Quotulatiousness

November 4, 2010

The continuing dramedy of the A400M

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Europe, Germany, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Remember when the opposition were up in arms that Canada wasn’t going to be buying the new A400M for the Canadian Forces? That decision is looking better and better:

Germany has cut its order for A400M transports from 60 to 57. This was in response to demands from the manufacturer for more money. This is not a new problem, but for those who have already ordered the A400M, it’s getting old. The new European military transport, the A400M, is already three years late and billions of dollars over budget. Those who have already placed orders (for 180 aircraft) have been told that the price they thought they were going to pay ($161 million per aircraft) will go up twenty percent. In response, some major buyers said they were considering cancelling their orders. In turn, the manufacturer said that such actions would force the cancellation of the project. With the German reduction of its order, it looks like the A400M will be getting more expensive, to the point where it will be twice what the new C-130J costs. The A400M made its first flight 11 months ago.

[. . .]

During the Cold War, such air transports were very low priority in Europe, because if there was a war, the mighty Red Army of the Soviet Union was going to home deliver it. But now all the action is far away, and the military needs air freight for emergencies and other urgent missions. For that reason, the Russian An-124s get a lot of work from NATO nations. This aircraft can carry up to 130 tons of cargo, as well as outsized and extremely large cargo. The more numerous American C-17 can only carry up to 84 tons, while the new A400M can lift a maximum of 40 tons. The advantage of the two smaller airlifters is the ability to operate from shorter unpaved runways, which makes them less dependable on existing infrastructure. Russia has put the An-124 back into production, partly because of the delays in the A400M project.

October 28, 2010

It’s “like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:26

The dissent on the announced purchase of F-35 fighter jets continues to gain traction:

In an interview on CBC’s Power and Politics last night, Industry Minister Tony Clement admitted we are buying the F-35s because the military wants them. “It is the best plane on the market. I will say on your program, I’m not the expert. The military are the experts. Why don’t the Liberals take the word of the Canadian military on that?” he asked.

Let me count the ways. A brief read of the A-G’s report on the purchase of military helicopters suggests a host of reasons why allowing the Department of National Defence to dictate procurement is like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery.

Sheila Fraser’s report concluded that National Defence knew, but did not tell the politicians, that the helicopter it wanted was not an “off-the-shelf “ model, with a relatively low risk of cost and time overruns.

In the event, the total cost for the 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters more than doubled to $4.9-billion from the $2-billion price tag when the project was presented to the Conservative government and approved. Helicopters that were initially scheduled to be delivered last July, now won’t be ready until June 2013 — a state of affairs Ms. Fraser decried as “totally inappropriate”.

I’m not convinced that the F-35 is the aircraft Canada actually needs, and the DND’s track record on equipment purchases combined with the ultra-spendy pricetag on the F-35 make me concerned that they’re going to put themselves in the same state as the British armed forces by over-committing to kit that they (that is, we) can’t afford.

October 27, 2010

The AK-47, the Soviet Union’s most successful export

Filed under: History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:56

Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me a link to this article about the Avtomat Kalashnikov 47:

In his new book, The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War, out Oct. 12, New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers traces the origins of modern assault rifles — particularly Avtomat Kalashnikov 47, or the AK-47 — and analyzes how they’ve changed warfare. Popular Mechanics spoke to the author about how and why the AK-47 was developed and why it has had even more of an impact than nuclear weapons.

[. . .]

Q During the course of your research, did you get to meet or talk to Mikhail Kalashnikov?

A I met General Kalashnikov several times. He was a fascinating man and a very complicated figure — a master of navigating the Soviet system and its aftermath. He is often portrayed as a poor and simple peasant who, through sheer inventive genius, designed the world’s most successful automatic arm. But this is an almost absurd distillation, the carefully spun fable of Soviet propaganda mills. He’s actually something much richer: a small part of an enormous machine and a most useful and interesting lens with which to look at decades of often dreary and sometimes terrifying Soviet life. He’s also charming, beguiling, clever, funny and both intensely proud and publicly humble at the same time. The legends around him are insufficient at best and grossly inaccurate at worst. He’s quite a man and a challenging character to render.

