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.

 

Type 26 details from BAE

You really do not want to miss the latest article up at Navy Recognition on the Type 26 frigate. They have, after long waiting and big efforts, managed to obtain answers from BAE to several questions raised by the new Type 26 model shown at Euronaval last year.

If you do follow my blog from some time, though, you already know all the answers: my independent analysis of the model, published in October last year, was entirely correct:

- Mainmast design has been improved
- The 24 main VLS cells are Strike Lenght (not yet determined if it'll be MK41 or Sylver A70 though, but what matters is that they will be cruise-missile sized)
- The big white radomes on the mainmast are, as i had guessed, for the SCOT 5 satcom system.
- The white tubes near the missile silo are exactly the same decoy launchers i had said they were.

Pardon the shameless self-celebration, but i'm proud to see i was right and able to give such an accurate update on the state of the Type 26 design process.
I'll do my best to be always just as accurate and timely!

Website restructuring

Today i've launched an important upgrade to the blog, by starting to get back to the ten main pages you can access from the Header. These pages contain interesting, but by now old and in some cases outdated, information. In the next while i will try to modernize them and make them relevant again.

Today i've started by improving the Future Force 2020 - Army page. I've kept the old, major overview of the Army that was in there, which contains data and my personal proposals about the original plan for 5 multi role brigades. However, on top of the page there is now a list of links, that i'll keep up to date, leading directly to the articles i've written on Army 2020 since it was announced last July.
These links lead to up to date information, and will make it easier for you to follow the story of Army 2020 from announcement to, hopefully, full implementation.This way it will be no longer necessary to navigate the Archive to find relevant articles about the Army.

It is my objective to improve the other pages too, in good time. For example, i've also made sure to add to the Royal Navy page sections containing links to the successive articles with which i've followed the evolution of the Type 45, Type 26 frigate and MARS FT. The lists of links will always have the newest articles on top.

It should make it much easier for you readers to follow things as they develop. I believe, and i don't think it is arrogance, that this website offers, so far, the most detailed review available to the general public about topics such as the Type 26, and grouping the articles together will make it easier to access to all the data.

Hoping you will enjoy,

Gabriele

The MOD's 10 year budget

Both the MOD and the NAO are late and have missed their "hoped for" release dates for the Basing Plan, 10-year Equipment plan, NAO evaluation paper of the same document and the NAO Major Projects Report 2012. They were all due in the Autumn, or anyway before Christmas, but they have all slipped, and are now expected to make interesting the months of January and February.

Waiting for their release, i can however provide some more details on the famous 10 year budget, at least in terms of money and concept, thanks to what Jon Thompson, Permanent Under Secretary, Ministry of Defence, and David Williams, Acting Director General Finance, Ministry of Defence, said to the Parliamentary Defence Committee on Wednesday 12 December. The uncorrected evidence is available here.

First of all it must be noted that the 10-year budget relates to equipment: it is the amount of money the MOD will have to acquire, operate, upgrade and support existing and future equipment. It includes the cost of running kit already in service; but it has nothing to share with funding for basing, accommodations and personnel. These are budgets in their own right, and an announcement on the money available for the basing of the forces is expected early into the next year: this is a particularly important area, as the army returns from Germany and adapts to its Army 2020 plan.  

It has emerged that the 10-years budget includes several layers of built-in flexibility, with contingency money available to cover cost-growth and unpredicatable issues and urgent requirements that might always emerge, depending on the military situation.

Then there is, as we know, a Core Committed Budget, which is money already allocated to specific programs: we do not yet know all of the programs on the list, but several have been revealed and are, indeed, very evident to the eyes of anyone: from the Carriers to the 7 Astute submarines, from Typhoon to A400 Atlas, and for the Army the Warrior CSP, Apache CSP, Challenger 2 CSP later in the decade, FRES SV and FRES UV, plus Foxhound and other systems.

Then there is an as yet uncommitted amount of money - some 8 billion pounds - which will be, in time, assigned to a number of other procurement programs.

These "other programs" are included in what the MOD calls Single Integrated Capability Priority List (SICPL), nicknamed "White Board". This list includes requirements from the three services that haven't yet been assigned a budget, and have seen no contracts signed. According to Jon Thompson, the value of the items on the list ranges somewhere between 7 and 12 billion, with the value "continuining to reduce", which suggests that the service chiefs are still engaged in a process to decide what is really necessary, and what can be postponed further.

