The spectator sees more of the game

In what may be part of a co-ordinated fight against being forced to acquire protected vehicles, David Axe, freelance journalist extraordinaire, has been given a license by the Army to take a pop at the Mastiff in an article written for World Politics Review. In it, he argues that, "for British forces in Iraq, protection means loss of effectiveness".

No one can deny that the man has had first hand experience, having been embedded with British troops in Iraq – or that he writes well and makes an arguable case. But he is still wrong. Like so many of his ilk – including Michael Yon – he is perhaps too close to the ground and cannot see the bigger picture. A truism it may be, but the spectator sees more of the game.

To lead us into his thesis, Axe acquaints us with a Royal Air Force security troops patrolling the outskirts of Basra air station in southern Iraq on 17 December. The soldiers leap out of their new Mastiff armoured trucks in order to scout out a bridge before the lumbering blast-proof vehicles crossed. One of the soldiers notices something he didn't recall seeing before: a crack in the concrete near the far side of the bridge.

He points this out to his commander, Flight Lt. Edward Cripps, who eyes the idling Mastiffs, their drivers waiting for the all clear. This is what happens, Cripps muses aloud, when you repeatedly drive 30-ton trucks over a bridge designed for much lighter vehicles. "We'll have to keep an eye on this," he says. But for now the bridge was sound, and the officer gestures for the Mastiffs to cross.

This, Axe now develops, noting that, although this may be "a small thing", the over-burdened bridge is "just one consequence of the changing nature of British military operations in southern Iraq." Two years ago, he continues:

… nimble, lightly-equipped British forces pursued a counterinsurgency strategy grounded in decades of operational experience - and with unusual effectiveness. So much so that heavy, aggressive US forces adopted British methods when they launched their much-vaunted "surge" campaign to retake Baghdad from insurgents.

Today, the British counterinsurgency operation has ended - some say prematurely - and the units slated to remain in Iraq as an "overwatch" force have adopted heavier, less agile weapons systems, such as the Mastiffs, and fortified themselves at the air station.

In doing so, they become less effective against low-intensity threats and, ironically, more vulnerable overall. British forces, say some military experts, in essence are making the same mistake their American counterparts did in the first three years of the Iraq war: they have confused "force protection" with effectiveness.

Now working from the particular to the general, Axe uses US military historian Max Boot, writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2005, to bolster his case, with a direct quote from the piece:

Successful counterinsurgency operations require troops to go out among the people, gathering intelligence and building goodwill. But few Iraqis are allowed on these bases, and few Americans are allowed out - and then only in forbidding armored convoys.

We then learn, according to Boot's contention, that troops concentrated at large fortified bases surrendered intelligence-gathering and initiative - that is, the ability to act first and compel your enemy to react - in a bid to minimise soldiers' exposure to attack. And when they did sortie from their castle-like compounds, they were so ignorant of what qualifies for normal in Iraq that they were prone to respond to the most innocuous activity with gunfire.

Before going too far with this, however, it is useful to step back and examine Axe's first premise, that the heavyweight Mastiff is causing damage, something he refers to later in his article, adding that they tear down city power and telephone lines, damage buildings and parked cars and over-stress dilapidated Iraqi bridges.

Staying with this, we have to examine the very specific use to which the Mastiff is being put, in the very specific context from which Axe draws his inspiration. That use, in fact, is airfield security – one of the main roles of the RAF Regiment – for which purpose they had previously used the WIMIK Land Rover (pictured right).

Yet, it was precisely that vehicle, in precisely that role, which led to the death last August of a British soldier from 51 Squadron RAF Regiment along with a civilian interpreter in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, with two other soldiers receiving minor injuries.

Had these personnel been riding in a Mastiff, it is undoubtedly the case that the whole crew would have escaped uninjured, as indeed did the crew of the Mastiff which was attacked outside Basra Air Base on 22 December, only days after the bridge incident.

Thus do we see a very selective use of evidence from Axe. He offers the downside of the Mastiff, but what message would he have to the parents and relatives of the deceased from the Kandahar incident? And what message would he have for the troops who escaped injury in Basra? Would he tell them that they should have died to protect city power and telephone lines, buildings, parked cars and dilapidated Iraqi bridges?

In fact though, Axe does have a point – although he does not make it. When you compare the Mastiff with the WIMIK, the size of the former highlights the obvious huge disparity in size. It is exactly that which became one of the points of contention when we started our campaign on the Snatch Land Rover - simply that protected vehicles were too big for Basra.

At that time, we were arguing for the RG-31, a very much smaller vehicle and one which, demonstrably, was capable of protecting crews. But the MoD in its wisdom decided upon the Mastiff, bigger than anything we envisaged. Indeed, it is too big for some roles and certainly, as Axe argues, too heavy for some applications.

However, as readers of this blog will be very well aware, the Mastiff is by no means the only protected vehicle available and indeed we have already mentioned the smaller RG-31 which weighs in at just over seven tons. For mine protection (as in Kandahar) probably the RAM 2000 would provide more than adequate protection, which weighs 4.5 tons, a vehicle based on the RBY Mk 1. There is also the RG-32M, with a combat weight of about seven tons, which would be ideal for airfield security.

It is also interesting to note that when the Rhodesians needed a mine-protected vehicle for airfield patrols, they managed with a converted Land Rover, which they called the Cougar.

On this basis, addressing Axe's very specific complaints about the Mastiff, the problem is not protection per se, but the wrong type of protection. We have a situation where the MoD currently only provides one type of vehicle – basically an armoured personnel carrier. It was never designed nor intended for airfield perimeter patrolling and is thus being misused. In due course, we will see lighter vehicles – presumably the 4x4 Cougar (to be named the Ridgeback) – although that in itself is the same height and width as the Mastiff, and is no great improvement.

Nevertheless, weight – and size - is not Axe's only complaint. Quoting General Petraeus' philosophy, he wants troops to get out of their armoured vehicles, move around on foot and engage with the local populace - all concepts, he says, the British had championed since the beginning of the occupation in 2003.

