They should not have died

I am sorry if it offends – and it certainly does upset some of the military types, and the "consultants" and designers responsible for the Viking and the decision to deploy it to Afghanistan – but, on the basis of all the evidence we have, Booker and I both have come to the conclusion that Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and Trooper Joshua Hammond should not have died.

That they did die is the greater offence and, while it must always be remembered that the proximate cause was a Taleban bomb, in a cold-blooded act of murder, the neglect of the MoD and all those involved with the deployment of this vehicle is a contributory factor. Thus does Booker in his column today point the finger squarely at the MoD.

From Mick Smith (and others) in The Sunday Times, we get the first published confirmation of that which we had already worked out, that Lt-Col Thorneloe was riding in the front passenger seat of the Viking. With his driver, they were in two of the most vulnerable positions in a dangerously vulnerable vehicle.

In other circumstances, writes Smith, Thorneloe would have travelled by helicopter; but it appears none was available. He notes, however, that the MoD declined to confirm or deny this.

Without this facility, and wanting to "get up among his boys at the first possible opportunity," Thorneloe found that, "A resupply convoy was going up there and he hitched a lift on that." As the Viking approached a canal crossing, it passed over a hidden IED which destroyed the front cab. Thorneloe and the driver, Hammond, died instantly.

The lack of helicopter notwithstanding, if Thorneloe had not been in the vehicle, someone else would have died. And the incident would already have been a footnote in the history of the campaign, blanked out by the operations being mounted, not least the big push by the US Marines further south.

As for the Viking, this was originally produced as an amphibious assault vehicle and delivered to the Royal Marines in 2001, for use in the Arctic Circle as a mobility platform when reinforcing the Nato northern flank, assisting the Norwegians against a Soviet invasion. It was a Cold War machine, designed for a different purpose.

In that role, the question of protection had been considered – and the machine was armoured against ballistic threats. However, within the "Littoral Manoeuvre" parameters set at the time, a decision was made deliberately to skimp on mine protection to save weight. This was to enable the machine to be lifted by a Chinook helicopter and to maintain the amphibious free board clearances.

Before deploying the machine to Afghanistan, the protection levels were reviewed but, despite the known mine threat, the "assumptions about the overall mobility benefits" were considered valid – the ability to swim and be lifted by a Chinook. With no Chinooks actually available to lift these machines, therefore, the Viking went in October 2006 to war dangerously unprotected, simply to maintain its ability to swim through the waters of landlocked Afghanistan.

The original protection level was specified as proof against an explosion of no greater than 500gm under the belly, with a higher resistance to a blast under the track. This was claimed to meet the technical standard known as STANAG 4569, to level 2a – resistant to a 6kg explosion and thus protection against a common Russian anti-tank mine, the TM-46, with a charge weight of 5kg.

However, also present in some numbers in Afghanistan is the Russian TM-62M, with a charge weight of 7kg and fuzes which enable these mines to be detonated against the belly of a vehicle, or by vibration rather than contact, as the vehicle passes over the mine without the wheels or tracks riding over it.


For that reason, the US mine and blast resistance standard – for an underbelly explosion - is set at 7kg, and it is this standard that the British mine protected Mastiff (pictured above) also meets and in fact exceeds a level equivalent to STANAG level 3b.

At that level of protection, no soldier has ever been killed in a Mastiff in either Iraq or Afghanistan, despite being hit by explosives considerably exceeding its stated protection level. Much of that is due not to the blast resistance, as such, but to the v-shaped hull design of the Mastiff, which the Viking also does not have. It is entirely reasonable to assert, therefore, that had Thorneloe and Hammond been riding in a vehicle similarly protected and designed, they would have survived the blast.

However, the reasons for the MoD's neglect in not providing suitable vehicles are complex. Originally, the Viking was Royal Marine equipment, sent to Afghanistan because that was their standard mobility platform, with which they had trained.

So short of high mobility platforms was the Army though, that when the Marines departed after their six-month tour, a decision was made to keep the Vikings in theatre. Had they been withdrawn then, the MoD might just have got away with it, because the Taleban had not yet worked out quite how vulnerable these formidable-looking machines were, and how easily they could be destroyed.

The shortage of vehicles was nothing to do with money – as Booker reminds us in his column. At £700,000 each, Vikings are far from cheap, and neither is their maintenance. What had happened since 2003 was that, in effect, the Army had frozen development or purchase of any new armoured vehicles, while it worked up plans for a £16 billion fleet of high-tech wheeled armoured personnel carriers and other armour to meet Blair's commitment to the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF).

Although faced with a vicious insurgency in Iraq and then Afghanistan, the politicians and the Army were not prepared to spend on new specialist vehicles for these theatres, protecting instead the funding stream for the ERRF equipment.

Without that – had they given the time and attention to the needs of these real wars, instead of the imaginary wars of the future alongside our European "partners" - it would have been perfectly possible, even with limited funding, to have developed a high mobility platform for the Army, with the same protection levels of the Mastiff. That would have allowed the Marines to keep their Vikings for the role for which they were originally designed – amphibious assault.

That this has been the case has been hotly denied by the MoD, which is already facing legal cases over its deployment of the Snatch Land Rover. But the real story is told in Ministry of Defeat, an account "winning warm praise from various serving and former Army officers who recognise only too well what a disgraceful part the MoD has played in two awful military fiascos," writes Booker.

Already, we have been booted out of Iraq by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, after we had so signally failed to carry out the task contracted to us there, and as our troops have been slaughtered in poorly protected vehicles in Afghanistan, on the altar of "European co-operation", it must surely be only a matter of time before we hand over completely to the better-equipped Americans – whose Marines have left their amphibious assault vehicles at home – declare another great "victory" and depart.

In the meantime, in the baking heat and dust of Afghanistan, more soldiers must die. Many more will be seriously injured.

COMMENT THREAD

"No plans for a European Rapid Reaction Force"

That is the latest statement from the MoD, which follows on from our story about the demise of the European Rapid Reaction Force, picked up by Christopher Booker in his column on Sunday, bringing the news to a wider audience.

The clue on which Booker relied was last week's conference on land warfare where Gen Dannatt slipped out in coded form that the Army's £16 billion Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), planned as the centrepiece of Britain's contribution to the European Army (aka the European Rapid Reaction Force), was a dead duck. Without that capacity, the UK is unable to make a meaningful contribution to the ERRF.

Booker's piece provoked an almost immediate response from the MoD, lodging its disagreement on its blog yesterday. In typical style, though, it is unable to resist a sneer, in declaring, "Christopher Booker's article displays a lack of understanding of some basic facts." And, according to the MoD, a crucial area where there is a "lack of understanding" is that "there are no plans for a European Rapid Reaction Force."

If Booker failed to understand this, however, he is not alone. In November 2000, when the definitive plans for the ERRF were announced, The Independent was rather full of it, The Guardian was likewise, adding a special report on the development, and the Tories were very unhappy - so it looks as if they all got it wrong

The deal had in fact been agreed at the European Council meeting held in Helsinki on 10-11 December 1999, with the details fully recorded by a House of Commons Library research paper, so it looks as if they got it wrong as well.

This denialist line, though, is typical of the word games the MoD has been playing for some years. In Jan 2001 for instance, then defence secretary Geoff Hoon was still admitting that it was planned, but stressing, "There is no standing EU Rapid Reaction Force."

Actually, that has been the case from the very beginning. The core of the force was always a planning cell and – eventually – an EU military HQ, with forces and equipment supplied for specific operations by member states. There was never any intention that the ERRF should be a standing force.

By May 2003, however, Hoon was embellishing his statements, adding to the then-established mantra that there was "no standing European rapid reaction force", by declaring, "nor any EU agreement to create one."

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is a tad disingenuous. Certainly, the origin of the ERRF emerged from an agreement between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac at the summit in St Malo in December 1998 but, as Hoon himself stated in May 2003:

Existing national or multinational forces, declared under the Helsinki headline goal, will be made available to the EU on a voluntary, case-by-case basis when required for a crisis management operation. The United Kingdom has made a significant contribution, offering a wide range of capabilities and assets ...

