Of compromises and priorities

The signing of the contract for the Mechanized Infantry Vehicle for the army is something to be cheered, of course, but i don’t think it should be welcomed without critique. This hugely expensive contract comes decades late, and it ends (hopefully) a whole 3 decades of disasters in army vehicles procurement. Almost everyone knows that BOXER, today’s MIV, is yesterday’s MRAV. The British Army was a founding member of the programme and had a big input in the design of the vehicle, which was originally meant to be the wheeled part of a comprehensive modernization programme for the Army, which included a tracked counterpart.

Equally notoriously, the whole programme fell apart and was succeeded by that utter disaster that was FRES. A whole 3 decades on, the original requirements are still only partially covered, and neither AJAX / WCSP nor MIV have yet managed to define a path towards complete replacement of all FV432 variants. To say that this saga has been a colossal failure is still an understatement, and the army cannot and should not pretend that all blame lays with politicians. Moreover, the Army should stop pretending that the blame lies on the expenditure for the Aircraft Carriers, or some other piece of equipment of the other two services.

In this article, however, I want to focus on the present, not the past. The past can’t be fixed, anyway.

The Army secured a sizeable first purchase: after initial talks of 300, up to heights of 600, down to an expected 508 in the final phases of the negotiation, it eventually signed for 523 series production vehicles and 5 prototypes. This is already enough to make it the world’s biggest BOXER operator, since even Germany only acquired 403 in two batches (a recent one for 131 and an earlier one for 272).

In the tenders published in the run-up to the contract, the MOD specifically sought to include options for further variants and successive purchases of vehicles, to get to a total of up to 1,500.

This enormous number is not expected to translate into a large number of mechanized infantry battalions, because many of the BOXERs would be used to replace FV432s and other vehicles across a multitude of supporting roles.

In fact, supporting variants are likely to make up a very significant portion of the 523 vehicles on order, even though we do not know yet the exact partitioning of the order. Known STRIKE plans involve just 4 battalions of infantry to be mounted in MIV vehicles, and this can be achieved with fewer than 250 – 300 vehicles. The exact number entirely depends on how many supporting variants are included: a WARRIOR battalion, for example, will have WARRIOR hulls for the infantry platoons, tactical HQ elements, ATGW platoon, recovery and repair (FV512 and FV513 variants). Mortar carriers, ambulances, HQ support vehicles and some other roles are covered by FV432s since the relevant WARRIOR variants were never acquired.

The current MIV order includes just 4 variants: APC, Command Post, Ambulance and a “Specialist” carrier whose role is not yet entirely clear. It is understood to be derived from the Dutch engineer variant, so it basically comes with less seats and more storage space for equipment. It might come with racks for Engineer recce teams but also come in, for example, a variant equipped to carry JAVELIN missile teams. In other words, it looks like a wheeled counterpart to the ARES (at least in some of its configurations) and ARGUS vehicles from the AJAX family.

In other words, not too many roles within a battalion will be actually covered by MIV variants, at least in the foreseeable future, and so it is even more likely that only between 250 and 300 vehicles are needed for the 4 battalions. 300 having been, not casually i dare adding, the first number thrown about for MIV.

The rest will be made up of ambulances, command posts and specialist carriers destined to other units. MIV Ambulances are most likely headed for the Armoured Infantry battalions mounted on WARRIOR, since the Armoured Battlegroup Support Vehicle (ABSV) programme seems to be dead and the AJAX family has not, in the end, included an ambulance variant.

MIV ambulances will obviously go to the Medical battalions of the Armoured and STRIKE brigades; MIV Specialist carriers could be headed for the Engineer regiments of the STRIKE brigades. I say could because the exact role of these “specialist” variants is far from clear yet and because there is already the ARGUS variant from the AJAX family. It might be that ARGUS will be concentrated in the two regiments aligned with the Armoured brigades, mainly tracked, and MIVs in similar configurations will go to the STRIKE engineers. It is yet to be discovered. The “Specialist” might also equip STRIKE artillery units, to give mobility to their Fire Support Teams as they track and designate targets.

In practice, the British Army is approaching MIV in a way that is a hybrid of Germany’s and Netherland’s approaches: the Dutch, in fact, procured 200 BOXERs in various Support Role configurations as replacement for their tracked M113s. They have no infantry mounted in BOXERs at all.

Germany has procured mostly APCs to equip its Jäger (Light) infantry battalions, and some support vehicles to go along with them.

The result of this hybrid approach is that Germany will have mounted more infantry battalions in BOXERs than the British Army, despite purchasing less vehicles.

This is not necessarily wrong in entirety, but it is the result of different compromises. Germany clearly thinks that such a massive, expensive and capable vehicle is mostly to be destined to frontline, combat role, while support roles, with some exceptions, can be entrusted to less expensive machines. The UK is currently planning to increase protection levels massively for a wider range of roles, but at the cost of leaving most of its infantry battalions standing literally on their feet.

There is a discussion to be had on whether the British Army’s priorities are the right ones for a cash-strapped force which is currently aiming for a grand total of 8 (small) battalions with some form of mechanization (4 on WARRIOR, 4 on MIV as of today’s plans). Wouldn’t it be better to reserve BOXERs for frontline roles, and have less expensive vehicles for supporting roles wherever this is reasonable?

Other armies clearly think it is a good proposition: France procured 630 VBCIs in just 2 variants: IFV (510) and Command (120) and equipped 8 regiments with them. And please, take due note of the fact that French regiments are based on 4 rather than 3 Companies and are much, much bigger than british battalions. Supporting vehicles today are mostly VABs, and tomorrow will be GRIFFON 6x6 vehicles, immensely cheaper than a top-class 8x8 and purchased in literal thousands.

Italy gets often overlooked, but actually fields impressive and very active armed forces, especially considered the tiny budget the service chiefs have to work with. It is also one of the most active western players when it comes to wheeled armour, and 8x8 in particular, thanks to the CENTAURO tank destroyer and then to the FRECCIA family.

The FRECCIA family is an interesting case of prioritization completely different from the British Army’s approach. FRECCIA orders are still coming and production is still (slowly) progressing due to the already mentioned tiny budget, and it is worth noting that almost the entire purchase is devoted to frontline combat. In fact, between delivered, ordered and planned, the vehicles of the family include 335 IFVs, 72 anti-tank vehicles (with SPIKE missile pods on the sides of the turrets), 34 120mm Mortar Carriers, 40 Recovery vehicles, 60 Reconnaissance vehicles in FAR configuration and 60 in CLOSE configuration, and just 26 command vehicles in 2 different variants (note: some of the IFVs are kitted for infantry company command).

16 Ambulances were envisaged at one point, but the idea was abandoned in favor of less expensive alternatives.

What alternatives? And why so few command posts?

This is arguably the most interesting part.

On the ambulances front, the answer is that the role has essentially been pushed down onto the Italian counterpart to the Multi Role Vehicle – Protected (MRV-P) that the British Army hopes to acquire. For those who don’t remember what MRV-P is, I’ll mention that it is a large programme meant to replace (part of) the unprotected Land Rover variants; the Pinzgauers, the PANTHERs and eventually the HUSKYs. To do this, two “Groups” are envisaged: Group 1 is for a 4x4 vehicle, so (relatively) small, while Group 2 is for a larger vehicle, with effectively only 6x6s left in the races, for more demanding roles.

For Group 1, the British Army has expressed its favor for the American Oshkosh Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and has already secured, back in 2017, the US approval for a purchase of up to 2,747 vehicles and associated kits and equipment. Back in April this year, a 2-year demonstration phase has been authorized to test and develop british-specific fit-outs and work out integration and mission safety features.

Up to at least this September, government reiterated in Written Answers that it expects decisions on MRV-P during 2020: in particular, the JLTV purchase could get the go ahead while a selection should also be made between the two contenders left in the race for Group 2.

These are the Thales BUSHMASTER and the General Dynamics EAGLE 6x6. The BUSHMASTER is sponsored by Australia, which through its defence minister has promised that production of the vehicles would happen in the Thales facility up in Glasgow. BUSHMASTER is seen as the favorite, but while a selection is supposedly due in “early 2020”, all timings are obviously always doubtful when it comes to the army and even more so now that there is an SDSR coming after the elections.

There is (was?) also a “Group 3” requirement, which is specifically about a Lightweight, air portable Recovery vehicle, which is required not just to service MRV-P itself, but to support units mounted in other “light” vehicles, such as JACKAL/COYOTE and FOXHOUND. At the moment, apart from a few HUSKYs partially fitted out for the role by the REME, there is no real alternative to the MAN SV Wrecker, a 32 tons behemoth that is, for obvious reasons, actually very poorly suited to supporting Light Cavalry and Light Mechanized Infantry on FOXHOUND.

