The situation is serious

One truly wonders whether Bob Ainsworth is aware of the cynicism with which his statement is greeted in informed circles when he blithely tells us that conditions are improving in Afghanistan, based on the "message" he got "in Afghanistan when I visited last week".

One recalls the then newly appointed defence secretary Des Bowne visiting Basra on 18 May 2006, when he declared, "Basra is calm and British forces are working hand in hand with their Iraqi and coalition partners. Suggestions that the city is, in someway, out of control are ridiculous." Two weeks later, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a state of emergency in Basra, in a bit to contain the escalating violence.

Recalling also Stephen Grey's evidence to the Commons Defence Committee last week, one thus simply speculates how long the "lines-to-take book" was this time. The new defence secretary will have been told what he wanted to hear, and shown that which was convenient to show him, upon which basis he delivers the "upbeat" message that he was always going to deliver anyway – whether he had been to Afghanistan or not.

So taken with Grey's evidence was Jim Greenhalf that he was moved to write his own post on it, observing that much of what was said was worthy of the front page of The Sunday Times.

Anyhow, Ainsworth has delivered his own message to Chatham House today in a keynote speech which was delivered shortly after death of another soldier had been announced, the seventh in a week and the 176th to die since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

His response to those casualties is charted by The Daily Telegraph which tells us, "More British soldiers will be killed in Afghanistan and there is no end in sight to the campaign, Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary has warned." He adds, "Let us be under no illusion. The situation in Afghanistan is serious - and not yet decided. The way forward is hard and dangerous. More lives will be lost and our resolve will be tested."

So much of the rest of the speech is the usual FCO/MoD extruded verbal material that the only rational thing to do is to glide softly by, although there is some merit in comparing the defence secretary's views with the critique by Matt Waldman, who has some sensible and realistic things to say but, in other ways, is part of the problem.

Of special interest to this blog, however, is Ainsworth's frontal assault on the media criticism of the Viking and other poorly protected vehicles in theatre. "Every effort is being made to increase protection - such as the introduction of Mastiff and Ridgeback troop carriers, the improved armour on Viking and Jackal vehicles, and the more heavily armoured Warthog vehicles coming in 2010," he says, continuing with the "line-to-take" supplied by the military:

With this suite of vehicles military commanders will deploy their assets according to the tactical situation on the ground. But as we develop measures to counter a threat like IEDs, so our enemies adapt - for instance by building higher yield bombs to overcome heavier armour. So let us be clear, sacrificing manoeuvre for heavy armour in every circumstance is not the answer.

We are doing everything we can to counter the IED threat at source. Our forces are finding and diffusing these bombs. But tellingly, they are also concentrating on the networks and the people building them and supplying the technology, the parts and the know-how.

We are getting inside the production process - some in the military call this approach 'getting left of the bang'. When we target the bomb makers and take out the capacity to produce, we cut the threat. Getting left of the bang will save lives - of our troops - and of the Afghans themselves.

This is part of a sustained counter-offensive which has also seen a formal attempt at rebuttal by the Ministry of Defeat, which once again falsely frames the debate as one between protection and mobility, as favoured by the BBC. This is not a ministry that its prepared to learn lessons. Rather it is one that will invest its resources in supporting its existing decisions, however wrong they might be, for want of acknowledging any error whatsoever.

Similarly, Ainsworth is not prepared to admit that which Waldman accuses the government – of miss-spending or wasting aid – not that he could since that involves attacking the FCO and DFID (which we must now learn to call UKAID). Instead, he cites the UK's non-military aid, amounting to £740m since 2001, with a further £500m is planned to 2013. We wonder whether he is aware of the Ferris wheel so generously provided by the British taxpayer, and how that fits in with this general scheme.

What immediately strikes one, however, is the disparity of spending on the military, with over £3 billion in the last three years and £3.5 billion forecast for this current financial year. If the military effort was directed towards civil aid, one might see a wholly different situation in Afghanistan than we see today.

It is rather odd, therefore, that Ainsworth concludes his speech by warning "us" to be under no illusion. "The situation in Afghanistan is serious ... " he repeats. One is tempted to ask: who is this "us", white man? The illusion rests with the secretary of state ... whose policy is not dissimilar to this bridge in the region, which has yet to have the attention of western aid officials. But then, Ferris wheels are so much more useful.

COMMENT THREAD

"Not designed for combat"

Currently running in Exeter is the inquest on the death of Pte Jack Sadler, which we covered last year, with the inquest proceedings attracting an interim report from The Daily Telegraph.

Jack, a TA volunteer in Honourable Artillery Company, was a Wimik gunner, attached to the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF) serving 52 Brigade in Afghanistan during Operation Herrick 7.

On 4 December 2007, the BRF, comprising a group of Wimiks, was scouting a route for an artillery convoy of made up of two Pinzgauers each pulling a 105mm light gun, plus DROPS trucks carrying the ammunition. They were on their way to a firing point close to Musa Qala to take part in the operation to recover the town.

Making pitifully slow progress over the rough ground, they had been observed by what they feared might have been Taleban "dickers" as they had skirted a village en route before then reaching a "problematic" steep-sided wadi which they had to cross, following a route they had taken the day before – the only one which the trucks could negotiate.

Because of the heavy trucks the Force was escorting, there were only a very limited number of points at which the wadi could be crossed. While scouting the route across, Jack's Wimik hit a mine, with him sustaining fatal injuries.

No mine clearance had been carried out as the convoy was static while the reconnaissance was carried out. It was a "sitting target" and an attack was feared if it remained in one place too long, so the pressure was on to get the convoy moving again. But, on the rocky ground, the Group commander did not suspect any danger. There were no "Combat Indicators" suggesting trouble and no one in the group "sensed" any danger.

Had there been enough helicopters, the two guns and their supplies of ammunition could easily have been transported by air – as underslung loads. This would be an easy job for a Chinook. But, with a major operation in the offing, there was no spare capacity and, therefore, the battery had to travel by road, with fatal results.