The MOD's Equipment Plan, to be published in the near future, will provide indications on what exactly is part of the Core committed budget, either already under contract or anyway firmly planned for the next few years, while the White Board remains an internal list that the MOD is not keen to reveal. In the words of Mr. Thompson:

The white board are those things that we would like to do over time in order to fully deliver all the public aspects of Future Force 2020, which were announced in the SDSR. We have 10 years to do that. That, if you like, is the list of the things that we would like to do in that period of time. As the Secretary of State also said on 14 May, we have £8 billion of financial headroom over that 10-year period. Our funding assumption at that time was that we had £161 billion to spend, but the core programme was £153 billion, and therefore you have £8 billion of headroom.

On the other side of that equation, you have the white board of things that you want to do over that period. As we enter the annual budgeting process, we can see how much of the headroom is available and what we would like to pull off the white board and commit ourselves to, so that over the 10-year period, you would spend the £161 billion and deliver all the items on the white board. That is the conceptual framework.

 

The Type 26 frigate is part of the Core Committed Budget, with planning assumption for 13 hulls to be built, Mr. Thompson assures. 
However, i must note that much of the actual building phase of the ships will be outside the current 10-year plan, so that the money currently allocated covers the design phase and the building of the very first ships, assuming that the first hull is built as planned from 2018 and enters service in 2021. 
The current planning assumption appears to be a 12-months interval between one Type 26 and another, which would mean the last would be launched in 2034 or later (compatible with the plan that sees the last Type 23 bow out of service in 2036).

Another program "with a very long tail" is the F35, and Thompson makes another very interesting statement regarding this particular program, confirming that the 10-year plan includes funding for 48 airplanes. According to my interpretation of the MOD's Business Plan 2012-2015, the 48 F35Bs will all be delivered to the MOD by 2023. 

Jon Thompson: The Joint Strike Fighter has a very long tail. It is more than 10 years. Our commitment over the first 10 years is for 48, which was part of the announcements on 10 May in relation to the reversion to STOVL. Over time, we would expect the number to rise to beyond three figures, but that would be in the second decade.

Thomas Docherty: So there are 48 in the core equipment programme, and any beyond that would be effectively on the white board.

Jon Thompson: No; because it goes beyond the decade, that is an issue that can be considered in the next SDSR, and then you would think about it in longer terms. We are only talking here about the 10-year period.

The Core budget was determined in a relatively simple way:

David Williams: If it helps in terms of the content of the core equipment programme, the way in which we built the content of that programme up over the 10-year period was to start off with everything that was contractually committed, to add in the deterrent and wider nuclear submarine enterprise costs, and then to add in as the next layer other projects to which there had been a ministerial commitment. The most recent set of those, at the time, was the announcements that Liam Fox had made in July 2011 around carrier, Type 26, aspects of the armoured fighting programme, Chinook and Air Seeker. We then added in a degree of contingency or financial realism on top, took stock of how much headroom we had against the forecast budget over the period and decided how much of that we wanted to allocate out and how much we wanted to retain as unallocated provision or headroom for the future.

In terms of nuclear deterrence, the expenditure goes on well past the end of the current 10-years planning horizon, but it is interesting to note that the current planning is made on the assumption that the Vanguards will be replaced like for like, four new boats to replace the four old ones. A wise way to proceed. 
Naturally, we know what we are contractually committed to, but very often the MOD deals with costs that aren't initially clear, and that are often subject to variations. Cost growth has been a serious issue for Defence, and so the 153 billions of the Core budget include a contingency of 4.9 billion (more than the "4 billion" figure originally announced): 148 billions are already set aside and assigned, with some 4900 million pounds destined to cover cost growth, variations etcetera. This is extremely important, especially because there are important items in the equipment program that do not yet have a clear pricetag: namely, the F35B.

Thomas Docherty: Hang on-I am going to end up down a cul-de-sac if I am not too careful. Let us take one single item, the Joint Strike Fighter. We are buying 48 of them.

Jon Thompson: Yes.

Thomas Docherty: But you do not know how much they are going to cost? Because the US Air Force do not know much they are going to cost, the Chief of Defence Materiel does not know, and the US Congress do not know. It is going to cost you more than you think because the cost keeps going in the wrong direction. So you do not have £8 billion to play with because you are going to have to use some of that £8 billion if you have committed to buying 48.