The Lightweight recovery vehicle was very much craved by 16 Air Assault and 3 Commando brigades and was supposed to be a funded requirement, but even so it has not progressed to a selection and contract award, despite a number of interesting entries, led in particular by SUPACAT’s own product based on the same high-mobility family that spawned the JACKAL.

Said of the british MRV-P, let’s talk about the Italian one, which arguably provided the inspiration for the Group 1 and 2 split. In fact, Italy’s Group 1 is made up by thousands of Iveco LINCE (Lynx, the vehicle that was the base for the british PANTHER variant), while Group 2 is made up by the much larger, but still 4x4, Iveco ORSO (Bear, or more specifically Grizzy, especially in the german 6x6 variant, which however has been more or less abandoned).

ORSO and LINCE (long wheelbase variant) ambulance variants 

Due to the insufficient budget (Italy unfortunately spends much, much, much less than the fabled 2% of GDP on defence) the purchases are very slow, but the ORSO is meant to cover a huge variety of roles including Ambulance, Command Post, Comms and EW, EOD and Route Clearance.

It does, and increasingly will as more are acquired, offload most supporting roles from more expensive fleets, such as the FRECCIA, while enabling a standardization of the various existing fleets. The Route Clearance package based on the ORSO, for example, is allowing the Italian Army to let go of the US COUGAR-based MRAPs that it had urgently procured for operations in Afghanistan. One route clearance package is being assigned to the Engineer regiment in each brigade.

The ORSO will also be supporting the tracked DARDO (Dart) IFVs since the Italian Army has given up its M113 fleet to save money. This will be somewhat sub-optimal due to the mixing of wheels and tracks, but at least it won’t be quite as ridiculous as having a behemoth BOXER ambulance literally dwarfing the WARRIOR IFV it will support. The maximum mass of BOXER in the latest variant, which is the one the British Army will acquire, is 38,5 tons. Probably the ambulance won’t weight quite that much, but a baseline WARRIOR at FV520 standard (the new post-CSP designation) weights around 27…

A Route Clearance package based on the ORSO, with ground penetrating radar, anti-mine rollers, mast-mounted sensors for situational awareness and then the vehicle with the rummaging arm for anti-IED checks. One such package will be assigned to each brigade of the italian army for Mobility support. 

I make no mystery of the fact that I’m much more attuned to the Italian priorities than to the british ones. The British Army is about to splash a lot of money on a big number of massive 8x8 ambulances, while, at the same time, having still no plan at all for what vehicle will carry the battalion’s mortars after the FV432 finally retires. The problem is common to both WARRIOR and BOXER battalions, and it amazes me. Add to this the fact that the british battalions continue to have access to nothing more than hand-loaded 81 mm mortars while everyone else has long had 120mm mortars, more often than not semi-automatic, and you might understand why I’m utterly perplexed. Surely BOXER hulls with full protection would be better spent for this key role…?

The British Army is also still without an under-armour launch capability for anti-tank guided weapons. It last had one in the early 2000s, before the last CVR(T) STRIKERS armed with SWINGFIRE missiles were withdrawn without direct replacement. The only ATGW capability is given by dismounted JAVELIN teams, or soldier-carried NLAWs. There is a possibility that some PROTECTOR RWS will get a single JAVELIN launcher strapped on (the option is readily available and was trialed successfully in the UK from a modified SPARTAN already years ago), but this is still quite underwhelming to what is the norm elsewhere. The FRECCIA ATGW variant carries dismounted SPIKE teams in the back, but also has SPIKE Long Range missiles in box-launchers on either side of the turret, for example.

WCSP, AJAX and now BOXER have all failed at trying to bring any progress in this area, despite their enormous cost. And again I wonder if this shouldn’t have been granted a much, much higher priority. If you ask me, yes, it should have. Especially since you are exhausting most of your budget for the next few years on this purchase, and effectively ensuring that these capability gaps will not go away anytime soon.

The latest BUSHMASTER evolution is seen as the favorite in the MRV-P race. Some BUSHMASTERS are already in use, including in Syria, with the UK Special Forces. The selection of BUSHMASTER would also be a "returned favor" after Australia jointed the Type 26 Global Combat Ship project. 

MRV-P Group 2 is mainly composed of “Troop carriers” (2+6 seats) and Ambulances, yet it is evidently felt that these will mostly be about replacing Land Rover-based ambulances, we have to assume.

The EAGLE 6x6 is the other Group 2 aspirant 

When it comes to Command Posts, the discussion to be had is even more urgent and more complex. I’ll again look at the Italian Army, because for all its shortcomings and budget problems it has been one of the most innovative in the last several decades and has been carrying on impressive experimentation and development. In particular, it has been working very hard on digitalization, and is seeking to truly modernize the command posts on the field.

In its Network Enabled force plans, the Italian Army has sought to define various levels of command / access to information. Tier Zero is the Sensor, which might well mean a small unattended, automated sensor on the ground. T1 is the individual soldier, then T2 is the Section, T3 the Platoon, T4 the Company, T5 the Regiment and T6 the Brigade.

Most of these command levels have relatively low need for data and information. Things start getting interesting at T2 level. Digitalization, of course, is supposed to make even Sections much more capable by allowing them to know more about their surroundings, collect and share more data, access more directly to supports. The Italian Army is thus investing heavily on Software Defined radios and Satcom On the Move (SOTM). SOTM, in particular, means your command post can continue to communicate while it is moving, while “normal” HQ are only able to access most of the data On The Halt. Obviously, the more command and comms function work while on the move, the more your battle rhythm can be quickened, at least in theory. Your command also becomes enormously more survivable as it does not need to stop, set up tents, camouflage itself, wire itself into gear etcetera.

T2 to T4 tiers are getting LINCE vehicles outfitted with software defined radios and SOTM X-band comms where necessary, to expand their capability. 

A LINCE 2 (the current production standard, much improved and more roomy than the original LINCE) equipped as command post. The flat antenna on top of the rear is the SOTM X-band antenna. 

At higher levels, company commanders riding in FRECCIA do not really need a specific command variant, because digitalized comms on the FRECCIA, integrated with a JANUS panoramic EO/IR sensor ball, are sufficient to build situational awareness and exercise command. At a slightly higher level of complication in battle command, the Command variants of the vehicle do step in. As I mentioned earlier, there are actually 2 command variants to the FRECCIA: one is for tactical command, when the officers need to be close to the action, and comes with turret and 25mm gun, like the other IFVs.

The “Main” command post is a FRECCIA APC with more room in the back and just an HITROLE RWS for self defence. This distinction is of course not necessarily “new” in itself. The British Army itself of course mixes WARRIORs or, where applicable, CHALLENGERs for “tactical” HQ to FV432 / 436 kitted out to form the main HQ element. An interesting image tweeted by a British Army officer and showing a tabletop wargaming exercise with STRIKE ORBATs shows that with AJAX and MIV the situation will be much the same, with a couple of AJAX for the tactical element supported by ATHENA vehicles for the actual command.

A glimpse of the STRIKE wargames offer a vision of some company level organisation. The most notable thing is that the ORBATs are actually very, very traditional. The AJAX Sqn literally swaps SPARTAN for ARES and SCIMITAR for AJAX, with no other visible change. Note "GW Troop", Guided Weapon Troop, on ARES: this will be JAVELIN missile teams. What is not yet clear is whether there still is a dedicate "Overwatch" sub-variant of ARES and whether this includes at least a JAVELIN on the RWS, to have at least a hint of under-armour ATGW capability. There does not seem to be any mortar at all in sight in the ORBAT. The only possible surprise is the very recognizable shape of FOXHOUND wherever a CLV (Command and Liaison Vehicle) appears in the ORBAT. This might or might not provide a hint of where FOXHOUND is next headed. It might also be a shape used semi-randomly to indicate the yet-to-be-procured MRV-P, however. 

What is interesting in the Italian army’s approach is that the number of such commands is more limited. Digitalization is exploited to reduce the need for dedicate command vehicles. The AJAX family already includes 112 ATHENA vehicles, and the first MIV purchase is likely to add quite a lot of its own C2 variant. Is this really unavoidable, or even tactically sound?

In the Italian army, again the ORSO steps into the fray. Forza NEC, the network-enabled force project of the Italian Army, has invested into other ways to create command posts that are both connected and mobile, capable and survivable. One such fully mobile HQ model is built upon 4 ORSO vehicles, 2 built for the Command role and 2 specializing in communications.

