The wages of stupid?

In the continuing drama of the Afghan military adventure, Guy Adams of The Independent argues that McChrystal's minders blundered by underestimating a title with a history of heavyweight journalism. And that, he says, is how Rolling Stone was able to bring down a general.

It takes little textual analysis, however, to work out that Adams is guessing. "It's impossible to know what exactly persuaded McCrystal's press staff to invite Hastings (the author of the Rolling Stone piece) into their inner sanctum," he writes, "where he would be privy to a frat-boy atmosphere and culture of contempt for the White House which would ultimately this week force the General to resign from his job as commander of US forces in Afghanistan."

The thesis here, that McChrystal (and through him his staff) have made a massive blunder, is intriguing, but it would seem to fly in the face of the perceived wisdom. The general and his team have a reputation for intellectual depth, and for a comprehensive grasp of their subject and allied matters.

If they really did not know how the Rolling Stone piece would be seen inside the Beltway, and thus be treated by Obama, then we are looking at a staggering level of incompetence, and an alarming degree of naïvety. Even here, where we have been quick to argue that stupidity is a driving force in the military high command, this takes some believing.

However, not only is it very hard to believe that McChrystal could be that stupid, it is equally hard to believe that his boss David Petraeus knew nothing of what was going on and, if he did, that he chose not to intervene - unless he approved it, even if tacitly.

As an alternative, we could go with Con Coughlin who is asking whether McChrystal is the fall guy for the president's failure. The general lost his job as a result of Obama's lack of input into the Afghan war, he argues.

I think even Adams's thesis is preferable to that, but if this was a blunder by McChrystal, we are faced with a terrifying prospect. In a key military adventure, we have a US system that can appoint an idiot for its theatre commander. We also have a situation where the entire military and political establishments on both sides of the Atlantic can roll over and revere an idiot.

Readers here will know that we were not particularly impressed with McChrystal's military (or political) appreciation of the Afghan situation, and we always thought his "surge" ill-founded. But, since all the big-wigs, not least Liam Fox seemed to think the general was the "dog's bollocks" (the correct military term, I believe), who am I to argue?

Actually, this self-deprecation does not become this site. We do argue – this is what we do. The McChrystal "surge" always was, is and always will be dangerously flawed and ineffective – and we have said so. It is a waste of time, money and lives. And the fact that Fox and his mates seem to think differently says more about them than us.

Interestingly, The Times is telling its readers that a newly-elected Tory MP has declared the "war" to be "mission impossible" – and such is the weight of this pronouncement that it puts three of its journalists' names on the story by-line. There's glory for you.

The MP in question is Rory Stewart, "former soldier and diplomat" and prime candidate for replacing Patrick Mercer as favoured media "rent-a-mouth". And out Rory believes that a "radical rethink" is the only option if the Nato-led surge of 40,000 extra troops fails to achieve results by next July. Jeeze! There's real intellectual analysis for you.

And it gets better. Rory believes that only a few thousand troops — perhaps 1,000 of them British — should remain in Afghanistan after next summer. "You would have a few planes (he means aircaft, not a carpenter's tool) around but you would no longer do counter-insurgency. You would no longer be in the game of trying to hold huge swathes of rural Afghanistan."

One way or another, though, it looks as if we are on our way out. Call me Dave has gone public to say that the "very exciting prospect for bringing our troops home" was within sight as Afghans began to take control of security, but that the coming months would be critical. Then asked if troops would be home before the next election, he said: "Make no mistake about it, we cannot be there for another five years having been there for effectively nine years already."

The idea that the Afghans are beginning to take control of security is just bollocks, without even the dog attached – and that is by no means a military term. Neither is the evidence hard to find. Just last week, local UN officials in Kabul were reporting that insurgent violence had risen sharply over the last three months, with roadside bombings, complex suicide attacks and assassinations soaring over last year's levels.

But if talking bollocks is what Call me Dave thinks is necessary to get the troops home, then perhaps it is a small price to pay. In between then – whenever "then" is – and now, Dave will have to go through the charade of fighting a war, and being terribly sorry when the latest squaddie has his brains spread over the terrain. And he is admitting that it's going to be tough going.

At least, though, it looks as if the Buffaloes have turned up in theatre – eighteen months after they were ordered (picture above). They are far too late and too few in number to make a strategic difference but they will reduce the number of times Dave will have to read out the names of the dead from the despatch box. For that small mercy, at least, we can be thankful.

Comment: Afghanistan thread

In place of flesh and blood

We need to remind ourselves occasionally that, while it is very easy to deride the efforts of journalists, those who are embedded with troops in the field do take very real risks.

That is brought home by the latest piece from Tom Coughlan, doing what he does extremely well, reporting from the front. And this time, out on patrol south of Garmsir with the Fox Company of 2nd Battalion, 8th US Marines, he nearly gets blown apart by an IED for his trouble.

This, however, is no derring do account. Coughlan manages to weave this into a clinical account of the difficulties encountered by a squad on foot in hostile country, ambushed by enemies who refuse to show themselves and resort to multiple and increasingly complex IED ambushes.

The bomb which nearly ended Coughlan's life was two devices strapped together, buried at the base of the wall on the corner of a compound, to which the Marines were advancing. Two men were badly injured: one, a Marine with shrapnel injuries to his face and hands, would survive; the other, an Afghan interpreter, would later die.

They were part of a force of 40 Afghan soldiers and 70 Marines, supported by two (Cobra) attack helicopters and a UAV. One hour into the patrol, at 6.45am, the ambush began. The thump of the first bomb detonating and sound of enemy small-arms fire was quickly followed by a call for casualty evacuation.

As the Marines began to run for cover, their commander, Captain Junwei Sun, senses a trap, telling his men: "Watch right, we could be being baited for another IED." He was right. There was a second IED placed so as to catch the squad as they ran for cover.

Fortunately, although smoke and debris enveloped the men, there were no injuries. The Taleban bombers had made several mistakes in the way they had made and buried their devices, the result being to channel their force upward rather than outward.

They had also incorrectly wired what was to have been a third bomb. Discovered and destroyed by US combat engineers some minutes later, it was 30lb of fertiliser-based explosive that sat directly under the commanders of Fox Company. Had all three blown correctly it is likely that a dozen or more soldiers would have died or been badly injured.

Despite this, the presence of the bombs give the tactical advantage to the Taleban. Caught in a spider's web of bombs, the men have to move out into the exposed fields rather than take cover. But, notes Coughlan, if the Taleban were still around they remained hidden, wary of the Cobra helicopters overhead.

This enables the unit's bomb disposal engineers to sweep methodically with metal detectors. They find naked, hair-thin copper wires in the soil, trailing towards the treeline and a compound 100 yards away. But, as the Americans prepare to advance on the compound with ANA soldiers, the Taleban deploy another "weapon": a group of women and children emerge, moving into the middle of the unfolding battle and making for the same compound. The attack has to be halted.

Then, as the troops move forward again, engineers find a fourth bomb, buried in a wall. This is defused and the advance resumes. But, as they traverse a field, one soldier spots two stakes buried in the ground. They are a marker for a watching bomb triggerman. The unit halts and explosives experts moved forward with their minesweepers. They find a command wire and two separate 40lb cylinders of explosive. These are detonated, scattering earth over a 100 yard area.

As they pull up the wire they discover it appears to lead to the village mosque. And, as had been the case all day, none of the locals appeared to know why.

From all this, though, Coughlan draws certain conclusions, which are not entirely in accord with his own experience on the day: "... firepower," he observes, "can become meaningless when the enemy makes skilful preparation of the ground and has no scruples about cloaking itself with the lives of the local population."