Jon Thompson: As David said, the way in which we have approached that is that we have used the best information we have about what the programme is currently estimated to cost, and that is in the core assumption, the £153 billion. Then we added in £4.9 billion of risk provision within the core programme on the assumption that, as some of these programmes mature, the cost will rise. Then, rather than having to cancel a project that you have already committed to, you can use some of that risk provision, which is built into the £153 billion.

Thomas Docherty: Is that £4.9 billion out of your £8 billion?

David Williams: No, it is in addition.

Jon Thompson: It is in addition.

Thomas Docherty: So you have got £8 billion, then you have got another £4.9 billion?

Jon Thompson: Yes.

Thomas Docherty: Is that £4.9 billion within your £153 billion?

Jon Thompson: Yes.

  

The use of contingency money specifically set aside to tackle in-year changes to procurement contracts is a conceptually simple but absolutely vital change in the way the MOD works. A change that i've been praying for, for a long time, because the lack of spare money in the pockets in the past has been the cause of an endless series of program cancellations and delaying, which has resulted in lost capability and in monstrous cost escalations. As Thompson explains:

[...] in the past, if you go back two or three years, the way in which the Ministry of Defence approached this was to say, "We have a cost increase on a programme-what shall we do now? Everything is committed, so we will have to cancel something else." Or, as in the most extreme version, the carrier decisions in 2009, "We will stretch out that programme over a longer period of time," which leads to a sub-optimal value for money solution.

The disasterous delay imposed to CVF actually dates 2008, and calling it sub-optimal is really an understatement: according to the NAO, the 2-years delay is responsible for the 1.56 billion increase in cost in the long term that allows opponents of the carrier program to call it a "5 billion program".  It is not. It has been turned into one by a blaring example of financial madness.
Unable to spend some 405 million in-year (which weren't even a cost increase, but just the normal expenditure needed to continue with the original pace set for the CVF contract), the MOD ended up condemning itself to spend over 1500 millions over the rest of the program. And this is just one example, of many that could be made. It is absolutely evident that this must not happen again. 

Is there any indication on what sits on the White Board?
Yes, there are some.

Thompson seems to confirm my interpretation of the little information so far available on the MARS Solid Support Ship, for example: the Core Committed budget includes money for the development of the design of the ships, but their procurement for the moment sits on the White Board, and will move into the Core budget only in the next few years.
Always in terms of requirements not currently funded we have the Fast Landing Craft for the Royal Marines, which was confirmed at the time of the SDSR but is currently on hold, on the White Board.
Further investments into ISTAR, including probably new drones for the Navy and the Army, sit on the White Board, along with other programs, many of which relate to Combat Support and Combat Service Support for the Army. I believe, for example, that the modernisation of the Warrior FV514 Artillery Observation vehicle is likely to be found on the White Board, along very possibly with the long-term replacement of the DROPS trucks (the interim solution has been identified in the EPLS already in use as UOR in Afghanistan), Light Equipment Transporter trucks and General Service Tanker truck replacements.

Another interesting aspect regarding the budget is the significant underspend that was reported in-year. The Hearing provides an explanation:

In relation to 2012-13, the current financial year, we are currently in negotiation to transfer £1.5 billion of the defence budget from the current year into the next two financial years. If we are successful in those conversations with the Treasury, that will be appropriately disclosed to Parliament in supplementary estimates in January.

The MOD is not normally allowed to move money from a budget year to the following ones: the Treasury normally claws back every penny that is not spent. Fortunately, the MOD has been improving its management enough since the SDSR that the negotiations with the Treasury were successful, and a special permission has been gained to move the unspent money into the next two financial years. 

The huge 1.5 billion underspend in-year is due to several factors:

There are three areas that give rise to the sum. First, we have established an unallocated provision in every single year. In the current year, that is approximately £500 million. Secondly, although we think that we have improved the overall costing of the equipment programme, and we have a more stable programme, the programme delivery profile moves slightly back in every financial year. We are therefore looking to transfer half a billion pounds from the current year to future years because the programmes have moved back slightly. Then we have made £500 million of provisions in the wake of the SDSR, either for industrial liabilities or for redundancy payments that we do not think we need in the current financial year. So there are three reasons for it. It depends on how you like to define an underspend.