At brigade level, the new model of digitalized command post is based on 6 ISO expanding shelters, fully mobile once carried on trucks. Of the 6 shelters, one is for analysis and planning, one for the management of ongoing manoeuvre, 2 are for comms and EW, one for Artillery and one for Logistics.

This shelterized HQ is fully mobile, is faster into action than a classical tented solution and cheaper than a solution based on armoured vehicles. It is also arguably easier to hide “containers” among normal logistic movements and keep the enemy guessing about where the HQ is. This kind of shelter can also relatively easily be equipped with ballistic and CBRN protection. The Italian army has anyway developed a tented variant, which can be used when the HQ is not at risk and can be static for longer, and there is even an hybrid variant which combines tented spaces and shelterized equipment to cut down on assembly and wiring times.

Unfortunately, the British Army does not appear to have approached the issue of command posts anywhere near as seriously and comprehensively. In recent times there have been some low-budget experiments within infantry battalions which have sought to make their HQs more survivable by mounting the equipment into MAN SV trucks, cutting down the wiring time. The HQ in this experiment was still essentially an old-style affair, just quicker in relocating to enhance its chances of survival. Those who took part, predictably, noted that shelters thought specifically for the purpose would, of course, work better.

In 2017, finally, the British Army started experimenting with something more ambitious and adequate to the modern world with the Tactical HotSpot experiment which has seen a couple of PANTHERs and then also FOXHOUND kitted out to deliver both SATCOM On The Move and bubbles of secure data connectivity.

The HotSpot is meant to enable processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of ISR data as well as high capacity line of sight meshed networks; it employs Satcom On the Move (SOTM) and Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (MANET) support air and land operations in an integrated way.

Its deployable masts give it FALCON connectivity as well as BOWMAN reach, and there are 4G networking and Link 16 also involved. Amazingly, it all fits on a PANTHER. These demonstrators have been followed by the HAWK, which is a similar HotSpot development packed into a FOXHOUND instead, and first showcased and demonstrated to the Army in 2018.

The PANTHER HotSpot demonstrator, with the very evident telescopic masts at the rear 

Agile Command, Control and Communications is the theme of the Army Warfighting Experiment for 2020, and both HotSpot demonstrators are highly likely to feature at the event, hopefully alongside other solutions including shelterized command posts, which in the meanwhile have been gaining ground in the US as well. It is to be hoped that the experiments in this AWE edition will lead, this time for real, to a true modernization effort for how the army sees, deploys and employs command posts.

A final note on the FRECCIA reconnaissance variants, because they are a very interesting topic: both are armed with the usual 25mm gun turret, but they are otherwise complementary due to the sensors and systems they carry. The FAR variant is equipped with the VIRESS sensor suite on a telescopic mast, combining a radar LYRA 10 and a HORIZON HD long-range EO/IR optic, as well with HORUS UAVs which are launched from boxes on the sides of the turret, similar to normal SPIKE missile launchers. Both sensors are also man-portable for dismounted use away from the vehicle.

The CLOSE variant has the SPIKE missiles in the boxes and carries an Unmanned Ground Vehicle RTP-2 in the back.

Procurement is moving slowly, but the eventual ambition is to equip almost every brigade in the Italian army with a recce Cavalry regiment which will have one Squadron of CENTAURO 2 tank destroyers (120/45 mm smoothbore gun on 8x8) and 2 mixed squadrons of FRECCIA FAR and CLOSE.

The CENTAURO 2 prototype (left) next to a current CENTAURO with 105 mm gun 

There was a time in which the AJAX family was expected to be similar, with a Medium Armour variant with the 120mm in support of the base AJAX and of the few, still mysterious “Ground Based Surveillance” variant which, assuming it is still planned at all, should carry some additional sensors. Today, the AJAX in its basic Scout variant is being asked to “impersonate” the defunct Medium Armour variant within the STRIKE brigades, with no uplift to its firepower or sensors.

Standardization?

The first (and pretty much only) objection that was formulated against my doubts about the expenditure on so many BOXER support variants is that having “everything” on the same vehicle base simplifies logistics. I can see that by myself, but what I can also see is that the British Army is nowhere near to any degree of true “standardization” and won’t be for many more years, if ever. As already mentioned, only a very limited number of variants of BOXER are funded, and they are insufficient to achieve a complete standardization even within the MIV-mounted infantry battalions. Elsewhere in the Army, you’ll have a few lone BOXERs into a WARRIOR or AJAX battalion, because there is no new tracked ambulance. And nobody knows yet what will be done about the mortars, I’ll again remark. Something that, to me at least, is unconceivable.

BOXER-standardization is a dream that entirely rests upon those nearly 1000 options for future purchases. It is the quintessential example of living on a prayer, hoping in the jam that will come tomorrow. And “tomorrow”, even in the very best case, means several years further down the line. We all know just how many things could go wrong. The Army has selected the most expensive 8x8 on the market while knowing full well that there are many other requirements desperately calling for funding. The British Army does not have the budget to use “Rolls Royce” cars for everything, and will never have it. Just as the Navy and to a lesser degree even the RAF have accepted that they can’t use high end platforms for everything, the Army needs to also get real.

Multi Role Vehicle – Protected, if properly funded and finally allowed to begin, could bring about a wider standardization than BOXER ever could. HUSKY, PANTHER, PINZGAUER, DURO and some of the old, tired Landies could all be replaced by 2 fleets, more modern, more protected and more reliable.

The JLTV family. New variants and mission fits have already started to appear, which is one of the advantages of going with a vehicle that will be in so widespread use in the US Armed Forces 

Everything in life is some sort of compromise, and in my opinion it is better to compromise on your ambulance vehicle than on your mortar carrier, or on the fact of having one more battalions riding into battle over BOXER rather than on foot, or on seats strapped in the back of an HX60 truck.

Speaking of compromises and standardization, the situation in the British Army is getting so ridiculous due to the enduring problem of how to replace FV432 and get WARRIOR into the 21^st Century that perhaps the greatest priority I’d personally associate to BOXER is replacing WARRIOR itself.

The WARRIOR CSP production deal has not been signed yet. Only the turrets and cannons are under contract, and this, in my opinion at least, is a blessing. What better standardization than to replace those tired WARRIOR hulls with BOXER hulls, modern, well protected, with much more room available and seats for 8 dismounts even when a turret is fitted. Use the WCSP budget to procure some 245 new hulls (in theory at least the cost would be exactly around a billion pounds) and have the turrets installed onto those.

Then spread those 245 turreted vehicles spread across 8 battalions, mixing them with the cheaper APC variant being procured under the current deal. Is it ideal? No, it is a compromise. We all know that the tactical mobility of tracks in atrocious terrains is probably never going to be entirely matched by wheels. But the British Army has no path to a fully tracked force since ABSV appears dead, so rather than have BOXER ambulances dwarfing the IFVs they support while struggling to match their mobility in the mud, I’d very much rather “go french” and give up the tracked IFV fleet. Again, everything is a compromise. But is it a better compromise than 4 battalions on WARRIORs and 4 battalions on APCs armed with nothing more than a .50 HMG? In my opinion yes; it is a massive improvement in my eyes.

It also fixes, at least partially, another flaw with the BOXER purchase as it is currently planned: the incredibly light armament. The MIV Troop Carriers are, for now at least, expected to be armed just with a PROTECTOR RWS, which can take machine guns up to the .50 HMG, or a 40mm GMG grenade launcher at best. This is in line with the dutch BOXERs (which however are not troop carriers at all, as we have seen) and with Germany’s own, which however were originally procured as battle taxis for the german army’s light infantry.

It should be noted that according to the latest news the German army is actually about to procure 30mm turrets for its BOXERs. This follows similar moves by the US (30mm on STRYKERs) and Poland (which put 30mm guns and anti-tank missiles on the portion of its ROSOMAK fleet it had originally procured in APC form).

The British Army’s plan is for the BOXER-borne infantry to be the very vanguard of the Army, as well as, laughable as it sounds, its countermeasure to Anti Access; Area Denial (A2AD) tactics. In the Army’s thinking, these vehicles, which are in no way more mobile than Russia’s own wheeled force while being enormously weaker in terms of firepower, will “disperse” over a wide area, “dance” around main enemy forces and strike at will at vulnerable points to “complicate the enemy’s C2 picture”.

