Just three months since Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Timo Anderson went on the record saying that “the RAF would be unable to conduct operations on the scale of the 2003 invasion of Iraq for years because resources aren’t available to mount such a mission” so the government piles on more pressure pushing forward even more substantial cuts to this all important service. The cuts to which I refer have actually come ahead of both the Defence Green Paper due to be officially published later today and well before the all important Strategic Defence Review (SDR) that will take place following the General Election. As I said yesterday, most will welcome the upcoming SDR as being long overdue. Just about everyone engaged in defence in whatever form accepts that big changes change will need to occur. Equally they are genuinely concerned that SDR should not be preceded by ill thought out cuts, that whatever is encompassed by SDR should not automatically be seen by government as tacit approval to seriously cut back on overall defence expenditure, that first and foremost the debate must be about what Britain needs to adequately defend itself on land, sea and air and what should be our future commitment to NATO ahead of what is affordable. I repeat my view here that SDR should be accompanied by separate reviews into our foreign and security needs, our role in the world, where we believe we are and where we would like to be ten years from now. Again I repeat what I said yesterday ‘it is the level and state of our armed forces that make possible both foreign policy and internal security’ – meaning that whatever the bottom line is our commitment to NATO is sacrosanct.
The Green Paper that was instigated on the back of the damming cries of the Gray report that itself rightly set out to lambast failed procurement and methods will tell us that Britain no longer has the resources to carry the huge burden of defence expenditure that it currently has and that we will, as a consequence, need to either change our aspirations or maybe even forge closer links on defence with allies such as France. On this latter subject please read comments that I made yesterday attached above. To most the Green Paper today will look like a combination of a menu for British retreat and maybe tacit acceptance that as a shrinking nation in terms of global power we may soon even need to give up our seat on the UN Security Council. I hope not and that we resist the temptation to believe that cutting defence expenditure will cure what ails us financially at a stroke. Indeed, I remain in the camp that believes far from cutting expenditure on defence we should actually be increasing it. I NOW MOVE TO SPECIFIC RAF ISSUES RELATED TO DEFENCE.
In December the government announced that control of all four Harrier squadrons would pass to RAF Wittering. Given that the decision was made in haste before the Green Paper and well ahead of SDR I am left to conclude that it was likely done purely for political as opposed to military and defence reasons. As with many government statements there is probably far more than meets the eye to this one and it may equally be as important for what it did not say as opposed to what it did. I may conclude that behind this decision might also lay two other basic decisions that the government has potentially made:
Firstly this provides in our view yet another large signal of commitment to the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. In other words it is confirmation if it was needed that this government is absolutely wedded to this program beyond all others. We also know that even though the UK has not given a final commitment on numbers that there is little doubt that Joint Strike Fighter aircraft (most probably the STOVL variant) will be ordered to go on to the new carriers for delivery in 2016/18. Between now and then RAF Harriers are the only aircraft that can land or take off from the two existing Royal Navy Carriers. This decision to close RAF Cottesmore whose three squadrons of Harrier aircraft would shift to RAF Wittering also marked a statement by the government that it was prepared to support an aircraft that is far more costly to operate than any other front line aircraft in the fleet. In itself such a decision, although of course unwelcome, would have probably been manageable had it not been accompanied with confirmation by the government that the number of Harriers in front line service would at the same time also be reduced.
Secondly we speculate that behind the decision to support an aircraft (BAe Harrier) that is far less capable and far more costly to operate than say the RAF Panavia Tornado GR4 is the likely intention by the UK government to reduce the number of existing Tornado aircraft.