That "Headline Goal", agreed at the Helsinki Council in 1999, was explained by the European Council. It amounted to an agreement by the year 2003 that member states would be able "to deploy rapidly and then sustain forces capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty, including the most demanding, in operations up to corps level (up to 15 brigades or 50,000-60,000 persons)."

It was agreed that these forces should be militarily self-sustaining with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and additionally, as appropriate, air and naval elements.

Furthermore, the member states should be able to deploy in full at this level within 60 days, and within this to provide smaller rapid response elements available and deployable at very high readiness. They had to be able to sustain such a deployment for at least one year, a commitment that would require an additional pool of deployable units (and supporting elements) at lower readiness to provide replacements for the initial forces.

Thus, the "Headline Goal" was, by any other name, the European Rapid Reaction Force.

Inevitably, there was no prospect whatsoever of meeting this ambitious target by 2003 and that proved to be the case. Thus, at the June 2004 European Council, a new "Headline Goal 2010" was formally adopted. Then, and now, the ERRF concept was not formally abandoned but the "colleagues" introduced the more realistic target of creating "battlegroups" of 1,500 effectives, deployable on 15 days notice, initially for 30 days with a capability to extend to 120 days.

Thereby it came to pass that, on 3 February this year, the Baroness Taylor was felt able to declare, "there is no European rapid reaction force". Strictly speaking, that was true. The EU's immediate capability is limited to fielding a maximum of two battlegroups, a capability that Taylor acknowledged.

On the following day though, then defence secretary John Hutton responded to a written parliamentary question from Liam Fox on the EU Rapid Reaction Force, asking "what the UK contribution is to the 50,000 to 60,000 person military force."

The answer, in accordance with the MoD line, was again that "there is no EU Rapid Reaction Force". But, giving the game away, Hutton added that the UK "continues to support the Helsinki Headline Goal that all EU member states agreed to in 1999, which calls for EU member states to be able to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least one year military forces of up to 50,000 to 60,000 persons capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks."

In other words, the ERRF lives on as a concept, still supported by the UK. The MoD nevertheless continues to play its games, its credibility declining with every utterance it makes.

Nevertheless, the new reality – as enunciated by Dannatt last week – is that, four months after Hutton's declaration, the ERRF can exist on paper only as far as the UK is concerned. The loss of FRES makes it so.

As to FRES, the MoD denies it was ever planned to be the centrepiece of our EU contribution. That is as credible as the denials on the ERRF. Central to the whole concept of the force was that it would rely on an air-portable medium weight formation, a capacity that the British Army lacked and intended to fill with the procurement of the FRES medium weight family of armoured vehicles (example pictured – top).

That much was declared in the Defence White Paper of 2003, when the ERRF project was still live.

Then it was announced that, "To increase our flexibility in responding to crises (as in Petersberg Tasks), a new set of medium weight forces will be developed, offering a high level of deployability (including by air), together with much greater levels of mobility and protection than are currently available to light forces." This was to be "based on the Future Rapid Effects System family of vehicles."

Buried in the text also was the injunction that, "We must ensure that we continue to play a leading part in the development of NATO and EU (through ESDP) capabilities better configured to conduct expeditionary operations outside Europe." Our Armed Forces, we were told, "will continue to be prepared and equipped to lead and act as the framework nation for ESDP or similar ad hoc coalitions' operations where the US is not participating."

The two together tell the tale. In denying it, the MoD is fooling only itself. But the irony is that, while plans for the ERRF remain – contradicting the latest statement – Baroness Taylor and Hutton had it right in February. The ERRF does not exist.

COMMENT THREAD

Idiot abroad

Ultimately, in a parliamentary democracy, the buck stops … in parliament. However powerful a government might think itself to be, it lives and dies by permission of parliament, which can bring it down with one vote of confidence.

Short of that nuclear option, the day-to-day work of scrutinising government is – or should be – carried out by the select committees. They are the bodies that really get down to detail, call the witnesses and examine the documents, producing at great expense detailed reports which, themselves often provide the basis of debates on the floor of the House. That is how the system works … or should do. Except it doesn't – not, at least when it comes to the Defence Committee.

One should not resort to ad hominem attacks when making a case, but the character of a select committee is most often determined by its chairman. With a strong, intelligent head, a committee can be a powerful force. Unfortunately, the opposite applies, so the effectiveness of a committee is very much a matter of personalities. Perhaps that should not be the case, but it is.

And in the chairmanship of the defence committee, we are singularly ill-served by having in the Rt Hon James Arbuthnot a irredeemable idiot – a man who, given an open goal and a ball five feet from it, would punt it in the wrong direction and look for applause.

Therefore, in reviewing "his" 206-page report on "Defence Equipment 2009" – and it is very much a personal production – there is no need to go into any very great detail. The man does not know what he is talking about, has not bothered to find out and has thus spouted reams of drivel that is of little importance and, in the longer term, will have no impact at all.

That is actually the tragedy. There is very much wrong with defence procurement – which is at the heart of this report – and a great deal needs to be said. There is much which needs to be made good. This is what the Rt Hon James Arbuthnot should be addressing. Instead, he has kicked the ball in the wrong direction, and is now appealing to the crowd for applause.

Such that has come his way – and it is very limited, with only two newspapers having really bothered to dissect his work – has focused mainly on his comments on FRES. This is unsurprising given Mr Arbuthnot's choice of phrasing. With an eye to the headlines, he labels it a "fiasco", complaining that "some seven months after announcing General Dynamics UK as the provisional preferred bidder for the FRES Utility Vehicle, the MoD has announced that priority is now to be given to the FRES Scout Vehicle."

Expanding on that, Mr Arbuthnot then tells us:

Whilst we recognise that the MoD's equipment requirements need to reflect changing threats, that is no excuse for the MoD's behaviour in the FRES programme; they have wasted their and industry's time and money. The FRES Utility Vehicle programme was, from the outset, poorly conceived and managed.

We do not need to rehearse in detail the history of the FRES programme, as we have done it recently in three linked pieces here, here and here. All we need to say is that it was – and is – an intensely political project, aimed at equipping the British Army for its role in the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), stemming from the 2003 Defence White Paper.

It always was a fantasy project, wrong in conception, ill-defined from the very start and impossible to achieve. As a result, the MoD has been saddled with something which, from the outset it, it never had a chance of delivering. And, finally, through a long series of steps, it has bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the project.

The direct loss, so we are told, is £130 million, to which we must add at least another £200 million (but probably a great deal more) in cancellation costs for previous projects which stretch back to 1987, when the idea of a wheeled utility vehicle was first seriously mooted.

By that reckoning, well over £300 million has been spent on not acquiring something that the Army does not need, and should not even have attempted to buy. Inasmuch as the MoD has now, once again, recognised this, it something, although it has cost us dear.

That it is now focusing on buying a much-needed replacement for the 35-year-old CVR(T)s is also something. The likelihood is that we will have to buy something off-the-shelf, which is what we should have done years ago, at considerably less cost than we will have to face now.

The trouble is that, without confronting the political background to FRES, and without looking at the project in the round, it is impossible to make sense of it. Thus, Mr Arbuthnot does not make sense of it. He looks as a small segment of the recent history, on the basis of limited and highly selective evidence, and then pontificates.

This is the very worst of the select committee system in practice. Dominated by a man who is incapable of understanding what is going on, and seems determine to avoid looking at the real needs of the Armed Forces, he condemns the MoD for wasting their and industry's time and money.

What he has actually done is waste our time and money, in failing even to begin to address the real issues, a task for which he is handsomely paid yet does not deliver. Perhaps one should think about cancelling Mr Arbuthnot.

COMMENT THREAD

Lost before it started – Part 4

The earlier parts deal with the emergence of the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) and the Army's response to it – how this led to a "major restructuring" of the Army which took precedence over the war in Iraq, condemning troops to using second-hand equipment while the General dreamed of their powerful new "toys".

We also saw how, as the strategic situation in Afghanistan deteriorated, the fantasy collided with reality and Gen Dannatt was forced to concede that the Army would have to be equipped to fight the real war. In this part, we have a look at the "fantasy Army" as might have been, and find it still casts a long shadow over the operational capabilities of the Army.

FRES and counter-insurgency

Had FRES, as originally conceived, ever been put to the test in a counter-insurgency environment, it would have been a disaster. Based on detecting the enemy before it could get close enough to do any damage, the concept was dangerously wrong.