Q Why is so much about the development of the AK-47 still shrouded in secrecy?

A After the weapon was fielded, the Soviet Union invested heavily in an official version of its creation. This was not long after the purges, when many prominent Soviet citizens and public figures had been liquidated. A new crop of heroes was being put forward by the Kremlin and the Communist Party. Mikhail Kalashnikov fit this movement perfectly — he was, by the official telling, the quintessential proletariat success story, a wounded vet with limited education and almost no training who conceived of this weapon and relentlessly conjured it into existence. The truth was more complicated. But this party-approved version was endlessly repeated in official channels, and one result of the propaganda was that many other participants in the weapon’s design were sidelined and kept silent. One important figure was even arrested, charged with anti-revolutionary activity and sentenced to hard labor. After the Soviet Union collapsed, some of these other men and their accounts began to circulate. But the archives have never fully been opened, and the myths have hardened into something that can feel like fact. We do know much more than we used to, but the full story, in crisp detail, remains elusive, and the Communist version still stands in many circles. Propaganda is a pernicious thing, and the Kalashnikov tale is an example of just how effective it can be.

October 26, 2010

The intelligence bonanza of the 2001 American EP-3E incident

Filed under: China, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:30

If you cast your mind back far enough, you’ll remember the political impact of the mid-air collision between a Chinese fighter and an American EP-3E electronic surveillance aircraft. It certainly had the potential to turn into a major standoff between the two powers, but apparently the real story was the intelligence breach following the emergency landing:

On April 1, 2001, an American EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane on an eavesdropping mission collided with a Chinese interceptor jet over the South China Sea, triggering the first international crisis of George W. Bush’s Administration. The Chinese jet crashed, and its pilot was killed, but the pilot of the American aircraft, Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborn, managed to make an emergency landing at a Chinese F-8 fighter base on Hainan Island, fifteen miles from the mainland. Osborn later published a memoir, in which he described the “incessant jackhammer vibration” as the plane fell eight thousand feet in thirty seconds, before he regained control.

The plane carried twenty-four officers and enlisted men and women attached to the Naval Security Group Command, a field component of the National Security Agency. They were repatriated after eleven days; the plane stayed behind. The Pentagon told the press that the crew had followed its protocol, which called for the use of a fire axe, and even hot coffee, to disable the plane’s equipment and software. These included an operating system created and controlled by the N.S.A., and the drivers needed to monitor encrypted Chinese radar, voice, and electronic communications. It was more than two years before the Navy acknowledged that things had not gone so well. “Compromise by the People’s Republic of China of undestroyed classified material . . . is highly probable and cannot be ruled out,” a Navy report issued in September, 2003, said.

The loss was even more devastating than the 2003 report suggested, and its dimensions have still not been fully revealed. Retired Rear Admiral Eric McVadon, who flew patrols off the coast of Russia and served as a defense attaché in Beijing, told me that the radio reports from the aircraft indicated that essential electronic gear had been dealt with. He said that the crew of the EP-3E managed to erase the hard drive — “zeroed it out” — but did not destroy the hardware, which left data retrievable: “No one took a hammer.” Worse, the electronics had recently been upgraded. “Some might think it would not turn out as badly as it did, but I sat in some meetings about the intelligence cost,” McVadon said. “It was grim.”

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

October 20, 2010

British defence cuts will impact the troops in Afghanistan

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Lewis Page comes close to calling Britain’s prime minister a liar over the speech he made the other day:

Mr Cameron and other Coalition politicians have repeatedly assured us that in fact all their decisions are aimed at support of our heroic troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan — but in fact, in one hugely important respect, they are slashing support for our boys and girls.