This, we will address later in this piece but even Axe acknowledges that troops will be using vehicles. Here he calls in aid Lieutenant Colonel Labouchere who abandoned the Abu Naji base at al Amarah in 2006, taking to the Maysan desert in lightly armoured WIMIK Land Rovers. The sprightly Land Rovers, writes Axe,

…which are smaller than the standard US Humvee - were vital to Labouchere's desert adventure and even allowed British forces to navigate teeming downtown markets. But for combat operations Land Rovers are being replaced by the new Mastiffs: six-wheeled vehicles that are too tall, too wide and too sluggish to even enter cities. In addition, the soldiers riding inside them are virtually blind: there are only four small windows thickly paned with armored glass.

It is this latter comment that is particularly telling, highlighting an issue we too have addressed, technically known as situational awareness. This is perennially brought up by advocates of light, highly mobile vehicles and currently championed in the latest round of the debate on the suitability of the WIMIK.

Such is the limited breadth of the argument, however, that the champions of the WIMIK cannot seem to grasp that protection and situational awareness – or high mobility, for that matter – are not mutually incompatible. In an earlier post, we illustrated the Dingo armoured scout car (left) and the RBY Mk1, both of which offer situational awareness easily comparable with the WIMIK. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to produce a mine protected vehicle with an open top, to perform the role of a WIMIK.

Thus far, but unfortunately at much greater length, we are able to deal with Axe's arguments on size and weight and on situational awareness but, although he does not labour it, his use of the word "sprightly" implies mobility. This is translated by other advocates as speed and off-road performance, which are at a premium in Afghanistan and which the WIMIK is deemed to offer.

Here, critics of protected vehicles may have a point in that armour does add weight – although not necessarily as much as some think. All things being equal, an unarmoured vehicle is going to be more mobile than its protected counterpart.

However, while some argue that the WIMIK is an unarmoured vehicle, it has some (very limited) armour. But, so vulnerable is it to attack that troops have been applying their own armour in theatre (pictured) and the latest version (the so-called E-WIMIK) has still more. It is now so heavily laden that its mobility is restricted while still affording less protection than a specifically-designed vehicle. And, with all that weight, it is dangerously top-heavy, making it difficult and dangerous to drive. Perversely, this "light gun platform" is now considerably heavier than a Ferret armoured car which weighed less than four tons.

Nevertheless, we still hear that good off-road performance can confer as much or greater protection as armour, simply by allowing more tactical flexibility. It can, for instance, permit drivers to avoid established tracks, where mines and IEDs might be laid. It is better to take a chance with mines than to be weighed down with armour and lose that tactical flexibility, or so it is held.

At several levels, though, this argument is flawed. Firstly, the topography of Afghanistan is such that, while there are the wide open spaces, on many routes to and from operations – and generally – there are so-called "choke points". At these, the terrain naturally channels traffic and there is no alternative but to follow narrow, defined routes, no matter how good the off-road performance.


Three such scenarios are illustrated here, one of the classics being while crossing wadis (dried up river beds) – the first of the sequence (above) showing a wadi crossing. And that, it is understood, is how Jack Sadler died. His patrol was seeking a route out of a wadi, and used a track they had passed over the day before. Only, that time, a mine had been laid by a Taleban which keeps British forces under constant observation.

Secondly, the need for vehicle mobility is very much overstated. Axe, as a fan of Labouchere, offers us two video reports (here and here) eulogising his hero, the latter sequence showing one of his "sprightly Land Rovers" trying to negotiate truly impossible terrain, getting totally bogged down and very nearly overturning. "Sprightly" that vehicle was not. In such terrain, even superb performers are slow, noisy and vulnerable, and therefore of limited value. Commanders need to recognise that there are other ways of doing things.

Where reconnaissance is involved, much of what is carried out by ground forces can be as well done – if not better – by airborne assets, either helicopters, fixed wing aircraft or UAVs, more so if working in very close co-operation with ground forces. And, under certain circumstances – if they are available – vehicles can be lifted by helicopters to be inserted and extracted when needed, by-passing difficult or dangerous terrain. When it comes to cross-country performance, there is nothing better than an aircraft.

As to the role of "air", we can cite our own expert, Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF, who argues cogently that the Army does not understand and is thus not able to exploit the full potential of airpower in counter-insurgency operations. Thus, in many respects, the Army makes its own grief.

Then, in terms of mobility, there are the other uses to which these vehicles are put, not least convoy escorts, urban patrols and, in the case of the "Snatch", personnel transport. In these roles, the scope for enhanced mobility is very limited. And where mobility cannot be relied on to ensure safety, other means of protection are essential.

The third point, however, brings in the bigger picture. Axe glibly quotes Dakota Wood from the US-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, using him to tell us that the deployment of "highly protected but operationally dubious armored trucks such as Mastiff" is the result of "an emotional debate" over casualties.

While indeed, there are emotional overtones to that debate - witness the piece is today's Sunday Mirror - these are underwritten by cold, hard, political calculations, again on several levels. The most immediate concern is for troop morale.

While soldiers are realistic about the hazards of their trade, they are more sanguine about being killed in a "fair" fight involving direct combat. But the seeming randomness, unpredictability, and persistence of IED and mine attacks – especially with their potential to maim as well as kill – are feared and detested. If troops do not feel they have protection against them, their morale suffers. And, as well as affecting operational efficiency, this has an influence on recruitment and retention rates, and on the perception of operations on the "home front".

It is at this "home front" level though that the political calculations are most acute. While the Army may see its objective as winning engagements, the Taleban are fighting the "attrition" phase of a long-term guerrilla war. Their objective is not to win the military battle but to kill soldiers in an attempt to erode the political will of the nations who send them.