On one level, of course, he is right but he himself notes that the Taleban are reluctant to follow through their ambushes with direct fire attacks, owing to the presence of the Cobra attack helicopters. Firepower has its uses.

Furthermore, while firepower does not influence the placing of IEDs, technology certainly assists in detecting them, as does the fieldcraft of one of the Marines. Here, though, one must ask why it is that the UAVs were not of more assistance in this endeavour.

Coughlan's colleague on The Times himself reports on the utility of UAVs in detecting bomb emplacers. One wonders whether the UAVs were used merely as "top cover" once the operation had started and whether they were over the area well in advance, in an effort to detect the enemy's preparations.

One also has to note the use of hand-held detectors, which are only deployed after the first IEDs are detonated, even though their presence in this area must be assumed. And it is here that we wonder whether the Americans are much better prepared to deal with the IED than the British.

In a previous piece we drew attention to the use by the Rhodesians of the Pookie mine detection vehicle, which was used to clear the way down bush trails, ahead of food patrols. In this instance, we have the photographs of Jack Hill which shows a considerable element of open country.

The terrain maybe would not permit the use of equipment such as the Buffalo or even the Husky, but a vehicle similar to the Pookie (with the advanced technology available today) surely would be of value. As in the past, where tanks were used to shield foot soldiers advancing on the enemy, in this different type of a war, it does not seem untoward to argue that a different type of armour should be used for a different but nonetheless deadly threat.

Such technology is not always the answer and, in some cases, even dogs are being used by both the British and the Americans. These animals, though, have their limitations in a kinetic (combat) situation, not least because they become the targets. This leaves again the question as to why the military seem so keen to expose flesh and blood to the perils of IEDs when steel could do more of the job.

COMMENT THREAD

We need more helicopters

"Army bomb expert killed trying to clear the way for vital supplies" is the headline under which Nicholas Cecil, chief political correspondent for The Evening Standard writes today.

Captain Daniel Shepherd died instantly when the makeshift bomb he was trying to defuse exploded in the Nad-e Ali District in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. A member of his team suffered minor injuries. Capt Shepherd, 28, from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, was leading a team trying to clear a route for a convoy to re-supply Nato troops and the local population.

This raises serious questions. There is a whole raft of kit available for this task. Why wasn't it available?

The job starts with the Buffalo (pictured above). It can expose an IED and the claw apparatus can be used to rip away any command wires, if that is the method of triggering employed. The manual disturbance will trigger any motion-sensitive booby trap.

If the bomb is still live, it can be investigated by a remote robot (pictured below). A shotgun fitted to the robot can be used to blast the detonator and thus disable it. Failing that, the robot can be used to place an explosive charge on the device, blowing it up and thereby neutralising it. Damage to roads and other structures can then be dealt with by armoured engineering vehicles.

Only in extreme cases, where there is imminent risk of loss of life without intervention, should an attempt be made by a bomb disposal officer personally to disarm a device. There are no indications that this was the case here.

However, as to the kit, therein lies the tale. Kit such as the Buffalo is not yet in theatre. The US forces have them, the Canadians have them and the French also have them. But, despite a call for them to be provided in 2005 – the MoD did not think they were necessary. They were not ordered, therefore, until last October and will not arrive until next year.


We do have robots – the British were pioneers in this technology. However, they are transported in the unarmoured "Tellar" EOD vehicles, which are themselves highly vulnerable to IEDs. They require an armed escort and route clearance to get them onto site. All too often, they cannot be used.

But our Mastiff EOD vehicles were not ordered until last October and will not arrive until next year – despite the equivalent JERRVs having been used by US forces since 2003.

Then, there is a shortage of armoured engineering equipment. What we have is being sold off at knockdown prices, and the new kit was not ordered until last October. It will not arrive in theatre until next year.

Of course, if we follow the media and political narrative, this incident clearly demonstrates that we need more helicopters. Every casualty is being used to reinforce that argument.

But what it could also demonstrate is that the MoD and the Army seriously under-estimated the IED threat and failed utterly to prepare for it. Such issues, however, will not even begin to be explored by the media. The solution is obvious – we need more helicopters. Everybody knows that.

COMMENT THREAD

With friends like this ...

Having egregiously failed in its role of questioning the MoD's often lacklustre choices of vehicles, The Guardian, via Richard Norton-Taylor and Mark Tranc, now rush to give house-room to defenders of the Viking.

Thus we see the headline "Former officers defend vehicles as Afghanistan bomb deaths investigated," with the strap line: "Use of Vikings questioned after British commander and soldier are killed, but analysts say size of Taliban bombs surprises military."

Right up front, as one might expect, is the legend of the "huge" bomb, an issue to which we are going to have to devote a full post. Suffice to say at this juncture that the alacrity with which this legend has been embraced suggests that it provides more than an element of convenience.

Turning to the "former officers" who are so stalwart in the defence of this failed vehicle, the first is Amyas Godfrey, a former infantry officer and fellow of the Royal United Services Institute.

However, one needs only to look at the list of RUSI's corporate sponsors, and its proximity to the MoD to know where Godfrey stands. If "big oil" is forever accused of supporting "climate deniers", any such relationship is nothing compared with RUSI and the arms dealers, with BAE Systems, supplier of the Viking, right up front.

So it is that Godfrey tells us: "You have to remember that Vikings were deployed to fill a very specific function," referring to the bridges and canals of the "green zone" along the Helmand river. "You are sacrificing mobility for protection but mobility is itself a form of protection", said Godfrey.

This, needless to say, is the favourite MoD mantra, so it is no surprise to see it trotted out here, despite the fact that we are now looking at eight deaths in the Viking and even more in the popular all-terrain vehicle the Jackal. Despite this, Godfrey hastens to inform us that "even the Mastiff had been vulnerable to roadside bomb," neglecting to say that there have been no deaths in Mastiffs, as against 18 in the mobility-duo.

The second of the apologists is Charles Heyman, another former Army officer and now a military consultant – with sources of income undeclared. He states that it is "impossible to judge decisions and the circumstances" surrounding Lt-Col Thorneloe's death.

That may be the case, but the facts speak for themselves. Thorneloe was riding in a perilously fragile vehicle in an area infested with Taleban, where there was a recent history of successful IED attacks in a campaign where the IED is the enemy's weapon of choice. No much judgement is actually needed.

If that constitutes the offerings of the witnesses for the defence though, The Guardian has not finished yet. It tells us that the Viking was introduced into Afghanistan three years ago, but last year the MoD admitted it had reached the limit of how much it could be armoured following a number of deaths involving roadside bombs.

Never fear though, we are also told that it is due to be replaced by the new Warthog vehicle next year, with Gordon Brown announcing that it would provide "improved protection for our forces". So that's alright then.

Everything Mr Brown says must be true, and of course, if officialdom claims that a vehicle offers "improved protection", that must also be true, just as it was with the Vector and the Viking, when these vehicles were introduced – to say nothing of the Snatch Land Rover and, latterly, the Jackal.

In a bizarre reference, the paper then tells us that, "In another move to counter the threat of roadside bombs, a new class of mine-clearing vehicles – including the Buffalo mine-protected vehicle – is also being developed."

Yet, far from being "developed" the Buffalo has been in use by US forces in Afghanistan since 2002 and was rejected by the MoD in 2005. Only in October last did the MoD relent and order a batch, which are not due for delivery until next year. How easy does the MoD escape censure.