Last Christmas, regular Reg readers may remember, in a freak outburst of common sense Labour defence ministers announced plans to buy no less than 22 more desperately-needed Chinook helicopters. The powerful Chinook, only helicopter able to really overcome the tough hot-and-high conditions of Afghanistan, is the single greatest desire of our hard-pressed troops in Helmand. Lack of Chinooks is the worst handicap their commanders face. Say what you like about Labour, but in their last months they did the right thing and ordered a good big number of these vital machines. They planned to pay for them, sensibly, by cutting some Tornado bombers among other things.

Good old Mr Cameron, though — the soldier’s friend — has cut this order to 12, almost halving it. He received massive cheers yesterday from ignorant MPs yesterday, saying:

There is no cut whatsoever in the support for our forces in Afghanistan … we have been and will be providing more for our brave forces in Afghanistan [including] crucially, at last, the right level of helicopter capability.

That is perilously close to being an outright lie, we’d suggest. No matter what you think of the rest of his plans, Mr Cameron’s decision to cut the Chinook order (to preserve Tornado bombers, too!) is an unforgivable betrayal of our fighting men and women at war right now — and then he has the gall to try and pretend that he’s actually decided to order some helicopters rather than cutting an existing order!

October 19, 2010

UK defence cuts announced

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:57

As I blogged yesterday, quoting a Guardian article, the British government will be cutting their armed forces substantially:

I want to be clear there is no cut whatsoever in the support for our forces in Afghanistan.

The funding for our operations in Afghanistan comes not from the budget of the Ministry of Defence but instead from the Treasury Special Reserve.

So the changes to the Ministry of Defence that result from today’s Review will not affect this funding.

That will help the morale of the troops on the ground in Afghanistan, but the army overall is still being reduced.

Our ground forces will continue to have a vital operational role so we will retain a large well-equipped Army, numbering around 95,500 by 2015 that is 7,000 less than today.

We will continue to be one of very few countries able to deploy a self-sustaining properly equipped Brigade-sized force anywhere around the world and sustain it indefinitely if needs be.

And we will be able to put 30,000 into the field for a major, one off operation.

In terms of the return from Germany half our personnel should be back by 2015 and the remainder by 2020.

And tanks and heavy artillery numbers will be reduced by around 40%.

The garrison in Germany is a relic of the Cold War, and it’s amazing that they’ll still be there until 2020.

We will complete the production of six Type 45 destroyers one of the most effective multi-role destroyers in the world.

But we will also start a new programme to develop less expensive, more flexible, modern frigates.

Total naval manpower will reduce to around 30,000 by 2015.

And by 2020 the total number of frigates and destroyers will reduce from 23 to 19 but the fleet as a whole will be better able to take on today’s tasks from tackling drug trafficking and piracy to counter-terrorism.

Those are the same Type 45’s that haven’t actually had effective main armament, according to The Register.

We have decided to retire the Harrier which has served this country so well for 40 years.

The Harrier is a remarkably flexible aircraft but the military advice is that we should sustain the Tornado fleet as that aircraft is more capable and better able to sustain operations in Afghanistan.

RAF manpower will also reduce to around 33,000 by 2015.

Inevitably this will mean changes in the way in which some RAF bases are used but some are likely to be required by the Army as forces return from Germany.

The retirement of the Harrier is a simultaneous victory for the RAF against their two most dangerous enemies: the army and the Fleet Air Arm. The Harrier was the one aircraft that could provide both naval and ground support, and was therefore considered readily dispensible by the fighter jocks in the Royal Air Force.

We will build both carriers, but hold one in extended readiness.

We will fit the “cats and traps” — the catapults and arrestor gear to the operational carrier.

This will allow our allies to operate from our operational carrier and allow us to buy the carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter which is more capable, less expensive, has a longer range and carries more weapons.

We will also aim to bring the planes and carriers in at the same time.

That is probably finis for carrier operations in the Royal Navy: but expect both of these ships to show up again in the fleet of India within 5-10 years.

. . . we will retain and renew the ultimate insurance policy — our independent nuclear deterrent, which guards this country round the clock every day of the year.

[. . .]