Guerrilla war does not allow the simplistic military reckoning of "exchange rates". That much, VietNam taught us. Each death or serious injury is a victory for the Taleban - a step closer to undermining the home front, leading eventually to the withdrawal of troops who have not been defeated militarily. Thus, whatever willingness there might be of the Army, collectively or individually, to take risks and accept losses, this is not their choice to make. To win the war, they must do everything realistically possible to minimise their own casualties - especially when so many deaths and injuries are avoidable. The politicians realise this, but it is not clear that the military – and certainly not David Axe – fully understand it.

Now, so far, we have only addressed part of Axe's thesis. Starting with his slender argument that we should not be using protected vehicles, he relies heavily on Labouchere's "strategy" as an alternative. However, this amounted to abandoning the Abu Naji base in al Amarah under fire in order to spearhead "a drive to make British troops lighter, faster and closer to the local populace."

Writes Axe, after a particularly intensive mortar attack on his base, Labouchere persuaded his bosses to let him shutter the base completely, jettison his heavy weapons and armor and take to the desert with just his soldiers, his interpreters and a handful of reconnaissance vehicles and Land Rovers. Axe goes on:

The Maysan battle group moved constantly, zipping across the desert province on a mission to intercept criminals and militia fighters. Labouchere said that with his "lighter is better" approach, he was trying to prevent what he called the "self-licking lollipop" effect. That is, he wanted to avoid the heavily armored equipment - and associated logistical requirements - that can quickly distract a military unit from its actual mission.

What this narrative neglects, however, is the earlier history of the campaign and subsequent events and thus how Labouchere's retreat from Abu Naji set the seal on what this blog – and many others - regards as the British failure in southern Iraq.

A more rounded account would take in the relative calm in the southern sector immediately after the invasion in 2003, but then noted the Mehdi uprising in August 2003, which effectively marked the start of a full-blown Shia insurgency. As we recall in one of our posts, the situation rapidly deteriorated to the point that, by November of that year, the Army was being forced to patrol in protected (but still dangerously vulnerable) "Snatch" Land Rovers.

The following year saw what amounted to all-out war with the siege of Cimic House starting on 5th of August 2004 in the centre of al Amarah and lasting 23 days. And, while the situation was stabilised, British forces were later pulled out of Cimic House and troops were concentrated in Abu Naji base outside the town, from which patrols were mounted into the town.

After multiple attacks, ranging from street gunfights and RPG ambushes, to IED ambushes, by September 2005 it was no longer safe to use "Snatch" Land Rovers on the streets of al Amarah. For want of protected vehicles, patrolling was being conducted with tracked Warrior MICVs and Challenger II main battle tanks. At the same time, the base had come under sustained assault from rockets and mortars, against which the troops were powerless, partly because there were unable to police the areas from which they were being fired.

And that surely is the point. While the advocates of light vehicles talk so freely about "mobility", commanders in al Amarah were given the choice of "Snatch" Land Rovers, Warriors at 35 tons or Challengers at 60 tons plus, both of the latter being tracked vehicles. When the Land Rovers proved too vulnerable to use, they had no option but to resort to vehicles far heavier than the Mastiffs of which Axe so volubly complains.

Nevertheless, it was in that context that, in the following year, Labouchere evacuated the base, whereupon it was handled to the Iraqi Army but immediately taken over by Mehdi supporters and ransacked. The leader of the militias, Moqtada al-Sadr, declared this a great victory and claimed to have driven the British "occupiers" out of town. All Labouchere had done was send out a signal that, if the British were attacked heavily and often enough, they would run away.

Predictably, therefore, far from quelling the insurgency, Labouchere's action fuelled it. The action moved to Basra, where bases started coming under increasingly heavy attack. And, in each case, the Army responded not by seeking out and destroying the attackers but by repeating the Labouchere strategy of "running away". Progressively, the bases at the Old State Building, the Shaat al Arab Hotel, the Joint Provincial Coordination Centre and Shaiba were vacated, leaving only the outpost at Basra Palace and the air base outside the city.

It cannot therefore have been a surprise that Basra Palace then came under sustained siege, with resupply missions becoming more and more hazardous. Without the wherewithal to deal with the attacks, the British forces conceded defeat and evacuated their last base in the city.

It is thus fair to say that, far from a failure to get "closer to the local populace", this strategy of progressive retreat under fire represented a sustained failure to deal with the attacks on the bases. As to the Mastiffs, the real problem was that they arrived too late and in insufficent numbers to affect the outcome. There was a desperate need to restore mobility to the streets, allowing the troops to get to various locations (then to patrol on foot) without unsustainable casualty levels.

That is where Axe has it so wrong. He argues that American leaders abandoned the firepower-heavy approach for time-honoured counterinsurgency tactics adopted by the British. He claims that was the basis for General David Petraeus' "surge" campaign which has significantly reduced sectarian violence in Baghdad since January 2007. But he fails to understand that the surge itself was underwritten by the restoration of mobility, brought about by the rapid programme of introducing protected vehicles. Protection is not about firepower – it is about stopping troops getting killed by insurgents in order that they can then do their work.

This is also where Michael Yon goes wrong. Totally reliable on the detail of the conduct of day-to-day operations – and much respected for his accounts - he accepts the current Army narrative that a retreat from Basra was the best option as the Army had now become part of the problem.

Last August, though, before the retreat, Colonel Bob Stewart - styled as "former UN commander of British troops in Bosnia" - was interviewed by the BBC. Paraphrased, his view was that the reason why we were taking the casualties – which eventually forced our evacuation – was because we "cannot dominate the ground". The options, he said, were to retake and dominate the ground, or abandon it.

In the final analysis, we could not do the former without sustaining unacceptable casualties - a chicken and egg sitation - so we had to do the latter. But it was not a "victory" or even a success.

While it is all very well, therefore, for Axe to pontificate about the shortcomings of protected vehicles now that we have finally retreated from Basra Palace (pictured) and hunkered down in the last bastion at Basra Air Station, one of the reasons why we could not dominate the ground was because our troops had not been issued with vehicles like the Mastiff, in which they could move around safely. Contrary to Axe's assertions, it was the absence of protected vehicles early in the campaign, rather then their limited presence now, that has been instrumental in the defeat of the British Army.