Insurgents, as is generally known, are not always obliging enough to wear uniforms and drive around in hardware conveniently painted in military colours. Indistinguishable from the civilian population in which they operate, they rely on cheap weapons, immune to the high-tech sensors and the billion-pound weapons systems.

A man with an RPG bought in the local arms bazaar for a few dollars or with two 152mm artillery shells taped together which he can bury by the roadside can get inside the "sensor loop". He can destroy equipment worth tens of millions of pounds, kill and injure soldiers and civilians and make the "battlefield" untenable.

As to the Army structure required for FRES, this was also antithesis of that needed to conduct a successful counter-insurgency. With Gen Jackson's Future Army Structure, the requirement was for highly specialised mechanised infantry, endowed with a very high level of technical skills and capable of operating sophisticated electronic equipment and advanced weapons systems.

Crucially, proficiency required an equally high level of training, plus constant rehearsals and exercises, all to keep skills current and maintain unit cohesion – especially given the relatively high churn rate in the infantry and the low skill base of recruits.

Breaking the Army

In such an Army, training is a full-time job and one which cannot be neglected. So specialised is the task that training and deployment for entirely different counter-insurgency tasks, in two different theatres, could not help but impose enormous strains on a relatively small Army. It was this, more than anything to which Dannatt was referring when he complained of Iraq plus Afghanistan breaking his Army.

It was not the operations themselves which caused the problem. Maintaining what amounted to two reinforced brigades in the field, even with manpower levels under 100,000, should have presented no insuperable difficulties. It was operations, plus the pressing need to maintain the "normal" training cycle – to maintain his "balanced force", as Dannatt liked to call it – which caused the problem.

That problem had been considerably exacerbated by the current roulement system, where complete units are rotated into theatre for six months, before being returned. With gaps between each operational deployment of two years under the so-called "harmony guidelines", this created a planning nightmare.

But the greater problem was the six months needed for the specialist pre-deployment training that each unit needed, and the period of "deprogramming" required afterwards. Cramming in the "proper" training, for the FRES/balanced force capability, and then having to rebuild the skill sets and currency after they have been lost during operational deployments and their training cycles were extremely problematical.

Depending on the view taken, either this requirement was breaking the back of the Army, or the operational load was doing the damage. Dannatt believed it was the latter.

In that sense, FRES – and the commitment to the ERRF – cast a long shadow. It overstressed an Army that could perhaps have performed one function well, but could not cope with two entirely different and mutually incompatible tempos. There lay a further element to the defeat in Iraq.

Forced to choose between losing the war and, in his terms, irrevocably damaging his Army – not that it was put in such blunt terms – Dannatt made what appeared to be a soldier's choice. His Army came first. In fact, it was a bureaucrat's choice. The Army as an object had become more important than the tasks it was to perform. There is even a name for this – it is called self-maintenance.

Dannatt's precious Piranhas

As to the FRES vehicles, Dannatt's precious Piranhas, clearly they would have provided better protection than Snatch Land Rovers. But they would probably have been no greater a success than the Warriors they would have replaced – i.e., less effective than dedicated MRAP vehicles. Here, it is possible to gain some first-hand indications as to how they would actually have performed for, while the British abandoned the FFLAV idea, the Canadian forces did not.

They introduced the earlier version of the Piranha as the LAV (light armoured vehicle) which – in its numerous variants - forms the backbone of their armoured formations. And with the Canadian deployment to Afghanistan also went their LAVs.

There is no reliable information on casualty rates relative to specific vehicles. The Canadians adopted as a formal policy that which exists informally in the British Army, that of declining to identify the vehicles involved in incidents, fatal or otherwise. However, before information dried up, it was evident that a considerable and distressing number of LAVs had been involved in attacks in which one or more crew members had died.

What also appeared to be the case was that the bulk – if not all – of the casualties occurred on roads, where the vehicles were either in transit to or from operations, or on escort duties. In most cases, they were travelling with their armoured hatches open, either to improve visibility (and ventilation) or – in accordance with standing orders – to relieve overpressure in the event of a hull breach from a mine or IED.

This can be more dangerous in the confines of an armoured vehicle than direct blast effects. For whatever reason, most of the casualties involved either drivers or vehicle commanders, these being in the most exposed positions. Although more heavily armoured, there is no reason to suppose that the crews of later mark Piranhas would not suffer the same fate. They are not mine-protected to anything like the same extent as a dedicated MRAPs and do not provide all-round, enclosed protection.

There are also the experimental Stryker Brigades deployed by the US Army in Iraq, these too being based on the Piranha platform. These are perhaps closer to the model which the British vehicles would have followed, as the Brigades were set up to develop the Future Combat System (FCS), the closest parallel to FRES. Their performance is a matter of considerable debate – and dispute. The consensus, if there is one, lies in the view that the "jury is still out".

However, there have been reports of considerable losses. A single infantry company in Diyala province lost five Strykers in less than a week. In one of the biggest hits, six American soldiers and a journalist were killed when a huge bomb exploded beneath their Stryker on 6 May 2007. It was the biggest one-day loss for the battalion in more than two years.

It is perhaps significant that Gen Petraeus did not seek to expand the Stryker force when implementing the surge, and that MRAP vehicles now perform many of the functions previously carried out by Strykers. On that basis, the experience does not provide a comforting assurance that British deployment of Piranhas would have been successful.

The ultimate irony though is that FRES had been killed off by the very insurgency it was never meant to fight. Recognising the inherent vulnerability of FRES vehicles, designers had sought to bolt more and more armour on them, and added more systems, in a vain attempt to proof them against IEDs. They are now so heavy that they cannot be carried by standard military transport aircraft. The concept is no longer viable – not that it ever was.

COMMENT THREAD

Lost before it started - Part 3

In Part 1, we saw that Tony Blair had committed the bulk of the UK's long-term deployable forces to the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). Part 2 saw the 2003 Defence White Paper, heralding a "major restructuring" of the Army and the official emergence of FRES, in order to meet the commitment – just at a time when the Army was taking on the occupation of Iraq and needed to keep its options open.

We also saw the Army enthusiastically embrace the restructuring, using it to reactivate an 80s equipment project and acquire a fleet of new armoured vehicles. General Sir Mike Jackson then started reshaping the infantry to accommodate the new equipment – even though it would not be available for many years. With this going on, the war in Iraq took second place, the Army there having to make do with 14-year-old second-hand Land Rovers.

In this Part 3, we see a new Chief of the General Staff take over – General Sir Richard Dannatt. But the madness goes on.

A new broom

When General Sir Richard Dannatt took over as Chief of the General Staff from Jackson in August 2006, the war in Iraq was at a critical phase. The "repositioning" in al Amarah was imminent and the violence in Basra was reaching fever pitch.

Rather than grip the situation, however, he shared the lack of enthusiasm for mine-protected vehicles displayed by his predecessor. During the intense debates through the Browne review, he was "barely visible". He did, on the other hand, inherit Jackson's enthusiasm for "FRES".

As the Army – predictably - failed to grapple with the insurgency, it was Dannatt turned away from Iraq and looked to the fresher fields of Afghanistan. There, he thought, the highly mobile warfare was more like the war the Army wanted to fight. Facetiously, one might say that they didn't like the war they were in, so he looked around for another, better one.

Ostensibly, the Afghan war presented a tactical opportunity for deploying a medium-weight, mobile force. This allowed Dannatt to continue his advocacy of FRES – more accurately FFLAV - which he did at any and every opportunity. In early 2007 it looked as if the project was coming "unstuck", with suggestions that the first vehicles would not enter service until 2017.

A different route

By mid-2007, the United States was taking a different route. Similarly afflicted by the scourge of the improvised explosive device (IED), newly appointed Defense Secretary Robert Gates kick-started a massive re-equipment programme, supplying what was to become a flood of what were called Mine Protected Ambush Resistant (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq. As the programme moved into high gear, eventually furnishing over 10,000 new vehicles, Gates identified it as his "highest priority".

The British Army, with Dannatt at its head, having rejected the opportunity to embark on a similar re-equipment programme, had grudgingly accepted a token number of 100 MRAP-type vehicles – the Mastiff – split between the two theatres of Iraq and Afghanistan.