Even the disaster with the Vector gets skated over as we learn that the "Army's Snatch Land Rovers, which have been particularly vulnerable to attack, are also to be upgraded to a new variant – Snatch Vixen – with more power and better protection."

Never mind that the Snatch was supposed to have been replaced by the Vector, at a cost of £100 million, a vehicle which has since been withdrawn, requiring a rush upgrade at a cost of £5 million to produce the Vixen, in order to fill a yawning capability gap.

But then, we do too much justice to the authors, taking this work seriously. The comments on the Buffalo and Vixen are a straight "lift" from a Press Association report dated 29 October 2008, used by hundreds of local paperson the day, and then re-cycled on 21 April of this year, again used by hundreds of papers and also used today by the Daily Mail. This is "cut and paste" journalism at its finest, splatted into the copy without even momentary brain engagement.

A similiar technique is used to pad out the piece by adding comments on the Viking, where the authors note there "have been a number of deaths involving Viking armoured vehicles in Afghanistan." The "cut and paste" this time is also Press Association copy dated 10 June and used by, amongst others on the day, the Daily Mail once more. With dreadfully familiar words, we are informed that, last month, "the Grimsby district coroner, Paul Kelly, praised the MoD for identifying a problem with the vehicle and taking steps to solve it".

This was the carefully executed cover-up perpetrated by the MoD, but The Guardian takes it at face value, the words pasted in to fill the space with neither thought nor analysis.

With such lazy - if not dishonest - reporting, the MoD needs have no fear of being outed. It can continue wasting taxpayers' money and allowing its soldiers to be slaughtered as long as The Guardian is on the case.

Not even The Guardian though can compete with Con Coughlin on his clog. "Fatuous" does not even get close, when he writes: "Even though Lt-Col Thorneloe was travelling in a well-protected, £700,000 Viking armoured vehicle, that was specifically designed to protect British soldiers from roadside bombs, the Taliban have succeeded in designing a device that can kill or maim the occupants."

The great sage then opines that the "only effective way to counter the threat of these attacks is to have more men on the ground to guard territory that has already been seized from the Taliban. That would make it harder for the Taliban to plant the kind of device that killed Lt-Col Thorneloe."

With "friends" like this, who needs enemies? Some sections of the media are more deadly than the Taleban.

COMMENT THREAD

Road rage

Covered only briefly by the British media was an incident on Wednesday when three Danish soldiers were killed by an IED in Afghanistan.

As the 700-strong Danish contingent in the country is under British command, and operates closely with British forces, these could so easily have been British soldiers, in which case there would have been a great deal more attention given to this small tragedy.

Here, what is remarkable is that there are uncanny parallels between this incident and one which occurred on 25 February of this year. Then, three soldiers from the 1st Btn The Rifles were also killed by an IED. They were riding a Wimik near Gereshk, engaged on "routine escort duties" along the notorious Highway 1 when they were hit by a culvert bomb estimated at 250Kg.

As to the current incident, the Danish troops were reported to have been riding in a "lightly armoured jeep" – most probably a Mercedes G270 CDI (pictured) – which is a direct equivalent of a Wimik. They too were engaged on routine escort duties near Gereshk along the same Highway 1, and were also hit by a culvert bomb, this time estimated at 350Kg.

Highway 1 is the main artery in Afghanistan. It runs from the eastern Pakistani border through Kabul and Kandahar, onwards to Herat in the west, passing Camp Bastion, the main coalition base in Helmand province, and thence on to the Iranian border.

Unsurprisingly, given its strategic importance, it is a key target. And, as one of the few paved roads in the country, is difficult to mine. Therefore, the Taleban – as did the Iraqi militias and the IRA before them - have resorted to the tactic of using culvert bombs, taking advantage of culverts which number into the thousands in some provinces, spread out over hundreds of miles of road.

And, according to Time magazine, not only has the frequency of such attacks increased, the power of the bombs employed has gone "way up." Twenty-pound charges have been replaced by oil drums packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives, set off by trip wires and pressure plates, that are capable of destroying up-armored humvees.

In Northern Ireland – where the IRA used on occasions 1000lb bombs - to deal with such formidable weapons, the British Army were forced to abandon the roads altogether, resorting to helicopters and foot patrols, a decision which was taken shortly after a Saracen APC (pictured) was destroyed by a culvert bomb near Crossmaglen on 9 October 1975.


Unfortunately, the option of relying entirely on helicopters is not available to the coalition forces, and not entirely because there are insufficient helicopters. The roads – and in particular Highway 1 – are needed to move large quantities of supplies and are used heavily by Afghan security forces and civilians. To abandon those roads to an enemy which is indiscriminately slaughtering civilians as well as the security forces is also to abandon any attempt at winning "hearts and minds".

On the other hand, foot patrols and direct intervention is proving extremely hazardous. At the beginning of this week, a Canadian combat engineer died while trying to defuse an IED in a culvert beneath a roadway about 12 miles southwest of Kandahar City. Also killed in the blast was an Afghan policeman. An interpreter was injured and evacuated by helicopter.

Once again therefore, technology is having to provide the answers, one application of which is the mine protected vehicle. Despite the increased size of bombs, many still believe they are saving lives although no one pretends they are the complete answer.

Danish defence Chief of Staff Tim Sloth Jørgensen believes that more losses from IEDs are "unavoidable". "We're never going to find them all," he says. "There is no safe way to do so, and the enemy is always coming up with new tactics."

Others, offering arguments redolent of those we heard during the Snatch debate, defend the decision to transport troops in lightly armoured vehicles. Despite the incident in February, they cite the relatively safe conditions along Highway 1. They also point out that if soldiers began travelling in armoured personnel carriers, the Taleban would begin planting larger bombs.

This argument for "safety" is not shared by Time magazine, recording that the section of Highway 1 between Kabul and Kandahar is littered with "brutal evidence" of the Taliban's IED offensive.

The road is a showcase US-funded project, meant to connect two of the country's most vital commercial centres, but it is now an automotive graveyard, littered with burned-out carcasses of vehicles and disrupted by crumbled bridges.

One infamous stretch is lined with the wreckage of 40 transport trucks, the remains of a 90-minute enemy ambush dubbed the "jingle-truck massacre." (Afghans hang chains and coins from their truck bumpers, which create a jingling sound.) "Every few miles, craters of varying size pock the pavement, interspersed with suspicious patches of dirt that compel patrol convoys to make off-road detours or dismount to investigate before proceeding."

The problem, however, is not new. Similar conditions were experienced in Iraq and there US forces developed engineering solutions to reduce the risks. This included a programme of clearing road verges, compacting the road shoulders, replacing manhole covers to drainage systems and fixing grates on the ends of culverts.

Route clearance was also practised in Iraq, using equipment such as the Buffalo - although these will not be delivered to the British zone until next year at the earliest.


Other equipment which has been used are mast and aerostat-mounted surveillance cameras, which allow for the continuous observation of vulnerable sections of road which cannot be achieved with UAVs. This principle has been extended with the use of mast-mounted observation cameras and other sensors on vehicles (pictured above).

As much as anything, this is an engineers' war - a game of three-dimensional chess where technical expertise and innovation is as important as firepower. When it comes to "boots on the ground", therefore, more infantry are not necessarily the answer. We need more combat engineers.

COMMENT THREAD

"Same old failings"

The starting point of this piece is the assertion that we will never get sensible military procurement until or unless MPs and the media start to take the subject seriously.