That then puts the focus on the Wimik, deployed in an area where the threat of mines and IEDs was ever-present. And, it emerges from the inquest that a report submitted to the coroner described it as "not designed to be used in a combat situation because of its lack of ballistic and munitions protection".

Needless to say, the Ministry of Defeat is represented at the inquest, with Col Charles Clee holding the line. He was quick to stress that Wimik has since been replaced with newer models fitted with better protection against mines and roadside bombs.

Clee, who is deputy head of urgent operational requirements at the MoD also stated that Wimiks were "valuable to commanders because of their flexibility." Their light weight meant they could operate on local roads. He also trotted out the familiar line that, it was up to commanders on the ground to choose which types of military vehicles to use for different tasks.

Indeed there was a choice ... Wimik, Wimik or Wimik. As for it being able to operate on local roads, as a convoy escort, the BRF was being tied to a predictable route which could only be negotiated by heavy trucks. It, not the convoy, was the "sitting target".

With the Viking in the news, and the past publicity on the Snatch Land Rover, the vulnerability of the Wimik has, by and large, passed under the media radar. Yet more have been killed in Wimiks in Afghanistan than any other vehicle, at least 15 as opposed to ten in the Snatch and Jackal and eight in the Viking.

The hearing continues tomorrow so it remains to be seen what the coroner will make of this, but there is not any great confidence that local coroners can see through the dissemination poured out by the MoD. The precedents are not good.

COMMENT THREAD

A paradise lost?

One of the reasons, we are told, why Lt-Col Thorneloe and his driver Trooper Joshua Hammond could not have travelled in a better-protected Mastiff and instead were killed in a fatally vulnerable Viking was that the bridge network across the Shamalan canal, where the fighting is at its heaviest, was in poor repair and too weak to bear the weight of the heavier vehicle.

The Ministry of Defeat has now released a picture of one of the bridges (above) and simple inspection confirms the poor state. If the other bridges spanning the canal are in anything like a similar condition, then it is not at all surprising that the 23-ton Mastiff could not be used.

One would have thought, therefore, that the bridge network would have been a high priority for redevelopment funding, contributing not only tactical mobility for the Army and the Afghan security forces but also the local population who need a better network to move their equipment and goods.

But that is to reckon without those geniuses in the Department for International Development. Although they have been extremely busy in the Shamalan canal area, they have had slightly different priorities on which to spend British taxpayers' hard-earned cash.

To the utter bemusement of the local Afghanis, DFID has invested no less than £420,000 on a f****** leisure park for Women, complete, you will be pleased to know with a f****** Ferris wheel – (pictured below).

Called Bolan Park, when it was completed just over a year ago, it had "puzzled residents" asking why so much money was being spent on leisure when the most pressing problem – security – was getting worse by the day. Said Amir Mohammad, 44, "If the international community wants our country to be prosperous, they should first worry about peace and security. Then we can have parks."


As to the idea of a park for women, Mohammad Zaher stated the obvious: "The problem is that men are not accustomed to going to parks along with their women. And they won't let women go on their own." Abdul Halek, 22, agreed. "Although our house is very close to this park, we will never let our women go there," he said. "This park will be only for men."

Gul Mohammad, 35, a farmer, had a more pressing reason why women – or anyone else for that matter – would not use the park. He said, "For two years now, there have been remote-controlled explosions on the main Bolan road. I think mines will be laid in this park. That will keep people from going there."

But those brave chaps from DFID nevertheless persevered, trilling away that the nearly 20 acres would provide fresh air, fountains, flowers, picnic areas and recreational facilities for Lashkar Gah's estimated 100,000 people.

As for the IEDs that have been killing "Our Boys" – many of them now home-made using agricultural fertiliser - the aid agencies thought about that as well. Very helpfully this season, they have supplied the Taleban Afghani farmers with a total of 4,749 metric tons, conveniently packaged in 25-kilogram bags.

With such wonderful, intelligent support from our gifted civil servants, we cannot possibly lose the war in Afghanistan. We can look forward to moving from triumph to triumph, allowing the Afghani citizens to revel in their paradises of fresh air, fountains, flowers, picnic areas and recreational facilities provided so generously by British taxpayers.

COMMENT THREAD

First prize

It is all very well pointing out the errors of journalists but the first prize, it seems, must go to the anonymous MoD official who posted this piece on the MoD web site:

Operating in WMIK (Weapons Mounted Installation Kit) Land Rovers, Jackals, Scorpion reconnaissance vehicles, Mastiff armoured vehicles, and on foot, the British troops moved up to capture the important crossings.

When the MoD does not even know the names of the equipment deployed in Afghanistan, there is little hope for us. No wonder they can't buy the right equipment.

COMMENT THREAD

Street of shame

Not a few people in very senior positions, in government and the military, have made disparaging remarks about the low grade of journalists serving as "defence correspondents" in national newspapers. Sometimes, that must be considered as self-serving, but it has to be said that, in many instances, those journalists leave themselves wide open.

In the last week or so, we have seen an unusually high crop of reports on military matters – for obvious reasons – and amongst them, not a few errors. We have already had this gem from the BBC and another from the Mirror but the harvest is not over.

More recently, of the more egregious (or certainly more obvious), we have Sean Rayment – an ex-Army officer – who writes in The Sunday Telegraph about, "The flimsy armoured vehicles which were first sent to Helmand ... ". But his list includes, "armoured personnel carriers dating from the 1960s and rebranded as Bulldogs". These vehicles, of course, were deployed to Iraq, but have never been sent to Helmand. Nor, in the up-armoured form, are they particularly "flimsy".

Then we have Michael Evans in The Times write that " ... a soldier from the 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment died when he was hit during a rocket-propelled grenade attack against his Scorpion armoured reconnaissance vehicle."

The Scorpion was, of course, withdrawn from British Army service in 1994. It cannot, therefore, have been sent to Helmand, nor attacked by an RPG. The vehicle is believed to have been a Spartan. There is also an issue here, that the Mercians do not operate an "armoured reconnaissance vehicle", the actual vehicle of the series being a Scimitar.

