Good news and a confirmation of a bad habit

"Cut in haste, U-turn at leisure" is a synthetic, perfect definition of modern British defence policy. After the obscene blunder of the SDSR 2010, that is more true than ever.
The latest U-turn relates to the Brigade of Gurkhas, which was sharply cut back as part of early Army 2020 phases and was several times described as a potential victim of disbandment.

I've been saying for ages that, among the many good reasons to keep the Brigade of Gurkhas going, there is the simple fact that there never is a shortage of Gurkhas volunteering for service, making this formation invaluable for filling manpower gaps.
And currently, even against the very low target of 82.000 regulars, the Army has a sizeable manpower gap and a recruitment and retention problem.

Enter the U-turn on Gurkha cuts. The brigade (which was all but overmanned in 2010) finished to shred personell as mandated by 2010 cuts just last year, and now is being expanded by 642 new positions, going back, more or less, to pre-cuts liability levels.
The brigade had more than 3000 posts until 2010, but that was cut down to the current low of 2612. The 642 new positions bring liability back to 3254.

"Cheers for all your hard work making people redundant, Gurkha Brigade HQ. Now that you are done, call back everyone."

The most "amusing" is the literal invite to those who have just been kicked out in the four tranches of redundancies to come back in their previous rank and without paying back the Compensation lump sums received.

Brigade of Gurkhas current composition: 

Headquarters Brigade of Gurkhas (HQBG) is now based at the Former Army Staff College, Camberly, Surrey and is responsible for providing advice on all matters relating to the recruiting and employment of Gurkhas in the British Army.
It also helps coordinate welfare for retired Gurkhas in the UK. HQBG is not part of the operational chain of command and has no operational units directly under it, but it provides an important unifying element for the Brigade, its activities and its soldiers.

Headquarters British Gurkhas Nepal (BGN) is situated in Jawalakhel, Patan, just south of the river from central Kathmandu. BGN co-ordinates Gurkha recruitment, provides local support to the soldier and ex-servicemen and maintains Disaster Relief preparedness within resources in order to support Firm Base activity in Nepal.

Gurkha Staff and Personnel Support Company was formed on 30 Jun 2011. GSPS personnel were known as Gurkha Clerks before the inception of GSPS.

Gurkha Company (Mandalay) is located in Brecon, Wales and provides support to the Infantry Battle School (INFBS). The INFBS conducts realistic battle training for officers who have passed out of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and for Warrant Officers, SNCOs and JNCOs. Gurkha Company provides training support to the INFBS, enabling world class training for those undergoing courses at Brecon.

Gurkha Company (Sittang) dates back to 1972 and is as an integral part of the Royal Military Academy Sandhusrt (RMAS). Sittang Company provides training support to the Academy, enabling world class training for the Army’s future leaders.

Gurkha Company is located at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick and is part of the 2nd Infantry Training Battalion. Its mission is to mould Nepalese youths into trained soldiers who will live up to the traditions of the Brigade of Gurkhas.

The Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas was raised in Nov 1859 as part of an Indian Gurkha Regiment called the Sirmoor Rifle Regiment. It has 16 Bandsmen and one Naik (a leader and soon became a part of Regimental life, playing for parades, polo matches, dinners and troop entertainment at the Regimental base at Dehradun, North East of Delhi. In early days the Band travelled with the Regiment to other areas of India, Malta, Cyprus and Afghanistan.

The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment also known as 10 The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment or 10 QOGLR is a regiment of the British Army. The regiment forms part of the Royal Logistics Corps and was created on 5 April 2001. The regiment was formed as a merger of The Queen’s Own Gurkha Transport Regiment, The Gurkha Transport Regiment and The Gurkha Army Service Corps; which were formed as component parts of The Brigade of Gurkhas on 1 July 1958.

It is currently composed of: 

36 (HQ) Squadron 

1 Supply Squadron

28 Fuel and General Transport Squadron 

The Queen’s Gurkha Signals (QGS) is a regular unit of Royal Corps of Signals, one of the combat support arms of British Army. Together with the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment and the Royal Gurkha Rifles they form part of the Brigade of Gurkhas. QGS was formed during The Malayan Emergency to support the 17th Gurkha Division.