I think it is utter nonsense, as I’ve made plenty clear in many other articles. But it would be a little less unbelievable if the BOXER battalions had their own share of 40mm guns to fight back against enemy AFVs (note: Russia puts 30mm guns AND anti-tank missiles on nearly anything that moves) without having to stick close to the tracked AJAX.

It would also bring forth some serious standardization. For real, this time.

It is no mystery that the STRIKE concept does not convince me at all. Especially with the kind of equipment and mass that the British Army has and will realistically have. Every time I think that the army owns just 89 Heavy Equipment Transports (plus 3 recovery vehicles) and 77 Light Equipment Transporters, and any STRIKE fantasy immediately dies, together with much of the feasibility of deploying the fabled “warfighting division” in a meaningfully short timeframe.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’d rather “STRIKEIZE” the existing brigades by replacing WARRIOR than pursue STRIKE brigades in the way that has been imagined so far.

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A BOXER for everything?

Ultimately, the question for the cash-strapped British Army is: does it make any kind of sense to even try and purchase BOXER for all roles? The modularity of BOXER does not change the fact that it is a behemoth, and an expensive one at that. There have already been all kinds of pitches for further variants, including an armoured LEAPP / Skykeeper module complete of its own Saab 1X radar or the Land Precision Strike pitch by MBDA. This variant, in particular, would be a launcher for missiles with a range requirement of at least 60 km. Land Precision Strike, in the interim, is delivered by the EXACTOR (SPIKE NLOS) missile, currently launched from a tiny trailer-launcher. The Royal Artillery would like to update this capability by extending its range and by having the missiles mounted on a vehicle, but should that vehicle be a BOXER?

This vehicle will spend most of the time hiding. It will fire missiles from a great, “safe” distance and then it’ll seek to vanish away before the enemy can react. Does it NEED to be a BOXER? I’d rather have it installed on an inconspicuous and ideally very light vehicle, to preserve, as much as possible, the good attributes of the tiny trailer: complete air mobility and ease of concealment. Indeed, while a vehicle-mounted launcher would be a great addition, I’d personally recommend the Army to retain the trailer launchers as well, because their ease of movement on the battlefield is an awesome characteristic in itself.

My recommendation to the Army is: think very carefully about what needs to be a BOXER, and what does not. Don’t waste finite millions on trying to BOXER-ize everything. Moreover, start from the most dangerous roles. I come back to the Mortar Carrier, or ATGW vehicle. These two roles certainly require the best mobility and protection and firepower that can be acquired. A 120mm mortar should be an absolute priority. An urgency, even. A mobile, under-armour ATGW capability is also an urgency.

A 60+ km Land Precision Strike missile, if it’ll ever truly be funded (the past decade saw nearly all Artillery modernization programmes mercilessly killed by budget cuts, not sure this decade will be any different…) might not need to be on a BOXER hull. It will be one of the least exposed to direct and indirect fire simply because it’ll hide, fire very quickly, hide again. Its worst enemies will be of the flying kind, and being on a BOXER hull won’t be really decisive in ensuring survivability against those.

Conversely, it seems the Army is happy with having its future 155mm howitzer based on a lightly protected truck. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have it on a better protected platform, since guns, unlike rocket / missile launchers, tend to end up firing very frequently and, critically, for extended periods of time?

ARCHER automated gun module on HX truck base (Top) and MBDA's Land Precision Strike pitch. Wouldn't it make more sense if the base vehicles were inverted...? The ARCHER on MAN SV base is one of the main contenders for the Mobile Fires Platform programme which should re-equip 4 Royal Artillery regiments, replacing AS90 and part of the L118 Light Guns. Land Precision Strike is the evolution of the current EXACTOR capability. 

I think a honest assessment of relative risks will agree with me that the howitzer is more likely to end up framed by counterbattery fire than the Land Precision Strike launcher.

A decision on “what does what” is overdue. The Army has spent the last decade dodging the question of how to make AJAX, WCSP, MIV and MRV-P fit together in a way that makes sense and allows the FV432 and all CRV(T) to leave service without capability gaps opening all over the place. Billions of pounds of contracts later, it still does not have an answer yet. It is time to formulate one which is more realistic than expecting repeated BOXER purchases for the next X decades until most of the army is equipped with it. Even if it was financially feasible over the long term, it’ll take so long that the BOXER will be an old vehicle before deliveries even conclude.

Realism, please

News have already started to appear in the press about how things are moving in the MOD Main Building ahead of the expected SDSR 2020. Some reports are less credible than others, but one line in a recent Times article has caught the attention by suggesting that the current Chief of General Staff, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, is in open contrast with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, which preceded him at the helm of the Army and crafted the initial Army 2020 Refine plan.

According to the Times, Carleton-Smith is warning CDS that said A2020R ambitions are unachievable, at least in the near future and with the resources planned. Carter, on the other hand, is said to be adamant that things must progress in the way he had envisioned them.

It’s hard to say whether the Times has got it right and what is the exact state of play, but many aspects of Army 2020 Refine made no sense at all, and continue to make no sense. The whole STRIKE concept as initially crafted is simply not believable; the mixture of tracks and wheels is sub-optimal at best and is only possible by robbing RECCE cavalry away from the Armoured Brigades, and the demand to the army of being able to deploy a Division of 2 Armoured and 1 STRIKE brigades is arguably unachievable. It would require deploying 100% of the heavy armour complement and 50% of the Medium armour at once, and anyone who remembers previous Divisional deployments, when the army was larger than it is now, will most likely confirm that it is next to impossible to do. Even though such a scenario would be a literal “silver bullet”, fired only once and after a sizeable preparation time.

The cupboard would be wholly and miserably empty once all that is out of the door.

Back in august, when the Army once more moved chairs around in its frankly dysfunctional force structure, it did one thing that makes a whole lot of sense: concentrated 1^st Division’s infantry in fewer brigades by removing all infantry units from 160 and 38 Brigades.

1^st and 6^th Rifles (regular and paired reserve) moved from 160th to 7^th; 2^nd and 8^th RIFLES from 38^th to 51^st; 2^nd and 6^th SCOTS from 51^st to 4^th, 1^st and 2^nd IRISH from 160^th to 11^th and 3 PWRR from 7^th to 11^th. Earlier still, the Army had done away with 42^nd Brigade.

Gone are the (frankly utterly ridiculous) 7 “adaptable” brigades of wildly variable structure and size, replaced by a somewhat more realistic nucleus of 4 brigades. This allows a more realistic “concentration” of the force, but still does nothing to solve  the fact that none of these brigades include anything beyond some infantry and, in a couple of cases, Light Cavalry. There is no artillery, no logistic unit, no medical unit, no engineer unit.

An injection of realism is urgently needed in matters of Force Structure as well as in the choice of vehicles and priorities for equipment. 

France, with a considerably larger army and far more vehicles available and on order, has 6 brigades in total (7 if you want to count the Franco-German binational brigade as well).

Excluding 16 Air Assault, which anyway is no longer a “complete” brigade itself as its supporting elements are only large enough for supporting 2 battlegroups, one of which always at readiness, the British Army has 7 other Brigades, plus 38th and 160th "Brigades" as 1-star regional commands, plus the Specialised Infantry Group as another 1-star command.

It however has only 4 artillery regiments, medical units, logistic groups, signal formations etcetera, because these were the first units to be cut in 2011, due to the need to preserve the precious infantry cap badges, the only real sacred cow in Defence.

For what is worth, I continue to urge the Army to rebalance its force structure. Perhaps go more “French”. 

France’s new Army structure is perfectly rational: two homogeneous Divisions, each with a strong Armoured brigade, one Medium, Wheeled brigade and a Light / Specialist brigade (Mountain and PARA respectively). Individually, the French Division is less capable than the “Warfighting Division” imagined by Carter.

Armee de Terre under "Au Contact" structures. I've added some color notes to evidence some of the roles and equipment of the units. This is a far more rational Force Structure, which matches Manoeuvre units and Supports in a more realistic way. 

But, unlike Carter’s Division, the French ones exist, are being kitted out, and can both deploy across the spectrum of operations. While the British Army’s 3^rd Division is a one-shot silver bullet with nothing behind it, the French Divisions can rotate in and out and ensure the Army’s output lasts.

While the British Army has an abyss separating the capabilities of 3^rd and 1^st Division, the French have chosen near perfect balance, and have sought to ensure that every brigade can take on a whole multitude of tasks.