Today, we have Richard Pendlebury and Jamie Wiseman writing in The Daily Mail about "ageing equipment" that "often offers little protection against the bombs", whence they refer to "armoured Land Rovers known as Bulldogs".

They mean either Snatch Land Rovers or Vixens. There is a picture of a Bulldog at the top of this piece.

In the context of the vehicles being branded "ageing", they refer to the "Viking tracked vehicle". These were not issued to units until 2001 – which is positively youthful in military terms - and many of the vehicles delivered to Helmand were brand new. But the pair also tell us that IEDs planted in the path of military vehicles "usually include armour penetrating rods or cones designed to cause maximum destruction". They don't. In particular, the EFP which projects a copper "cone" is largely confined to Iraq. Very few have been detected in Afghanistan.

Now, we all make mistakes ... my previous piece has one, where I have identified the wrong vehicle which GD intends to submit to the MoD for the CVR(T) replacement competition. But there are mistakes and mistakes. When journalists make such obvious – to anyone with even limited knowledge of the military – and basic mistakes, it suggests that their knowledge base is extremely limited.

That does not, of course, mean that nothing they write can be trusted. Much of what they write will be correct. But it does imply that they are ill-equipped to understand the finer – and often more important – points about military equipment that will enable them to report competently on what they see and are told.

It is Private Eye which runs a regular series commenting on the errors and behaviour of the Fourth Estate – under the heading Street of Shame. We are considering our own version. It looks as if we will not be short of material.

COMMENT THREAD

FRES lives ... sort of

We are informed that the MOD is to invite two British companies to tender to supply reconnaissance and reconnaissance support variants to replace the aged Scimitar and Spartan vehicles now on operations in Afghanistan.

The two companies are BAE Systems Global Combat Systems and General Dynamics (UK), who will be bidding for a project grandly named the Future Rapid Effect System Specialist Vehicle (FRES SV). In reality though, with the FRES utility vehicle dumped for the foreseeable future, this is simply a much overdue replacement for the CVR(T) series which should have been scrapped many years ago.

General Dynamics will, no doubt, be offering a version of the Piranha, configured on similar lines to the Canadian LAV-25 Coyote - arguing for commonality with the proposed Utility Vehicle, if it is ever purchased.

BAE Systems may be submitting a version of the Swedish-built CV-903 Mk III, recently purchased by the Danish Army (pictured), on the basis that a tracked vehicle would be more suitable for the role.

Whichever platform is chosen, the likelihood is that it will be fitted with the French-designed Nexter CTA-40 caseless ammunition gun, together with the BAE System turret which is being used for the Warrior Lethality Improvement Programme (WLIP).

Although the prospect of a replacement for the CVR(T) series is good news – which should always have been put ahead of the utility vehicle – by the time the MoD nannies have finished with their procedures and integration programme, it could be some years before we see any new kit in theatre. By then, of course, it will be the Tories who will have to pay the bill.

COMMENT THREAD

A parody of reality

The latest news from Afghanistan is of a third soldier being killed yesterday, making five in less than a week and bringing the total to 174 dead. The latest casualty is another from the Welsh Guards, killed while on foot by a "contact explosion". He was taking part in a "deliberate operation" near Gereshk, as part of Operation Panthers Claw.

Given the intensity of operations and the hazards of war, it is inevitable that we are seeing a spike in the casualty rate and, to put it in perspective, the current losses are modest compared with most other campaigns.

We are told, of course, that in war, "risks must be taken" - usually by the people who are not taking them. But that risk must be balanced by the rewards. If the operation in Afghanistan was succeeding, with progress towards a stable, peaceful and prosperous country – with our expenditure of blood and treasure really making the difference – then we could concede that it has been worth it.

Not so, says Stephen Grey, freelance journalist and author of the bestselling book Snakebite, who recently gave evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on the "Comprehensive Approach" – the supposedly co-ordinated inter-agency system which is tasked with bringing peace and re-development to Afghanistan.

"We owe it to all those that are sacrificing themselves in Helmand, to be brutally frank about what is going on there and what is going wrong," Grey tells the Committee, "because it is only with that frankness that I think certain things can be put right."

One admires his optimism as he then goes on to declare that, "From the perspective of those on the ground, I think the Comprehensive Approach has largely been a parody of reality. In some ways the failure to get that right has done as much to stir up conflict and cause what is happening as it has to bring peace to Afghanistan, which surely is the ultimate objective there."

Taking a measured look at that statement, Grey is telling us that the upsurge of violence in Helmand province is a result of our presence there, and that, in effect, the 174 lives lost, the hundreds more injured and the expenditure to date – over £3 billion on the military effort alone – has achieved precisely nothing. In fact, it has made matters worse.

Stephen's full evidence can be read here and needs to be read carefully by anyone who wishes to gain a greater understanding of what is going on out there.

So inadequate and ill-co-ordinated are our efforts that, according to a soldier who has e-mailed Grey with his views, the sentiment that most accurately summarises our efforts is "a sense of total lack of delivery of promises." The view is that "very little of what is talked about is actually being put into practice."

"All we really did," says this soldier, "was to fight and kill the Taliban." He adds: "The numbers are staggering, and why is that? Because we are good at it, structured for it and resourced for it, but that should not be the centre of gravity of our efforts."

Indeed it should not be the centre of gravity of our efforts and one remedy that Grey offers is "roads". More specifically, he says:

... there are ways of tailoring development projects so that they can be both doable in terms of advancing security and development, for example, road building. Roads are much more difficult to completely destroy than a new clinic, for example. They both enhance security and they boost the economy, allowing people, for example, to take legitimate crops to market as well as allowing a much more efficient security deployment.

Grey also suggests that much of the development effort must be militarised. "The military need to have the people that can do this side of the work," he says.

As to the official information coming out of theatre, Grey recalls his experience in Iraq when soldiers were being briefed for the visit of the prime minister. They were choosing junior officers, certainly young soldiers, who would be in line to talk to the Prime Minister and what they should tell him. The "lines-to-take book" had got up to 130 pages.