-         Army 2020 establishment: 481 (down from 522 + 22 recruits in training)

-          246 Signal Squadron, 2 Signal Regiment

-          248 Signal Squadron, 22 Signal Regiment

-          250 Signal Squadron, 30 Signal Regiment

-          Brunei Signal Troop

-          Nepal Signal Troop

-          Alpha Troop, 217 Signal Squadron, 22 Signal Regiment

-          Seremban Troop, 44 RLC Sqn, Sandhurst academy (Troop commander, 3 NCOs, 12 signallers)

The Queen’s Gurkha Engineers (QGE). Gurkhas were first enlisted into the Royal Engineers in September 1948 when a Gurkha Training Squadron RE was formed. The British Officers were drawn from the Corps of Royal Engineers, 1st King George’s Own Bengal Sappers and Miners, 2nd Queen Victoria’s Own Madras Sappers and Miners, 3rd Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners and Gurkha Officers and Other Ranks were drawn from 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Goorkhas (The Sirmoor Rifles), 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles and 10th Princess Mary’s Own Gurkha Rifles.

-          Army 2020 liability for 284 all ranks

-          69 Gurkha Field Squadron. 36 Royal Engineers Regiment

-          70 Gurkha Field Squadron, 36 Royal Engineers Regiment

-          ARRC Close Support Troop and ARRC Engineer Section from October 2014, based in Gloucester.  (26 RGR + 8 QGE)

1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles is a regiment of the British Army, forming part of the Brigade of Gurkhas. The Royal Gurkha Rifles are now the sole infantry regiment of the British Army Gurkhas. Like the other Gurkha regiments of the British and Indian armies, the regiment is recruited from Gurkhas, a term for people from Nepal, which is a nation independent of the United Kingdom and not a member of the Commonwealth. The regiment was formed in 1994 from the amalgamation of the four separate Gurkha regiments in the British Army.

October 2015 deal with Sultanate renews partnership; 1st Gurkha Rifles to stay for “next five years”, suggesting a slow-down in unit rotations. 

2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles (RGR) is a regiment of the British Army, forming part of the Brigade of Gurkhas. The Royal Gurkha Rifles are now the sole infantry regiment of the British Army Gurkhas. Like the other Gurkha regiments of the British and Indian armies, the regiment is recruited from Gurkhas, a term for people from Nepal, which is a nation independent of the United Kingdom and not a member of the Commonwealth. The regiment was formed in 1994 from the amalgamation of the four separate Gurkha regiments in the British Army. Under Army 2020 it was due to be part of 11 Infantry Brigade but, in another U-turn, it was assigned to 16 Air Assault brigade when it became evident that just 2 PARA battalions were not enough (another very obvious thing which somehow had to be "discovered"). 

Repeatedly through the history of the british army, sub-units of Gurkhas have been formed and disdanded to fill manpower gaps in other regiments. Until recently, there was a Gurkha formation of engineers within 24 Commando Engineer Regiment, for example. 

We will undoubtedly see more of this in the future, too. 

A few gurkha engineers and logisticians who left the army under the redundancy tranches transferred into the Royal Navy, and i've been wondering for months now on whether the Royal Navy could / should open up its own recruitment unit in Nepal, to bring in some much needed manpower. 

The new expansion 

234 new positions will be added to Royal Gurkha Rifles, Gurkha Staff and Personnel Support and Gurkha Engineers over the next 3 years. 

A new squadron of Gurkhas will be formed within the Royal Signals within the next three years, which is very good news because the army has a massive, massive shortage of Signals resources as i've detailed on these pages in many occasions. 

The Gurkha Logistic Regiment will expand by 2 new squadrons, which is good news because logistics are another area badly hit by Army 2020 cuts, and the regiment is currently pretty weak, with just two squadrons plus HQ and an establishment of 471, with a concept of operation based on the assumption that lots of local contractors would be hired in theatre to fill the gaps. 

JAI GURKHA! 

The Gurkha brigade remains a very precious element within the Army, and an invaluable reserve of loyal volunteers. 

Redundancies Tranche 2: last for RN and RAF, more to come for the Army

As announced by the MOD:

Applicants will serve up to six months' notice before leaving the Armed Forces, while non-applicants will serve up to 12 months' notice. Those who wish to leave earlier can ask their Service.

Those selected for redundancy, and who meet the selection criteria, will have the opportunity to apply to shortage area categories.

The Royal Navy and Royal Marines are notifying approximately 170 personnel that they are to be made redundant, of whom approximately 120 (72 per cent) are applicants and 50 (28 per cent) non-applicants.

The Army are notifying approximately 2,900 personnel they are to be made redundant, of whom approximately 2,100 (72 per cent) are applicants and 800 (28 per cent) non-applicants.

The RAF are notifying approximately 730 personnel they are to be made redundant, of whom approximately 515 (71 per cent) are applicants and 215 (29 per cent) non-applicants.

For the Army, this is sadly not at all the end of the pain. RAF and Royal Navy will achieve the rest of their reductions by other means, without needing further big shelving of manpower with redundancies.