…extend the life of the Vanguard class so that the first replacement submarine is not required until 2028;
…reduce the number of operational launch tubes on those new submarines from 12 to eight…
…reduce the number of warheads on our submarine at sea from 48 to 40…..
…and reduce our stockpile of operational warheads from less than 160 to fewer than 120.

Canadian tank use in Afghanistan

Filed under: Asia, Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:46

Strategy Page gives a nice overview of the Canadian introduction of tanks to the Afghan war:

Canadian use of Leopard 2 tanks in Afghanistan convinced the brass that these Cold War era vehicles are valuable weapons for irregular warfare. Immune to most enemy weapons and possessing enormous firepower, the heavy tanks were very useful. In light of this experience with the Leopard 2s in Afghanistan, Canada has bought 100 Leopard 2A6s from the Netherlands and another 20 2A4s from Germany. The last twenty were modified for operations in Afghanistan (better protection against mines and roadside bombs).

It was three years ago that Canada bought the hundred second hand Leopard 2 tanks from the Netherlands, to provide their troops in Afghanistan with some additional combat power. First, they leased 20 German Leopard 2s and sent them to Afghanistan to replace the older Leopard 1s. Initially, crews for the Leopard 2s trained on the elderly Leopard 1s in Canada, before going Afghanistan. There, they have to quickly familiarize themselves with the slightly different Leopard 2s. But now there are sufficient Leopard 2s in Canada for training.

It was four years ago that Canada sent 17 of its Leopard 1 tanks to Afghanistan, to give Canadian troops there some extra firepower against the Taliban. But during the Spring and Summer, the lack of air conditioning became a major problem for the crews. The age of the tanks was a factor as well, so Canada has made arrangements with Germany, the manufacturer of the Leopard, to lease twenty of the most modern version of the tank, the Leopard 2A6M (which had enough room inside to install air conditioning).

Canada is the last nation using the Leopard 1. The A6M has considerably better protection against mines, roadside bombs and RPG rockets. The 62 ton Leopard 2 has a 120mm main gun and two 7.62mm machine-guns. The 43 ton Leopard 1 has a 105mm gun, and is actually a little slower (65 kilometers an hour) than the Leopard 2. Both tanks have a four man crew.

Being the last major user of older technology is a familiar place for Canadian soldiers to be. We were also one of the last nations to retire the Centurion tank, and back in the 1970’s, it was quite common for all the vehicles in a unit to be older than almost all the troops in the unit. I got my military driver’s license on a jeep that was more than twice my age, for example.

October 18, 2010

Royal Navy’s Ark Royal to be decommissioned

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 17:23

The Royal Navy is losing its carrier HMS Ark Royal effective immediately, according to The Guardian:

The prime minister will underline the scale of the cuts to Britain’s annual £37bn defence budget tomorrow when he announces that Britain will be without a carrier strike capability for a decade. HMS Ark Royal will be decommissioned immediately and its Harrier jump jets will be withdrawn from service.

The Royal Navy will have to wait 10 years until as many as 50 new Joint Striker Aircraft can be launched using the catapult and trap system — “cat and trap” — from the new Prince of Wales aircraft carrier. This system, which will allow French and US planes to fly from Britain’s new aircraft carrier, will cost about an extra £500m.

In reality, this means that the Royal Navy will probably never have a strike carrier capability again. The next government will have lots of reasons to further reduce the RN’s Fleet Air Arm, and the will to reverse these cuts can’t be found on the opposition benches. The Royal Navy will now move toward being a pure coastal defence force.

The cost of only 50 F-35B aircraft will sink the carrier fleet more effectively than torpedoes. They were already going to be ultra-expensive with the original planned order of more than twice as many. Ordering so few guarantees that they’ll be even more expensive per plane. Whether the current government survives a full term in office or is defeated in the house, the next government will have even less political reason to buy these planes.

The Prince of Wales will be the second of the new aircraft carriers to be built at a cost of £5.2bn. The first aircraft carrier — the Queen Elizabeth — will be in service for just three years, between 2016-19, as a helicopter carrier. It will then be mothballed, a process known as “extended readiness”, and possibly sold off.

