Ho hum. Standard blogging prologue about being busy. Although it would seem that everyone is being culled by the sheer scale of the Coalition's mediocrity , I don't officially count myself among those who've buggered off. I’m just really, really lazy. Also, having found myself back in the real world of downtrodden taxpayers, I’m disinclined to attempt to think after a day of being awesome.
Enough talk. I’m still here and I’ve been talking to My Mate Dave again. What we’re going to address today is our new and improved, non-Labour afflicted Government’s ability to take an admittedly inherited bad situation (Defence procurement), and then fuck it flamboyantly into the ground. Truly, it has been a modern marvel to observe. And so, following in DK’s footsteps in pointing out the apparent idiocy of our blue and yellow overlords, take a gander at this shower of shit:
NAVY
So, to save money they're getting rid of the carrier HMS Ark Royal and retiring all of the Harriers. This actually probably won't make much difference to anything. The 9 or so Harriers it can carry don't represent a particularly worrying strike force, and being RAF Harriers (designed for close air support of ground forces) they lack some things considered vital for air defence fighters. Like radar.
The Sea Harriers they deployed to the Falklands were more capable fighter aircraft than the GR7s/GR9s they been using recently. The Navy last had proper fighter aircraft in the 90's when the Sea Harrier FRS2 were axed in a previous round of defence cuts. They had beyond-visual-range radar-guided missiles and everything.
Next up, one of HMS Illustrious or HMS Ocean are for the chop. These have been in use as commando carrying ships (landing said commandos with helicopters), which would be useful for the sort of intervention mission stuff that was dead trendy a few years ago. Now, HMS Illustrious is over 25 years old and was designed as a aircraft carrier. HMS Ocean is 10 years old and was designed for this mission. In addition to having been purpose designed to carry a battalion of troops rather than having to jam them in, it has the capability to land stuff using landing craft from an internal dock and has interior vehicle decks for trucks, APCs, whatever. It was also built by a commercial shipyard and uses a commercial diesel drive. In consequence it's really cheap to run. HMS Illustrious (which is the same class of vessel as HMS Ark Royal) uses four of the engines off Concorde to crank out 95,000hp. This is cool, but alas as cheap to run as it sounds. That there would even be a choice to make over which one to retire is bizarre. One is better and cheaper and a lot newer than the other.
One of the 4 Bay Class support ships for landing forces is going also. I suppose if you have less landing forces they need less support. I mention this only to highlight the waste as all of these ships are new.
The remaining Type 42s (ancient) will be replaced by Type 45s as planned. The Type 45 is designed for escorting aircraft carriers, which we won't have between next year and 2020, making them kind of pointless. To save money they have no armament other than their anti-aircraft missile, a 4.5'' gun and a pair of 20mm cannons. No anti-ship missile, no torpedo tubes. When they were escorting a carrier they wouldn't need this; its aircraft would provide all the anti-shipping firepower needed, and it's helicopters would assist escorting frigates for anti-submarine work.
But now we have 6 ships that would need escorting themselves to go anywhere near harms way. Genius.
Ohh, and despite the noise made about how effective its anti-aircraft missiles against the new high-speed anti-ship missile and potential anti-ballistic missile uses, it's never even been tested against a supersonic target, let alone a ballistic missile.
The two new aircraft carriers they're still going to build, but deliver the first one straight to store. The second one will be fitted for catapult launch and barrier recovery. This is a sound idea as it greatly increases the range of available aircraft and will allow US and French aircraft to land on it. The carrier will have an air wing of 12 new F35Cs, to kick around the space designed for 40 of them. With careful parking of these 12, the hanger will now be usable as an indoor footie pitch, so it isn't all bad. The first one will either be kept so they can be swapped over for refits etc, or sold. This runs up against the idea that having one is about as much use as zero, as you can never plan on it being available. The French have this problem at the moment with their single carrier, and with a decent discount might take the one we can't afford any more off our hands.
AIR FORCE
On Air Force matters, the Nimrod MRA4 will be abandoned. This should have happened about 10 years ago, but with timing only the government could pull off they've cancelled after the contract has already been paid in full. BAe will complete the aircraft and deliver them to the MoD who will store or scrap them.