The whole thing to Grey seemed completely circular - basically politicians going out to be told what they wanted to hear. Officials disseminate an "almost a professional optimism" to politicians "which is not borne out by the private opinions of many of the same people that make these public statements."

Finally, for those who would wish to make partisan political points out of this situation, Grey gives them plenty of material. With so many different agencies at work (not), the strategic commander of all UK agencies is the Prime Minister. "There is no other place where it comes together," he says. "So there was no-one in charge apart from the Prime Minister ... and [he] has got other things on his mind." That is the real problem, Grey states.

He concludes that, "Britain's interests need to be combined into one role, an ambassador that combines the role of both military commander and civil commander." If such a person exists, he has yet to emerge but, unless he (or she) does – and soon – others may conclude that Britain's interests are best served by departing as rapidly as possible. At least then, we would not be making the situation worse.

COMMENT THREAD

Tactical mobility

Afghan civilians using mobile phones acted as lookouts for the Taleban before they attacked Lt-Col Thorneloe's Viking convoy, reports the Mail on Sunday. The civilians, who left the area before the attack, had formed a "screen" to observe the convoy, enabling the Taleban to "activate the improvised explosive device".

A military source is cited saying that the early signs are this was a classic "dicking" operation that allowed the Taliban time to set their roadside bombs.

That military convoys in Afghanistan are under constant observation, however, is not at all news. The photograph shown was published by the BBC last year to illustrate the nature of the problem, suggesting that the boy with the bike could be a dicker.

We discussed the role of dickers only last week and, in the context of the Thorneloe incident, further undermines the case for the Viking.

Its off-road performance is widely cited as enhancing "tactical mobility", making the movements of the vehicle unpredictable and thereby frustrating the attempts of the bombers. But, were there is constant observation, that dynamic changes and the unpredictability factor is of less value, especially when the vehicle is being used for supply runs and similar "routine" tasks.

The term "dicker" seems to have been coined in Northern Ireland during the Troubles where, perversely, the very presence of "dicker screens" was often used to warn of impending action or terrorist activities (see this report - 156 pages pdf). Similarly, the sudden departure of civilians from an area and, particularly, the absence of children, are all "indicators" that trouble might be imminent.

The broader point from this, though, is that the measure of "tactical mobility", as applied to a conventional military campaign, needs to be redefined in counter-insurgency operations. All too often, as was the case in Iraq, freedom of movement was limited not by physical restraints but by politically imposed measures directed at casualty avoidance – often in response to media publicity or in anticipation of such publicity.

Under these circumstances, vehicles with good terrain crossing performance or other attributes (such as size or weight) can end up being less mobile than vehicles with inferior performance but with higher protection levels.

Judgement of the "mobility" criteria for a military vehicle in a counter-insurgency campaign, therefore, has a political as well as military element. Neglect of the former can impinge on the latter.

That was the essential mistake made by the military planners in deploying the Viking. In judging its suitability on military criteria alone, they neglected the political dimension. Had, of course, this been taken into account, the vehicle should never have been deployed, exposing a capability gap that would have had to have been filled.


Here, the "experts" recoil in horror at the thought of a "quick fix" which might be good enough for most roles but not providing the perfect answer – such as to take a standard MRAP - a 4x4 Cougar would do nicely (illustrated above) - and fit it with tracks from an already existing vehicle, such as redundant M-113s, for example.


Once again, though, one must draw upon German World War II experience where, after the mobility problems experienced on the Eastern Front in 1941, the Army had a fully-tracked supply truck up and running for the 1942 season. Developed by Steyr, it was called the Raupenschlepper Ost (illustrated above) and used the transmission of the standard 1½ - tonne truck. Although far from perfect, it gave valuable service until 1945, with over 28000 vehicles produced.


Incidentally, another aspect of the mobility equation, the bridging tank, was available and used successfully by the German Army in 1940 (illustrated above). Such bridging equipment is currently on the British Army inventory and, with the web of canals and watercourses in Helmand, there should be plenty of use for it, providing additional flexibility that even the Viking cannot match.

In this realm, there are no insoluble problems – only lack of will and application. But a nation that is not flexible and cannot improvise is one that is past its sell-by date and does not deserve to win.

COMMENT THREAD

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

The wrong debate

See also: Time to get this sorted

With its unerring instinct for getting it wrong, the BBC – in the persona of its defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt – is framing the debate over the use of the Viking and the deaths of Lt-Col Thorneloe and Tpr Joshua Hammond as one of "armour versus mobility", suggesting that there is "a fine balance."

To be fair, she is not the only one to get it wrong. This is the way much of the British military thinks, thus channelling the argument into a sterile comparison between the merits of the heavy but well-protected Mastiff and the lighter, more mobile vehicles such as the Viking and the Jackal.

As the military would have it - enunciated by Amyas Godfrey to the BBC and also to The Guardian - the choice of which armoured vehicle to use in any campaign is a question of balancing risks and benefits.

"It is all about getting the balance right between the need for armour and the need to be light and flexible, with the ability to go off-road," says Godfrey. "Mobility is a form of protection in itself, and with heavier armour, you sacrifice mobility for greater protection."

At that entirely superficial level, there is some merit in Godfrey's assertions. Roads are a natural target for terrorists and, as that picture above shows, one particular weak point is the culvert bomb, which is fiendishly dangerous and requires a great deal of manpower and other resource to thwart. The ability to transit an area avoiding the roads – and such devices – is therefore an obvious advantage.

However, one almost gets tired of the repetition here, having yet again to draw the distinction between design and weight. Godfrey, in common with so many of his ilk, equates protection with "heavier armour".

Such are the constraints on their own thinking that they seem incapable of understanding that mine/IED protection is not primarily a function of weight of armour but of design – the principles of which we elaborated recently. It is this complete failure of the military establishment to understand these fundamentals which lies at the heart of this sterile debate.