PAC and NAO reports on MOD accounts

The Public Accounts Committee released its report onto the MOD Major Projects for 2011. There are issues, and there's been a 466 million increase in MOD projects costs in the year, but the report is nonetheless quite appreciative of the work done by the Department, and notes that real progress in balancing the books is being made.

The NAO added a report which express doubts at how the MOD will be able to manage the loss of so much personnel in so little time. Overall, though, it also express a general appreciation for a job well done by the MOD, considering the very challenging moment. They also publish their own report into the MOD activity in the 2010/2011 period. 
This one report contains interesting data: 

- The Army is run on a budget of 7.4 billion.  
- The RAF is run on a budget of 3 billion. 
- The Navy, Royal Marines included, costs 2.4 billion. 
- The MOD is still paying 2.9 (3.9?) billion in net additional costs of "Operations and Peacekeeping". When they say that Afghanistan is funded by the Treasury, know that it is not really true, not entirely at least. The (3.9?) i added because there's a contraddiction in the report: a graphic shows 2.9 billion, but the text accompanying it talks of 3.77 billion Net Additional Costs coming from Afghanistan ops and 22 million from Libya ops [up to 31 March 2011 only]. The graphic is probably wrong, and 3.9 is probably the correct figure.
- Half a billion is swallowed by the Chief of Joint Operations. The US did cut their Joint Forces Command to save money. Are we sure that for the UK it's worth having a separate Joint Chief, now a RAF Marshal, which (seems) to have not really defined authority over "tri-service" assets such as ISTAR? Half a billion can keep Sentinel R1 running for 10 years or probably pay for most of the Sea King MK7 replacement, if a Merlin solution is chosen. I'd think about it again. 
- Central cost of the MOD is 2.9 billion. 
- In 2010/11 Equipment Acquisition budget was 8.5 billion, of which 1.1 billion came for the Treasury reserve and covered UORs.  
- The most expensive items the MOD is buying are Typhoon (37 billions, including 13 billions expected running costs) and the FSTA tanker (12.9 billion expected expense). Further down are the Type 45 program (6.5 billion) and CVF, which now is indicated at an expected value of 6.2 billion, including Conversion to cats and traps budget.


However the focus of this brief article will be on some very important revelations that come out of the Oral Evidence supplied to PAC and that makes for far more concrete and interesting news that, however, very few will get since reading through 144 questions and answers to get to the little, precious info is of course not something many will do!
I've waded through them, and found these interesting facts:


On the 10 years equipment plan

Ursula Brennan, on 30 November 2011, told the Committee that the MOD hoped to be "weeks, not months" away from asking the NAO to look into the 10 Years Equipment Plan and validate it. Unfortunately, the PAC report now came out and specifically notes that said invite failed to materialize yet. It'll take some more time before we can finally see said plan.


On FRES SV

I noted in a previous article the confusing budget figure of 1300+ millions (nearly 1.4 billion, in fact) for Development and Manufacture of FRES SV Recce Block 1. Back then it was not possible to make other than guesses about the nature of the amount.
Now we learn that said budgeting figure comes from:

- The well known 500 million pounds budget for development, prototyping and trials, inclusive of the assembly of 7 prototypes, including Common Base Platform, which is the hull over which all variants are to be built.
- 500 millions in Long Lead Item orders for the production of the Recce Block 1 vehicles. There is no firm commitment to this yet, it is a budget forecast, and a contract will be signed not earlier than 2013, most likely.
- The rest of the amount covers the establishing and supply of Training and support to the Army for bringing FRES in service; 20% of VAT over the whole activity and allocation of money for Forecasted Inflation adjustements.

It remains the fact that 1.4 billions out of 5.5 planned to be spent in 10 years for Armor projects are virtually committed, and they will apparently deliver just 7 prototypes and parts for the production to (hopefully) follow. It is not exactly an heartening figure. One would expect production costs of RECCE Block 1 to be damn low when the actual production starts, after such a large early spend. But before any firm order for frontline vehicles is placed, the 10-years armor budget is already down to 4.1 billion. Not a good thing, also because armored vehicles orders are rather easy to cancel or defer, much more than big orders for ships or planes, and they end up being the most vulnerable to budget adjustements. The committee, indeed, couldn't help but note that there is a quite high risk of eventually ending up wasting the money sunk in development was FRES SV to fall victim to budget cuts.


