGS force tries to reduce the size of a capability gap that is very damaging and long known and noticed, that the Libya experience only evidenced further. However, for all the recognized need for this ISTAR capability and despite the urgency with which it is required, the AGS still lags and risks to fail. It started with much greater ambitions: it was to be a larger fleet, combining Global Hawk drones and manned surveillance planes built on Airbus A321 airframes (the platform that then became the RAF’s Sentinel R1 was a competitor for the manned section of AGS, but was rejected), but the lack of funding killed these ambitions rapidly. 5 Airbus A321 aircraft would have been hosting the new TCAR Transatlantic Cooperative AGS Radar (TCAR) development program. This aimed to create is a high-performance, side-looking, wide area, multi-mode ground surveillance radar developed under agreement between France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. It would have been, in perspective, an obvious possible Joint-STARS replacement for the USAF as well, in due time, but both airplane and radar were soon cancelled. The drone component was expanded from 4 to 8, but then went down to 5.

And problems aren’t yet all ironed out: France is trying to acquire drones for its armed forces, namely the Heron, which is built by Israel and that France will modify via Dassault to meet its own requirements (sort of like what the Uk did with the Hermes 450 to create Watchkeeper). The bill for “Franceizing” the Heron is however proving very high, and France is trying to offer its Heron drones to the NATO AGS, instead of providing funding. This will have to be discussed next month at a NATO meeting, as it means that the AGS program could fall apart again, with the Global Hawks being abandoned for the Heron or, worse, for nothing if financial coverage can’t be assured due to France’s change of heart. 

The nations still backing the system in 2010 were 15, now they are down to 13. Canada retired from the program in August 2011. In the ever shrinking list of partners, there should still be Bulgaria, Czech Republic,  Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, USA, and a final agreement should be signed next May during the NATO meeting in Chicago. Acquisition cost is expected to be around 1 billion euro, with over 2 billion to be spent to support the system for 20 years. 

Germany is important because not only it is on board for AGS, it is also procuring 5 modified Global Hawk Block 20 (EuroHawks) for national needs. These don’t have the MP-RTIP radar of the Block 40, but in exchange they offer communications and electronic signals intercept (COMINT and SIGINT) capabilities. The combination of AGS and loaned Eurohawks could give NATO a small but full-spectrum battlefield monitoring option.

To express it very simply, the EuroHawk does the same job of a Nimrod R1 or Rivet Joint, while the Global Hawk Block 40 does the job of a Sentinel R1 or J-STARS. Assuming they both proceed in the end, and assuming they deliver, they make for a very excellent expansion in the Alliance’s capabilities. The RAF could contribute that manned element that NATO cannot afford, via the Sentinel R1, which proved fundamental over Libya.

Another recent NATO capability is the Heavy Airlift Wing (HAW) created from the Strategic Airlift Capability program, another attempt at reducing the bleeding size of another long-known gap in the Alliance’s capabilities.

SAC came into being in 2006, when 10 NATO nations (Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary, USA) plus two nations of the ‘Partnership for Peace’ group (Finland and Sweden) joined forces and funding to create the multinational HAW. 

The wing has 3 C17 cargo planes, 2 acquired from Boeing, one made available by the USAF. All nations member of the initiative allocate some of their defence budget to the HAW, buying a number of hours on the airplanes. The airplanes are common, and are not formally owned by any of the nations, even if they are registered in Hungary and are based in the same country, on the Pàpa airfield. This base was, indeed, chosen merely because it is… geographically in the middle of the Partnership!

Again in support of always high-in-demand Strategic Air Transport, NATO manages the Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS), on behalf of a consortium including 14 NATO nations (Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom) and two partner nations (Finland and Sweden).