And, although Axe was confining his remarks to Iraq, much of what applied (or should have applied) to Iraq also applies to Afghanistan. There, at least, the Army has not made all the mistakes that it so egregiously made in the Iraqi campaign, but its continued used of the WIMIK and the equally vulnerable Pinzgauers (both the unarmoured versions and the Vector), suggests it still has a great deal to learn.

COMMENT THREAD

Carrier programme delayed?

Some agencies and other sources, including DefenseNews, are reporting that the MoD is considering delaying the Royal Navy’s £3.9 billion carrier programme for up to 18 months or longer.

The Press Association on the other hand is reporting, "Green light for Navy carriers plan" saying that the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers will go ahead as planned "despite a delay in signing the contract". This is according to an official MoD release that says there has been a "slight delay" while the joint venture between BAE Systems and the VT Group, which will build the ships, was established as a legal entity.

Speculation nevertheless remains rife that the project is being held back, to "help plug a yawning hole in the defence budget", an assertion made by DefenseNews, suggesting that partners in the BAE Systems-led alliance “have been asked to look at ways of adjusting the spending profile on the program to help overcome cash shortages at the MoD over the next three years.”

Quoting an unnamed industry source, the journal says that, "One option being considered is continuing the design work but delaying cutting metal by 12 months. Another is to freeze the program entirely for 18 months." That same source adds that, "The former would just be tenable, but the latter would likely kill the programme". Another source, however, is indicating that the programme could be delayed by as much as five years.

This speculation adds fuel to the more general claims that the MoD is running seriously short of money and that one or other of its major projects are to be cancelled or heavily trimmed back.

However, what lends credence to suspicions that something is going on, beyond mere juggling with cash-flow is an earlier report in The Financial Times which notes that "higher depreciation and impairment charges on equipment" as a result of their heavy use in Iraq and Afghanistan is heavily eroding the disposable MoD budget, leaving it with only 0.9 percent real increases for day-to-day expenditure, rather than the headline 1.5 percent.

However, as one would expect, damage limitation – if that is what it is – is in full swing with "people close to the [carrier] talks" stressing that discussions were "part of the MoD's wider review of its equipment programme" and that no final decision had been made.

However, given the political sensitivity of the carrier issue, and the fact that the Royal Navy has staked so much on getting these two ships, the favourite for a cutback still looks like being FRES, which seems to have disappeared from sight altogether. Politically, it may be easier to cut this low-profile project, replacing it with some immediate high-visibility armoured vehicle projects, than it will be to take the Royal Navy head on.

What this current round of speculation might indicate though, is that the MoD has seriously underestimated the effect of wear and tear on its current inventory and is having to find large amounts of cash simply to keep equipment operational.

The lack of a specific programme contrasts strongly with the US Reset programme costed at estimated $13 billion, aimed at restoring and upgrading their own equipment.

It will be ironic if the need for maintaining existing equipment forces the MoD to delay its high profile projects, with the carriers held back to allow current forces to continue operating.

But then, with the projected in-service already set back to 2014 and 2016 - two years later than was originally envisaged – this may be a problem for a government of a completely different colour, so the temptation to delay spending now might seem extremely attractive.

COMMENT THREAD

Yet another WIMIK

British troops casualties, for the moment, remain mercifully low, reflecting the lower intensity of operations in Iraq and the seasonal lull in campaigning in Afghanistan. There is also, most decidedly, an effect attributable to the introduction of the Mastiff protected vehicles, which are acknowledged life savers.

It is thus the case that the more recent casualties have not occurred during direct engagements but in ambush scenarios, either through mines or IEDs – a phenomenon we have observed in the Canadian sector. And those deaths that do occur have often been attributable to the inadequacy of the vehicles with which troops are equipped.

Fully aware of the sensitivity of this issue, however, the MoD – pending the introduction of new protected vehicles, the details of which we are still awaiting – have come up with the disarmingly simple expedient of simply not identifying vehicle types when they report deaths.

This was the case with the most recent death in Afghanistan, that of Sergeant Lee Johnson, on 8 December. In this case, as so often, he was killed by an "explosion" while travelling in a vehicle, but the type was not disclosed and it was only in a subsequent Sunday Times report that we learned that the vehicle had been a Pinzgauer Vector.

Days before the death of Sergeant Johnson, however, there had been reported – on 5 December – the death of another soldier in Afghanistan, Trooper Jack Sadler of the Honourable Artillery Company. He had been serving with the elite 4/73 Special Observation Battery, Brigade Reconnaissance Force, while on a gap year between successfully gaining a degree in war studies and entering Sandhurst.

Again in the official report of his death mention was made of a vehicle being "caught in an explosion" but once again there was no mention of the type.

Thus, the death of a promising young man was recorded but, with details of his and other soldiers' deaths being withheld, no outside observer was able to build up a picture of how the Army equipment programme was failing our troops. And with no such information available, media interest was short-lived and confined to the facts of individual cases, with no general inferences being drawn.

However, the truth will out and we have recently learned that Trooper Sadler was riding in a WIMIK Land Rover. Not only that – as with the now celebrated Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson who lost both legs and suffered terrible injuries when his WIMIK hit a mine – Sadler was the machine gunner, manning the weapon in the rear of the vehicle.**

With over a month passed between his death and the emergence of this detail, though, we are dealing with "old news" and the media will have little interest in the case. But here we have, yet again with dreary predictability, another totally unnecessary death. And the fact that it was so unnecessary, occasioned by completely inadequate equipment, has passed by the media, kept in the dark by the MoD.

Behind the scenes though, there is a growing band of relatives – mainly parents and wives – who have seen through this subterfuge. Rightly, they are angry and, like us, they want answers. They will not be denied.

** The vehicle shown is Italian-operated, but it shows clearly how little protection there is. In this case, the gunner seems to be standing on some bricks, possibly placed to afford some protection from mine blasts. In Rhodesia, Aden and elsewhere, it was common practice to line vehicle beds with sandbags for that purpose.