We earlier saw how the Equipment budget has a 4.9 billion contingency reserve of money. The 500 millions of unallocated provision in-year here mentioned is another layer of financial flexibility and protection:

We spoke earlier about, within the equipment plan across the 10-year period, £4.9 billion-worth of contingency and then £8 billion-worth of headroom, as a second layer. As the third layer in balancing the budget last year, we have put across the entire programme, so not specifically for equipment issues, further unallocated provision, which was £500 million this year and it is about £200 million a year, or thereabouts, across the 10-year period.

The equipment is not the only source of unexpected expenses in year, so the MOD has wisely decided to set aside a certain amount of money, not specifically tied to equipment, to cover other possible problems. For 2012, the unallocated provision was 500 millions, an high one because the MOD is still dealing with the many (and expensive) changes mandated in the SDSR. In the next years, the provision will be of around 200 million in each budget cycle.
This is a cross-sector reserve of 2 billions spread over 10 years. The total expenditure of the MOD over 10 years approaches 400 billions, so it is evident that Equipment is only part of the problem. Manpower is by far the heaviest voice of expenditure, and that's why manpower has been steeply reduced in the cuts.

As we know, however, the MOD has been badly affected by the cuts announced in the Autumn Statement of the Chancellor: the result is that a significant part of the 2 billion reserve is going to vanish in 2013 and 2014.

The reduction in our resource Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) of 1% for 2013-14 and 2% for 2014-15 is the methodology that was adopted for all Departments with three exceptions. Everyone else was treated in exactly the same way as we were.

The exceptions are NHS, Education and International Aid.
Defence was not spared and as a consequence will lose £250m in 2013/14 and £490m in 2014/15.
As a consequence, the 2012 underspend is effectively going back to the Treasury anyway: the permission to "move" this money on to the next two financial years is rather "virtual", as the money will effectively go back to the Treasury.
And it won't even be enough, as one billion out of 1.5 is money that IS going to be spent: these 1000 millions had been set aside to cover the costs of industrial liabilities and personnel redundancies caused by the SDSR, and to finance some of the equipment programs. They have not been used up in 2012 because things have developed in a slower way than expected, but they are costs that are not gone away.
The 740 millions in cuts that the MOD has to tackle in the next two years will eat away the 500 million unused provision moved on from 2012, and part of the unallocated provisions built into the next two years (which should be, as we saw, 200 million in each year).

The cut is manageable, and will not impact the Core Committed equipment budget, nor manpower. However, there obviously is an impact, as that money could have been eventually employed to help fund programs currently on the White Board:

Clearly our previous plan was based on not having that adjustment. Would we otherwise spend it? Yes. I am fairly sure that we would have spent it on appropriate things in accordance with what the defence board decided it should spend that budget on.

For now, there is no big shock, and no impact on the Equipment Budget, but something which could have been given funds and go ahead from the White Board will now have to wait. The real battle will go on over the new year, as the Treasury rolls forwards with a new Spending Review connected with the plan for an extended Austerity period lasting up to 2017/18. 
The Spending Review will determine the amount of money the MOD receives from 2015/16 onwards. Currently, the MOD is working to the assumption that its budget will be flat in real terms (no increases but no cuts either), with the famous 1% budget uplift (for the sole equipment program) in the three years from 2015 to 2018.  
Any reduction imposed on the MOD's budget will have a dramatic impact on military capability that will no longer be possible to absorb with contingency funds without putting the whole plan at serious risk.

The MOD is now planning prudently and rather efficiently: there has been a big impact on capability (and we don't even know yet exactly how many programs have been killed in the book-balancing effort) but there now is a conceptually-simple but effective plan to control spending and deliver programs in the decade.
The Treasury, however, is already starting to put the whole thing at risk: first of all, the MOD desperately needs to be able to negotiate its budget with the Treasury. If a program, for whatever reason, does not reach the Investment point in-year as was expected, the MOD must be able to keep the money, to spend it the following year when the moment comes: if the Treasury claws it all back, when it'll be time to pay the MOD will no longer have the money.
As we have seen, there is a special agreement in place to cover the next two years, but the Treasury must allow the MOD to carry forwards unspent money in the following years too, if the plan has to work.

In the past, knowing that every penny not spent was a penny lost, the MOD used to commit, each year 100% of its money. That meant having no reserve at all to meet cost increases, delays, unexpected changes etcetera, causing the infamous policy of cancelling and deferring, which solved the problems in-year but made them ten times worse in the following financial cycles.