Cameron told the cabinet today that the decision to abandon a carrier strike capability for 10 years — and to put the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier into service for just three years — was one of the most difficult decisions he has made. “The prime minister told the cabinet that this was one of the hardest things he has had to grapple with,” one source said. “But this decision was taken collectively.”

It’s not mentioned in the article, but I assume that the reconfiguration of Queen Elizabeth as a helicopter carrier also means that the RN will be losing the relatively new HMS Ocean as well as the Ark. I guess the “frigate captain” branch of the service won the battle for funding.

Argentina’s opportunity to liberate “les Malvinas” coming up shortly . . .

Update, 19 October: The Prime Minister’s speech to the House of Commons confirms most of what The Guardian reported yesterday. The planned F-35B purchase will be switched to F-35C, one carrier to be completed then mothballed, the other to go into active service, and the Harriers to be retired from service. Trident fleet to be replaced, but five years later than planned, and both tubes per boat and number of boats to be reduced. The Army loses 7,000 troops, and 40% of their tanks and heavy artillery. On the plus side, the British will no longer be maintaining a garrison in Germany after 2015. The RAF will be reduced to 33,000 by 2015.

October 17, 2010

New laws aim to reduce military corruption in China

Filed under: China, Economics, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:39

Strategy Page looks at the latest attempt to curb military corruption:

China is enacting new laws that puts additional pressure on the military to maintain quality standards (in the construction and use of military equipment). Why should something like this be thought necessary? It’s all because of corruption, an ancient, and growing, problem in China. There, it is taken as a given that, if you get a government job, you have a license to steal. In the military, this means weapons are built in substandard ways, and equipment is not properly maintained. Military corruption is an ancient Chinese custom, and accounts for most of the poor military performance in the past.

For over a decade, the government has worked to eliminate the worst of the theft and moonlighting by the troops. The most outrageous examples of this have been curbed. Thus military officers no longer use cash from the defense budget to set up weapons factories they run and profit from. Big chunks of procurement cash no longer disappear into the offshore bank accounts of generals and admirals.

It’ll take more than new laws and a few high-profile prosecutions to tackle a problem that has been endemic for generations.

October 12, 2010

The warplane older than the crew’s parents

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

It’s been an ongoing joke that the venerable B-52 bomber fleet are older than the crews that fly them. With a recent announcement, the US Air Force has ensured that the joke will change — by the time they retire, the planes will be older than the parents of their crews:

Without any fanfare, the U.S. Air Force recently announced that it would spend $11.9 billion to keep its remaining B-52 bombers in service until they are all retired by 2040. At that point, the last ones will have served over 70 years. The new “sustainment program” will cost over $150 million per aircraft, which is about twice what they cost to build (accounting for inflation).

The reason for this investment in half century old aircraft has a lot to do with the fact that the B-52 is very capable, reliable, and cheap to operate. This is especially true compared to the aircraft built to replace it (the B-1B). The U.S. Air Force has been having a hard time keeping its 67 B-1B bombers ready for action. Two years ago, the availability rate (aircraft you can send into action) was about 51 percent. Seven years ago it was 56 percent. Progress is being made, but the B-52 is still more reliable. The B-1Bs are used to drop smart bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are particularly popular in Afghanistan, because you can put one in the air, and it can cover the entire country. While the B-1B is twice as expensive to operate (per hour in the air) than the B-52, the B-1B can more quickly move to a new target over Afghanistan.

B-52s are not only cheaper to maintain, they have a higher availability rate (65 percent.) As a result, the air force wants to keep 76 B-52s in service (despite a Congressional mandate to reduce that number to 56.) With the development of GPS guided bombs (JDAM), heavy bombers have become the most cost-effective way to deliver support to ground forces. The B-52 is the cheapest American heavy bomber to operate, and the oldest.