Only then, do we assume that they will make the effort to understand the issues and put the pieces together. And, if they do so, they will be able to target their criticisms accurately and fairly. But they must also come up with clear ideas of what should be done. There is no point whatsoever relying on the MoD – or the military. Time and time again, it has become demonstrably clear that they have very little idea of what they are doing.

The illustration of this broader thesis comes with today's media coverage of the annual National Audit Office (NAO) report on MoD project management, which has featured, amongst other things, the problems in bringing "Terrier" battlefield engineer vehicle into service – a project slated at £300 million, each vehicle costing £5 million.

The focus on this machine in the report has prompted three media articles dedicated specifically to the subject of the Terrier.

In no particular order, there is a piece by Chris Irvine, in The Daily Telegraph, another in the same paper (online both) by Thomas Harding and a piece in The Daily Mail by Matthew Hickley. Then, in each case there is comment by an MP, Edward Leigh, the Conservative chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

To understand the scale of the problem, we first have to look at each article individually. Then we need to look at the bigger picture, Leigh's response to the newspapers and the role of the NAO.

Taking Hickley's Mail piece first, the headline (which would not have been written by the author) proclaims: "Army forced to buy JCBs and paint them in camouflage colours to clear warzones." The message, however, accurately reflects the copy, which tells us:

Plans for new armoured bulldozers to help British troops to clear obstacles in warzones have been hit by such long delays that the Army has had to buy JCB diggers instead and paint them in camouflage colours.

This assertion is then reinforced by the picture (above), which shows a line of ordinary, commercial JCBs.

Taking that one point (we will return to the others) – that the Army is, in effect, using ordinary JCB diggers, with a new paint job - this is a cheap shot, and wholly wrong. The vehicles being bought are the state-of-the-art JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavator (HMEE) - pictured below, right.

They were purpose-designed, initially for the US Army and are custom-built military machines. Furthermore, the version to be fielded is armoured, which adds to the differences – although we have reservations about this, as these machines are not mine protected. Nevertheless, they bear no more relation to the civilian machine than does an Army truck to a Tesco delivery vehicle.

Moving on to Chris Irvine's Telegraph piece, he also writes in similar terms that "The Army had to buy JCB diggers and paint them to camouflage them after plans for new armoured bulldozers to clear warzones were met by long delays."

The issue we need to address here is the inference that the Army bought the HMEE because of the delays in procuring the "new armoured bulldozers" – the Terriers (picture, below left) to which the NAO report refers.

Once again the assertion is wrong. Although ostensibly based on the NAO report, that is not what the NAO actually says. The passage is here:

2.17 Terrier will replace the Combat Engineer Tractor that was withdrawn from service in March 2008 because of concerns about the safe integration and operation of the Bowman communications system, reliability and obsolescence problems. The delays to Terrier will extend this capability gap; but users have been willing to accept that the vehicles will not be available to support operations until 2012 rather than risk a lower level of reliability. The Department does not believe that the delays will have an operational impact in the short term because of Urgent Operational Requirement action to purchase alternative engineering vehicles for current operations, including the JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavators.

The most relevant sentence here is the last, where the MoD argues that the delays in the Terrier procurement will not affect operations because, inter alia the HMEE has been bought. From this, it is a long way to go to assume that the HMEE was bought because of the delays in the Terrier programme. And, in fact, that was not the case,

Those that have followed this issue will know that the HMEE is to be purchased as part of the £96 million Talisman package, devised as a "specialist route clearance system", which "will provide a new high-tech way of dealing with the IED (Improvised Explosive Device) threat."

In this role, the HMEE brings to the table capabilities which the Terrier cannot supply. Specifically, the HMEE is a development of the JCB Fastrac, a machine which is optimised for (relatively) high-speed road use. It is thus capable of travelling long distances at convoy speed, keeping up with other vehicles without the need for specialist transportation. It can also operate freely on a wide variety of roads.

Strangely enough, when the concept was first announced in 2005, it was much lauded, not least by Sean Rayment in The Sunday Telegraph as the US Army's "latest secret weapon in the war against terror". How times change. But it is a pity that Telegraph writers do not read the Sunday version of their own newspaper.

The contrast with the Terrier, to anyone who thinks about it, is obvious. A tracked vehicle, if it is to travel any distance, has to be transported on a low loader. Furthermore, it is not by any means ideal for working on metalled roads – tracks tending to tear up the tarmac. It may have a limited role in Afghanistan, its design use being to carry out engineering works in the "indirect fire zone". But it is not an equivalent to the HMEE (and vice versa).

At best, the two machine types have overlapping capabilities, which is probably what the MoD was getting at when it argued that there would be no "operational impact" from the delay in the Terrier. Most of the jobs the Terrier would have been called upon to do, the HMEE can also do. But the HMEE can perform tasks for which the Terrier would be wholly inappropriate.

With that, we now come to the next point, majored on by Thomas Harding, his article headed: "Mine clearing vehicle that could save lives of British troops delayed for two years." Unfortunately, he has been misled both by the MoD and the NAO, which position the Terrier as a "mine clearance vehicle", which is actually only a secondary role.

Harding thus writes: "The armoured vehicle can clear minefields and make routes safe for following armour and is likely to have proved a significant asset in Afghanistan where dozens of soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs." He then goes on to say, "As a result of the hold-up the MoD has been forced to buy 10 off-the-shelf Buffalo route clearance vehicles as part of an urgent £96 million project."

The juxtaposition of these two issues is not altogether a happy one. In the mine clearance role, the Terrier is mainly what is known as a "breach" vehicle. Usually, to clear mines, it tows a bit of kit called Viper minefield breaching system (now replaced by the Python) which it uses literally to blast a way through a known minefield, paving the way for armour.

In insurgency warfare, the mine is used as an ambush weapon and, therefore, a different approach is used, needing equipment to investigate suspect locations, to determine whether there is an explosive package hidden there. Once one is detected, it is then identified and dealt with.

Thus, the distinction is between "breach" and "clearance". The Terrier is used for the first, the Buffalo for the second - as one of a suite of vehicles, providing part of the detection capability. There is no comparison. The Terrier can be used for the one (as an ancillary function) but cannot perform the role of the Buffalo. There can be no question, therefore, of being "forced" to buy Buffaloes because of delays in the Terrier programme. The two are completely different animals, used for different jobs.

However, as between the Terrier and the HMEE, there can be an overlap. Both vehicles can be fitted with mine clearance rollers (pictured right). But this kit is also currently fitted to Mastiffs and can be fitted to virtually any other armoured vehicle (in Oman, rollers were fitted to Saracens), so one hardly needs a £5 million, specialist engineering vehicle for the purpose, especially as the Terrier is not mine protected. Futhermore, this equipment - unlike the Husky detector gear - will only deal with pressure-plate activated devices, and not those triggered by command wire or other remote actuation mechanisms.

This brings us to the problem of the "bigger picture". The limitation of the NAO is that it looks at individual projects, mainly from a cost perspective. It does not look at projects in context (how they relate as part of a system, with other equipment), nor does it consider whether they are necessary or whether an alternative would be more appropriate. It simply looks at the situation "as is".

The trouble is that no one else is looking at the bigger picture either. Perhaps the Defence Select Committee should be doing this, but it does not. And neither does the media. As we see with this story, it dissects the information served up to it on a plate and goes no further. But, if you examine the "system" as a whole, a different and altogether more disturbing picture emerges.