COMMENT THREAD

More Reapers

Reported by us in November was the arrival of the first of three British operated MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Afghanistan. And, so impressed have been the military with their performance that now, the MoD is bidding for an additional ten.

The total package cost, including the sensors, communications equipment and nine Lynx ground scanning radar sets, technically designated as "Synthetic Aperture Radar/Ground Moving Target Indicator (SAR/GMTI) systems" – complete with support and training – is in the order of £500 million. This makes the package a considerable and welcome investment in the Afghanistan campaign.

The event is covered by The Daily Telegraph today, which notes that (with satellite relays) the aircraft could be directed by an operator in London, and "can drop laser-guided bombs or missiles on to Taliban targets".

It is also covered in detail by Lewis Page in The Register, who notes the "interesting bells'n'whistles on MoD shopping list", including the Lynx ground scanning moving-target radar (pictured). This equipment is, in fact, is incredibly sophisticated kit, configured to produce high resolution imagery akin to high-resolution photographs (pictured below left).

With a range of up to 50 miles, it also has all-weather capability, with the ability to penetrate fog (a problem at Musa Qala), cloud and even dust storms. And such is the sensitivity that it can even detect "small surface penetrations" such as footprints in a soft terrain.

When it comes to equipment, this is simply the best there is of its kind and, while the Telegraph makes great play of the Predator's weapons-carrying capabilities – calling them "drone bombers" from the look of the package, it seems these UAVs are to be used primarily for surveillance.

What both the Telegraph and the Register miss, therefore, is that these unmanned aircraft partially replace and certainly supplement the hard-pressed Nimrod MR2 aircraft currently deployed on Afghanistan. That the MoD should be seeking to purchase them so soon after the Nimrod inquest is probably not a coincidence. One question that could be asked, therefore, is why this capability was not sought earlier.

Another interesting thought is that these UAVs offer a not dissimilar capability to the RAF's Sentinel R1, the so called "Airborne Stand-Off Radar" (ASTOR).

Although ordered in 1999 – at a procurement cost of just over £1 billion - with the five scheduled for delivery by the end of last year, operational deployment is not expected until the end of 2008. But it is understood that there are some development problems with the aircraft, and this may explain why the current batch of Predators is to be procured under the Urgent Operational Requirement system.

Either way, this is good news for the RAF, better for the Army and seriously bad news for the Taleban.

COMMENT THREAD

A gap in the market

After a prolonged Christmas break from defence issues, we return with a report from the Canadian Globe and Mail which may have profound implications for our defence planners generally, and especially those concerned with the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), an announcement on which is expected sometime early in this year.

The report is of yet another tragic IED outrage, headed, "Roadside blast kills Canadian outside Kandahar", noting that this was the first casualty which occurred at the very end of December – since mid-November.

That in itself is a testament to the Canadian efforts to detect IEDs, not that this was any consolation to the soldier who was killed and the four others injured as their convoy was heading back from the front lines for a long-awaited New Year's break.

One significant issue from the point of view of our own planners is that the vehicle in which the troops were travelling was a TLAV (Tracked Light Armoured Vehicle - pictured), an upgraded M-113, very similar to our own F432, on which the Bulldog is based.

This reaffirms yet again the vulnerability of "conventional" armoured vehicles to IEDs and – as so often – we do not have any details of the nature or size of the bomb, we can assume that because one soldier was killed and the others survived (apparently, the other four casualties suffering light injuries), this was probably survivable in a better-armoured MRAP such as the RG-31 or Mastiff/Cougar.

Another significant issue is that this convoy was hit as it was conveying troops from their forward operating base back to their main base, where they were due to get a few days rest and relaxation.

The Globe and Mail report describes the roadside bomb attack as speaking to "the kind of invisible enemy the Canadian Forces face as they push deeper into insurgent territory in the south." Insurgents, the paper adds, often prefer to fight by stealth rather than along front lines.

This is becoming something of a trend as we see remarkably light casualties suffered during actual operations, the main burden being suffered as troops travel to and from the fighting areas, along relatively predictable routes. Thus, while the vehicles in which troops travel may be adequate for the specific operations they conduct, they do not appear to be affording the protection needed during transit.

What is especially significant here is that the TLAV was introduced in theatre by last year as a partial replacement for the wheeled LAV-3s, as well as Bison armoured carriers deployed by Canadian forces. One reason for this is that the harsh environment and the operational load has caused excessive wear on the vehicles, so extensive that many are having to be returned to Canada for extensive maintenance, amounting virtually to complete rebuilding.

This, incidentally, is going to be a major issue with British forces in the coming year, as much of the equipment in use is suffering similar deterioration and is going to require similar extensive maintenance, denting the already stretched defence budget.

That the TLAVs were available, therefore, meant that they could be quickly deployed, but there was another reason. The wheeled armoured vehicles, were apparently having some difficulties in negotiating the rough terrain in theatre, and in particular, found some of the irrigation ditches which criss-cross the area almost impassable (pictured, above and right). The provision of tracked vehicles, with their better off-road performance, was therefore seen as a tactical necessity.

This move has been much applauded with attention drawn to an article comparing the relative merits of tracked and wheeled armoured vehicles.

The upshot is that where a vehicle's mission requires off-road usage greater than 60 percent and gross vehicle weight exceeds 10 tons, a tracked configuration is preferred for combat roles. Furthermore, tracked vehicles, by design, are inherently more compact than wheeled vehicles, giving them a smaller silhouette, enhancing their survivability in a conventional battle.

It is that very compactness, though, bringing them closer to the ground, which makes them vulnerable to IEDs. As much as anything, it is the high ground clearance of the MRAP, with its v-shaped hull, which gives protection, the force of the explosion attenuating with the square of the distance. Additionally, while an explosion can shatter a track, leaving a tracked vehicle immediately immobile, MRAPs with their run-flat tyres often can survive explosions with some (limited mobility), sufficient to drive clear of the killing zones.