The brigades in 1^st Division are “containers” of useful infantry battalions, some of which are rotationally committed to a variety of roles such as Cyprus and Brunei. This is clear and understood. But they are extremely, extremely limited in their ability to do much of anything else. The 4 brigades within 1^st Division can only look forwards to Rear Line security, prisoner guarding and security tasking in support of a 3^rd Division deployment. It is not by pure chance that, back in August, 104 Logistic Brigade was moved into 1^st Division: its role is to set up the Theatre access for 3^rd Division to come through, and elements of a scraped together “Lead Light Infantry Brigade” would be used to cover the security requirements connected to that. While that too is a requirement, I would urge the Army to use its manpower better.

It’s absurd to relegate the majority of your precious infantry into ghost brigades, part of a “fake”, undeployable Division good only for other-than-war tasks.

In the new SDSR, Carter’s horrendously unbalanced plan should be picked apart, and the pieces put back into a more realistic balance.

Even if it means some infantry battalions must go.

DMP: even though funding does not match ambitions, a global stance is still needed

The current “review that is not a review”, now called Defence Modernisation Programme, is an abomination and an abject failure. There is no other honest way to describe the current farcical situation, with a government in denial scrambling for new cuts scarcely two years into a 5-years strategic plan crafted with the last SDSR, dated November 2015. The handling of the whole “National Security Strategy” is farcical, and the months spent denying the problem now look like nothing but concentrated dishonesty. Michael Fallon’s late change of heart is the coronation of the whole disaster: now that he is no longer in charge he is not just admitting that there is a serious cash problem, but pontificating on areas where to seek further “efficiencies”.

We are now officially into a new review, but the government is still trying to tell us that it is not a purely financial exercise. They insist on turning “cuts” into “modernisation”. 

The effective gravity of the problem is hard to gauge. The MOD is now saying that they have “line of sight” on about 90% of the efficiency target set by the SDSR 2015 (more than 7.4 billions) and they also say that the earlier target set by the SDSR 2010 is more or less achieved. A variety of other initiatives requiring other efficiencies added up to an official target of some 20 billion. In theory, if the MOD statements are to be trusted, most of that money has been found, but press reports continue to suggest that a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 30 billions are missing over the next ten years timeframe. This is nothing short of astonishing because, in the worst case, it pretty much means that the MOD is missing a whole financial year of budget. It is hard to even imagine how this can be, especially since the Equipment Budget, one of the biggest expenditure voices, is entering into years in which most of the expenditure is planned but not contractually committed. According to the Equipment Programme 2016, 48% of the Equipment Budget is not yet tied to contracts as of financial year 2017/18, which in theory means that there is a lot that could simply shift to the right or be cancelled before cuts to existing assets and manpower numbers need to be considered. Of course, a large proportion of money not yet contractually locked is nonetheless tied to programmes which the MOD absolutely does not want to drop, but even then there should be (and there is) a degree of flexibility that is hardly reconciled with stories of imminent collapse.

Not to mention that all Army programmes are late on start, so the MOD has been spending less than originally planned, and all three services are undermanned compared to requirement, which also should mean personnel costs are lower than expected. Unless the MOD is completely unable to calculate a budget, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to reconcile the MOD’s affirmations on Efficiencies and on the state of the EP and the financial crisis as reported by the press: either said crisis is far smaller than the media estimate, or the MOD must be lying about having found the efficiencies requested. Alternatively, the Treasury has not respected its promise to let the MOD carry forward its underspend and has taken back the money or is trying to take it back now. 

For sure the MOD is very distant from meeting its civilian headcount reduction target; this is known. 

The terrifying cut options that Fallon was about to approve, according to the Times. Option 2 would seem to be the most "acceptable", but it still makes for horrifying reading. The new secretary reportedly refused to seriously consider any of these. 

Meanwhile, Fallon has written in the Telegraph to say that efficiencies can still be found by removing “duplication” in medical services, helicopters and other functions.

While medical services could perhaps be an area where to look for savings, finding genuine “efficiencies” in helicopters will be very complicated: there no longer are “duplicate fleets”. Puma is no duplication of Merlin. Puma is smaller, can quickly deploy via C-17. Merlin is for shipboard ops and ASW. Chinook has no duplicate. Wildcat neither. Apache neither. That leaves the Gazelle fleet, still used in a number of supporting roles at home and in BATUS. Gazelle could be replaced with H-135 or 145 to achieve commonality with the new training fleet, but this is a typical “spend now to save later” solution. Similarly, the armed forces could perhaps put under contract a more coherent and logistically common solution for training support and Brunei (currently done with a handful of Bell 212) and for Cyprus (4 Griffin helicopters for SAR and training support). But, again, it would take cash to do so.

Reducing the number of Army Air Corps bases is also something that is being looked at, long and hard. A specific strand of Defence Estate review dealing with this topic has been in the works for months and is (very) late on publishing. There is some appetite for closing down Wattisham, moving the Apache south to Middle Wallop or Boscombe Down. This might generate significant savings in the long run, but the upfront cost is massive. Efficiencies, when they aren’t just cuts under a different name, often require upfront expenditure, and that makes them hard to pursue when lack of cash in-year is the problem.

The “serious debate on defence” dream

I remain convinced that the current handling of Defence policy in the UK is simply indefensible and needs to be dramatically reformed. British defence plans are largely unaccountable. The lack of details and the endless contradictions make it impossible to keep track of the department’s work. The EP document is a manifestation of this extreme vagueness: the graphics show us, more or less accurately, the consistence of the budgets for each equipment area but there is next to nothing in terms of detail about what programmes are included. We get told how much money is expended, but we only ever get extremely limited detail about what it buys.

The NAO Major Projects report is no longer produced, so even that source of information is gone, leaving behind only the Excel spreadsheets that the MOD publishes in July, showing the expenditure connected to the largest ongoing programmes. Some of the figures remain undisclosed; smaller but important programmes get no mention at all; acquisition profiles are not included and the entire spreadsheet only gives a vision of the financial year that has ended. In other words: in July this year (assuming there are no delays or changes) we’ll get a picture that will be current only to September 2017. What little we get to know is always a picture of a far gone past.

Written Answers are just as vague: MOD ministers regularly refuse to disclose dates and numbers. The latest written answers about WCSP and MRV-P, for example, deliberately do not include any indication of a target date for contract award. The Warrior CSP production contract; a Challenger 2 LEP candidate downselection; the order for JLTV for the Multi Role Vehicle Protected Group 1 and a choice between Eagle 6x6 and Bushmaster for the Group 2 requirement are (were?) all expected this year, but uncertainty rules supreme. Speaking at RUSI, Carter mentioned that the Army will have WCSP and CR2 LEP “sometimes in the next five years”. Is he talking of contract award? Delivery of first vehicle? IOC? FOC? He could have hardly been any more confusing. There is no way to keep track of the MOD’s actions.

The Defence Committee is powerless and the Defence chiefs are subject to such limitations when they speak to it that they are effectively forbidden from voicing any discomfort with government policy. This effectively means that the hearings are almost completely pointless.

There have been complaints recently about leaks to the newspapers being “damaging to morale”, and that is certainly true. But the sad truth is that leaks are currently the only instrument in the hands of the MOD to initiate a public debate. Chiefs aren’t allowed to voice their concerns openly in front of the committee and Parliament doesn’t get a vote on the defence plan. In France, in the US, and even in Italy Parliament does get a say and each financial year sees the publication of detailed documents that show how much money will be allocated to each programme and what said money will buy. France publishes a list of everything it plans to order in year, and another of everything it receives.

In the UK there is absolutely nothing remotely comparable.

It is my opinion that this absolutely needs to change. It is impossible to have a “serious debate” on Defence when no information is ever allowed to circulate. The Chief General Staff ended his much hyped RUSI speech urging experts to debate about defence. This is a very welcome call to arms, but the debate cannot be restricted to “give defence more money because Russia is a threat”. The debate cannot be restricted only to extremely general concepts: how can anyone comment on the validity of STRIKE, for example, when the Army tells us nothing about the concept? How do we make a case for “Information Manoeuvre” when we have been barely told that it will involve “77 Brigade, 1^st ISR Brigade and the two signal brigades” working together. Back in June last year, Fallon spoke to RUSI and said that Royal Signals and Intelligence Corps would “merge” as part of the Information Manoeuvre Strategy and that a second EW regiment (who knows with what kind of capability remit) would be formed. We were never given a further word about it.

One only needs to compare the british army SOLDIER magazine with Corps or Army-wide publications in the US or Australian or French armies. SOLDIER is gossip (no offence intended to those who produce the magazine, just stating facts), while journals elsewhere include very interesting discussions about tactics, force structure, proposals, critiques coming from inside the army. 