Looking specifically at the HMEE, the question has to be asked, what is it for? An excavator, with or without armour, cannot be used to look for mines or other explosives. That is the job of the Husky (see left) in combination with the Buffalo. You would not expect an excavator to dig up a mine or explosive device once found. For a start, the HMEE armour (and design) is not up to that, which would make it far too dangerous. Explosive devices, invariably, are hand-cleared or blown up in situ. The only role one can think of, for which the HMEE is particularly suited is filling in the craters after a device has been blown up.

The question that devolves is why, in the £96 million Talisman project, the Army is buying HMEEs - 13 of them at a cost of £6.2 million – when it is not buying Huskies, an essential component of any route clearance operation? Another question is why the Army is spending £6.2 million on buying HMEEs at all, when it has already has a fleet of 25 armoured mine clearance vehicles, which it is now trying to sell off, unused, at the knockdown price of less than £4.5 million.

If the NAO is interested in value for money – which is its purpose in life – then it needs to look a bit closer at the Talisman project. Tucked into that, as Ann Winterton discovered, are some additional Mastiffs. Their role will be to function as armoured bomb disposal vehicles.

Only last year though, the MoD replaced its entire overseas fleet of bomb disposal vehicles, spending £7.5 million on 18 Swiss-built Bucher Duro vehicles, called the "Tellar" (pictured right). As we pointed out at the time, these unarmoured vehicles are totally unfit for purpose and now, surreptitiously – disguised by another project – these are being replaced.

Thus, we find ourselves in a position where, after the waste of nearly £20 million, we are going to end up with route clearance teams which still lack the essential Huskies to make them truly effective. But the NAO has no comment about that, and the media – entirely heedless of what is going on – is chasing after hares, making false points about JCBs, missing the real story.

That leaves Edward Leigh, who comments on the NAO findings. He complains of the "same old failings", which threaten to leave British troops poorly prepared for frontline action. He condemns what he calls "a lack of realism" and then declares: "This is about more than money. This kit will sooner or later be operated, perhaps in anger, by our men and women in the forces."

That latter sentiment is one with which we would agree. But, instead of offering any more detailed critical evaluation or himself looking at the bigger picture, Leigh is mouthing sound bites in response to an agenda dictated by the NAO. We are indeed – to use his words – dealing with the "same old failings", but there are far more failings than those identified by the NAO. As an MP, and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, it is his job to root them out.

Instead, from our parliamentary representatives, we also get the "same old failings", which means that money will continue to be wasted and "our men and women in the forces" still won't get the right kit.

They – and we, the taxpayers – deserve something better.

COMMENT THREAD

That's politics for you

One of the most bizarre aspects of the war in Afghanistan is that, despite almost universal agreement that more helicopters are needed in theatre, the British government seems entirely unable to fill this urgent capacity shortfall.

Not so the Canadian government which, faced with a similar shortfall, is doing something about the problem, as with other aspects of its procurement policy – purchasing RG-31s when the British were patrolling in lightly armoured WIMIKs and "Snatch" Land Rovers and providing mine clearance sets, including the Husky and Buffalo, when the British were investing in hand-held mine detectors.

Their response was actually announced in July by our own defence secretary, the details recorded on this blog, including – as was then stated – purchasing six additional Chinooks and eight Griffin helicopters. In the interim, we were told, while fitting out those Chinooks for deployment, the Canadians were to lease eight Mi-17s (aka Mi-8MTV).

There were some queries about the details and it seems that the Griffins, far from being newly purchased, were to be upgraded from the existing military inventory. And neither, it seems, is the Canadian government to lease eight Mi-17s. But, if that is the bad news, the good news is that it is still leasing Mi-17s, although the number is to be six.

This we glean from the Canadian Press website, its story headed, "Canadians to use civilian helicopters in Afghanistan in stopgap measure".

Until they get their own helicopters next year, the report reads, Canadian troops in Afghanistan will have access to six civilian choppers to lessen the risk of coming under insurgent attack while moving along the country's notoriously dangerous roads. The Mi-8 helicopters are being contracted from Toronto-based SkyLink as a stopgap measure. The first flight of the aircraft took place at Kandahar Airfield on Monday.

Says Col. Christopher Coates, air wing commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan: "As a task force, it allows us to transport with the Mi-8's cargo and with the Chinook's personnel, with a view to try and get Canadians off the roads here in Afghanistan where they are exposed to all the dangers of this country - ambushes and IEDs and the other things that all Canadians are aware of."

The decision to contract the Mi-8s, which will be flown by civilian pilots, is the result of a recommendation from the Manley report last spring, officially entitled the "Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan". This recommended that Canada should have some air capabilities for its operations in Afghanistan. In particular, during its investigations, it heard that:

… the safety and effectiveness of Canadian Forces in Kandahar would be markedly increased by the acquisition and deployment of new equipment. In particular, added helicopter airlift capacity and advanced unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles are needed now. No equipment can perfectly protect Canadian soldiers against improvised explosive devices. But helicopters can save lives by reducing reliance on transporting troops by road, and aerial surveillance can more effectively track insurgent movements.

So seriously did the Panel take this evidence that, in its report, it also recommended that, "if the necessary equipment is not procured, the Government should give appropriate notice to the Afghan and allied governments of its intention to transfer responsibility for security in Kandahar."

In other words, it was saying to the government, either pull the troops out of Afghanistan or provide more helicopters. It was as blunt as that and, in the face of strong public pressure to withdraw, the government knew it had to do one or the other. It chose the latter.

The British government could, of course, have done the same and the option of leasing Mi-8 aircraft has been available since before British troops first deployed in Afghanistan, at a fraction of the cost of operating military helicopters.

This we have rehearsed many times on this blog, for instance, here, here and here. But, to be fair to the government, while it has in certain quarters energetically pursued this idea, it has been totally frustrated by a total lack of enthusiasm from the military, a wall of indifference verging on hostility from the media, and the overt opposition from the Conservative defence team.

The biggest concern is the possibility of the loss of one of these helicopters packed with troops. Indeed, one SkyLink Mi-8 was shot down in Afghanistan in 21 April 2005, with the loss of 11 lives, so the fear is very real. The bigger political problem, though, would be the ensuing outcry from the media – and opposition – charging that "Our Boys" had been palmed off with "substandard" Russian helicopters, which had led to their death. You can just imagine The Sun in full flow on this, complete with "outraged" comments from the Tory defence team.

However, instead of sitting on their backsides whining about the lack of helicopters, the ever resourceful Canadians have come up with a solution to this problem.

They are going to pool these helicopters under the Joint Task Force Afghanistan command. Thus, when they need to move troops, they will be able to call upon fully equipped British Chinooks, in return for which they will transport British cargo which would otherwise have been moved by the RAF aircraft.

Given that the British forces have a massive requirement for moving cargo – and sometimes we see precious Chinooks used just for delivering the mail – there was and never has been any reason why we could not have acquired Mi-8s for cargo moving. Not only is this option safer, it acts as a force multiplier reducing the need for expensive and manpower intensive resupply convoys.

Of course, this issue is not about politics, in the minds of the chatterati except when it suits them to complain about under-resourcing but, in fact, this is the very meat and drink of politics.

Had the opposition put its weight behind this issue, I have very good reasons for believing that we would have been seeing Mi-8s in the British sector some long time ago, saving money and possibly lives, as well as significantly enhancing our capabilities.

But then, they have some many other important things to do, like trying to get the ridiculously expensive and generally inadequate Future Lynx in service earlier, pushing complaints about “delays” into the media. It ain’t going to happen but, despite assertions by a certain MP, there are other games in town which will help resolve – albeit less than satisfactorily – the tactical helicopter shortage in Afghanistan.