The SALIS contract was first signed in 2006, with a 3 years duration, and then renewed. It provides two Antonov An-124-100 aircraft which are constantly based at Leipzig-Halle airport on full-time charter, two more are on six days' notice and another two on nine days' notice. Participating countries have committed to using the SALIS Antonovs for a minimum of 2,000 flying hours per year, of which the UK has 200 pre-paid and 250 part-paid An-124 annual flying hours. The initial SALIS lease was for three years, renewable annually thereafter until the A-400M enters Service.

In theory, as implied by the Interim title, this solution is a stopgap until the A400 cargo aircrafts are delivered to the various NATO countries which ordered it. The SAC initiative was also meant as an alternative to SALIS (the charter costs are quite high), but the reality is that no A400, no C17 and not even the C5 of the USAF can deliver the payloads and performances that the AN124 offers. SALIS is likely to continue for many more years regardless of both C17 and A400 availability, as these planes simply will not be able to haul some of the payloads needed.

Volga-Dnepr and Ukraine’s ADB provide the SALIS aircraft and also provide AN-124-100 aircraft to support the Afghanistan mission, with weekly sorties from Germany to Afghanistan and back, under contractual arrangements with the Allied Movement Coordination Centre at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. The An124 can carry a 120 tons payload on 5400 km (a bit more that the C17 will cover with 72 tons) or haul 150 tons of payload on 4500 km, or fly 7500 km with 92 tons. In comparison the C17 has a range of 2400 miles with a 72 tons payload and a maximum payload of 77 tons. Again, the gigantic cargo bay of the Russian giant is larger (36,5 meter long, 6,4 wide and 4,4 high VS 26,82 x 5,49 x 3,96 [under wing, lowest point of the cargo bay] ) and allows to carry outside loads comfortably.

NATO will no doubt end up in the same situation of the RAF: even with C17, the UK MOD still charters, on average, 10 AN124 sorties per quarter to sustain afghan commitments. The RAF has been chartering An124s from at least 1993, and is unlikely to stop doing it anytime soon.

Cost of SALIS is hard to pinpoint. Members pay for the flying hours used, they also pay a proportional share of the administrative charges, service charges, and the costs of assured access based on their total number of hours. A single mission to Afghanistan can cost 250.000 dollars. 

Not properly a capability, but a Force Multiplying collaboration, is the NATO Movement Coordination Centre Europe (MCCE), stationed at Eindhoven Air Base, coordinates strategic military transport within the 23 participating NATO and European Union (EU) nations by air, sea or on land. The MCCE was established on 1 July 2007 and was created by merging the European Airlift Centre (EAC) and the Sealift Co-ordination Centre (SCC).

The nations participating in the MCCE are: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The concept at the base of MCCE is the co-ordination of capabilities, with the member nations offering up spare air, sea and land lift capacity for the other members to utilise to thereby improve overall efficiency and effectiveness. In the case of air transport, nations can offer whole or part of a transport aircraft uplift because it makes no sense for, example, a German air lifter to fly back from Afghanistan half empty when a close ally is desperate for that carrying capacity. This MCCE system works because no money is involved. Each MCCE allocated AT aircraft is given a value in C-130 hours, eg. one RAF C-17 hour is valued at 7.10 C-130 hours, while a Luftwaffe A-310 AT/Medevac is assessed at 2.5 C-130 hours. This common currency is traded between Air Forces.

In terms of Sealift, NATO has assured access to 3 Ro-Ro vessels covered by a dormant contract through the NATO Maintenance and Supply Organization based in Luxembourg. Finance is provided by seven of the ten signatory countries of the Sealift initiative (The consortium is led by Norway, and includes Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.)  The 3 nations that do not provide money are Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, that instead make available their ships.

Denmark and Germany provide the residual capacity of their combined fleet of four ARK Ro/Ro vessels (from 2012, five Ro/Ro ships), which are chartered on a full-time contract basis until 2021. The United Kingdom offers the residual capacity of their six Point class Ro/Ro vessels being provided to its Ministry of Defence under a Private Finance Initiative contract with AWSR Shipping Ltd. This contract lasts until December 2024.