To that extent, as we have so often observed, mobility and protection are not mutually exclusive. It is only the sterile thinking of the British military which makes it so. It would be perfectly feasible – by design - to produce a tracked vehicle with the mobility of the Viking, yet with the inherent protection of a Mastiff. This should not add significantly to the weight or, more particularly, hamper mobility.

Those proponents of the Viking, who argue that its mobility has saved more lives than its lack of protection have lost, are therefore arguing from a false premise. Mobility and protection are not mutually exclusive – it is possible to have both.

There are, however, other issues to address, where the whole argument on off-road mobility falls apart. One of those is the "pinch" or "choke" point problem, which we have also discussed. No matter how good a vehicle's off-road performance might be, there are natural features in any terrain which restrict and funnel movement into predictable areas, and it is there that ambushes are so often mounted.

Even in wide open spaces, there are constraints. As Tom Coughlan writes in The Times of the Viking, "in the heavily irrigated fields along the Helmand river, room for manoeuvre is more limited, and churning up farmers' fields with its tracks will not help to win the support of the local populace."

This then leads to a paradox, where designers optimise for off-road performance and then, to deal with the occasional but deadly ambush, add armour to their vehicles. They end up – as they did with the Vector – compromising performance without significantly improving protection. The outcome is an off-road vehicle with less performance than a custom-design protected vehicle, from which stems the mantra that you cannot keep increasing weight.

Locked into this trap – yet under pressure to reduce casualties - they have nowhere to go but to develop bigger and stronger vehicles in order to carry more armour. This is precisely the line adopted with the Viking, where it is to be replaced by the Warthog – a vehicle with heavier armour but sharing the same design flaws.

However, Major-General Julian Thompson, who commanded 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines in the Falklands conflict in 1982, makes a different point. He tells The Times - undoubtedly based on his experience in Aden and then Northern Ireland: "The question is not whether one vehicle or another is sufficiently armoured, it's about the lack of helicopters. We need more helicopters in Afghanistan to ferry troops in high-risk areas."


This is a good point. The ultimate mine protected vehicle is the helicopter. Unfortunately, as we pointed out earlier, the option of relying on helicopters is not available to the coalition forces, and not entirely because there is a shortage.

Unlike Northern Ireland, where the security forces were the main target of the terrorists, in Afghanistan the population in general is being attacked, particularly on the roads, which are needed to move large quantities of supplies. They 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". The military must maintain a strong presence on the roads and, therefore, will always be exposed to a risk that cannot be mitigated by the greater use of helicopters.

Nevertheless, there are limitations to the amount of protection that can be afforded, even in the best designed vehicle. To make that point - or something akin to it - Caroline Wyatt calls in aid the spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lt-Col Nick Richardson.

He insists the Viking remains an excellent vehicle, telling us that, "Armour is the last resort in terms of defeating the threat. It is much better to be able to avoid the threat than to have to rely on the armour defeating the threat when it is initiated. He then states: "It doesn't matter how much armour you have - it can always be overcome if you make the charge big enough."

The "bigger bomb" threat is overstated, an issue we have promised to address in a separate post, and neither should "armour" (more properly, protection) be considered the last resort.

In their Bush War between 1962 and 1980, the Rhodesian Army found that it was impossible to ensure that the thousands of miles of unpaved roads were kept clear of mines and IEDs. Therefore, vehicle protection was treated as a routine precaution. (See this study by Franz J Gayl - 147 pages, pdf).


That notwithstanding, protection is by no means the only precaution. Route clearance – using basic devices such as mine rollers (pictured above) plus more sophisticated technical aids, and even sniffer dogs - route proving, surveillance, routine patrolling to deter activity, intelligence, interdiction of supplies and disrupting the bomb-makers are all part of the armoury which must be deployed to defeat the joint threat of the mine and the IED.

To distil the argument down to one of "armour versus mobility", therefore, is as facile as arguing that either armour or mobility is the answer. But there is no more facile an argument than to assert that "armour" – i.e., protection – must be sacrificed to mobility. That is the wrong debate.

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

Time to get this sorted

With the recent deaths of Lt-Col Thorneloe and Trp Joshua Hammond, the number of service personnel killed in Afghanistan by mine strikes and IEDs while riding in poorly protected vehicles rises to 49 by our estimate.

With 140 KIA, that amounts to 35 percent of deaths due to enemy action (or accidental minestrikes from legacy mines). Perhaps twice as many service personnel have suffered very serious injuries, losing in total 150 or thereabouts skilled personnel. Without taking into account the huge financial costs, the Military cannot afford this unnecessary attrition.

Yet from the man on the spot, working for The Times comes one very obvious remedy, which the man himself fails even to recognise. The man in question is Tom Coghlan who records his experience riding in a Viking re-supply convoy, and an incident similar to that which killed Lt-Col Thorneloe.

Coghlan starts his piece with the effect: "The blast from the roadside bomb was a breaking storm of noise and shock that scrambled the senses and shrouded men and machines in a white pall of choking dust," he writes, with the description continuing thus:

Long seconds of uncertainty followed, before torch beams swept the evening gloom to reveal the silhouette of the sixth vehicle in the convoy, an armoured supplier, sagging sideways and half off the track. Its cabin was a shambles of metal. Its machinegun turret and its gunner were missing.

There was no sign of a follow-up ambush, but one might be imminent. On the internal radio of the Viking armoured car, an 11-tonne tracked personnel carrier, the crew swore softly and bitterly. "I wish they’d show themselves so I could f*****g ..." one voice said, trailing off to anguished silence.

The first five vehicles in the convoy had passed over the bomb before it detonated under the sixth, injuring but not killing two of the occupants. About 25 minutes after the blast the injured men were on an American Blackhawk rescue helicopter – not, incidentally, a British helicopter. We will return to that.

With the convoy now stranded two miles from its base, the troops have a nervous overnight wait for a recovery vehicle, suffering a Taleban ambush at 8am when they sustain more casualties. Why a recovery is not mounted immediately is not explained.