The solution will be found, but without the intervention of the opposition. But, if we can't get rid – in the longer term – of this overpriced white elephant – at least, it seems, FRES is going to be allowed to wither on the vine. What a tale there is to tell there – the battle of FRES, that the chatterati didn't even realise was happening.

Funny that - the most interesting stories never appear in the papers. And that, dear reader, is politics for you!

COMMENT THREAD

History repeats itself

The news which emerged yesterday of the second Gurkha soldier to be killed within a month in Afghanistan has disturbing implications. Unlike his comrade-in-arms, Rifleman Yubraj Rai who died of a gunshot wound after a firefight south of Musa Qala on 4 November, this as yet unnamed Gurkha was riding in a Warrior MICV (pictured).

According to The Daily Mail (online edition) – which was the first to identify the vehicle involved - the Gurkha was killed "after a massive roadside bomb tore through his 25-ton Warrior fighting vehicle." A number of other soldiers onboard were, according to its report, "seriously injured".

It is the first time, says the paper, a soldier has been killed inside a Warrior in Afghanistan, "and proof that the Taliban are turning to bigger and deadlier bombs targeted at British troops."

The paper adds that, until recently the Warriors were largely considered "mine proof" but then it tells us that at least three Warriors have been damaged "beyond repair" in the last eight months "as the Taleban bomb makers set ever bigger charges in British soldiers' paths." In addition, there was an early attack in February of this year.

When the Warriors arrived in Afghanistan in mid-August 2007 (see this video report), we applauded the deployment of these fighting vehicles which, very quickly had a decisive effect on the conduct of ongoing operations.

But, in this current instance, the Warrior was not being used for the purpose for which it had been designed – as an armoured assault vehicle. Instead, as part of a company of Warriors, it had been based outside Musa Qala, in Forward Operating Base Edinburgh. Together with Mastiffs, the Daily Mail reports, the vehicles have been used "to ferry soldiers to and from the outposts, which ring the volatile town." As The Independent puts it, "they are often used as armoured buses to move soldiers to and from outposts … because they used to be considered 'mine-proof'".

Any such assumption is entirely unjustified. The Warrior is not and never has been "mine-proof". The Army, therefore, is misusing these vehicles (whether to are forced to, or not because of kit shortages is another matter), for a job for which they are not designed and for which the Mastiffs, working alongside them, are superb.

In all, there have now been 22 deaths of British soldiers in Warrior-related incidents in both Iraq and Afghanistan since the formal end of hostilities in May 2003. By no means all of these resulted from IED attacks but many did, including the horrific incident on 5 April 2007 outside Basra, which resulted in the death of Second Lieutenant Joanna Dyer, and three of her comrades.

As remarked at the time, the underbelly of the Warrior is relatively lightly armoured and, even though they have been fitted with enhanced armour (pictured), their flat-bottomed profile makes them difficult to protect and limits their resistance to IEDs.

What may be happening here, though – in a manner similar to the way the Jackal has been treated - is that the Taleban have been "trying out" the Warrior and, having already written off a number of these vehicles, have evidently worked out a way to destroy them.

We saw something of what appears to be a similar dynamic in Iraq. Initially, the insurgents concentrated their fire on the more vulnerable "Snatch" Land Rovers, firstly in al Amarah and, when the "Snatches" were taken off the streets there and replaced by Warriors, the attacks moved to Basra where these vehicles were still being used for routine patrols.

When the use there of "Snatches" was limited – and many of the patrols were conducted by Mastiffs, which were arriving in ever-greater numbers - we saw attention focusing on the more vulnerable Warriors. In the latter stages of 2006 and in early 2007 there were a number of serious attacks, details of which were suppressed because of the Army's concern for morale and the effect of a public (and Parliamentary) hue and cry.

Thus, when Sergeant Graham Hesketh was killed on 28 December 2006 as a result of an IED attack on a Warrior, followed by the death of Private Michael Tench in January of the following year, these were seen as isolated incidents and not for what they were – part of a sustained assault by the insurgents on this vehicle type.

It was not until April of that year with the death of Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer that the Warrior came to public notice but even then, the incident was seen largely in isolation, with the media focus largely on the deaths of two women soldiers.

Even after that, the deaths from IED attacks on Warriors were to continue, the last known fatal attack recorded on 31 July 2007 when Corporal Steve Edwards was killed.

By that time, however, Mastiffs (pictured left) were being fielded in some numbers replacing both "Snatch" and Warrior and successfully resisting attacks on them. The Army pulled out of the last but one peripheral base, the Provincial Joint Co-ordination Centre (PJCC) in Basra, and – as rumour had it, only subsequently to be confirmed - British commanders struck a deal with leaders of Moqtada al-Sadr's 17,000-strong Mahdi Army to ensure the safe departure of troops from Basra Palace.

By early September the Army had retreated from Basra Palace and hunkered down in its new increasingly fortified base at the former Basra International Airport, leaving perimeter security largely to the Iraqi Army.

The limited sallies outside the wire were increasingly made in Mastiffs, which continued to resist attacks and, with no more Warrior deaths being reported, another publicity storm over inadequate equipment had been averted.

As for the situation in Afghanistan, the imminent arrival of additional Mastiffs and the Ridgeback may save the Army's bacon yet again, allowing the Warriors to be redeployed for their proper role – infantry assault. They will be safe enough in that role providing their routes to and from the battlefield are cleared by dedicated mine-clearance equipment. This the Canadians have found it necessary to do before their conventional armoured vehicles are allowed out of base. They have learnt the hard way exactly the lesson which the British forces seem intent on experiencing again in Afghanistan.

But still, the shadow of Army lethargy and MoD procurement delays hangs over the battlefield. Apart from the delay in buying the appropriate route clearing equipment such as the Buffalo - which will not be in theatre until at least 2010, when on 24 July 2006, Des Browne announced the order of 100 protected vehicles, which later turned out to be Mastiffs, he also announced the purchase of 100 additional Pinzgauer Vector vehicles (pictured right) for Afghanistan.

This, as we revealed later, had been forced on him by the Army, which had been lukewarm about the Mastiff and had effectively made its approval of the purchase conditional on the procurement of the additional Vectors. Thus, the bulk of the Mastiffs went to Iraq, while the Vectors provided the mainstay of additional "protected" vehicles for Afghanistan.

With these machines now so heavily compromised that the Army dare not use them in high-risk situations, this means that money spent on them has largely been wasted. Totalling nearly £50 million, that would have bought some 50 or so extra Mastiffs which could so easily have been ordered in July 2006.

For want of these extra machines, the Army on the ground has been forced to use the Warrior for a purpose for which it is entirely unsuited, with the result we have seen reported today. And still it seems, there are those who have not understood the lessons – a response which entirely typifies a certain cadre within the Army. History will have to repeat itself once more, before these dinosaurs are finally driven to extinction.

The problem is though that papers like The Sun, apparently lacking any corporate or institutional memory, are also reporting on this incident in terms of a "safe" tank, suggesting that the Warrior was "once thought bomb proof" – forgetting entirely the experience in Iraq.

Then we get The Guardian citing an unnamed "defence source" commenting that these latest attacks suggest the Taleban's bombs are more powerful and more sophisticated. "If a bomb is big enough, it will go through anything," this source is quoted as saying.

This will add sustenance the dinosaurs who claim that, since a "tank" can be blown up by the Taleban, it is impossible to protect lighter vehicles. In some quarters, therefore, this experience will be used as an argument against, rather than for more MRAP-type vehicles. There too, history repeats itself.