It had also pushed, as a condition for accepting the limited number of MRAPs, a new type of patrol vehicle, the Vector, which was not mine-protected. It was to replace the vulnerable Snatch Land Rover in Afghanistan, yet was even more dangerous than the vehicle it replaced. Overall, therefore, while the US was systematically increasing the level of protection for its troops, the British Army was doing the opposite.

With Gates identifying MRAP as his "highest priority", Dannatt on the other hand declared FRES his "highest equipment priority". He was determined, he said, "that we will make this programme a timely success - it is at the heart of the future Army".

It was not a "future army". It was one which rested on an operational concept settled twenty years earlier for a war on another continent against a different enemy. Likely, it was based on doctrines that were even older, dreamed up by long-retired generals from a different age.

Nevertheless, by July 2007, Dannatt was insisting that "FRES" should acquire an in-service date of 2012. This, he said, was "non-negotiable". In October, a shortlist of three vehicle types was settled. One was the Piranha. Another was the MRAV.

But there was no longer even a pretence that this was FRES. It was what the Army had always intended it should be - a straight purchase of a new armoured vehicle. Predictably, the favourite was the Piranha. This was a later version of the very same vehicle which the Army had picked for FFLAV. In twenty years, the Army had gone full circle – its dreams were within a whisker of fulfilment.

The trials of truth

There was absolutely no doubt about the Army's determination to acquire the Piranha. To meet the notional and still vague requirements for FRES, General Dynamics, the manufacturers, had offered a "paper upgrade" of the then current version. The MoD in 2007 then launched a "competition" to select it, known as the "trials of truth". The Piranha, predictably, "ticked all the boxes". The paper vehicle completely met the paper specification.

Up against it, as the third of the triumvirate in the competition, was the Nexter VBCI, very similar in concept to the Piranha. However, unlike the Piranha VI – as it was to be called – the VBCI was a real vehicle, in production and entering service with the French Army.

The manufacturers of the VBCI, formerly the state-owned Giat Industries, were very keen to secure a prestige British order. So keen were they that they later prevailed upon the French government to agree to modify its own delivery programme to release sufficient vehicles to equip a British battle group.

Thus, not only was the VBCI a real vehicle, it was available for delivery in 2011 – at a fixed price. It was the only equipment that could have permitted the MoD to meet Dannatt's preferred in-service date. In fact, it could have come into service before his deadline.

Rigging the results

In the "trials of truth", real vehicle met paper specifications - and it had passed almost all the requirements, proving 95 percent compliant. This was not what the Army wanted. Out on the testing ground, therefore, diligent MoD officials managed to fail it on a number of arcane requirements.

One such "failure" was the speed with which an engine could be changed in field. The company had been judged on a leisurely demonstration which had not been part of the competition, despite evidence of controlled tests which proved that the specification could be exceeded.

Such was the determination that the vehicle would fail that a general specification unique to the British Army was also applied. This was the "ground running test", a legacy of an Army that had become used to dealing with the unreliable tank engines with which it had historically been provided.

Before fitting it to a tank in the field, a replacement power pack had to be capable of being set up on the ground, with the necessary fuel and electrical connections, in order for it to run. This was to avoid having to commit the labour to installing the engine, only to find that it did not work.

With the VBCI being fitted with a modified commercial truck engine produced by Renault, with hundreds of millions of miles behind it, Nexter thought such a provision unnecessary.

Furthermore, French Army doctrine did not require it. With a light, wheeled armoured vehicle, the preference was to recover the vehicle and tow it to a field workshop rather than replace a failed engine in situ. Thus, there was no provision for ground running.

Had it been considered, the engineering modifications to allow it would have been simple and cheap to provide. But, as submitted for the "trials of truth", the equipment lacked this element. Thus was the VBCI failed, despite protestations that modifications could and would be made before any vehicle went into service.

The Piranha VI, of course, had a provision for ground running – on paper. And by such means the paper Piranha triumphed. But for this, even within its own published terms, the Army could have had its FRES utility vehicle. It would have been a Nexter VBCI. This was not acceptable. Twenty years previously, the Army had set its heart on the Piranha. Wish fulfilment was more important than operational capability.

Climbing down

Unconscious of the history and clearly unaware of the recent background to vehicle procurement decisions, Michael Evans of The Times noted the "delay" in procuring "FRES". He thus opined that, to fill the gap, “the MoD has had to spend £120 million to buy 200 Mastiff and Vector armoured personnel carriers off the shelf to provide sufficient protection.”

That represented the extent of media understanding of what had been – and was then still - one of the most closely-fought battles on equipment in recent times, a battle that had stretched back over twenty years. The lack of understanding extended even to the failure to distinguish between the Mastiff and the Vector.

Unsurprisingly, when the Piranha was selected in May 2008 as the preferred design for FRES – as only it could have been - very few noted the subtle change in Dannatt's position.

From being his "highest equipment priority", FRES had become his "highest priority after support to operations." The born-again FFLAV was slipping through his fingers. As the campaign in Afghanistan was bogging down, with the proliferation of the IED increasingly hampering mobility - as it had done in Iraq - even Dannatt was having to concede that the Army would have to be equipped to fight the real war.

In February 2009 – just short of a year later - then Foreign Secretary David Miliband was freely acknowledging that the Taleban had managed to create "a strategic stalemate" in parts of Afghanistan, "through their use of improvised explosive devices".

What had happened in Iraq had come to pass in Afghanistan. More than two years earlier, Conservative back-bencher Anne Winterton had suggested in the House of Commons that this was precisely what would happen. The fantasy Army had collided with reality. For Iraq, it was too late.

COMMENT THREAD

Lost before it started – Part 2

In Part 1, we saw how in 1998 and the following year, Tony Blair agreed to commit the bulk of the UK's deployable Armed Forces to the European Rapid Response Force (ERRF) – 12,500 personnel plus ships and aircraft and supporting elements. This in turn led to the 2003 Defence White Paper in which the Government announced a "major restructuring" of the Army, with a shift in emphasis from light to medium Brigades, based around based around the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) family of vehicles. This was to be Britain's contribution to the ERRF.

At a time when very time when the Army was only in the first months of its occupation of Iraq, it needed to keep its options open. Instead, it was committing its intellectual, planning and financial resources to introducing an entirely new and untried system, one which had no relevance to counter-insurgency operations. In this second part, we look at how the Army reacted and, in particular, the response of the then newly appointed Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson.

The Army response

Whether the military could have resisted the ERRF is debatable. Certainly, the political pressure for delivery was very strong. Relations between the UK and most of the rest of her EU "partners" had been seriously strained in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Post-invasion, not only did Blair want to re-build bridges, he needed European Union support for a UN mandate to endorse the occupation. He also had hopes of member states joining the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. Active UK participation in ERRF preparations was necessary to send a positive signal to Brussels.

However, there is no evidence that there was any strong resistance in the Army, the implementation of which became the responsibility of the newly appointed Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson. He was not necessarily enthusiastic about the European "project" and, in fact, warned that no army could operate properly without "clear political authority". But the idea of a "major restructuring", with the prospect of substantial funding for new equipment, was extremely attractive. An in-service date of 2009 was declared for FRES, in good time to be ready for service with the ERRF.

A fantasy Army

Whatever the political deadline, the very idea of introducing FRES in five years – or at all – was fantasy. It was not even within the remotest realms of possibility. In 2001, enthusiasts in the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency had not expected operational readiness for at least 25 years.

Much of the technology needed did not exist. No one was even sure what it was, or what its final form might be. Gregory Fetter, a senior land-warfare analyst, had observed: "It's like trying to grab a cloud of smoke." Whatever it was, there were serious doubts as to whether it was at all feasible. MP Nicholas Soames complained of defence workers who had for the past two years "been anxiously awaiting a decision from the Government [on the FRES vehicle] … for which there is not yet even a drawing."

Nevertheless, there were early clues to signal quite how important the project had become to the Army. Despite the completely unrealistic in-service date of 2009, the Army was strongly opposed to "stop-gap" solutions. This was forcibly put by Lt Gen Rob Fulton to the Commons Defence Committee in May 2004. He had been asked whether, if there going to be a delay in getting FRES, an option would be to buy something off-the-shelf for a short period to fill the capability gap. His response left no room for doubt:

It is an option but from my perspective it would be a very unattractive option because it would divert much needed funds either from FRES or from some other programme. In other words, it would be a dead end capability. It would be a stopgap but it would be a dead end.