In addition, Norway has a dormant contract for one Ro/Ro ship.

NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC) should reach Full Operational Capability (FOC) this year. It will bring all of NATO bodies under centralised cyber protection and it will promote the development of Allies’ cyber defence capabilities; assist individual Allies upon request, and optimise information sharing, collaboration and interoperability.

At the November 2010 NATO Summit in Lisbon, NATO’s leaders decided to develop a ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability to pursue its core task of collective defence. The Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence System capability aims  to protect NATO-deployed forces against short- and medium-range ballistic missile threats up to 3,000-kilometer range. In order to manage the risk associated with development of such a complex capability, ALTBMD will be fielded in several phases.

In the autumn of 2011, Turkey announced its decision to host a ballistic missile defence radar at Kürecik as an integral part of the NATO BMD capability. Romania and the United States agreed to base SM-3 interceptors at Deveselu airbase in Romania, and a similar basing agreement between the United States and Poland entered into force. The SM3 is a well known naval missile, which is now going on land, together with the MK41 launch system, to create the ballistic defence shield. The Romania and Poland detachments will use use SM-3 Block 1B missiles from semi-mobile Mk.41 VLS launchers, controlled by an AEGIS BMD 5.0.1 combat system. The SM-3 Block 1B missile is in development under a collaborative agreement between US and Japan. Romania will get the missiles in 2015, while Poland in 2018. In 2018 the SM-3 Block II, larger and more capable, is expected to be fielded.

In November 2011, the Netherlands announced plans to upgrade four air-defence frigates with extended long-range missile defence early-warning radars as its national contribution to NATO's ballistic missile defence capability. The Netherlands have frigates fitted with MK41 Strike Length missile silos which can readily take SM3 missiles, but for the moment this kinetic element is not planned. Finally, Spain and the United States announced an agreement to base four Aegis missile defence ships in Rota, Spain, as part of the US contribution to NATO’s BMD capability.

The above mentioned moves are largely American-backed, American-executed and American-funded. The effort is known as European Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA). The European members of NATO are being very slow and hesitant at actually stepping up their own efforts. Many of the NATO countries, including the UK with the Type 45, could contribute and embark SM3 missiles on their AAW ships, but there is currently no plan to do so.

Again, despite much talk of an European anti-ballistic missile developed from Aster (Aster Block II or Aster 45, whatever is more fashion at a given moment) there is no actual funding nor a credible plan. Essentially, the European antiballistic missile development is a French ambition that France alone can’t realistically fund and that Italy and the UK do not seem ready to finance.  

NATO of course brings together the efforts of participating countries in many sectors, including the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Acency (NETMA) and joint studies on C-IED, but the above are the main true capabilities available to the Alliance.

The rest of NATO’s force on an operation comes from what the member nations can give, and that is the next point to analyze.

How is a NATO operation resourced?  

NATO deals with the perennial issue of whether or not nations are going to make available the assets that they have assigned to SACEUR. Addressing that is as much a political question as it is a capabilities question. We have two problems. Do we have the capabilities -that is what the Smart Defense initiative hopes to address- and is there the will to deploy them?

As of now, unless the US provide them, many capabilities are not there at all to start with. And even when tomorrow eventually they are there, at least on small scale, political will of making them available for operations might not be there.  

Thankfully, normally there will be a way to find at least a partial solution: in the case of operation Unified Protector over Libya, Germany refused to contribute to the operation, but they did at least make sure to man their share of the NATO AWACS at very short notice and send them to the Afghan theatre, so that other NATO AWACS and crews could be released from there and used in Libya. 

So, when NATO is challenged with the prospect of military action, what does happen?

The effort for securing the kit and personnel needed for an operation starts fairly early on in the planning stage, before a decision has been taken to do a military intervention. The NATO council will assess the situation politically, and they will give the commanders a first authorization to start planning for the military option. Eventually, the planning reaches the “Force Sensing” moment, in which the commanders will have what they call a force sensing conference, in which they ask individual nations, "What could you provide?"