At last however, a rescue party arrives – a recovery vehicle, escorted by two Mastiffs. Coghlan calls then "armoured cars", which is a very odd choice of words. Cars, they most certainly are not. To call them merely "armoured" is also to miss their essential attribute. Unlike the Vikings, they are mine/blast protected vehicles.

That attribute is immediately tested. We learn that, as it neared the convoy, the lead Mastiff was caught by another buried bomb. However, Coughlan records, "Its heavy armour saved the crew, but it had to be recovered by the vehicle it was escorting."

So, putting it together – a Viking is hit by a bomb. Two crew are injured and need medevac. A Mastiff is hit by a bomb in the same location, and the crew walk away uninjured. And Coughlan draws no lessons from that at all.

The inference must be, of course, that had Lt-Col Thorneloe and his driver been riding in a Mastiff, they would still be alive today. No one yet has been killed in a Mastiff, even though it is covering the same territory as the other vehicles in theatre and taking many hits.

There is, of course, the mobility issue, with the Viking able to traverse terrain that is not accessible to the Mastiff, although it seems unlikely that a supply route could have been particularly challenging. And in any case, we have addressed this issue. If there is a mobility problem with the Mastiff, put half tracks on it.

Furthermore, someone in authority needs to ask of Force Protection if the Ridgeback or Cheetah can be turned into a fully-tracked vehicle. If the Germans could do it with the Opel Blitz in 1942, there cannot be any insuperable technical problems in 2009.

Another aspect of "mobility" however, is weight, especially relevant in the Thorneloe incident, where canal crossings were being used. Against the 12 tons well-distributed weight of the Viking, the 23 tons of the Mastiff undoubtedly causes severe strain on the primitive road system and very often exceeds the load-carrying capabilities of rural bridges.

As an alternative, there is the Ridgeback, nine tons lighter than the Mastiff 2, which is now in theatre. Not only that, sitting in South Carolina at the Force Protection plant are 50 unused Cheetahs which at 11 tons, come out at roughly the same weight as the Viking yet confer the same degree of protection as the Cougar, on whuch the Mastiff is based.

Here, we also need to look at the bigger picture. In the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, within 24 hours of the initial assault, the Allies had 36 crossing points established. Assault bridging is a speciality of the British Army and there is also that miracle of British engineering, the Bailey Bridge - or its modern equivalent.

We have long argued that the engineering component of the British forces needs substantially to be enhanced. Not least, locals also find difficulties with access, getting farm machinery and commercial trucks across canals. The "hearts and minds" aspect of such engineering works cannot be overstated, to say nothing of the tactical flexibility afforded.

Looking more specifically at the incident in question, there is also the question of why Thorneloe was taking a high-risk journey in a ground vehicle. A tactical commander might be better served by a helicopter or a STOL aircraft, such as a Pilatus Porter.

Then, having chosen a ground vehicle, one has to ask why a supply route was not cleared and then – whether or not it had been – why it was not under continuous video surveillance (by UAVs or ground assets) to prevent the Taleban bomb emplacers doing their deadly work. Given Coghlan's experience, and the fact that the IED is now the Taleban's weapon of choice, it could hardly have come as a surprise that this incident occurred.

As in life, there are always plenty of reasons one can find for not doing things and excuses there are a plenty when things go wrong. These we see in quantity in this man's Army, but the excuses are wearing extremely thin. It is time to get this problem sorted.

COMMENT THREAD

Welsh Guards CO killed

Recorded by Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe (pictured on patrol), CO of the 1st Bttn Welsh Guards, has been killed in Afghanistan by an IED.

He is the first CO to be killed in action since the death of Lt-Col H Jones of the Parachute Regiment in 1982 at Goose Green in the Falklands War and the highest-ranking British Army officer to be killed in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Thorneloe's death comes less than two weeks after the death of Major Sean Birchall, also of the Welsh Guards. He is the third Welsh Guards officer to be killed on the current roulement, with Lt Mark Evison killed on 12 May after sustaining injuries whilst on patrol outside Check Point Haji Alem in Helmand.

The first bare details were reported early Wednesday afternoon by AFP, which released details of an incident in which a bomb blast (IED) had killed two and wounded six in southern Afghanistan, bringing to 158 the number of international soldiers to lose their lives in Afghanistan this year.

It took until mid-morning today for the MoD publicly to confirm what has been known to the media since yesterday – that they were two of ours, "one soldier from 1st Bttn Welsh Guards and the other from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment."

The MoD website, however, makes no mention of Lt-Col Thorneloe or of the injured – although two were very seriously injured, one of whom is "critical". No other names have yet been given, in accordance with normal practice. Tpr Joshua Hammond of the 2 Royal Tank Regiment has now been named. He was, presumably, the driver.

This, according to The Daily Telegraph and others, brings the number of British personnel killed since the start of operations in October 2001 to 171. The explosion, we are told, happened whilst on a deliberate operation near Lashkar Gah, the media informing us that they were taking part in Operation Panther's Claw.


According to The Daily Telegraph, Lt-Col Thorneloe, with the others, was riding in a Viking (pictured) as it was negotiating a canal crossing. The explosion took out the rear compartment of this articulated vehicle, as well as the tractor. That would bring to eight the number of troops killed in Vikings, with Thorneloe the most senior, regarded as a "high flier" and former aide to defence secretary Des Browne.

If the unverified details are correct, then they would seem to reinforce the intelligence coming out of theatre that the Taleban are resorting progressively to much larger IEDs. However, such information as is available suggests this was not a massive bomb, and possibly survivable in a MRAP such as the Mastiff.

With the known vulnerability of the Viking, and its scheduled replacement, the use of this vehicle was supposed to have been restricted. With such a high-profile death, this may bring into focus the use of this tragically vulnerable vehicle, and call into question the entire MoD protected vehicle policy.

More details in The Times and the story is also covered by The Daily Mail. The Guardian pastes in a Press Association release, which makes no mention of the Viking, although it is briefly mentioned by the BBC.

The Guardian follows up with a piece by Richard Norton-Taylor, who retails a defence official's description of a "huge bomb" that shattered the armoured Viking tracked vehicle. In the absence of a reliable source on this, we can expect the MoD to "talk up" the size of the IED in order to divert attention from the weakness of the Viking. Even in death, politics plays its part.