On Nimrod MRA4

3.4 billions wasted, by now it is official. At the moment of cancellation, there were 200 millions left for the MOD to spend on Nimrod: apparently, BAE needed more than that to complete activity and deliver working planes, but this is not openly confirmed and definitely not specified. Might have been, might have not been. We might never know the reality and the amounts involved.
Of the 1.8 billion saving on 10 years (the expected cost of running the planned Nimrod fleet), the MOD does not yet know how much will effectively be booked, since negotiations with BAE on contract cancellation costs have not concluded yet, and the cost of Nimrod termination is thus still not defined. 

Worse, the MOD officers listened in the hearing made clear that, at the moment, there is no real plan to acquire a replacement Maritime Patrol Aircraft in the 10 years timeframe. An MPA won't figure in the Equipment Plan at publishing.
The MOD is however involved in the Poseidon P8 development and is evaluating alternatives for the future, while sending MPA crews abroad to work on airplanes of allied countries, from the US to Australia, under the Seedcorn initiative. A change of priorities could still see an order placed, perhaps as part of the next SDSR, but said order would in no case be under the 1 billion mark, without considering the running costs in following years: it would thus represent a large shift of money from other voices of the budget, and it will be challenging to make room for it.


On the financial black hole and on the 1% budget uplift

The MOD books are finally being balanced and put in order. Both the NAO and PAC are recognizing the progress, and the MOD plan is said to now be "Broadly in Balance". which should mean that only little adjustements in the various planning rounds will be needed from now on, and not big cuts.

However, the MOD is planning on the 1% real-term uplift in Equipment budget promised by government and Treasury for the period from 2015 to 2020. There is no contingency plan. The Committee has expressed fears that the budget uplift could fail to materialize, and urged the MOD and the Treasury to come up with some contingency planning to get an idea of how much a disaster it would be if even that little (3.3 billions) boost is eventually denied.

The fears of the Committee are, unfortunately, more than understandable. But the it really is horrible to see that so little confidence can be placed in the government's committment to such an important promise.
Whoever denies the MOD the tiny uplift promised will have to bear the consequences of a massive impact on defence capabilities, and the MOD really will not be to blame in the case. They are planning with that they are told to. Their role is to fit in the budget they are given, and this, as of now, includes a 1% uplift. 
The government should once and for all make its mind up and choose its priorities. 

India is publicly saying that they find "offensive" the fact that the UK gives them aid money that they do not want. 
Surely that money can be better spent somewhere else, no? 280 millions a year would have kept going Largs Bay (12 million per year), the 345-tanks Challenger II fleet (some 10 millions a year is the value of the 40% cut according to government), AS90 fleet, and all of the Type 22s and even Ark Royal. Comfortably. 
To give an idea, the whole Type 23 fleet of 13 ships is run on roughly 320 million pounds per year.

One thing the PAC should URGENTLY look into, and they should do so very carefully, is the Aid budget, aims and initiatives. Not only we are being told that the UK money to India is wasted, but that they do find it offensive. 
Surely it is a no brainer to stop giving money to them. Aid money has an important role to play in the UK's security, and it should also buy better economical and political relationships with foreign countries. This is reality, like it or not. If Bono Vox wants to throw money away for nothing, he should use his own. 
If aid money to India is buying contempt, it is a really, really poor way to use 280 million pounds a year. 

Redundancies Tranche 2; F35 update

I'd dare saying that it is not at all as bad as it promised to be according to press reports. Still nasty, but it could have been worse by far.

The Army is looking to discharge up to 2900 men, of which 400 are to come from the Gurkha brigade. 8 Brigadier posts will disappear, along with up to 60 Lieutnant Colonels.

The RAF seeks up to 900 redundancies, including 15 Air Commodores and 30 Group Captains.

The RN seeks up to 300 redundancies, inclusive of 5 Commodores, 17 Captains and some 19 RM officers, with Royal Marines losses in other ranks.

RN and RAF are confident that they won't need a Tranche 3 of redundancies to meet their downsizing target, which will be reached slowing down recruitment. The Army, instead, has a lot more pain ahead of itself.
This second Tranche follows the first reduction, in September 2011, which saw 1020 RN posts disappear, along with 920 RAF and 920 Army. 62% of the personel who quit had applied for leaving. This time around the volunteers are expected to be much fewer, making it all more painful. 



The first two UK F35, of the B variant, will be delivered in May. Training of UK personnel for the F35 for the next years will happen at Englin Air Base (Florida) in the "F35 university" of the US forces. The UK F35s will fly their test and evaluation sorties from Edwards Air Base (California).

The first F35C for the UK is the CF-17, a USMC F35C which will be exchanged for the british BK-3 F35B.
The F35C assigned to the UK is expected to change name and become CK-1.