COMMENT THREAD

Welcome, but four years late

Yesterday, in a terse but informative announcement, the US armoured vehicle manufacturer, Force Protection Inc, told the world (or that small bit of it that was interested) that it had received from the United States Army "under contract W56HZV-08-C-0028" an additional order worth $15.5 million. This was for the delivery of 16 of its Buffalo A2 route-clearance vehicles - for delivery no later than the end of June 2009.

But the really interesting news followed. "In addition," Force Protection said, it had received "a Foreign Military Sales order of 14 Buffalo vehicles to be delivered to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence." This contract, although two less than the US order, was "not to exceed $18.6 million" - we are paying $3 million more for two less vehicles.

Nevertheless, it represents "the first orders for the Buffalo vehicle for the United Kingdom." Work, including vehicle deliveries and "sustainment" is to be completed by October 2009.

This is part of the "Talisman" project, announced at the end of last month by defence secretary John Hutton and, welcome though it is, the arrival of these life-saving vehicles by October next year will come almost four years to the day too late for one man, Sergeant Christian Ian Hickey, 1st Battalion the Coldstream Guards. He is already dead.

On Tuesday 18 October 2005, at around 23.20 local time, 30-year-old Sgt Hickey (pictured right) was in Iraq. He, with his detachment, was on patrol in a convoy of two "Snatch" Land Rovers, just short of a roundabout on the notorious "IED alley". This was not far from the centre of Basra - a straight road that runs south west out of the city from the Basra teaching hospital.

This was a handover patrol with soldiers from the new roulement on board. The vehicles were packed - six to each instead of the normal complement of four - and the atmosphere was tense.

Not only had there been a spate of bomb attacks on these vulnerable vehicles, there had recently been, in September, a major incident at the al Jameat police station and the mood in Basra had soured. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein's trial had been about to start.

Sgt Hickey had every reason to be concerned, and with only three days left in Basra before he left for home - this was his last patrol of the tour - he had asked for a helicopter to carry out "overwatch". None had been available.

That fateful night, just before midnight, he was doubly suspicious. This place was ideal for an ambush, as the convoy would have to slow to negotiate the roundabout. The spotlight on his vehicle was not working, making it difficult to see on the verges ahead, so he called to a halt the convoy he was leading.

Dismounting from his vehicle - in the words of the official report - he went forward on foot to reconnoitre a route for the patrol. With him, but slightly behind, was Sgt Andy Wilkinson, 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, and a young Lieutenant, straight out of Sandhurst.

Wilkinson described how Hickey had bent down to examine what he thought might be an IED, and at that moment there was a huge explosion where he had been standing.

Sgt Hickey was cut to pieces. He took full force of an explosively formed projectile which tore his legs off, slashed a gaping wound in his head, shattering his skull, and peppered his body with shrapnel. Infra-red activated, his body heat had probably triggered the bomb, destined for the leading "Snatch", packed with men, their lives undoubtedly saved by his heroic action.

"We did all we could for Sergeant Hickey," said Wilkinson diplomatically, "but he was dead." The lieutenant was hurled backwards by the blast and both his eardrums burst. He also had a serious eye injury and was knocked cold.

In the official report, it records that Sgt Hickey was given first aid at the scene. The rituals had been followed. His body was evacuated by ambulance and helicopter to the British Military Hospital in Shaiba. There, "despite the best efforts of all those involved in treating him," says the same report, he was declared dead on arrival.

The death of Sgt Hickey, the 97th in Iraq since the start of the campaign, invoked considerable media attention and an ongoing controversy (to which we will return). But, in none of the torrents of media reports did any commentator pick up what to us seemed so obvious that, on 23 October - five days after Sgt Hickey's violent and untimely death – we remarked on it on our blog.

Recalling that the incredibly courageous Sgt Hickey had been effectively forced to make that perilous – and ultimately fatal – journey on foot, to clear the way for his patrol, we noted:

… the "dumb Yanks" - as too many people delight in calling them - are providing a neat little (actually not so little) machine for dealing with this type of problem, and it ain't an armoured Land Rover, which provides only very limited protection.

Weighing in at 23 tons, this machine is called a Buffalo. Designed on principles developed by the South Africans, it has a 30 ft extendible arm to check out suspicious road-side packages and debris, with highly effective armour to protect its occupants if a bomb does go off.

At the time, we linked to a specialist military website, from which one can deduce that 50 such Buffaloes would have been in US service in Iraq and Afghanistan by October 2005. The site itself noted:

The heavily protected Buffalo is a central element in the US Army's counter-IED "hunter-killer" concept that protects convoys against the threat of mines and IEDs. [It] enables engineers to inspect suspected objects from safe distance, using the robotic arm and video cameras, operated from the relative safety of the protected cabin. Large windows of armored glass provide good visibility to the sides of the vehicle, to enable effective operation on route patrols and dealing with suspected IEDs.

Sgt Hickey was the twelfth soldier to die in a "Snatch" related incident in Iraq and others had died in other vehicle attacks. Had the Buffalo been available to British forces at the same time that the "Snatches" had been deployed in October 2003 – which they could have been – then many of those men would still be alive. Many more since would also have survived.

That the MoD is now buying 14 of these machines is testament to their value. We can thank in a small way the former defence secretary Des Browne for insisting that they were ordered, but it would have been so much better if Mr Geoff Hoon, defence secretary in 2003 (and now transport secretary), had been the man to sign that vital bit of paper.

COMMENT THREAD

Is this a coincidence?

Yesterday we get an announcement by John Hutton on the new package of armoured vehicles for the Army (set up by his predecessor, Des Browne).

Names are given, but few details, especially the "Husky: TSV (Medium)" and the "Coyote: TSV (Light)." The former, we are told is are "Medium armoured support trucks - carrying out the support roles in lower threat areas and where heavy vehicles, like Mastiff, cannot be used." The latter are "Light armoured support vehicles - supporting Jackals across the harsh terrain of Afghanistan."

Then, today, we get an announcement from Force Protection in Ladson, South Carolina – makers of the Mastiff and the Ridgeback, ordered by the British Army, and the Buffalo, which has also been ordered.

This was to introduce the new version of their "lightweight" MRAP, the Cheetah (pictured), weighing in at a mere 8 tons. With the current version of the RG-31 (Mark 6) now having inflated to an obese 11.6 tons – from the original seven, the Cheetah is currently the lightest MRAP available, yet its manufacturers claim for it similar protection levels to those of the heavier Cougar.

Is this a coincidence?

Looking at the photograph, the ECM dome on top of the cab looks suspiciously … er … British. Are we looking at a Husky or a Coyote, perhaps?

COMMENT THREAD

A failure of opposition

An answer to a routine parliamentary question from Lord Lee of Trafford on 16 October of this year was hardly calculated to excite any great interest. The outcome, however, turned out to be more than unusually interesting and - despite (or because of) the picture illustrated above - has significant lessons for the Conservative Party.

Lord Lee, himself a former Conservative MP, defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2001 and was made a life peer in 2006. He was performing his task as Lib-Dem defence spokesman in the Lords, in which capacity he had asked how much the government expected to spend on urgent operational requirements (UORs) for equipment this year and how much would be spent on each of the 10 largest UORs (the mechanism for rapidly purchasing much needed equipment and bringing it into service).

The answer conveyed very little we did not already know, and gave little indication of how politically significant it would become. The clue – but difficult to fathom - was in item number two on the "top ten" list, described as "Talisman" on which £96 million was to be spent. The only project of that name publicly associated with the MoD, however, was a Royal Navy mine countermeasures project – of not very great interest and of no immediate political importance.