Pity the poor defence designers then. For conventional operations, their best option is a low-profile tracked vehicle. For counter-insurgency work, where the IED is employed as a major weapon, they need a wheeled vehicle with high ground clearance, giving the profile of a London bus. But, since – and especially in Afghanistan - vehicles can be used for both types of operation, there is no such thing as an optimum design.

Certainly - and here is the rub with FRES – there is no such thing as a dual-purpose design. If it is good for one role, it has to be, by definition, inadequate for the other. And a compromise design means its it sub-optimal for both.

However, if we go back in time, one of the major US tanks in the immediate post-war period was the M-48 which was developed into the M-60. That was considered a less than optimal design for its height, the reason being… a v-shaped hull (pictured - underside is of a model). In that, even in Afghanistan where some of the fighting approaches that of conventional warfare, tactical concealment is rarely an issue, which suggests a deploying a high-profile tracked vehicles would not be unduly problematic.

Given the fate of the Canadian TLAV, of Bradleys and Warriors in Iraq, and USMC Amtraks – and Vikings in Afghanistan - it seems there is a gap in the market for a tracked MRAP along the lines of the M-48/60 design.

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All because the generals prefer their shiny toys

It was a coincidence that The Sunday Telegraph should have featured in its news pages the sad account of the aftermath of the death of Corporal Alex Hawkins, late of the 1st Bn Royal Anglian Regiment.

For it is he that was the first (that we know of) soldiers who was killed by a roadside bomb in the scandalously unprotected Pinzgauer Vector, featured in the same edition of the paper in the Booker column.

The news piece, headed, "A season muted by loss for soldiers, families", by Sean Rayment and Jasper Copping, in intended to bring home the human cost of war. It also features Colour Sargeant Keith Nieves who escaped death, but nonetheless suffered serious injuries, after his Viking armoured personnel carrier struck a Taliban landmine.

Booker, however, is pointing out that so many of the deaths and injuries have been unnecessary, and rails against "one of the most chilling blunders made by our senior generals in Iraq and Afghanistan" – the decision to send our troops into insurgency wars equipped with patrol vehicles that give no protection against mines and roadside bombs.

In so doing, he freely quotes this blog and, while both of us fully appreciate that, death and injury is an inescapable consequence of war, both of us are of a of a mind that all possible measures should be taken to reduce the toll.

We had therefore, both of us, previously focused on the Snatch Land Rovers and latterly the WIMIK, but the column this time concentrates on the "equally unprotected Pinzgauer Vectors, ordered by the Army's top brass for use in Afghanistan."

What is particularly chilling about this vehicle is that, before it had even been introduced into theatre, it was obvious that – in one of the most heavily mined countries in the world – Vectors were going to be a killer of men, so much so that in June last year we were calling them "coffins on wheels".

But, far from the MoD responding to this obvious and unnecessary weakness, Booker was subject to protracted complaints from the manufacturers, who referred his column to the Press Complaints Commission.

Since then, in July, October and again this month, we know of three British soldiers have been killed in Vectors (and many more seriously injured), by explosions that would have left them unharmed in mine-protected vehicles (here, here and here).

Cumulatively, over both theatres – Iraq and Afghanistan – if we take the absurdly ill-protected "Snatch" Land Rovers (and some ordinary Land Rovers), plus the WIMIKs, the Vikings, the Vectors and sundry other vehicles, we can estimate that perhaps as many as fifty soliders have been unnecessarily killed by mine strikes and IEDs, who would have survived had they been provided with more suitable equipment.

And to that one must add the untold numbers who have been seriously injured – many losing their legs – a toll that the MoD consistently refuses to reveal.

Fortunately, as Booker notes, the MoD has seen sense and has at last overruled the generals by supplying our soldiers with properly mine-protected Mastiffs, which have already saved many lives, including several more reported from Basra last Friday.

But, as we move to the new year, high up on the list of the Army's priorities is the purchase of the absurdly expensive medium-weight FRES armoured vehicles, none of which will be able to deliver the degree of protection afforded by the current range of mine protected vehicles which the MoD is now buying – at a fraction of the cost.

The point about FRES, of course, is that it is being procured to fight a mythical "future war", the nature of which, its location and even the identity of the enemy, no one can even begin to describe.

But it is that "future war" which has dominated military thinking and planning, to the exclusion of dealing with the actual wars that our Services are actually having to fight. And, to justify the extraordinary expense, Service chiefs are still maintaining that these vehicles are dual-purpose, being equally suitable for fighting "high-end" wars as well as counterinsurgency.

Yet, as we have discussed for often on this blog, not only is there little overlap between the two types of equipment required, the design principles on which "high end" and counter-insugency vehicles are based are mutally incompatible. If the design is right, however – as our sequence of photographs show, illustrating a mine-protected Buffalo (and an RG-31, bottom right) – the vehicles can take extraordinary large explosions and still protect their crews. (The first of the Buffalo pictures, incidentally, shows the countermeasures used against passive infra-red triggered IEDs - extreme left of picture - the like of which we have not seen on British vehicles).

What is emerging from vibrant discussion and debate in the US, therefore, is that counter-insurgency is not simply a "big war" scaled down, but an entirely different form of warfare, with its own special and specific needs and doctrines, entirely distinct from the "high end" wars which our Army would prefer to fight.

As yet, there is not real evidence that our military are engaging in this debate – or, at least, not in the public domain – which suggests that there is still no fundamental thinking as to what sort of equipment is required. Thus, while we are seeing more appropriate equipment dribbling into theatre, this seems to represent more of a "stop-gap" mentality rather than evidence of fundamental rethinking of requirements.

And so it is that, in the coming year, we are likely to see more unnecessary deaths and terrible injuries, all because the generals prefer their shiny toys.

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What a difference a year makes

A report from Associated Press gives news of a "UK troop carrier hit by Iraq bomb". Television footage (and picture, see left) showed the vehicle on fire, with thick, black smoke billowing from it. British troops could be seen securing the site, east of Basra Airport. UK military spokesman Captain Finn Aldrich said there were no injuries.