My understanding is that the current requirement for RAF fighter (fast jet) aircraft readiness is 70 aircraft (including JSF expectation). This is well down from the 84 aircraft detailed in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. At that time the fleet consisted of Jaguar, Tornado F3 and GR aircraft and both Royal Navy and RAF Harrier fleets. Given training, maintenance and support requirements and that there has been an increasing tendency to withdraw aircraft such as the Jaguar and Tornado F3’s significantly earlier than originally planned plus also that aircraft replacements in the form of Typhoon have already been several times been delayed by the government (the need to supply initial aircraft from the UK program to the Saudi Royal Air Force is but one example of caused delay) the reality is that the RAF may today be struggling to have 60 aircraft in readiness. I do not have absolute numbers to hand but leaving aside remaining Tornado F3’s my assumption is that there are approximately 134 Tornado GR airframes, approximately seventy Harrier and just over sixty Typhoon front line aircraft on the RAF books. The issue is not just about aircraft of course – it is equally about crew readiness and availability and it is this that creates the greatest difficulties for the RAF. Finally, we must also remember that front line fighter aircraft have a finite life of about 5,000 flying hours – not a lot really is it?
Perhaps an unofficial RAF view might well be that as an absolute minimum it needs 66 aircraft to be at a state of front line readiness as a minimum. My own view that this is not enough matters far less than the view of what the RAF feels that it is able to work with as a minimum. At one point late last year I understand that the government actually wanted to reduce the number of aircraft in readiness to 56 aircraft but is now pushing for the level to be reduced to 60 aircraft. Given current RAF commitments it seems to me that reducing aircraft readiness to such low numbers would be extremely dangerous and that until and at least that the 2010 SDR is complete along with a foreign and security review that I have also called for. Perhaps what worries me most is that if I am right and that the government is pushing the idea of significantly further reducing the number of aircraft required for front line readiness for financial as opposed to true defense issues due to it being so wedded to the two aircraft carriers is what follows next? Clearly we would see the number of RAF front line bases also decimated. Whilst there may be reason to cut the number of bases at some point we must ensure that those charged with running what most of the electorate still see today as the most prominent part of our internal defence are provided with sufficient support. Yes, the number of aircraft required for active readiness is clearly going to be reduced and based on this there may well be a mismatch between this and the number of Typhoons currently on order. Typhoon though is the future; Tornado is still the present meaning if anything has to go it should perhaps be the expensive Harriers.
Whatever, my view is that forcing the RAF to cut the number of front line fighter aircraft below 66 by slashing the current number of Tornado GR4 aircraft as opposed to Harriers just will not work and it will leave the RAF is a seriously weakened position. Neither does the argument stack up financially. For instance, I am reliably told that if one was to remove two squadrons of Panavia Tornado aircraft the savings would be in the region of £150m and yet if the two squadrons of Harrier aircraft were to be withdrawn the savings would likely be between £750m and £900m. There may be other more service defensive arguments to raise too such as that not since the Falklands war has a UK carrier been required for combat assistance although that is not to detract one ounce of value that the Royal Navy provides to UK defence. I will of course cover the Royal Navy position in my final piece in this sequence of views. Meanwhile I stick to the view that cutting Tornado numbers would be not only foolhardy in the extreme it would be downright dangerous potentially leading to a catastrophic failure in our defence. Typhoon is of course building up slowly but as we stand now aircraft readiness requirement is based on forty Tornado and ten Harrier aircraft and the remainder of the requirement made up by Typhoons. Clearly to do its job providing essential defence for the UK, the overseas territories and to meet the existing NATO commitment the RAF needs critical mass.
Last but not least and away from the subject of potentially giving up combat aircraft to fund ships others issues that should be discussed include the future of A400M, the huge FSTA program, medium and heavylift Helicopter programs, the MFTS Hawk trainer program and many others. Thankfully we may be assured that given the positive decision already announced by the government on some additional Chinook Helicopters together with the additional C-17 Globemaster ordered that nothing is likely to change ahead of the 2010 SDR result. I am however very concerned that as a direct result of Haddon-Cave (the report into the Nimrod XV230 crash) the MoD has directed that the sixteen remaining VC-10 tanker/transport aircraft that will be replaced in a couple of years by new aircraft within the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft program in 2011/12 are I understand no longer allowed to carry passengers. These and other issues will of course be covered at a later date but for now I will leave it at that.