This, writ large, was the real reason for the opposition to the Mastiff and any other MRAP-type vehicles when they were offered to the Army in 2006, in a bid to stem the growing toll of casualties from poorly protected Snatch Land Rovers.

Mastiffs and the like were a "stopgap" – a "dead end capability". More dangerously, they could "divert much needed funds … from FRES"”. Thereby, the Army was prepared to reject much-needed equipment to deal with a real war, in favour of a fantasy project. At least in 1915 when the Army had rejected the tank, it had done so to favour its existing capability – the cavalry. But here, the Army seemed determined to reject real equipment in favour of a fantasy, the shape and nature of which appeared to be unknown.

Even the price ticket was fantasy. Originally slated at £6 billion for 900 vehicles, in a sparsely attended Westminster Hall debate held at the end of June 2005, Ann Winterton was shocked to hear Defence Minister Don Touhig read from a prepared speech that 3,500 vehicles were planned. The cost had risen to £14 billion. After the debate, Touhig had expressed surprise – he had seen the figure for the first time while he had been reading it out. Later, the price increased to £16 billion. There does not seem to have been a formal announcement. It just appeared. One day, it was fourteen, the next £16 billion.

Jackson gets down to work

Despite this – or perhaps because of the huge price ticket - Gen Jackson set about reorganising the Army with vigour. The existing structure of the Infantry, based on what was known as the "Arms Plot", did need reform. It was wasteful, inefficient and disruptive. But Jackson's "Future Army Structure" went far beyond what was necessary.

In a space of three years, he refashioned the Army to make it conform with the FRES/ERRF concept. He set out to create a highly specialised force of mechanised infantry, in so doing discarding four infantry battalions, relying on the dividend gained from the supposedly more effective FRES formations.

He then restructured the rest of the infantry, abolishing most of the traditional regiments in the process. This led to a huge outcry about the loss of "cap badges" but never once did it impinge on the public debate that the restructuring was being carried out to enable the Army to fit the ERRF concept.

This was one of the most egregious failures of the media and the political classes. While complaining vociferously about the loss of traditional regiments, and the loss of four infantry Battalions, neither questioned the underlying assumptions and plans which were driving the changes. The ERRF - and FRES - became towering elephants in the room.

A different agenda

While he pursued his task of bringing FRES to fruition, there is no evidence that Gen Jackson actually understood what was involved. He would not have been the only one. But nor is there any evidence that he was concerned at all with the idea of FRES. There was a hidden agenda – the real agenda. Very quickly in Army circles, the term had morphed into the "FRES family of medium armoured vehicles" (FFMAV), which was highly revealing.

This harped back to the 1980s when the Army had been planning a range of armoured vehicles on a common chassis to replace equipment such as the wheeled Saladin APC, the tracked Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle and others. To that effect, it had unveiled as an "aspiration" in 1987 the Future Family of Light Armoured Vehicles (FFLAV). As is so often the case with defence procurement projects, this project was shelved, but not before a preferred option had been identified, the Swiss-designed Piranha, multi-role armoured personnel carrier, a platform which could be adapted to meet a variety of needs.

Some of the project's intended functions were incorporated in a 1996 joint UK/US project, called by the British "TRACER". In 2001, the British Government pulled out, losing its stake of £131 million. It then poured money into a consortium with Germany and Holland to produce the Multi Role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV), very similar in concept to the original FFLAV project.

However, in 2003, the UK also pulled out of that, with a loss of (at least) £48 million. This left the Army having spent probably more than £200 million on not replacing its medium-weight armoured capability. In FRES came the opportunity to revisit the original project. FFLAV became FFMAV. All that had changed was one letter. The Army was hankering after old dreams.

Good enough for Iraq

With such a glittering prize so close, after nearly 20 years of frustration and hundreds of millions in wasted expenditure, it is hardly surprising that when a need emerged in late 2003 for new equipment in Iraq, Gen Jackson should have taken an easy option. Neither willing nor able even to consider something more suitable for fear of prejudicing his treasured project, he had raided the stores in Northern Ireland and despatched surplus Snatch Land Rovers.

A "stopgap" was not good enough for the real Army - the ERRF - but it was good enough for the Army in Iraq. They could make do with 14-year-old, second-hand Land Rovers. Thus equipped, the occupation Army was to lose the war, for which 38 soldiers - in Iraq and Afghanistan were to pay for with their lives in these vulnerable vehicles, with many more injured.

Meanwhile, Jackson turned his attention back to the object of his affection, a project which to outsiders seemed so vague that "a cloud of smoke" had more substance. It was not so vague inside the Army. It was a dream about to come true. In pursuing it, Jackson, his staff - and the politicians behind him who allowed it - condemned the Army in Iraq to impotence, with all the consequences that followed.

COMMENT THREAD

Lost before it started - Part 1

For nearly five years now, we have been following the serpentine twists and turns of defence politics, initially charting the UK's progress towards European defence integration, with a very strong interest in equipment and procurement matters, and then, inceasingly, the progress of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a way we could not even have begun to imagine when we started, all these issues are intimately related. Drawing all the separate threads together, however, has been a complex and time-consuming affair. Only now that we have done so are we able to tell the story of how the first two led inexorably and inevitably to the defeat of the British Army in Iraq.

In a seven-part analysis - which we will post over this and the next six days - we will tell the story as it unfolded, starting with the political machinations which set off the process.

The beginning

The Army may have been defeated in Iraq. Yet the battle was actually lost in St Malo, France, and in Whitehall, specifically, in the portals of the MoD. It was lost before it had even started.

There were many reasons why the Army could have lost the counter-insurgency war, not least because of the tardy recognition of the fact of an organised Shi'a insurgency. But one of the main reasons was the Army's failure to re-equip, in order to deal with the weapons and tactics of the principal enemy in Iraq, the Mahdi Army. But, in seeking to re-equip, the Army had two more dangerous enemies: Tony Blair and its own High Command.

The shadow of Europe

Tony Blair did for the Army 1998, ten years before its final defeat in Basra. It was then that he met Jacques Chirac, then French President, in St Malo, France, for a summit on defence co-operation. It was there – and in Helsinki the following year – that Blair pledged to work towards building a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF).

This was to be a Europe-wide force of 15 Brigades or about 50,000-60,000 troops, capable of intervening rapidly in a crisis. It was to be deployable within 60 days at a distance of 2,500 miles and sustainable in the field for a year. In order to maintain such a force, with rotating replacements, the actual manpower requirement was closer to 180,000. In addition, there would need to be home-based supporting elements and logistic support.

The potential British contribution included up to 12,500 troops, 72 combat aircraft and 18 warships, with a full range of supporting capabilities. Blair was in effect committing the bulk of the UK's long-term deployable forces to the venture – considerably more than he was to commit to the occupation of Iraq.

The immediate effect was to usher in an obvious but undeclared – and frequently denied – policy of "Europe first" in procurement issues, all aimed at securing the harmonisation and "inter-operability" of European forces. Through that, billions of pounds was wasted on European-sourced equipment which could have been obtained better and more cheaply elsewhere.

This was to cast a shadow over the defence budget, focusing procurement on high value projects which soaked up funds and reduced the ability of the MoD to respond to changing circumstances. Its main political priority became to equip the British component of the ERRF.

The effect on the Army

For the Army, the effect was dramatic. The ERRF embodied what was called the "expeditionary" concept, but with a difference. Because of the requirement for speed of deployment over distance, it needed a highly mobile, air-portable armoured force. This was a capability which the British Army completely lacked.

However, the requirement for air-mobility created huge technical problems. Currently available military transport aircraft (the C-130 Hercules being taken as the standard) imposed severe restrictions on dimensions, particularly height. Crucially their lifting capabilities restricted vehicle weights to around 20 tons.

Yet those same vehicles, once deployed, might be expected to confront main battle tanks three times their weight, with far thicker armour, and defeat them. To square the circle, an entirely new military concept emerged. This was not a vehicle as such, but a system. Actually, it was even more than that. It was a "system of systems." In British military circles, it became known as the Future Rapid Effects System or FRES.