The midday ITN news report referred to the vehicle as a Mastiff – the only specific reference to the vehicle type. From what we can see in the picture – although it is indistinct – it could well be.

Only a year ago after a horrendous year of death and injury of soldiers riding in Snatch Land Rovers (as well as Warriors), the good news now is that a "bomb in Basra" is virtually no news at all.

Given the impressive performance of the Mastiff, to have set it on fire in the way depicted (if it was a Mastiff) suggests it must have been hit by a huge bomb. Had it been a Snatch, there would almost certainly have been coffins going home for Christmas.

However, this should be a warning to the Army. As reported by The Sun today – and confirmed by the the MoD, the Taliban in Afghanistan are now using six stacked land mines in an attempt to take these vehicles out.

This is very predictable – the response of insurgents to heavier armour is always to use bigger bombs and, if they keep trying, one day they will get lucky. Heavier armour, therefore, is only part of the raft of measures which are needed to defeat the scourge of the mine and roadside bomb.

As we have seen with the Canadians, they are successfully employing mine detection equipment as part of their additional protection. Similar equipment has not been observed in British use, and the MoD needs to be acting on this if a tragedy is to be prevented.

As I wrote in that earlier post (link above), we really cannot afford another "Snatch" Land Rover situation, where the Army and the MoD react after the event – and then slowly – to a hazard which is both predictable and avoidable.

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How we got it wrong

Predictably, the heavyweight Sundays have devoted considerable space to the hand over today of security responsibility to the Iraqi forces, making the formal acknowledgement of our retreat from Basra and the failure of our military adventure there.

That it is a failure is itself disputed but anyone reading the constant flow of reports coming out of Basra can reach no other conclusion. Not least, there is the testimony from the incredibly brave Marie Colvin, the first unembedded reporter to visit Basra for two years, writing today in The Sunday Times.

Her report – and many others – can leave us in no doubt that we have walked away from providing security in the southern Iraqi province, leaving ill-prepared and largely inadequate Iraqi security forces – themselves riddled with militias – to deal with a situation which Colvin describes as "a new terror".

Where the water gets muddied though – and invites a defensive reaction from the military – is that the failure cannot be attributed to the actions of the soldiers in the field. By common accord, they acted bravely, professionally and did all that could have been expected of them, and much more. The failure, therefore, was at the strategic level – which created a situation which was beyond the means of the Army to deal with.

In and amongst the reports today, it is the Sunday Times defence correspondent, Mick Smith, who attempts to explore the reasons for the failure. He put it down to the "failure to provide enough troops", pointing to the "classic error" of allowing political pressure at home to shape operations.

However, to give him due credit, Smith does not confine his criticism to the politicians. Using an unnamed "senior officer" who served in Iraq in 2003, he tells us, "At the top end our own chiefs failed to press home the need for more troops to remain in southern Iraq after the battle".

Undoubtedly, Smith and his military source are right – or, at least, partially so. Even with all the technology in the world, counter-insurgency comes down to "boots on the ground" – men with rifles and light weapons mixing it with the insurgents, taking the war to the enemy and dominating the ground.

That said, it is the contention of this blog that more troops alone would not have made any difference and, in the grander scheme of things, might have made matters worse. More troops, with more presence on the ground would, without other changes, simply have provided more targets and more casualties. And, in the casualty averse climate of the time, greater losses would have intensified the pressure for troops withdrawals.

On the other hand, with judicious changes, we would argue that the military could have dominated the ground and, in their dealings with the insurgents, could have improved their productivity (or "effects" as it is known in the military jargon) to the extent that the actual need for troops would have been less than is imagined.

Understanding why this should be is not easy and it is therefore no surprise that the media have not addressed the issues and that even the Army got it wrong. Not only that, the Army is still getting it wrong to this day.

To develop this theme, though, we must turn not to the past and Iraq but to recent events in that other theatre – Afghanistan – and a singular event in the run-up to the operation to retake Musa Qala. That event was the death of Sergeant Lee "Jono" Johnson (and the injury of two other soldiers) from a mine explosion – of which we get one crucial detail only today in The Sunday Times.

That detail – the importance of which was entirely missed by the journalist who reported on the event – was that "Jonno and three others were travelling in a Vector, a new six-wheeled armoured vehicle" (pictured - lead vehicle).

Now, this has to be examined at several different levels, the first of which is simply that, had Sergeant Johnson been riding in a properly protected vehicle, he would almost certainly still be alive. Furthermore this is the third Vector fatality that we know about, the others being Major Alexis Roberts and the other a soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment.

That, by any measure, its three wholly avoidable deaths and a number of injuries, the latter unknown. The MoD does not publish any details of incidents where only injuries – however serious – are caused, but we have had a number of reports where soldiers have lost their legs while riding in these "coffins on wheels".

The first of the broader points to emerge from this, though, is that the Pinzgauer Vector was the Army choice of "protected" patrol vehicle. There was no political intervention here. The Army was allowed to make its own choice as to the vehicle it wanted and this is what it came up with. The officers and officials involved, and the experts who advised them, got it wrong.

From this emerges an even broader point, which relates not only to Afghanistan but Iraq, and must be closely argued as it brings in other considerations.

The Vector debacle actually signifies the wider failure of the Army to understand the effects of, and take the necessary precautions against what turned out to be one the insurgents' weapons of choice – the IED. Thus, in Iraq, where the Vector was not deployed, troops were being equipped with the "Snatch" Land Rover (pictured), an equally ill-protected vehicle.

The effect of this, in terms of the number of casualties, is well recorded, but there was also another important effect – the restriction on tactical mobility. Commanders on the ground regarded vehicle patrols as an essential part of their armoury, to which effect they has basically three options – the Snatch, the Warrior and the Challenger Main Battle Tank. Clearly, the workhorse was the Snatch but, once – as appears to be the case – the insurgents started targeting this vehicle – it changed the tactical dimensions.