October 11, 2010

F-35B to learn Royal Navy landing trick

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:32

The carrier version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be about to learn another trick developed for the Sea Harrier, Shipboard Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL):

According to the US announcement, made last week and flagged up first by Flightglobal.com, Lockheed will be partnered with the UK side of BAE Systems plc for the task of ensuring that the F-35B can get down on a ship at sea using SRVL. BAE is already involved in development of the jet, and in fact the lead test pilot for the F-35B, Graham Tomlinson, is a BAE employee.

The idea of SRVL is that the F-35B will not set down vertically supported solely by thrust from its lift fan and downward-swivelled jetpipe. Rather it will come down still moving forward slowly, supplementing the vertical thrust with lift from its wings. The forward speed would still be slow enough that there would be no need for arrester wires and a tail hook.

This should allow an F-35B to set down on a carrier deck while carrying a larger amount of fuel and weapons than would normally be possible. The Royal Navy is well-known to be anxious about this issue as it led to the early departure of the late, great Sea Harrier fighter.

October 10, 2010

Electronic solution to the cost of rifle training

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:33

Strategypage reports on an indoor shooting simulator:

The U.S. Marine Corps has saved over half a billion dollars in the last four years, by using indoor electronic firing ranges. IMST (Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer) has cost over $200 million, but the savings in ammo, wear on weapons, and running outdoor ranges were much larger. Nearly 200,000 marines have undergone marksmanship training using IMST. Unlike the similar U.S. Army EST system, IMST is wireless. A special magazine contains gas that provides a realistic recoil and a wireless radio device connects the weapon to the targets displayed on the screen and records how accurate the electronic rounds were fired.

Devices like IMST and EST have boosted the shooting skills of troops, while reducing costs. This gives American riflemen a big battlefield advantage. In most armies, the troops rarely fire their rifles. Ammo is too expensive (given the meager military budget). When there is combat, the troops are issued bullets, which they fire very inaccurately. Against a better trained foe, this leads to quick defeat. Happens all the time. But now cash strapped armies can train their troops to be effective marksmen without spending a lot of money, by using simulators.

Sure beats the “simulation technology” we used in my militia days: we ran around yelling “Bang!” to simulate firing the bullets the military budget couldn’t afford to provide us with. Ah, the joys of Trudeau-era military experience.

October 8, 2010

Does SDSR stand for Slashing Damage to Strategic Resources?

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:22

Well, no, it stands for Strategic Defence and Security Review, which is what the British government is conducting right now. Lewis Page (who is a former naval officer, BTW) is still hoping that the Admirals can manage to save the core components of the Royal Navy from the budget cutters:

The Telegraph reports on the matter today, quoting unnamed insider sources at the heart of the ongoing Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR, the new government’s name for the savage cuts that will be necessary to sort out the UK defence budget crisis).

According to the paper’s informants, the navy has proposed cutting its fleet of “escort” warships (submarine-hunting frigates and air-defence destroyers) from the current 23 down to 12 — a couple more than we here on the Reg naval desk suggested under We Want Two. We didn’t think that the navy could preserve its vital amphibious-landing capability without cutting the tremendously costly — and largely useless — escort fleet a little further. It seems that we were on the money, as reportedly the two-carrier, 12-escort plan calls for “all amphibious craft” to be dispensed with.

If the paper’s sources are correct, some version of the escort-slashing, carrier-saving plan will go ahead. Reportedly the ministers of the National Security Council, meeting yesterday, “stopped short of a formal decision”, but “insiders now believe both ships will be built”.

Getting the two carriers through the first skirmish in the budget battle is a good start, but the ships are cheap compared to the proposed aircraft to equip them. The F-35B supersonic VTOL/STOL aircraft will cost a lot more than the ships they’ll be based on.

Although it makes for a fairly cheap carrier, the F-35Bs would be horrifyingly expensive, particularly if bought in time to equip the ships as they are completed. Not only is the F-35B the world’s first ever supersonic stealth jumpjet, it is currently suffering severe delays in flight testing: for quite some few years, until the production line gets into gear and economies of scale kick in, it will be very pricey to buy. It will also be comparatively expensive to own and operate, as perhaps the most or second-most complicated jet in the world today. Worse still, the need to carry a lift fan, swivelling exhaust nozzle and multiple lids and doors to cover these things when not in use means that the F-35B jumpjet will not be as good a combat plane as the F-35A and F-35C versions (runway and catapult respectively).