The Future Rapid Effects System

FRES was a break from the established principles of relying on armoured vehicles which themselves relied on a compromise between protection, mobility and firepower. It added a fourth dimension – "situational awareness", the new religion in military thinking. This would be achieved by flooding the battlefield with advanced electronic and other sensors, including those fitted to a new generation of vehicles.

They would all be linked together by a vast electronic communications network – the military equivalent of the internet. It would allow commanders right down to the level of a four-man patrol to have a perfect overview of the battlefield. Instantaneous communication with all other units would be possible, allowing sharing of information and enabling the co-ordination of actions. In theory, the enemy could then be detected at a distance.

At that point, the final element came into play – an array of precision-guided, stand-off weapons which could be used to neutralise hostile forces before they came close enough to inflict damage to the lightly protected vehicles deployed.

This became the Holy Grail, the search for which was shared by most other Western armies and by US forces which were working on their own version called the Future Combat System (FCS).

Such ventures were of course welcomed by the military-industrial complex. It saw in the various projects opportunities for lucrative development and production contracts. There was also another dividend anticipated. The technology was seen as a "force multiplier", allowing the "effects" to be achieved with a vastly smaller number of men. It reduced the cost of maintaining large standing armies and the difficulties most nations were experiencing in recruiting enough personnel for their largely volunteer forces.

A major restructuring

Absent entirely from the UK's Strategic Review of 1998, FRES was nevertheless enthusiastically embraced by the former Member of the European Parliament Geoff Hoon. In October 1999, he had been appointed Secretary of State for Defence. Despite that, no immediate progress was made. Attention was consumed by 11 September 2001 and the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the events afterwards. These culminated in the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 and the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.

In May 2004, though, even as British forces in Iraq were about to confront the Mahdi Army uprising, the European Union's General Affairs and External Relations Council was kick-starting the ERRF. It delivered what were known as the "Headline Goals 2010". These were subsequently endorsed by the European Council of 17 and 18 June 2004. They were both a "shopping list" of equipment required to fill capability gaps and a deadline set for the completion of the ERRF, the member states undertaking to be ready by 2010 to carry out "military rapid response operations".

In anticipation of meeting the UK commitment, there had already emerged in the Defence White Paper of July 2003 completely new plans for "a major restructuring of the Army". There would be a "shift in emphasis to light and medium weight forces" based around the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) family of vehicles. Three brigades would be equipped.

This was the British element of the ERRF, introduced at the very time when the Army, only in the first months of its occupation of Iraq, needed to keep its options open. Instead, it was committing its intellectual, planning and financial resources to a "major restructuring" involving an entirely new and untried system. With such a huge commitment, restructuring to meet the demands of a counter-insurgency campaign was not only inconceivable. It was beyond the financial resources of the Army and its organisational capabilities.

COMMENT THREAD

Lovely new aircraft carrier, sir...

"Money is squandered on equipment that is useless in either Iraq or Afghanistan - or in any foreseeable theatre," writes Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times today, under the heading, "Lovely new aircraft carrier, sir, but we're fighting in the desert".

For such heresy, he gets a good kicking on the unofficial army forum, not least as some of the posters are able to pick him up on points of detail which dilute the effect of his comments.

For instance, they say, in the early days of the Afghan conflict when the infrastructure to support large numbers of land-base combat aircraft did not exist, troops relied for their close air support on US carriers out in the Indian Ocean. Even today, US Navy and Marine carrier-based airpower continue to provide support in Afghanistan, with a little help from the USAF which suppliers the air tankers.

Where all these critics go wrong, however, is that, in picking on the details, they miss the main point of Jenkins's piece – that money is indeed being squandered. Here, Jenkins has a certain amount of insider information, which he shares with us. He writes:

What is clear is that this government made a colossal error on coming to power in 1997-8. In the Strategic Defence Review (on whose lay committee I served), George Robertson, the then defence secretary, and John Reid and John Gilbert, his junior ministers, flatly refused an open discussion. Having been told to "think the unthinkable", the review's authors were told that the three biggest and most contentious procurement items inherited from the Tories were sacred.

They were the Eurofighter project (£15-£20 billion), the new aircraft carriers (£4 billion) and their frigate escorts, and a replacement for the Trident missile and its submarines (£20 billion). These pet projects of the Royal Navy and RAF were protected so new Labour would not appear soft on defence. There was no consideration given to the equipment needs of Tony Blair's more interventionist foreign policy. The government decided, in effect, to pretend that it was still fighting the Russians (and possibly the Germans).

Those decisions locked the procurement budget for more than a decade. Above all they shut out the army, on which British defence activity has depended ever since. The army’s unglamorous but urgent need for battlefield helicopters and armoured personnel carriers was ignored. So, too, were supplies of such things as grenade launchers, field radios, body armour and night-vision equipment. This year the Eurofighter, carrier and Trident projects all came on stream at £5 billion annually between them and the defence budget has hit the predictable wall.

This historical perspective raises interesting questions, as to whether in 1997 the newly appointed Labour government had really thought about defence, other than in terms of avoiding criticism from entrenched lobbies and side-stepping a protected political fight.

However, Jenkins does rather seem to neglect the effect of the St. Malo agreement in December 1998, when Blair – amongst other things committed to ensuring that, between them, the French and British governments would have one battle-ready aircraft carrier group at sea at all times.

With the parallel commitment to the ERRF, primarily dedicated to expeditionary warfare, this – as much as anything – set in stone many of the expensive procurement projects which are currently dragging down the defence budget.

Although Jenkins avers: "There was no consideration given to the equipment needs of Tony Blair's more interventionist foreign policy," at that early stage there is no sign that Blair had then formulated what was to become the defining policy of his tenure. In fact, it was his "European" policy, as well as the carry-over of Conservative-initiated policies, that is creating many of the current problems.

Whatever their genesis, however, Jenkins is undoubtedly right when he states that, whenever "cuts" are in prospect, "The first to howl are the chiefs of staff." Thus, he tells us:

It is customary at such times for them to stand as one, arms linked like Roman legions in a square. Yet they will never adjudicate on priorities. An admiral will not doubt (in public) the RAF's need for more jet fighters. A general will never question the need for carriers. An air marshal will cast no aspersions on Trident. All they will do is sing in unison, "No defence cuts".

For some time now, it has been apparent that the equipment plans for the armed forces were unsustainable. Now that the forces are committed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, much of what is on order or is coming though is indeed "useless" for either theatre.

There were, therefore, two options to bring the procurement budget back into balance. One was to make deep cuts, cancelling one of more of the major projects, thus eliminating the overspend and making money available for operations. The other was to make cuts across the board, downsizing all or most of the projects and/or delaying their timetables in order to spread the financial burden over more years.

Although the first option would have been preferable, Jenkins indicates (as does his colleague in the business section) that ministers have taken the second route. "Every cut is across the board," Jenkins writes, adding:

Gordon Brown has let it be known that there must be no talk of cancellations, only postponements. Carriers may be delayed, Astute-class submarines may be reduced from eight to four and Type 45 destroyers from 12 to six. The number of Eurofighter Typhoons on order may be slashed. Strategy can go to the wall but not politics…

From there, Jenkins addresses much detail. Some of his assertions are questionable and others debatable, but his net conclusion is on the right tracks: "Money is squandered on equipment that is useless in either theatre - or in any foreseeable one. For want of that money, equipment vital to victory is forgone."

"In a sane world," he argues, "this might be cause for a revision of priorities within the defence establishment. Instead, the brass hats continue to squabble to protect their precious toys and politicians lack the guts to bang their heads together."

Thus, without any serious or intelligent debate, dominated by demands for "no cuts" and "more money", it seems the worst of all possible decisions has either been made, or is in the process of being made – effectively a determination to spread the misery equally, to avoid major confrontations.

That would mean that the defence budget continues to be saddled with useless projects, while there will be no pool of the cash that is needed to re-equip and restructure operational forces to meet the very special needs of counter-insurgency operations.

This is the worst of all possible worlds.

COMMENT THREAD

They really don't get it

Aside from the torrent of defence related "news" and comment in the Sunday newspapers today, tucked into the business section of The Sunday Times (spotted by a gimlet-eyed reader) is a short piece on FRES.