One of the responses was to provide Warrior escorts for the Snatches, tying up equipment and manpower simply to get the patrols to the area where they could carry out their tasks. Then, as the attacks intensified and casualties mounted, the vehicles were withdrawn altogether, limiting the options of commanders and severely restricting their ability to commit forces where needed.

In other words, through the lack of an effective protected vehicle, the Army found it need more men to do the same job (routine patrols) and, in addition, was less able to dominate the ground as the mobility of its patrols was hindered.

This, as one would expect, had knock-on effects. One of the main purposes of sending out patrols was to deter and, where possible, interdict the indirect fire attacks on the Army's bases, no more so than in al Amarah where the volume of fire eventually led to the camp at Abu Naji being abandoned. In other words, by using IEDs against vulnerable vehicles, the insurgents scored an easy tactical victory in their own campaign of harassing Army bases – a tactic which was to spread to Basra as the bases there also came under fire.

However, it was not only the lack of suitable vehicles which limited the Army responses. As we pointed out many times, there was also a lack of UAVs to maintain persistent surveillance and a similar lack of helicopters to launch quick response teams to act against indirect fire attacks. Nor was there persistent air cover or even armed UAVs which could have been used in its absence.

In effect, therefore, the Army was lacking the essential equipment which could have allowed it to take the war to the enemy.

These issues, of course, we have rehearsed many times on this blog, yet in terms of a wider recognition of the military's failings we are not much further forward than we were when we started pointing them out.

For sure, the Army has at last begun to recognise the value of properly protected vehicles – with the introduction of the Mastiff into theatre, and the promise of 4x4 protected vehicles, to be called the Ridgeback – but it was political intervention that forced this issue rather than any Damascene conversion on the part of the Army. Only now is it being admitted, grudgingly, how much of a lifesaver the Mastiffs really are.

But there is still no recognition of the need for persistent air cover (rather than the "visiting fireman" provision currently available through short-endurance fast-jets) or any understanding of the tactical role of light helicopters, so effectively honed in the "fire force" concept devised by the Rhodesians.

Overall though, the other central failing in the Army is its total inability to understand that, in the campaigns in which it is involved, the main currency is the bodies of dead soldiers. Not only have we three soldiers killed quite unnecessarily in Vectors, but there is a continual haemorrhage of casualties in WIMIK Land Rovers and other lightly protected vehicles. Add all these up and the number of avoidable (and thus unnecessary) deaths probably exceed fifty – a very substantial proportion of the total.

So far, the media have not picked up on the Vector – with the exception of Booker – in the way that they were eventually led to take note of the death toll from the "Snatch" Land Rover, but, as the Taliban are progressively defeated in open combat, they are expected to resort increasingly to asymmetric tactics (as indeed they have been), including the wider use of IEDs.

With 170 or so Vectors on the Army inventory (less those which have been destroyed), there are still plenty of opportunities for the Taliban to strike and, if the casualties start mounting once again, the Army will be forced into withdrawing them, leaving a gaping hole in its capabilities.

To that extent, the Army seems incapable of learning all the lessons that it should. And when it does react, it often does so too slowly, without acknowledging its original errors or taking measures to resolve the problems of its own making. And if this seems harsh, the criticism can nevertheless be justified. Looking at the picture of the Vector shown above, we see this highly vulnerable vehicle leading a convoy, which includes a WIMIK and several Vikings. Yet, it was the British Army's own experience in Bosnia and elsewhere that led it to the conclusion that routes must be checked by mine-protected vehicles (a process known as "proving") before unprotected traffic is allowed through.

It was that very experience which led the Canadians to purchase their Nyala vehicles, shown here doing exactly what they had learned from the British, leading a convoy of less protected Merecedes G-wagons. Thus, the very lesson learned by our own Army, it ignores.

It is those failures, in the final analysis, that explains how we got it wrong in Iraq, and how we are continuing to get it wrong in Afghanistan.

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"Not a whitewash"

Bringing the long-running saga of the capture by Iran and the taking of hostages of a boarding party from HMS Cornwall to some sort of closure, today sees the publication of the Defence Committee report on the incident.

In many ways, the report is highly frustrating in that the Fulton Report on which much of the committee's evaluation was based was kept confidential, and the committee itself held its inquiry in secret. Only the general conclusions have been published.

However, given that operational matters were under examination, and real issues of security were thus involved, the findings, as we remarked earlier, were always going to be a matter of trust. On this occasion, therefore, we are going to have to accept the word of our elected representatives that matters are in hand, and that the conduct of the MoD has been properly scrutinised.

In that context, the committee has unequivocally stated that the Fulton Report was not a "whitewash". Knowing something of the reputation of the man, we are prepared to accept that, and it is unlikely that the committee would have been so confident in its assertion it the situation was otherwise than what it had found.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the committee affirms that the event was "not the result of equipment or resource issues". With than, from our own examination of the incident, we would concur. Despite the fashionable cries to the contrary at the time, this from a very early stage looked like a multi-level operational failure - which was the essence of Fulton's findings. Not, it seems, despite our suspicions to that effect, were there any "rules of engagement" issues.

Although there was no Board of Inquiry or Courts Martial, the committee notes that "administrative action" has been taken against a number of the players – which means that a number of careers will go no further. However, the committee does bemoan the fact that no action was taken against any individuals involved in the media handling operation, and the selling of the sailors' stories. That it was most probably inspired at a very high level probably explains why this is the case – the guilty men wearing very large quantities of gold braid.

As to the media on the current report, the response has been somewhat muted, although this has not stopped the opposition defence spokesman, Liam Fox, making a cheap jibe at Des Brown, declaring that, "Labour's part-time defence secretary" had made "monumental mistakes" in allowing the selling of stories.

There is much more to this issue than this, not least the ongoing weaknesses in the MoD media handling operation, which could do with some serious political focus, but it seems too much to ask that Liam Fox should be able to offer constructive opposition, based on an understanding of the issues.

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