If the armed forces want a proper debate, they must start it themselves and provide us with some degrees of information. Security concerns are always and rightfully prominent, but it is just not credible to say that the British forces can never discuss anything in the open while other allied armies feel free to share their thinking. Surely there is something that is both releasable and meaningful. In absence of any relevant information, any debate ends up being a fantasy fleet exercise. Personally, I find it frustrating enough that I’ve largely ceased trying, because every discourse ultimately feels pointless and I’m finding it harder  and harder to take any statement or plan with any degree of confidence. There are only so many defence reviews that can be torn to bits within a year or two before all confidence in their worth is lost.

“Tough choices”

As cuts draw nearer, the usual rhetoric about tough choices and sacred cows resurfaces. From my somewhat privileged observation point outside of the UK I can say that:

1) The UK is extremely “good” at making tough choices when it comes to cutting defence. They are often extremely tough and they have dramatic and long-lasting effects. They tend to only make some kind of sense from a short-term perspective, however. Few other countries are able to demolish entire capabilities and spit in the face of years of efforts and investment as the UK does, and arguably none in the whole world ends up doing it so frequently.

2) The sacred cows rhetoric is too often used in the context of inter-service rivalry rather than in a rational assessment of capability. “Amphibious capability” and “airborne capability” are not sacred cows. The fetish for a disproportionate number of tiny infantry battalions is.

Ahead of this new review several commentators are calling for tough choices matching the severity of those contained in the infamous 1981 review chaired by John Nott. The Guardian in particular seems to have jumped on this train of thought advocating, for the most part in extremely vague and weak ways, for a UK that “focuses on Europe” and that “cannot afford to rule the waves anymore”.

There was some outrage when the new secretary of state for defence listed his priorities for defence and put developing a global strike capability based on the new aircraft carriers right behind Continuous At Sea Deterrence and ahead of the “capability to defend Europe”. I found that quite ridiculous, first of all because I'm not sure the order in which he told them has any real meaning. Also, they are concepts so vaguely defined that they can mean pretty much anything and its contrary, save for CASD which is (or should be, at least) unambiguous. The very fact that amphibious capability and LPDs are very much in danger of being cut means that "global carrier strike" means little. The two components are closely connected and removing one damages the whole irreparably.

Moreover, "Defence of Europe" can take several different directions.

There is a dangerous narrative doing the rounds about the navy being responsible for the Budget problem and for the army’s woes. The carriers are regularly described as the problem, regardless of how patently and demonstrably false this affirmation is.

First of all, before examining the strategic implications, let’s take note of this fact: the carriers by now are paid for. Soon enough the second ship will be delivered, and the 6 billions are gone at this point. If you want a programme costing over six billions and with most of the expenditure yet to take place you have to look at the voice “Armoured Cavalry 2025 - Ajax”.

The 6 billions for the carriers have been expended between 2008 and today, and there never was a year in which they were the biggest voice of expenditure in the budget. The acquisition of the 48 F-35B planned will cost some 9.1 billion spread on the financial years 2001 to 2026. Simple math confirms that no, the carriers did not break the budget, even if the ships cost and the F-35 costs are summed together. Note that the F-35 would still be there regardless of the carriers, as the RAF would have wanted it all the same to replace its older attack aircraft.

The carriers have contributed to forcing the Navy to accept a number of cuts to its escorts, that is definite, but the simple truth is that a navy of sole escorts is very different from a navy complete of carriers. The carriers fundamentally shape the role and capability of the Royal Navy. Having a few frigates more would not have the same effect.

It is also false that the Army is not getting money because of the Navy and of the F-35. The Land Equipment budget for 2016 – 2026 is 19.1 billion, versus 19 for Ships and 18 for Combat Air. It is true that the Air Force also gets money under “Air Support” and “Helicopters” budget, but that is valid for the Army as well (Apache and Wildcat for the Army Air Corps). Arguably, the Army is the primary user for many of the air support platforms as well (C-130, A400, C-17, Voyager). When it is said that the army is suffering the consequences of inflated Navy and Air Force programmes, fundamentally a lie is uttered.

The real elephant in the room is clearly the nuclear deterrent, which enormously inflates the “Submarines” budget, but as long as CASD remains the primary national defence tool there is little that can be done about its cost. The Navy has little to no actual control on it, and said control will become even more loose as the Top Budget Areas are restructured and  divided up differently. Effective from 1 april 2016 the MOD has established the Director General Nuclear Organisation. The effect of this further division of responsibility should become visible in the soon to be published Equipment Programme document (which details the financial year 16/17). DG Nuclear is a Front Line Command (FLC) equivalent post. Since April 2013 the equipment budget management has been delegated to the FLCs: RN, Army, RAF, Joint Forces Command, Strategic Programmes Directorate and now DG Nuclear. 

Strategic considerations; Europe and the unpleasant truth

The UK cannot and should not "defend Europe" from Russia. It can contribute to the defence of Europe, and the difference between the two affirmations is enormous.

Whether the “defend Europe” priority truly needs to be a major force structure driver is actually debatable. If we seriously expect major, non-geographically limited russian action, arguably we should not be contemplating cuts at all.

If the Russian threat is geographically limited, presumably to the Baltic countries, the UK cannot afford to have its defence policy dragged too much towards an overland posture by something it might still not be able to prevent and that, sorry if it sounds cynical, is of little actual impact to the UK. We need to ask what is the actual danger to the UK from Russia's actions in Ukraine and, potentially, the Baltics? Cynical as it sounds, UK committment must be commensurate to threat and returns. What is the UK's substantial committment to the Baltics buying? What would an even greater focus gain?

The direct impact on the UK from Russian actions in either area is actually minimal. Obviously, the one enormous difference is that the Baltic countries are part of NATO, so an aggression against them would trigger Article 5 and require NATO action. If NATO failed to react appropriately, the credibility of Article 5 would be shattered forever. This indirect impact is the real concern, as it would put the whole of NATO, and all the defence assumptions it underpins, into question.

The collapse of Article 5 is to be avoided by preventing the start of hostilities. I think that, if we are realistic, we will all admit that if Russia ever attacked for real, rushing into war would be very, very complicated. Would the NATO countries  be willing and able to declare war on Russia over the Baltics? Especially if Russia managed to make the invasion start off as a “local uprising” as in Crimea and Ukraine? I very much struggle to imagine much enthusiasm in the public opinion, including a UK in which an alarmingly large share of the population seem to share Corbyn’s feeling that even the Falklands and Gibraltar should be given up. If they have so little care for fellow Britons, do we expect them to support a far more dangerous war in the Baltics? We are “lucky” that Georgia and Ukraine are not part of NATO. And we cannot be surprised that Russia attacked them before they could join. As much as US and NATO protested and deprecated Russia’s actions and regardless of how good and deep the relations with either country are, nobody was willing to enter an actual war for them. Within Europe there are those who think the EU is responsible for the Ukraine disaster because it “intruded into Russia’s backyard”. There was and is political opposition even to the economic sanctions against Russia, with some parties valuing trade with Russia more than Ukraine. As Italian, unfortunately, I know this all too well, as we have had some loud voices speaking exactly in these terms. If push came to shove there would be some serious thinking about how to react to a Baltic scenario as well. Realism hurts, but is desperately necessary.

The NATO forward presence in the Baltics is intended to prevent such a scenario by hopefully making it impossible for Russia to build up an “uprising scenario” or any other form of modern maskirovka while also putting NATO troops directly on the frontline. Any invasion would put British, American, German, French and other troops immediately at risk, and public opinion in the respective countries would find it much harder not to react. In the most brutal and direct terms possible: if the Russians advance, NATO soldiers will die and that will provide motivation for the fight to continue. And in turn, this awareness discourages Russia from trying in the first place.

It is a game of deterrence, and I hope no one believes that the forward-deployed battlegroups, with their handful of mix and match armored vehicles from multiple countries, could actually defend the Baltics through combat. They are nowhere near large and capable enough to do that. Their presence is meant to dissuade Russia from opening fire in the first place, not to provide effective defence against a serious attack. They are there to ensure that others would come after them.

Should NATO’s forward presence be reinforced? Should a much greater permanent presence of troops be a priority? No. An excessively cumbersome NATO presence would risk alienating local support in the long run, while worsening relations with Russia even further. It would also be difficult, if not impossible, to accumulate enough forces to make the Baltics “unassailable”. Russia is advantaged by geography and by good internal communications that would allow it to rapidly concentrate overwhelming force in the area, while the small Baltics states physically do not have territory to give up to gain time. 