If we dare to assume that the hulls will be built, then a quick budget fix would be to omit the F-35B and install catapults on the carriers to allow them to use cheaper tail-hook aircraft (the F-18 or perhaps the F-35C). That’ll chop a few billion off the total cost of the package, and the only fly in the ointment is that the carriers are gas-turbine, not steam or nuclear-powered. That means depending on the not-yet-in-service electromagnetic catapult designed for the USS Gerald Ford, the next big American carrier.

The US Navy is committed to the electromagnetic catapult working, or they’ll have to pay a lot of money to re-engineer the Ford to use older technology and accept a multi-year delay in commissioning the ship. The US Navy could buy the entire Royal Navy out of petty cash, so it’s not a huge risk to depend on them getting the bugs worked out of the new mechanism in time.

The Telegraph thinks that the plan will be to convert HMS Prince of Wales, the second carrier, to an amphibious assault ship. Page thinks this is a bad idea on multiple counts:

The Telegraph‘s sources think that this is on the cards, saying that “ministers have discussed reconfiguring the first new carrier as a helicopter platform that would also carry Royal Marine commandos. The carrier would then ultimately replace the existing helicopter ship, HMS Ocean“.

This is a foolish plan, however. HMS Ocean is new: she doesn’t need replacing. Furthermore, having only one proper carrier is much, much worse than having two, almost as bad as having none: an enemy need only wait until the sole proper carrier is in a planned refit before becoming aggressive, happy in the knowledge that the UK can’t even rattle its sabre effectively in response. (One of the main ways that the USA resolves or responds to tense situations around the world day to day or week to week is to move its carriers about.)

In effect, the amphib downgrade plan sacrifices a hugely important and powerful carrier — gives up the critical one-carrier-always-up capability — and throws away the perfectly good HMS Ocean, which was actually quite cheap to have anyway (she cost less than a typical escort and her crew is no larger). The only upside here is that one or two more frigates or destroyers are preserved, a largely meaningless gain: the more so as there would now be fewer capital ships actually requiring escorts.

The problem with any kind of military spending is that you’re trying to make provision for the unforeseen future contingency. The last time the British government was on the verge of scrapping the aircraft carriers, Argentina kindly kicked up a ruckus that required military action — which would not have been possible without the carriers.

This time around, there’s no likely trouble spot to flare up and force the government to reconsider (unless we can prod Argentina to do us a favour again . . .)

October 6, 2010

British forces facing imminent cuts

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:15

Lewis Page makes what I think is the correct call for the British government’s National Security Council to keep the Royal Navy’s carrier program and gut the RAF deep bomber fleet and the army’s heavy combat arm:

Thus it is a good bet that the first of the two new carriers for the Royal Navy will go ahead. The second may be downgraded to serve as an amphibious-warfare ship full of troops and helicopters rather than combat aircraft, or it might be cancelled altogether — which means British shipbuilding would be kept alive by bringing forward plans for a new generation of navy frigates.

The RAF and even the Army will be offering up massive cuts of their own — it is expected that the entire Tornado deep-bomber fleet will be retired years early, and the current Cold War style armoured-warfare juggernaut of tanks, mobile artillery and infantry fighting vehicles is set for a major trim back — so there is only one way that the government can preserve a two-carrier navy.

A navy with pretensions to independent action requires aircraft carriers. Plural. A single carrier isn’t enough, and places too much of your naval “capital” in a single hull. Two is the minimum (and three would be even better): you can, with care, always have at least one carrier fully worked-up and ready to deploy.

Even if the RN gets both carriers through the NSC flensing mill, they still face other cuts:

That one way is to finally cut the Royal Navy’s force of frigates and destroyers — collectively known as “escorts”, as their primary role is to protect and defend major warships — down to numbers suitable for actually escorting our biggest ships. For the past many decades, for reasons of history and jobs for the boys, the RN has actually maintained far more escorts than it needs to escort major units such as carriers and amphibious task groups.