The Times then offers a "commentary" by Crispin Black discussing how "Rupert Thorneloe's death will affect Welsh Guardsmen deeply", with not a word about the manner of his untimely death.

In a second piece, Tom Coghlan offers his reflections of Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, the man, and then another piece where he describes an earlier ambush on a Viking supply convoy, completely missing the point. How the MoD must love him. We will review this piece separately.

James Blitz of the Financial Times comes in with his own piece. By now, the MoD is briefing freely and the focus again is entirely on the "commanding officer" aspect of the death. The MoD is cited as saying that only six Army COs have died on operations in command of their units since 1948. There is no reference at all to the Viking. This, and its extreme vulnerability to IEDs, is gradually being filtered out of the narrative as the "damage limitation" mechanisms go to work.

Reuters has its staff reporter Peter Griffiths write up the story. He also fails to include details of the Viking. This report will be reproduced in thousands of MSM reports. An "inconvenient truth" has been buried.

Note: Release of Lt-Col Thorneloe's name was originally embargoed until 10pm this evening, but The Sun has now published details on its web site. We have, therefore, now decided to publish our own post.

COMMENT THREAD

No invite to the debate

Simon Jenkins takes up the cudgels on defence spending in The Guardian today. When he focuses on specific issues, rather than advocating complete withdrawal of our forces, he usually has quite interesting things to say, and this is one of those times.

His general theme, borne out by the title, "As soldiers die, the MoD is stockpiling for the cold war," is summarised by the strap which declares that: "Defence ministers are too concerned with showing off their military muscle to provide what fighting forces actually need."

Generals, writes Jenkins, are always teased for preparing for the last war but one. "They laugh. Not us, they say. Then they go out and prepare for the last war but one." Now they are preparing for the cold war.

We could argue with the details of what Jenkins then has to offer, but not the thrust of his argument, that far too much is being spent on "glamour kit" and not enough on fulfilling actual operational needs.

Jenkins notes that one of problems is that what defence ministries buy has nothing to do with what fighting soldiers need. It is rather to do with what the arms industry wants to sell, illustrating Eisenhower's famous warning in 1961 against "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power … of a military/industrial complex".

What particularly strikes a chord though is his view that, "The opposition performance here is a disgrace," even if the Jenkins rhetoric about "Tory foreign policy still stuck in the neocon mode adumbrated by William Hague during the Bush/Blair years" is not to everyone's taste.

But the fact is that every one of the "big ticket" defence projects proposed by Labour – including FRES – have been supported by the Tory front bench and, as Jenkins observes, David Cameron seems as eager as was Blair not to be thought weak by the defence lobby.

This issue is explored further by James Kirkup on his blog, where he asks, "what exactly are the Tories promising on defence?" He, in turn, refers to a recent article in the Financial Times which has an account of a private dinner between Liam Fox and the defence industry. It records, in respect of the promised strategic defence review, that "…industry executives have privately been assured that this will not lead to big programmes being abandoned."

All rather smells of back-door deals where, it seems, all interests are being catered for, except the defence interest.

Kirkup speculates that, "at best, the Tories are practising a form of creative ambiguity around defence, avoiding a full debate until they make their minds up and put their suggestions to the voters, the forces and the industry." At worst, he writes "they’re saying one thing to one audience and something different to another," adding that "the lack of clarity is a shame."

There is a good and important debate to be had about Britain's military forces and our place in the world, he concludes, and when and if the Tories are clear about their thinking on defence, they'll find there could be significant rewards for a party willing to join the conversation.

We suspect, however, that the current political calculus within the higher echelons of the Tory party leans towards the view that there are greater rewards in keeping defence out of the political arena. In that, it seems that the Tories have something in common with the military. Us plebs should not be invited to the debate.

COMMENT THREAD

Half as much with more protection

With the results of the closely-fought M-ATV contract to supply off-road protected vehicles to the US armed forces being announced yesterday, US Armed Forces are to get their protected vehicles for Afghanistan at half the cost paid by the British MoD, which has selected one of the unsuccessful bidders.

As reported by The Financial Times, the clear US winner is Wisconsin-based vehicle manufacturer Oshkosh – already a major supplier of trucks to the US and supplier of the HET and tanker fleet to the British Army.

In winning the contract, the Oshkosh vehicle (pictured above) beat off a bid from BAE Systems, from Force Protection – which had teamed up with General Dynamics to work as a consortium called Force Dynamics – and Navistar International.

The value of the contract is $1.1 billion for an initial 2,244 vehicles, working out at just over $490,000 per unit, or just under £300,000 at current sterling exchange rates. This compares with the £600,000 being paid by the MoD for the Navistar Husky, one of the unsuccessful entrants, which is reported to have failed the mine resistance test.
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This puts the MoD in the classic position of spending twice as much as it needs to, for substandard kit, when it could have saved money and lives by joining in with the Americans on the M-ATV programme – with the added benefit of achieving logistic commonality.

Needless to say, with the BBC already having delivered its "puff" for the Husky, you will not get a squeak of protest from Britain's favourite broadcaster – which, after all, knows a thing or two about wasting money.

COMMENT THREAD

Savagely vindicated

Two days ago, Yorkshire Post columnist Bernard Dineen ventured his opinion on Snatch Land Rovers and the court case to be mounted by families of soldiers killed in these vehicles.

"The Government" and "the MoD", he ventured, are too diffuse a target. "Lawyers acting for the families should instead be suing Gordon Brown personally because he is directly responsible. Five former Chiefs of Staff stood up in the House of Lords and laid the blame on his behaviour during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer."

This is a classic example of the low-grade personality politics to which we referred in a recent piece, where the media relies on a pre-determined narrative in order to analyse and comment on events, rather than develop arguments based on objective evidence.