Now that the MOD is genuinely trying not to repeat that suicidal approach, it is fundamental that the Treasury does not get in to claw the underspend away, otherwise the MOD, quite understandably indeed, will be more than tempted to return to the old methods.  

As a last important information, the Afghanistan war expenditure is falling. This additional money is provided by the Treasury over and above the rest of the defence budget, and the cost fell from £3.777 billion in 2010-11 to £3.458 billion in 2011-12. This year it should be around 2.5 billion.
The cost of the last two years of the Campaign, 2013 and 2014, is still being determined: importantly, it will include the money needed to fund the return of equipment to the UK.

Merry Christmas!

My best wishes to all my readers and followers. 
Running this blog has been an exciting ride this far, and I like to think I’ve provided some good information and food for thought to whoever visited. In the short life of this blog, the trend has been a constant growth in terms of visits and number of comments (and spam assaults too, but that's to be expected as a consequence of the first two!) that I hope to see continuing. 

I want to thank you all for your support, for your visiting and for your comments, while I wish you the best Christmas and a happy new year. 

And if sometimes my articles have been boring, unclear, not as detailed as you would have liked, I apologize. I apologize for my errors and mistakes, including my use of "naval miles”, which, of course, caused horror in some comments I’ve read on an article of mine in another forum. Message received, I’ll try and educate my hands in using the correct term. Have mercy on me, I do remain an Italian-speaker, after all!
For all my errors, all I do is done with the best of intents, to try and provide the most accurate, timely and complete information and, of course, some educated speculation as well, when there is scope to suggest and guess. 

I can only add that I hope in a better year for defence, as we go towards 2013. The last few years have been among the most painful, and they have left wounds that are going to be felt long into the future. May 2013 bring better news and some relief for everyone in Defence. 
I'll be here to talk about it, as always. 

Special wishes and thank you for all serving and retired members of the Forces: you are still the finest! 

Gabriele 

Defence news is simply too easy to ignore

Joel Shenton, former editor of Defencemanagement.com, talks about the problem of how insufficient and inadequate press coverage of matters of national defence contributes to the low weight that "the first duty of government" has in policy making.


In early 2011, I asked a Ministry of Defence press officer in main building what their job involved, bearing in mind there had been months, maybe even years, of bad news  for defence by this point and surely it was a press officer’s remit to make the picture seem...well, a bit rosier. How did they realistically expect to make bad news sound good? “Well, most of the time we can't make it positive,” he said. “All we can do, really, is damage limitation.”

And damage is probably the best term for the press coverage the armed forces have received in recent years. A miserable picture has been painted, and that’s after the MoD press office has had a hand in it. It is a picture that has caused outrage among certain sections of the public, but if we’re honest the bad news only seems to have sunk in for former military personnel, military families and defence industry workers. Along with military enthusiasts, that means hundreds of thousands of people are well informed, but there is an enormous gulf between their understanding of defence issues and the general public’s. As a country, the UK doesn’t seem all that interested in how it is defended.

Of course, as someone who was recently made redundant, I am aware of the financial issues at work here, but for a lot of people, the difference between CAS and CASD is just the letter ‘D’, and even though I no longer work in defence journalism, the level of ignorance still rankles.

According to national coverage of defence, the Royal Navy scrapped HMS Invisible in 2011 (an error it took The Telegraph over a week to correct), and Spitfires were fighter jets (from a BBC Breakfast interview with Burma Spitfire recovery man David Cundall). Even though the term is obviously wrong based on a single glance at the aircraft, the BBC made this mistake without batting an eyelid. An ITV News producer rang me up before military action in Libya began to ask if the UK would send Typhoon jets from an aircraft carrier and how big Libya was compared to the jet’s range. The Sun also recently claimed that a test-firing of Trident was a “warning to Argentina”. No. No it wasn’t.

Now some of these examples are innocent enough mistakes, but they paint a poor picture of where defence sits in the pecking order in national newsrooms. Yes, there are journalists, dozens, who understand the nuts and bolts of UK defence, but producers, subbers and editors appear unsympathetic or out of the loop. And it is they who decide what gets pride of place in the news agenda.