As one would expect, this is presented in an entirely negative fashion, the headline reading, "Army hit by MoD delaying tactics" as the story records that the MoD is this week "expected to fudge a long-awaited decision on a new generation of fighting vehicles for the British Army."

We thus learn that, although and announcement had been expected on the choice of the FRES utility vehicle, the evaluation period had been extended instead. It is rumoured that two contenders, the Piranha and the French VBCI, will be taken forward, with the Boxer being dropped.

The delay is put down to a dispute between the now departed Lord Drayson, who was "understood to be eager to buy the French vehicle" and the military who wanted the Piranha.

However, while that may be the case in the short-term, the fact of the delay is very convenient for a government which is strongly rumoured to be considering cutting one or other of the major procurement projects in the pipeline, with FRES a possible candidate for the chop.

With that possibility extant, one might have thought that any defence correspondent worth his salt would have homed in on this snippet and made something of it. As usual though, FRES seems to be a complete blind spot and news of the project is confined to the business pages of a single newspaper.

This is all the more bizarre in the context of the current controversy over defence spending, where abandoning this project altogether would be of significant assistance in helping the MoD balance its books.

Instead of sniping at the MoD for the delay – as The Times report does – correspondents should be asking whether the project is really necessary. With the Mastiff proving an unexpected success in Afghanistan, being used successfully as an armoured personnel carrier in the assault role, and with over 700 Warriors still on the Army’s books – with an upgrade in progress, it would seem that the last thing the Army needs at the moment is a new armoured personnel carrier (APC).

If there is a gap in the order of battle, it is for a light reconnaissance and patrol vehicle to replace the ageing Scorpion and replace the dangerously vulnerable WIMIK Land Rover. Not since the 1920s has the Army been without a light armoured car, with the roles of the Ferret and then the Fox currently shared between Land Rovers and Scorpions.

Yet, although a new reconnaissance vehicle is part of the FRES package, it is taking second place to the "utility" vehicle – the APC.

The only possible rationale for the utility vehicle – which would not provide as much protection as the Mastiff yet cost a great deal more – is to provide the rapid reaction component for our contribution to the ERRF – neither the Mastiff nor the Warrior being air-portable.

Here again though, there are questions, as the projected weight of any vehicle chosen is likely to prevent it being transported by the Hercules fleet, requiring the introduction of the Airbus A400M to provide sufficient airlift capacity. Even then, this may not prove possible as there are indications that the Airbus may not be able to meet its design specification.

But, possibly, an even bigger threat are the major problems being experienced by Airbus industries with the strength of the dollar. With this savagely eroding the company's profits, there is some question as to whether it could even afford to build the A400M without sustaining massive losses on the fixed-price contract.

The spectre exists, therefore, of the Army acquiring an air-portable (just) vehicle without the RAF having the capacity to fly it anywhere, rather negating its utility – if it had any to start with.

All this amounts to a powerful argument for walking away from the FRES project – investing some of the funds liberated in more MRAP-type vehicles, which seems to be happening anyway.

But, while that may be the most sensible option, you can bet that any announcement of a FRES cancellation will be greeted with a storm of outraged protest, not least from the defence correspondents who will, once again, be demonstrating that they really don't get it.

COMMENT THREAD

A humourless post

Some readers may have noticed that we don't do "lightweight tat" on this site, and such humour as accidentally finds its way into our posts is largely of the dry, sardonic variety. Mostly, though, we tend to write serious, heavy stuff which is not to everyone's taste.

But, if our (and certainly my) posts are weighty and lack humour, it is because – and here I'd better speak for myself – I find very little amusement in the current dire state of politics. And, as there is much that is neglected by an increasingly frivolous and inconsequential media, I felt it needed a corrective, which is why we set up the blog in the first place. There is plenty of lightweight, humorous tat in the marketplace already and I saw no point in replicating it, even if it was the route to easy popularity.

No more so was – and is - this needed in the defence field, where a fundamentally unserious media has consistently failed to take an adult interest in the issues, or spent even a fraction of its resources on exploring where the real stresses and problems lie in our Armed Forces.

But, from sporadic and ill-informed commentary, over the last weeks and months, building to a crescendo over the last couple of days, we have seen an intensity of criticism of defence policy, the thrust of the complaints directed at the mantras of "overstretch" and "underspending". And, in the vanguard is former CDS Charles Guthrie, yesterday given space in The Daily Telegraph to peddle his creed.

Nowhere in his pronouncements, however – nor anywhere in the torrent of media coverage – does he or any other commentator descend into the detail of spending arrangements in the Armed Forces and tell us why it is that defence is underfunded and where, particularly, the alleged shortages lie. Yet, it is the appreciation of the detail that the argument must stand or fall.

Now, to turn to just one small detail – which we will go on to explore for its wider implications – at the end of last month we reported the remarkable escape of a Canadian soldier whose Husky vehicle was hit by a massive buried bomb as he patrolled a route in Afghanistan – with no more inconvenience than a spilled water bottle. Now, courtesy of the Canadian Guardian we have a picture of the damaged vehicle, from which the soldier emerged (above left).

At this point, we descend into "toy" territory and the lofty political bloggers, to say nothing of the oh-so-grand political commentators depart the scene. They occupy the high ground, and such detail is of absolutely no interest to them. The Armed Forces are underfunded and soldiers are dying as a result. Charles Guthrie and four of his mates say so, and that is all they need to know.

But, in that small picture lies one of the central issues in the whole debate, and perhaps the key to what is going on.

First, looking at the vehicle (an intact example is shown right) one can see several design principles at play. The front wheels have been blown off completely – which is exactly as intended. They are "sacrificial" parts, which can easily and cheaply be replaced.

Then, you will see the lengthy engine compartment, in front of the driver, distancing the man from the expected point of explosion, improving his survivability. Add to that, the v-shaped profile of the hull, which deflects blast away from the driver, and the armoured cell which forms the cab, and you have a protection package which enables personnel to walk away from all but the largest of explosions.

The crucial points for the general argument though are that these attributes are achieved by design. They cannot be bolted on to an existing vehicle to achieve the same effect. Secondly, they give the vehicle a profile which is entirely unsuitable for what is known as "high end" conventional warfighting, where low profile to aid concealment is at a premium. Thirdly, this technology is relatively cheap, this type of vehicle costing a fraction of the more sophisticated "high end" war machine that, in these types of circumstances, actually offer less protection.

With these points in mind – be they ever so boring or not – let us now turn our gaze to the "bigger picture" so beloved of the grand polemicists – starting with the proximate cause of the Army's current problems.

In fact, the rot started with in St. Malo in 1998, with Tony Blair's historic agreement with Jacques Chirac to dedicate the bulk of our Armed Forces to what was to become the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF).

Despite constant denials, this led to a Europeanisation of defence policy which, by our calculations, added at least £8.8 billion to our procurement costs to date. As we wrote at the time we did the calculations, that would buy a ridiculous 35,000 RG-31 mine protected vehicles or 350 Chinook helicopters – additions to our forces which would transform the situation.

However, when it comes to Charles Guthrie, who now complains so volubly about "underspending", it was he as Chief of the Defence Staff, together with then secretary of state Geoff Hoon, and the Chief of the General Staff Mike Jackson who drove the Euro Army agenda, re-shaping the British Army to fit in with the ERRF concept.

An essential component of ERRF was, of course, FRES – this being the only way armour could be air-portable and thus become part of a "rapid reaction" force.

The triumvirate was so protective of the plan that this was indeed the reason why new equipment which did not fit the scheme was actively blocked. The trio was looking over at the US and its equivalent Future Combat System (FCS) programme, noting that funds were being siphoned off to pay for the war in Iraq.

Guthrie, Hoon and Jackson thus reasoned that if theatre-specific equipment was bought for Iraq, then FRES would suffer. This, we aver, was one of the main reasons Jackson put "Snatch" Land Rovers into Iraq, rather than dedicated MRAPs. This was also the reason why the Army (now under Richard Dannatt – also a firm proponent of FRES) initially resisted the purchase of Mastiff protected vehicles, until it received assurances that the cost would be borne from the Reserve and not met from the Army budget.