“Defending Europe” does not require the UK switching its focus back to continental warfare. It would be extremely unwise to do so. Skewering any further the whole UK's defence posture towards a new British Army of the Rhine, or even of Poland or of the Baltics would be nothing short of stupid.

Half-tracked STRIKE brigades, even if their vehicles were stored in Germany, where the army intends to maintain its Controlled Humidity Storage facility, would not change the equation. Even assuming they could truly drive all the way to the Baltics along European roads, they still wouldn’t shift the balance. 
I'd rather invest further in the ability to move heavy armour by road and train. The British Army's fleet of Heavy Equipment Transporters is a precious asset, but with just 89 transporters and 3 recovery vehicles there are obvious limits to what can be moved around. British HETs have been transporting allied armoured vehicles and loads as well. Notably, some 30 HETs have been loaned to the US Army as the american HET does not comply with european regulations. 

The supporters of the mythical “tough decision”, however, seem to advocate for a repeat of the retreat from East of Suez to preserve the army and focus on the European theatre. Supposedly this is not just the wise choice but also the cheap one.

The actual harsh truth is that it is neither wise nor cheap.

The British Army is not in good shape. It is very small; it is short of supports; it is incredibly weak in terms of air defence and most of its brigades are not deployable but are mere bags containing a variable number of small, light role, non-mechanized infantry battalions plus three small cavalry regiments mounted on Jackal. The British Army is nowhere near ready for an actual fight with Russia and, size-wise especially, it will never truly be. The Guardian can happily subscribe to the Russia-produced story that what the heavily mechanized, artillery rich Russian army is very afraid of the tiny light role infantry battalions on foot that make up most of the british army, but I hope that most people can recognize deliberate trolling for what it is.

Fortunately, the British Army does not need to take on Russian forces on its own.

Obsolescence of major equipment, weakness in Fires, ground based air defence in need of rebuilding and a dog’s breakfast mix of countless small vehicle fleets procured under UOR all add up to a gigantic capability gap that it would take many billions to close. The 19 billion ten-year equipment budget would merely begin to improve the outlook, even assuming everything (finally) worked out. And keep in mind that it is, de-facto, not known exactly what is included in those 19 billions, what is partially included and what is left for later. Even before new programmes begin to appear (new artillery, land precision strike, long range rockets for GMLRS, air and missile defence, new ground based sensors, a Desert Hawk III replacement etcetera) we don’t know when WCSP will deliver, or when CR2 LEP will go ahead and whether it will be enough to make Challenger 2 competitive again.

The UK is not equipped to be a continental power. The British Army in many ways compares horribly poorly to Poland’s army. And this is, to a degree, normal. It is not the UK’s task to be a continental power and the guardian of East Europe. It should continue to contribute, certainly, but trying to buy influence in Europe with the land forces the UK has is, if not impossible, a job that will take many years and many more billion pounds than the UK can expend.

Cutting back capabilities such as the (existing and paid for) amphibious force with its shipping; or the carriers; or the F-35 purchase, would merely mean turning billions of pounds and years of efforts and investment into nothing but waste. New weaknesses will be created where there are not, for little to no effective gain at all.

What the UK has always added to Europe's military capability and to the “European side of NATO” is the willingness and ability to intervene far from home. An Europe-centric garrison, even if it was to revolve around a new "british army of the Baltic" would not be in the UK nor EU's interest if it came at the expense of other capabilities.

The UK was never primarily defined in Europe by its MBTs apart perhaps when Chieftain's 120mm appeared in a 105mm NATO. BAOR was of course a valued contribution, and there was a period in which it made sense to focus on it and GIUK gap above all else, but those times are over.

Today’s unique UK strengths include strategic air mobility; air breathing ISTAR which is second only to the US’s; the Royal Fleet Auxiliary which has more capability on its own than the support vessels of the other major European navies put together; SSNs and their expert and excellently trained crews; Tomahawk which only has a European paragon in France’s Scalp Navale; amphibious capability which in Europe few players have; a vast Chinook fleet; Apache; and combat engineering. P-8 Poseidon and Carrier Strike will soon enough be part of this list. In good part, the strength’s of today’s UK have come out of the never realized review of 1998, but this does not make them any less relevant. Whether by design or by incident, many of those capabilities remain unique in Europe or make up a huge percentage of Europe’s entire potential capability in the sector.

It would be absurd to throw away existing strengths to try and become a continental power on the cheap. Also because, quite simply, the budget would never suffice anyway.

Years ago, before starting this blog; before Russia invaded Georgia, I was a commentator on blogs owned by others. More than once I warned that the Cold War had never ended from a russian prospective but only from a western one. Back then, any remark of this kind was invariably met with the typical 90s and early 00s story that Soviet equipment was never good anyway and Russia would never be a threat again.

Even after the events in Georgia the situation did not change. It took Ukraine to truly generate a reaction.

Now I see a real risk that the UK will go from one extreme to the other. Russia must not become an hysteria that bends the UK’s defences and foreign policy entirely out of shape.  

Russia's threat, while absolutely significant, does not require nor suggest the UK should be throwing away every bit of effort expended since at least 1998 to become a country engaged globally in a globalized world in favor of garrisoning an hostile Europe seeking gains from Brexit.

The UK has chosen to leave the European Union. It will not leave Europe, for obvious reasons. But Global Britain needs to be a concept which is actively pursued, not an empty slogan. With the capabilities it possesses, the UK is better positioned to be an expeditionary player than a garrison entrenched in East Europe. This does not make the UK’s forces any less valuable to NATO or the EU. If the UK sacrifices its expeditionary capabilities to revert to an “European garrison” ala review of 1981, France’s military weight within the EU will massively increase as they will be the only major player with worldwide reach. There is no guarantee that the UK would even be able to conserve its current “rank” (let alone improve it) if it cut back on expeditionary capabilities to keep the army at 82k personnel. Sending a squadron of open-topped Jackals in the frozen north-east Europe so the crews can get frostbite is hardly going to impress anyone. I say this with the utmost respect for the crews out there riding Jackals and Coyotes, let me make this clear. I just can’t take the idea seriously, though.

Remainers should not be under the illusion that cutting back on the navy in favor of the army will gain the UK any advantage in Brexit negotiations. The government, moreover, should not be under the impression that they can cut defence at will and still expect Europe to be awed by the british armed forces and overtly attach to them a great value. General Camporini had tough comments to offer about the UK’s armed forces and their role in Europe pre and post Brexit and he is unlikely to be the only one thinking in those terms. In fact, the the last thing the UK should do is to offer even further unilateral promises and reassurances and commitments before securing any kind of return. Unilaterally and unconditionally committing to “manning trenches” in the East Europa is the perfect way to enable the EU to snub the british armed forces value and still get them to pay the cost of defending the union. 

Ultimately, in this day and age, the UK cannot and should not pretend that the world begins at Gibraltar and ends near Kaliningrad. The UK spent a good twenty years rebuilding its forces to an expeditionary model and is now on the verge of having the second most powerful naval task force in the world.

The “tough choice” it needs to make is arguably to stop salami-slicing capability from all three services and accept that its efforts have to be prioritized on some sectors rather than others. The strengths are at sea and in the air? Build on them. They are paid for. They are valuable.

Middle East commitments build security, buy the UK a market (including for its defence industry) and play into Europe’s security no less than a battlegroup in the Baltic. The “defence of Europe” does not encompass only the continent: it stretches out to Africa and Middle East.

The UK also needs to continue its return East of Suez, not because it can more realistically take on China than it can on Russia, but because it needs to be seen as a player in the Indian Ocean and beyond. France and even Italy, which is basing its new defence strategy on the concept of “enlarged Mediterranean” and on the acquisition of expeditionary capabilities such as AEW and new, larger ships, have understood that they need to buy relevance beyond Suez. The UK’s powerful naval group and its air force cannot defeat China, obviously, but are more than valuable enough to contribute to build security and can buy the UK influence in the area.

The UK’s natural role in Europe is as guardian of the GIUK gap and ASW expert. The new NATO command for the Atlantic should see the UK in very first line for obvious reasons of geography, direct interest (nobody else has as much to lose from a potential Russian break out into the Atlantic as the UK), expertise and equipment (P-8 incoming, Merlin, SSNs, Type 23 and, in the future, Type 26). The Type 31 frigate is the odd one out: the ship would be much more useful if it was ASW capable. “GP frigates”, as I’ve said more than once, are a terribly poor investment as far as I’m concerned.

The Arctic?

MOD officials recently went on record saying that the next fight will be in the frozen north, but does the UK have any sort of strategy, or even clear ambitions in the arctic?