Defence also suffers from a disproportionately large amount of ‘leaks’, whereby a journalist’s exclusivity on a piece of information can propel a defence story to the front of the newspaper, but this doesn’t change the fact that general coverage is inconsistent at best. The sheer number of leaks allows those doing the leaking to set the news agenda. By its nature, defence is a secretive and complex subject, and those controlling the drip drip of information out of the MoD are able to easily set the agenda for the hungry journalists on the outside. The secrecy, complexity and power structures within defence have priced it out of the reach of regular day-to-day coverage, and many newsrooms appear to have simply given up.

Shortly before the SDSR, Liam Fox wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying the ‘Draconian’ cuts would put the national defence at risk. It was ‘leaked’ to the press. Fox was outraged, he said, and an MoD police investigation was launched. If the defence secretary can’t write to the Prime Minister in confidence (and what’s wrong with a bloody phone call, let’s be honest!) then something is seriously wrong. So up to 30 officers were investigating the source of this mysterious leak, which must have passed through...possibly five pairs of hands on its journey to number 10. What was the end result? Well for a long time, play was made that the investigation was complex and ongoing. Finally, earlier this year, I asked an MoD Police press officer what the deal was with that letter. “The investigation was concluded and the results reported to the Secretary of State”, came the response. I was dumbfounded. Trying to get meaningful answers out of the MoD  - who would almost certainly refuse to discuss those answers on security grounds - would take months and they knew it. All over something which appears so completely obvious that the best available guess must ultimately prevail in the imagination of the public. With odd behvaiour like this, it is no wonder the MoD is referred to as the Whitehall Puzzle Palace.

When army cuts were announced earlier this year, Army 2020 as they were called, the focus was instantly on the loss of cap badges. Not only were the cuts unpalatable, they were getting rid of established battalions, ones with successful recruitment records like 2 RRF. Scotland was probably going to lose battalions, and that could cost votes in the independence referendum. Of course, it is more important that the big picture of the army’s structure is balanced, rather than some old cap badges being preserved, but lost in the furore surrounding the regimental system was the suggestion that signals, artillery and engineer regiments would go, to be replaced, in some cases, by reservists as part of the ‘fingers crossed’ reserve force plans. The weight given to the leaks and outcry in defence reporting smothers any attempt at a more general day-to-day understanding of defence of the realm. Army 2020 leaks directly influenced which regiments were cut, dictating rules on preserving cap badges. As it turns out, outrage doesn’t have much of a shelf-life, so with the story exhausted, the day-to-day needs of the army and the business of running armed forces have since slipped back into relative obscurity.

Defence news is very easily ignored by the casual television viewer, very easily pushed down news agendas in papers because it can be technical, loaded with jargon and generally difficult to understand.

Defence is said to be the first duty of government, but it is reported nationally as though it were a sixth or seventh, falling somewhere after health, crime, social services, Europe, TV talent competitions and the weather.

The issue remains, and it is not being reported anywhere near seriously enough, that of all the 2020 force structures being developed by former big Cold War players, Britain’s is the least fit for purpose. It is a plan for forces small beyond the obvious population size limitations and is the most clearly austerity-led planning document for some time. Our forces are being cut to save money and that money is going into other government cash vacuums. Future Force 2020 will have some fine equipment at its disposal, but each service will be small, the Royal Navy too small to operate both aircraft carriers even, and it will not be enough to convince the new or old superpowers that we’re a serious contender. You cannot do more with less; you can only do less with less. And we do not even have a valid national strategy document saying what 21st Century Britain wants to do with itself.

Britain has a role in the world, but it is currently one that is shaky and ill-defined and there are very few votes to be won in correcting that. If you want votes these days you have to talk about money, not safety. We are so used to effortless post-Cold War national security that it is being  taken for granted that conventional forces’ days are numbered. Well, the sooner Britain gets its head out of its economic ass, the better.

British forces did a fine job in Libya, but the recent equipment cuts meant that for all the expertise and equipment sent out there, we were reduced to tagging along with the US like the fat kid on the football team.

What do soldiers do on 'patrols' ? Is their equipment good enough day to day or do we have to wait for 20 or 30 to die before we turn immediately to outrage over one issue? Are our armoured vehicle plans up to scratch? These are things you couldn’t reasonably expect your average Briton to answer, but you should be able to. Defence deserves better coverage.

There will always be some people that ‘do’ defence, interest groups or armchair admirals like me, but as long as defence is way down the news agenda there are plenty of opportunities to ignore it. And that, my friends, is a crying shame.


 Joel Shenton, former editor of Defencemanagement.com