It was therefore not until yesterday that the specialist magazine DefenseNews put two and two together and identified "Talisman" as an entirely new project. That was interesting.

It appeared, said the magazine, to be the MoD intended to buy the Buffalo mine clearance vehicle, so successfully used by US and Canadian forces, in whose hands it had saved many lives. That is "Talisman" and the fact that the MoD is to introduce this life-saving kit is important.

An unknown number of these 40-ton giants, we were told, were to be "rushed into service with the British military in Afghanistan next year," one of "several urgent vehicle purchases intended to increase protection for troops in the increasingly bloody conflict with the Taliban."

By way of detail, we were also told that Britain's Defence Equipment and Support Organisation was in the final stages of negotiating a deal with South Carolina-based Force Protection. An MoD spokeswoman had confirmed talks were under way but had declined to give further details.

The DefenceNews story was then confirmed today by defence secretary John Hutton confirming that the "Talisman" package would include the Buffalo mine-protected vehicle and the Engineer Excavator.

This is extremely welcome news and, if it had come about from successful and intensive lobbying, it would represent something of a victory for its advocates.

Certainly, we have written about it, the first time almost exactly three years ago, when we extolled its virtues and suggested that this was precisely the equipment the British Army needed to buy – which it then showed no signs of doing.

By then, it was already in action in US hands in Iraq and had been introduced to Afghanistan in July 2003. It obviously did good service in Afghanistan as, by March 2008, an article, featuring this and other mine-clearance vehicles, was reporting:

There is no calculating the damage or loss of life mitigated by the removal of the hundreds of mines and IEDs that EROC teams have already discovered in Afghanistan, but they are proud of their work and their contribution to soldiers returning home safely.

As significantly, when in May 2007 the Canadian Army took over a sector which had previously been occupied by the US Army, where it had deployed Buffalo and other specialist vehicles, one of the first things the Canadian command did was order replacement vehicles - including Buffaloes. These arrived the following year and, as we were later to report, were used to very great effect.

Arguably, therefore, with such a glaring gap in the British order of battle, the acquisition of this equipment could have been a prime target for political attention. Its lack could have formed the focus – albeit one of many – on which the Conservative Party could have attacked the government. This, one would have thought, was and is the very meat and drink of the party political system.

Clearly, the Conservatives would have been justified in so doing. The Buffalo is an important weapon in the counterinsurgency campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only is it used by the Americans and the Canadians, it has also been purchased by the French and latterly the Italian Armies. That the British were entirely lacking in such life-saving equipment - while suffering significant casualties from mines and IEDs, against which this vehicle was (and is) intended to protect – did have the makings of a strong political campaign.

Had such a campaign been effective, this equipment maybe would have been procured earlier, possibly saving some lives. In any event, the MoD now having decided to buy it, had the Conservatives earlier demanded precisely that, they could have claimed a moral victory, illustrating their effectiveness as an opposition.

Certainly, this blog and our partner Defence of the Realm had been convinced of the value of the Buffalo. We highlighted it again in June 2006, in December of that year and many times thereafter – some 19 times in all. For the record, copies of some of our posts were sent to the Conservative Party defence team.

When it came to calling for such equipment to be provided, however, the first mention of the "USA Buffalo armoured vehicle" in Parliament came from backbencher Ann Winterton, acting in a "freelance" capacity. She asked in November 2005 whether the department planned to introduce it "for work against roadside explosive devices". The MoD told us that it had "carried out a broad assessment" of the "Buffalo Mine Protected Clearance Vehicle" but had "no current plans" to procure it.

Three months later we got an intervention from an official Conservative spokesman, Gerald Howarth, in February 2006. He asked what assessment the MoD had made of the requirement for "South African manufactured Buffalo" for use in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, from the context and the answer – which referred to the "Buffel" (pictured) – it was evident that he was asking about a completely different vehicle.

In September 2006, Owen Paterson had a go, asking specifically about the Force Protection Buffalo. This was shortly after the announcement on the purchase of Mastiffs and the minister missed the point of the question. He declared that the Cougar (which was to become the Mastiff) was "the vehicle best able to meet our requirements". There was no comparison between the two.

Then, however, we got a most extraordinary intervention from Conservative backbencher Mark Lancaster. Not only an MP, this man is a Major in the Territorial Army. In the summer of 2006, he had been on detachment in Afghanistan. Thus enlightened, on 10 October 2006, he tackled the MoD during a session of the defence committee – of which he was then a member – on the role of the "urgent operational requirement".

Lancaster's concern was that the UOR process could lead to the wrong equipment being bought. The example he chose was:

… the route clearance package, which is a combination of vehicles, American vehicles, Buffalo and Huskies, and they go and clear IEDs off the road. It has come in because the threat is changing in Afghanistan, but when you actually go and talk to the American soldiers using this equipment you discover that one piece of equipment (because this package was designed for Iraq for the nice Tarmaced roads there) is completely unsuitable for Afghanistan …

The route clearing package, he thought, was then subject to a UOR and his information as to its lack of suitability came, apparently, from "the first sergeant who is using this equipment in Kandahar."

As it turned out, Mr Lancaster was mistaken in more than one way. From a formal MoD response on 28 November 2006, we learned that there was then "no formal UOR for the procurement of either Buffalo or Husky" (the latter pictured). The requirement for a route clearance capability to support current operations was being assessed by the Equipment Capability Manager and, we were told, "this may lead to a UOR in the future if required."

On the substantive point, given that the equipment was in use and continued to be in use with evident success, neither could there be any validity in Mr Lancaster's claim that the equipment was "completely unsuitable for Afghanistan", and especially now that the MoD has committed to buying it.

For sure, we know that MRAP vehicles present problems, demonstrating – as with all things – that there is rarely a perfect, single answer to all eventualities, but we also know equipment such as the Husky has a significant off-road capability.

But, in terms of an "official", or at least semi-official Conservative intervention – as opposed to the "freelance" actions of Ann Winterton and Owen Paterson - Mr Lancaster's offering was the totality of the effort. No official Conservative spokesman ever called for the equipment or questioned its absence, which means that the nearest thing to a Conservative "line", albeit semi-official, was to speak against it.

To say that the Conservative Party "missed a trick" is to put it mildly. With the announcement today of an urgent operation requirement, and DefenceNews writing of the equipment being rushed into service, this speaks volumes for the pressing need for this equipment in theatre.

Yet it was raised formally, in Parliament by Ann Winterton nearly three years ago and we know it was being assessed in November 2006 by the MoD – for how long we do not know. Given the now urgent need – which was no different two and three years ago – for "off-the-shelf" equipment that has been in service with the US forces for over five years, why has it taken so scandalously long for the MoD to procure these machines?

Had the Conservatives been on the ball, they could have made a real issue of it. Given the inexplicable delays in bringing the Buffalo in service, they should have made a real issue of it. Had they done so, now that the equipment is to be introduced, they would have gained the political kudos of having "forced" the government's hand.

Instead, their front-bench team was silent while Mr Lancaster, now a Conservative whip, branded it as "completely unsuitable". So much, incidentally, for "expert" Army officers, doubling as MPs.

As much as is this a measure of the government's failure quickly to bring vital equipment into service, therefore, this is also a failure of the Conservative opposition to recognise the need for it and to press the government for its speedy introduction.

That is but one small example of where the Conservatives so consistently fail as an opposition – to their own disadvantage. They could have been trumpeting a "success". Instead, they have nothing to say. Until they re-learn the art of opposition, there can be little confidence that they are fit for the greater and more demanding task of government.

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