They've each cost more than a space shuttle (honestly), and we won't use them to save on the cost of jet fuel. Part of the rationale to keep 13 Navy frigates is to keep control of sea lanes, protect trade etc. This clearly doesn't apply in the case of an asset, unlike the frigates, actually potentially useful to this role. The existing aircraft are already being phased out, so maritime patrol is a capability we're simply abandoning. All gone.
Just this week a fishing factory ship from the Faroe Isles caught fire about 250 miles SW of the Scilly Isles. The French scrambled one of their patrol aircraft to co-ordinate the rescue and act as a comms link (life-rafts don't tend to have HF radios, so you're line of sight or screwed). If they'd been the same distance off Northern Ireland we could not provide the same service. With respect to achieving the same thing with satellites as has been suggested, we don't have any recce satellites and ships are a right pain to spot anyway, even when there's no cloud.
There will be fewer air-to-air fighters and Tornado bombers, which seems pretty sensible. Hard put to work out what we'd want them for. We're still buying the Airbus military transport instead of cheaper and much better C-17s like we already operate. Obviously.
ARMY
The army is being trimmed slightly, mostly with respect to the heavy army (tanks and really big guns). This is probably pretty sensible; Tanks still have uses but the massive armoured engagements the current lot were built for may well be a thing of the past. Shame that this is being seen as a chance to cut 5000 guys and save a few quid rather than freeing up 5000 trained men to re-enforce the much stretched infantry.
The order the last government announced for 22 new Chinooks helicopters for Afghanistan (which are operated by the Air Force, but for the use of the Army) has been cut to 12, despite there being 'no cuts to the frontline in Afghanistan'.
NUKES
And lastly the nuclear deterrent. We're still having one, but fewer warheads and rockets. Minimum deterrence is the plan, and it must be said the current class of SSBNs has its history more in the cold war kill-everything-twice logic. So this works for me. The plan to save money by waiting 5 years with thumbs firmly inserted and keep the current boats going looks pretty dumb though. Industry has experience with keeping submarines in service beyond their design life, and it's an experience mostly involving swearing, spending lots and lots of the MoDs money, and still having the thing tied to a sea wall. I will be amazed if this doesn't cost us more in the long run, and not at all surprised if 'continuous at sea deterrence' breaks down as all 4 boats are out of service.
Spam Cameron made noises about reviewing this in 2015 and making everything okay when we're less broke, I only hope the stuff the MoD is putting in store or laying up they actually do, rather than their normal practice of leaving things to rot. We sold 3 type 23 frigates to the Chilean Navy a few years ago. They were each only about 10 years old when a previous round of defence cuts laid them up. They been laid up about 2 years when the MoD sold them. The Chileans wisely had the sale contract stipulate they be sea-worthy. Having signed this, the MoD checked the ships and found they were soundly not. The MoD then spent more than the Chileans paid to make them sea-worthy.
Sigh.
All in all, it’s hard to see what ‘role’ our armed forces are being tailored for. Be it defence of the home shores or helping the Septics impose their will on the dustier bits of the globe; the armed forces are being hamstrung in the name of political expediency and defence industry protectionism.
This is nothing new, but normally we leave the squaddie-hacking to Labour and the re-funding to the Tories. Looks like this batch of blues may’ve broken that particular cycle.
In principle, I don’t really have a problem with a reduced armed forces, so long as there is a commensurate reduction in their role and the requirement placed upon them. Aside from our very 19th century sojourn in the south Atlantic, most of our modern military engagements have been at the behest of the Americans and have been of dubious national interest.
So it’s a case of what the objective here is: If we want to protect the home turf – fine, lets focus on that and equip accordingly; If we’re going to continue to posture and swing our dicks on the world stage for whatever fucking contrived reason: we’re going to need the help of more than two blokes and a Landrover,
Oh and will someone please sort out the MoD’s procurement systems? The institution is demented to a scale best described as ‘Lovecraftian’.