Until recently, the status quo held but, in October, the MoD ordered a further 140 Mastiff protected vehicles (with a promise of 250 more MRAP-type vehicles), this time the funding coming from the Army's agreed equipment budget.

This, we noted, signalled a new realism in the MoD, that the current operations had to be supplied with theatre-specific equipment and not rely – as they had been doing – on existing inventories.

On the other hand, this must have sounded alarm bells with Guthrie and his fellow travellers, which must have intensified when rumours of cuts in one or more of the major spending programmes began to emerge, on top of indications that Gordon Brown was unenthusiastic about pursuing Blair's ambitions for greater European defence cooperation, and was pulling back from the project.

It was shortly afterwards that the screaming started in earnest and it cannot have been a coincidence that it did. The Euro-army supporters, with Guthrie at their head, must have realised that FRES was the most likely candidate for any cuts in the equipment programme, and with its demise went any prospect of the Army playing a leading role in the ERRF.

So it is that Guthrie's campaign is not about the welfare of the Armed Forces, or its current capabilities, but an attempt to preserve plans to develop future capabilities within the framework of the ERRF. Yet, so opaque is his agenda, and so lacking in knowledge and understanding is the commentariat that his claims are taken at face value.

It would be misleading, however, to position Guthrie's campaign solely in terms of the European agenda. There is within the MoD and defence planning circles, creative tension over the balancing resources between current operations and the need to prepare to the "future war".

Inasmuch as the Europeans are not significantly committed to current operations, their thinking is also focused on the future war scenario. The future war proponents in the UK, therefore, have a common interest with the Europeans and thereby have formed a natural alliance with them, even though their overall ambitions may not be the same.

Thus, Guthrie is able to attract a far more powerful lobby under his tent than merely his Europhile "colleagues" could muster.

This, in a roundabout way brings us back to the Canadian soldier and his remarkable escape. To prosecute their "future war" the advocates want their FRES vehicles (example pictured above) which are set to cost – most likely – in excess of £10 million each. Being custom-built and extremely complex, they will also cost a small fortune to maintain.

Yet the optimal equivalent vehicle to fight the current campaigns is the state of the art, superbly equipped Mastiff protected vehicle, based on exactly the same design philosophy as the Husky. And, despite being specifically designed for counter-insurgency operations, it costs a relatively modest £600,000. Based on a commercial truck chassis, it is supremely reliable and durable and, using commercial parts, maintenance is cheap and simple.

This is a microcosm of the general situation. Single engined Super Tucanos (below), used for ground attack, cost less than £5 million apiece, but the RAF spurns them in favour of Tranche 3 Eurofighters, at £80 million each - not because the Tucano cannot to the job (it can, better than the Eurofighter) but because it cannot operate in "high intensity warfare" of the nature projected for the "future war".

What this boils down to is that, if the need to finance the "future war" is removed (or modified), the budgetary problems disappear. In that context, we are actually faced with two modest (in military terms) overseas operations (not even a division in each theatre) which absorbs less than ten percent of the manpower of the Armed Forces. Where else could there be a situation where any other organisation can scream "overstretch" and "lack of resources" when it has less than ten percent of its strength committed to doing the job for which it is paid?

The problem, therefore, is not operations, per se, but the enormous resource put to other tasks - the main one of which is preparing and training for the "future war". This is akin to a situation in World War II of holding back the bulk of the forces to train for the next war, while also devoting the bulk of the budget to equipping for that war.

This, though, is only one part of the phenomenon we are seeing. When it comes to defence issues, one of the many things that drags the debate down is the inability to discriminate between the various factions within the overarching organisation of the MoD, and to separate political from military influence.

One of the simplistic fictions of modern politics is the belief that the Secretary of State is actually in charge of his department and thereby has absolute powers to control it.

This is hardly the case and less so in the MoD, where there is an uneasy "alliance" (conflict would be a better word) between the politicians and their advisors, the officials and then the three separate services (with huge meddling by defence contractors), all overlaid by dealings with the common enemy (the Treasury) and the even more dangerous enemy, the Foreign Office. Furthermore, there is not only bitter inter-service rivalry, there is also intra-service rivalry (gunners versus tanker versus infantry, etc), which makes for a turbulent, foetid broth of intrigue and back-stabbing.

Add to that the length of the procurement cycle (procurement taking 40 percent of the budget) where decisions are made which have a direct financial impact decades after they are taken (the Eurofighter was agreed over 25 years ago but only now is the MoD having to find the bulk of funds for it) and the secretary of state's freedom of action is massively circumscribed. He is at best a referee, with a rule book that is constantly changing (without him being told), with his decisions being overruled off-field, all in the context that he cannot see (or control) most of the players (or even the ball).

Looking at the bigger picture, the military has an infinite capacity for spending money and, as a general rule, the more they are given, the more they will spend - but much of it will be spent unwisely and wasted. Throwing money at public services is not the answer to improved efficiency, if there are underlying structural problems. That applies to the military as much as any other service. Give more money to a wasteful organisation and it will simply waste more money.

What is troubling, though, is all it takes is a few military men to stand up and scream that their men are dying for want of funds (rather than from military incompetence) and otherwise sensible people put their critical faculties on hold and believe everything they are told.

So, I will continue banging on in my own humourless way, leaving others to do the funnies, in the hope that wiser counsels will prevail.

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Playing with fire

For once, the BBC is ahead of the game. It is the only media outlet so far (at the time of writing) to recognise the political importance of the "unprecedented attack" on Gordon Brown by no less than five former defence chiefs in the House of Lords yesterday.

Featuring it as its lead item on the ten o'clock news, the BBC had Admiral Lord Boyce mount a personal attack on the prime minister, attacking his decision to give Des Browne the combined role of defence secretary and Scottish secretary.

"It is seen as an insult by our sailors, our soldiers and our airmen on the front line," he said, adding: "And I know because I have reason to speak to them a lot. And it is certainly a demonstration of the disinterest and some might say contempt that the prime minister and his government has for our armed forces.”

This was followed by another former defence chief, General Lord Guthrie, who said Brown had been "unsympathetic" to the military, and accused him of being the “only senior Cabinet minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed by our staff on our problems."

All of this took place while Brown was out of the country, en route to the Commonwealth summit in Uganda, giving rise to accusations that the timing of the attack was deliberate, aimed at bouncing the prime minister into agreeing to a substantial increase in defence spending.

However, as we pointed out recently on Defence of the Realm, despite outwards appearances, this now concerted campaign is not about funding our Armed Forces for their campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are adequately funded and thus, contrary to assertions made by the "fighting five", troops are not going to be dying for lack of funding to buy equipment.

The reality of this campaign is that it is aimed at protecting the full spectrum of "big ticket" equipment programmes, in the face of the anticipated cuts. These have been affected by spiralling inflation of defence costs and the exponential increases in the costs of high-tech platforms, which means that not all of them are affordable from the current budget. Furthermore, many are seen as irrelevant to the needs of the current Armed Forces engaged as they are in fighting low-tech enemies.

In addition, whatever else might be motivating the former defence chiefs, it should not escape attention that much of the projected "big ticket" spending is devoted to fulfilling Blair's undertaking to equip the Armed Forces as a fully-fledged "expeditionary force", ready to take a full part in the European Rapid Reaction Force. Even though no one talks about this, the ERRF is still there, and British commitments stand.

The fact that arch Europhile General Lord Guthrie is playing what appears to be a lead role in the current campaign for more spending may not, therefore, be a coincidence (and is it then a coincidence that the BBC is so interested?).

We have already speculated that protecting the EU dimension of British defence policy may be his primary motivation, his actions triggered by signs that Brown lacks enthusiasm for promoting EU military ambitions.

There may, of course, be other motivations but, while the media are slow to see the underlying agendas behind the up-front demands for money, a lot more is going on than is showing on the surface. But, in that the campaign is being focused on financing current operations, the "five" are in fact exploiting concerns about the safety of our troops, and their conditions of service, for reasons they have not fully (or at all) declared.

Politicising defence needs in this way - in effect, using the Armed Forces as a political football - is a very dangerous game. These retired military men are playing with fire, which could rebound on them and damage seriously the standing and capabilities of our forces. They need to think very carefully about the wisdom of what they are doing.

COMMENT THREAD