Realistically, a combat carrier can actually protect herself using aircraft far more effectively than her escorts can: but it is reasonable to say that sending a carrier out to a major war alone, when just one bomb or missile or torpedo could eliminate Britain’s reach into a given theatre — perhaps cutting off air cover, supplies, even the chance of evacuation for our troops ashore — is a gutsy call.

Reducing the number of frigates and destroyers would make a lot of sense (except if you’ve “spent your whole life in an effort to be a frigate captain”). A bigger-ticket item than the carriers themselves is the required aircraft to equip the ships. Current plans are for the role to be given to the ultra-expensive F-35B. Politics aside, it would make brilliant economic and military sense to replace those techno-wonders with slightly less capable F-18s:

Really we need a maximum total escort fleet of say 10, as compared to the Navy’s current lineup of 23. Savings just in running costs over the next decade would add up to at least £11bn. Then we can save at least another billion-odd in acquisition costs by not buying the last two Type 45s and their dubious missile systems. All this is far and away more than enough to ensure that the second carrier is built, and to give the two ships catapult launch. This in turn would permit the purchase of much cheaper and more powerful aircraft for them, easing the problems caused for the MoD budget by the rising costs and delays facing the F-35B supersonic stealth jumpjet (currently grounded following the discovery of technical snags during flight testing).

And why would I, a former ground-pounder, be so enthusiastic about aircraft carriers? Because the British experience has been that the RN has been there for the army when needed:

It hasn’t been often that British troops have needed fighter cover since World War II, but when they’ve needed it they’ve really, really needed it. Just ask the Welsh Guards, chopped to pieces by Argentine jets at Bluff Cove. When there has actually been any fighter cover for British troops in combat since World War II, it has come from the navy, not the RAF. Every time a British fighter has shot down an enemy aircraft since 1945, it took off from a ship to do so. Even back during WWII, lack of carrier air killed a lot of sailors and soldiers — and the presence of it saved many more.

October 5, 2010

Let me read that again

Filed under: Britain, France, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:01

The Royal Navy has had some of their new Type 45 destroyers in service for a while, but they’ve only just gotten around to arming them?

The Royal Navy’s new £1bn+ Type 45 destroyers, which have been in service for several years (the first is already on her second captain), have finally achieved a successful firing of their primary armament.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced yesterday that HMS Dauntless, second of the class, has made the first firing from a Type 45 of the French-made Aster missiles with which the ships are armed. All previous trial shoots were carried out using a test barge at French facilities in the Mediterranean.

Well, at least they’re getting closer to being armed and equipped as they were originally supposed to be:

Each of the six Type 45s will now cost the taxpayer £1.1bn and counting. At the moment the only weapons they can use operationally are their basic 4.5-inch “Kryten” gun turrets and light 30mm autocannon, principally useful for bombarding undefended foreshore targets or shooting up pirate dhows and the like. This is armament barely above the gunboat level.

The big attraction to the (very expensive) PAAMS/Sea Viper missile system is its claimed ability to shoot down the latest generation of Russian supersonic anti-ship missiles . . . oh, and that it wasn’t the cheaper (and proven) American AEGIS system.

As it is, we will pay at least double and get none of these things. Our Type 45s will have no serious ability to strike targets ashore, and we will continue to have no capabilities against ballistic missiles. Most glaringly of all, the Type 45 will have no weapon other than its guns with which to fight enemy ships — Sea Viper has no surface-to-surface mode.

You might feel that preservation of British high-tech jobs in some way justifies such horrific overspending for such lamentable amounts of capability, but in fact the relatively few Brit workers concerned have now mostly been fired anyway.

We can’t poke too much fun at the Royal Navy over the jobs issue: most major purchases for the Canadian Forces are driven more by “spin-offs” and regional employment concerns than either cost or military efficacy.

I did like The Register‘s cheeky graphic:

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