At that stage, the answer is not yet a commitment from the nation, but it is a pretty good indication that they would be there on the night with the material they promise. Force sensing makes the commanders aware of what pool of forces is available for them to pick from in order to prepare the force package needed. The planning process continues from here, and a joint statement of requirements is drafted, with NATO then asking to its member nations to deploy N ships, X airplanes, Y missiles and so along.

That gets further defined at a force generation conference, and then there are various revised statements of requirement as the operation goes on and as it changes its shape. All that is part of the standard NATO procedure. For Libya, the force sensing took place on 19 March. Military operations begun the same day, but the airstrikes were under control of UK, France and US, with the Alliance doing some planning but still without an operation and a role in the air campaign. The first force generation conference was on 28 March.

NATO started taking control of the Libya operations gradually from 23 March, and formally took command at 06:00 GMT on 31 March 2011, formally ending the national operations such as the U.S.-coordinated Operation Odyssey Dawn or the UK’s Ellamy, France’s Harmattan and Canada’s Mobile. The national names of the campaign remained in use, but now command resided within the NATO structures.

How is a NATO operation such as Unified Protector financed?

The bulk of the cost is funded by the nations that provide the forces. But in addition to that, there are increased costs to NATO due to the use of HQs, infrastructure and common capabilities. In the case of Libya, the bulk of the additional NATO expense are made up by the setting up of the task force in Naples and all the things that went around it, including the deployment of elements from AWACS from NATO AEW force. These expenses come under the NATO military budget. The United Kingdom’s share of that military budget is 11.5%, so the UK could be liable for up to 11.5% of the additional common-funded costs as well.

These additional NATO costs are unlikely to be part of the expense announced for Operation Ellamy by government. The full extent of the additional expense is probably still being calculated, and it is normal practice to try and shift priorities around to cover, as much as possible, the additional costs with the money allocated for normal financial support. This ensures that knowing the extent of the expense will take a while, since negotiations are likely not to be fast.  

When politicians talk about the importance of NATO, it is all well and good. But using NATO as a justification for cuts is absurd. NATO offers a few capabilities jointly funded, but these programs have suffered and suffer from waning international support. Again, the UK has not joined several of the initiatives, while other "capabilities" draw heavily from UK owned capabilties (E3D Sentry, Sentinel R1, Point Ro-Ro vessels). We have to be very careful in assuming that coalition work will always solve problems and make available what the national budget does not provide. 

The reality in fact is that NATO's capabilities are often national capabilities borrowed to the Alliance. Most of them come from few, well known countries. The rest, so far, has alwasy arrived from the US. 

"Coalition ops" really does mean "United States support", mostly. But the US are, from several years, saying clearly that they won't continue to accept this way of working. The new, recently published defense strategy and their conduct in operations over Libya make, by far, for the most clear and urgent warning. 

Ultimately, everyone is cutting back and saying that the "Coalition" will fill the holes. Ironically, the Coalition is just armed with what the single budgets buy and support, for the most part. Smart Defense, and even just the coordination of cuts ("We need this one, but as an alliance we have a lot of these others, so cut back on these") is indispensable to limit damage and keep the Coalition viable. 

Take the Sentinel R1 cut option in the SDSR, or even the Nimrod MR4A cut: the first is now thankfully probably not going to happen, since the error has been now recognized. The second happened, and now Europe is short on MPA and Germany presses for a Smart Defense approach to reconstitute a viable fleet at least at NATO level if not at national level. 

These two cuts, more than any other, are indication of one thing: the rushed SDSR did not listen to what allies had to say, nor did it read the "Gap List" that NATO regularly updates. And so, decisions absolutely opposite to those needed were taken. 

If Coalition has to be the way, things have to be done right.