Looking at the broader issues, there are more serious problems in the military than the Snatch - or its deployment - and, if we accept that the UK and its military are at a critical moment, then there are two options for dealing with the situation. One is precisely that taken by the bulk of the media, embodied in the Dineen approach – the "route of least resistance". This is to pass blame for all shortcomings onto a lame duck government, specifically Gordon Brown as the embodiment of the government.

That is certainly the view of Major Patrick Little, a recently retired infantry officer and Advanced Command and Staff graduate. His second option, though, is obviously to be preferred. That is for the British Army specifically and defence more generally to turn the critical mirror on itself. This mirror, he writes in the current edition of the RUSI Journal ...

... will lead to an acknowledgement of shortcomings. It will demonstrate unequivocally a willingness to learn, pay the price of failings, and a determination to adapt.

The first of the choices fits a public appetite for blaming this government; it is convenient and follows a well worn military tradition and narrative. The second begins, and only begins, what may be a long and painful journey. It would be deeply uncomfortable for many senior officers – as it should be. It may, if mishandled, deflect some of the blame from government – but this is no excuse for failing in this critical exercise.

These options are contained in a 4,000-word thesis with the heading "Lessons unlearned", where Little offers as his opening gambit, "a challenge for those who share the fear that, behind the façade, all is not well in the British Army and has not been for some time."

The big problem, Little believes, is "the absence of public reflection by the military on what it has done well at and badly at" in Iraq and Afghanistan," in contrast to the US military which has been both receptive and responsive to criticism. This, he argues, led to "a quite remarkable transformation" and a turnabout in almost every aspect of the US Army's performance in Iraq.

Referring to the same absence of informed debate that we have remarked upon, Little also calls in aid John Nagl’s recent comments to Stephen Grey about the British Army: "Until you admit that you have a problem, until you admit that you are not doing everything as well as you can, it's really, really hard to get better."

Adds Nagl: "I haven't seen that same spirit of self criticism in the British Army. That sort of rigorous analysis would be enormously helpful … The British Army which has such a proud history in counter-insurgency campaigns has not done everything right in Helmand Province, did not do everything right in Basra. It needs to think hard about these lessons. I believe it needs to think publicly."

On Dannatt's "frequent controversial comments to the press on overstretch and valuing the nation’s soldiers," Little observes that these will seem to many external observers to represent a useful pressure valve. Equally, he says, the steady outbursts by retired senior officers on similar issues will also come across as not unwelcome. But, in and amongst the noise generated by retired senior officers sounding off about resource shortages, there has been too little equivalent internal reflection on and acknowledgement of command failures within the Army.

Furthermore, within that Army, middle ranking officers are heavily constrained in what they can say – especially to the media - even those with considerable operational experience, indicating a quite extraordinarily defensive attitude by senior military officers with less operational experience.

Equally, complex decision-making, policy formulation and doctrine writing are under pressure. Documents travel along complicated web-like chains of command, hitting repeated road blocks, and suffering delays. Senior officers are capable at any stage of reversing the advice of their staff. On occasion, this is paralysing and has been responsible for the delays in producing the UK's own counterinsurgency doctrine.

On top of that, there is a command climate in which bad news is routinely camouflaged and where the ability of junior officers to influence a future which they will be inheriting is distinctly limited. It is one described by Tim Collins as one in which "obsequious behaviour by career-conscious senior officers on the ground’ contributes to a sadly muddled picture in Whitehall." That culture is, amongst other things, driving out far too many high quality middle-ranking officers.

Inadequate senior officer performance, notes Little, is a real obstacle to learning and adapting. It plagues the UK military every bit as it does many other militaries.

Part of the solution, he believes, is to invite outsiders to look in, and he wants to see writing on the strengths and weaknesses of British strategy, tactics and doctrine from unique foreign perspectives. The standard of critical writing in military professional journals also needs to be re-invigorated, with the conformism erased.

Most of all though, Little warns that the Army needs "intellectual integrity" – which it currently lacks – in order to survive and succeed in tomorrow's environment. Hiding behind tradition is no answer. In short, if the British Army wishes to recover its former pre-eminence, it must stop evangelising and start reflecting more deeply on the outsiders' view.

From this outsider's viewpoint, I feel savagely vindicated. Recently, I wrote on this blog:

The military, as currently constituted, is a deeply dysfunctional organisation, not least evidenced by its state of denial over its performance in Iraq. It is also one which – as CDS Jock Stirrup admitted in January - was "smug and complacent" about prosecuting counter-insurgency warfare, relying too much on its experiences in Northern Ireland – the lessons of which it did not even apply properly.

It is also a military which, as Stirrup also admitted, has yet to complete a "fundamental reappraisal" of Britain's counter-insurgency training and structures and which, as we have seen recently, seems unable to foster a "spirit of informed debate" when it comes to reviewing its own performance.

Furthermore, despite some reputed high-fliers and intellectual heavyweights in the middle ranks, this is a military that has been unable to come up with a coherent strategy for the prosecution of the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, is (still) making a complete mess of its equipment procurement and is unable to mesh with US doctrines.

I add ...

General Sir Richard Dannatt ... has presided over the diminished reputation of the Army of which he is so proud. He needs to look to his own lack of strategic leadership, and his failures to grasp the nettle of turning the Army into an effective counter-insurgency force.

As for the Army generally (and the military as a whole to a lesser extent), it needs to come to terms with quite how much its reputation has been diminished and how much goodwill it has lost – and is losing through the inept handing of the "information war" which is so much part of any counter-insurgency campaign.

The worst is, the longer and deeper the military remains in its current state of denial, blaming anyone and anything but itself for its own shortcomings, the worse it will get. Already, the MoD publicity effort is a parody of itself. The way it is going, the rest of the military will follow, to become a tarnished asset and a shadow of its former glory.

That we get an effective endorsement of this message from an insider is a significant development, and one which needs to be built upon. Crucially, Little wants to see a public debate – and so do we. But this was precisely the message of Ministry of Defeat. So far, the response has not been particularly encouraging. The media "narratives" are, it seems, too firmly emplaced for a real debate to begin.

Little's contribution is another step in that direction. We hope he has more success.

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