China has now published a programmatic document outlining its approach to the Arctic, including the stated intention of beginning to exploit the natural resources to be found in the area, as well as the new navigable routes that are increasingly becoming viable with the retreat of the ice.

The Arctic Shipping Routes, if they became truly viable, would significantly shorten the travel times to China, Korea and Japan, reducing shipping costs. The UK is in a good position to benefit from such a development. 

The UK needs to think about what it wants to get in the Arctic and how it might get it. What is the position of the UK on the exploitation of the untapped natural resources to be found in the frozen north? There are well known concerns about the preservation of the natural environment, but does the UK think said concerns should entirely prevent future exploitation? China clearly expects to tap into those natural resources and so does Russia, which has been working for years on turning its arctic coast into a massive military base and defensive bastion. Obviously they are not doing that to protect polar bears from hunters. What is the UK's position on the matter? 

The UK has no direct way to directly claim territory in the Arctic, and whatever it wants to obtain from the frozen north must reflect this. Clearly any UK access to the area and its resources depends on cooperation with allies which have a legitimate claim to arctic territory. Norway, which is a historic and natural partner, including for GIUK gap defense, is an obvious candidate.
Bilateral agreements and common strategies and goals are needed. 

China’s plan for a “polar silk road” is potentially enormously significant for the UK’s economy. The arctic routes to Asia are much shorter, and quicker, cheaper navigations could, in the future, encourage a massive growth in traffic. The UK is excellently positioned to benefit from such a development .

Russia, advantaged by geography, is already putting up a true Anti Access Area Denial bubble extending over much of the Arctic, to ensure it starts from a dominant position.

The UK needs to engage with its allies, beginning with Norway and Canada, to shape a common policy for the Arctic, to ensure that it can benefit from future developments in the area and avoid strategic shocks.

Where does that leave the Army?

The UK should continue to aim for Division-sized effects, because that is the ambition level appropriate for a regional power with worldwide reach. It should be well within the UK’s possibilities. The Division should be the ambition, but not at all costs. If it can’t be done because the government is not prepared to fund defence in line with ambitions, then strong brigades must be the alternative.

The Army should not try at all costs to be a continental power that can take on Russia. What the UK needs from its army is a capable land element that can deploy effectively within a larger allied force and complement other tools of british policy and power projection. It is more important to field a flexible, capable force, than a larger but obsolescent force tormented by the current plethora of capability gaps and vulnerabilities.

Like in the Air and Sea domains, the UK should strive to field an enablers-rich land force that can act as leader and take aboard the contributions of other countries.

In order to modernize, the Army needs to become a lot more rational in its approaches. In twenty years of constant rethinks, cancellations, delays and mistakes it has gone around in circles, returning to the starting point again and again, losing something along the way with each lap. With the exception of Royal Engineers vehicles, the British Army’s last “combat” vehicle purchase that didn’t happen through UOR was the Panther. And after purchasing it, it tried to use it as a patrol vehicle, which was not what it had been procured for, and ended up hating it.

Then, only partially excused by the urgency imposed by ongoing combat operations, it only ever managed to procure vehicles through UORs. Now it has a multitude of small fleets requiring multiple different logistic lines.

Its main acquisition programmes have literally gone in circles: again Boxer (or at least a heavy 8x8) is on the list of wishes, as it was in the 90s (in the Boxer case we are literally talking of the same vehicle). The Warrior capability sustainment programme is years late. Challenger 2 CSP, eventually downgraded to a simpler Life Extension Programme, has long been in the same limbo. Artillery modernization programmes are more or less motionless by as much as a decade plus.

Still, the Army continues to start more programmes than it can manage and fund. In the SDSR 2010 the focus was put on modernizing the armoured brigades: a noble target that was the one bit of common sense in the whole of Army 2020. WCSP finally began; the huge Ajax contract was signed in September 2014.

In November 2015 the priorities were turned on their heads and wheels returned to the front of the queue, with MIV being the new must-have. Results so far: WCSP downsized by two battalions; one armoured brigade to be converted to Strike; ABSV removed from the programme in 2016; CR2 numbers slashed once more. 3 years later, WCSP production contract is still not coming, the FV432 replacement remains a question mark, CR2 LEP does not truly satisfy anyone and marches to an unknown timeframes and Ajax is being tentatively squeezed into a new role for which many, beginning with me, do not think it is adequate.

Is it too much to ask the Army to at least focus on one thing at once? Can it start one modernization process and, just this once, bring it to conclusion? The armoured brigades were the focus. Serious money was assigned to the projects needed to modernize them. Bring the job to conclusion.

If STRIKE is unaffordable; if MIV cannot be procured at the moment, then it should be shelved. In the meanwhile perhaps the Army can explain what it wants to do, for real, and we can have that “serious debate” about it. Because as of now STRIKE seems just a solution in search of a problem. 

Through stubbornness of its own and political meddling the army has also never properly restructured its regiments and when faced with cuts to the budget has ended up disproportionately damaging the supporting elements, so much that now it is heading for just 4 “complete” brigades out of 11. 16 Air Assault is a two-battlegroups force; two armoured and two strike brigades will be the only other units for which there will be Signals, Artillery, Engineer and Logistic units. And even then, the armoured brigades will miss an important piece: a cavalry formation for reconnaissance and screening.

The army needs to modernize and re-balance its structure even more than it needs to modernize its equipment.

Real elephant in the room for me remains 1st Division and its load of "fake brigades" without CS and CSS. As useful as it still can be in a variety of roles (infantry is never useless), in its current form it cannot possibly be considered a wise and rational use of manpower and resources.

Rationalizing structures and inventory also brings efficiencies. Some big, some small, some neutral. CBRN mission, currently split between FALCON Sqn RTR and 27 Sqn RAF Regiment after the complete disaster that was the disbandment of the Joint CBRN regiment in the SDSR 2010 needs sorting out with a new joint solution.

Medical services across the three services and field hospitals should be reconsidered in a joint way: most of the field hospitals are reserve ones and jointery is already noticeable, so there probably aren’t big savings to be found, but with how much everything else has sized down there still seems to be a disproportion. The field hospitals do a sterling job, but if I was the one looking for efficiencies I would want to look into the medical services. On this one, I side with Fallon.

DFID might want to make greater use of them, and should help pay for them to help pull defence out of trouble.

I also suggest looking into a unified, single Police service. Again, jointery is already well developed in the police domain already but it still seems absurd to me that there is a RAF Police, Royal Navy Police, RMP, MOD Police. Again, probably small savings to be found, but then again RFA Largs Bay was sold to Australia to save a paltry 12 million per year and Albion could be lost to save 20 million or so per year, regardless of the completely disproportionate consequences. Any small saving that can be obtained in less damaging ways is a saving that must be harvested first.

A big "spend-to-save" measure could be pursued in the Army if the large JLTV purchase was made in one go rather than parcelled over uncountable years. The FMS request calls for over 2700 vehicles but the expectation is that the army would initially order 750 at best. I’d recommend going with the big order from the start instead, with the aim of replacing Panther and Husky right away, as well as replacing out-of-the-wire unprotected Land Rovers as currently planned. I’d also withdraw from service the RWMIK, replacing them with Jackals which would cease to play “cavalry” in favor of working as fire support and mobility platforms in the infantry, until they can be replaced as well.

JLTV assessment is ongoing, as are track trials for MRV-P Group 2 with Eagle and Bushmaster 

The fragmented multitude of fleets the army has to support. MRV-P must bring about a massive inventory rationalisation if it has to be a success. 

Instead of suggesting improbable and unwise mergers of PARAs and Marines the MOD could take note of the fact that they possess a precious C-17 fleet plus Puma, plus 50 Apache plus the largest Chinook fleet outside of the US. Seriously, if the British Army doesn’t invest on its air assault force while having all these paid-for resources, who else should?

What if STRIKE, at least initially, was delivered, accepting the limitations of the case, of course, with a combination of Mastiff-mounted infantry plus Marines, with the capability to go in from the sea, and of Mastiff-mounted infantry and PARAs on Chinooks and aircraft? Mastiff has defects and limitations, but is it really so indispensable to replace it with MIV? I think there are far more pressing urgencies. And instead of pushing the rhetoric of the “sacred cows” for Marines and PARAs, I think every effort should be made to beef up both 16 AA and 3 Cdo to expand their capabilities.

The really radical thing to do in this review is squeezing the maximum value out of what is already available. If you can’t afford to be a hero in every sector, do at least try to be one where you can.