Major (retd) John Prendergast MBE writes: The UK has suffered some spectacular defence capability gaps since it liquidated its own defence industry in favour of Europe wide procurement. This not to say that Great Britain had not made less than great choices and weapons procurement decisions before we Europeanised.
I suppose we should start at the very top. Yes, space, and the Galileo satellite system. Galileo has proved expensive and offers nothing that the already well tried US GPS system does not do better except of course having a little label saying made in Europe on it. The major snag is that this Galileo technology has been shared with the Chinese. What is the harm in that, you ask? Well we are not at war with the Chinese at present although China and USA have had tensions in the Pacific. Where the problem occurs is that the USA wisely will not share satellite codes with European nations and by extension, the Chinese. This has already caused difficulties between the USA and UK over data necessary for the F35 fighters which are a US / UK joint venture. Lord Drayson had to do much arguing, arm twisting and possibly grovelling to ensure this project remains on track for UK .
The F35 fighters are supposed to land on our 2 new super carriers which are extraordinarily expensive and, being non nuclear powered, are range limited. Much of the design and many components of these two carriers are European in origin wich bodes ill for integration with US systems. If our government had a regard for the defence capabilty instead of pleasing our weak European allies, then we could have shared parts with the US and still built the vessels in the UK with easier interoperability. After all the French have no tradition of successful aircraft carriers, neither has any other European nation.
Staying with aircraft, the fact that the Typhoon is so expensive and has taken so long is due in large part to the multinational approach to making this aircraft. Had this aircraft been made for the UK alone, its low number of orders would have pushed costs up per plane by the same amount that simplified project management would have saved, however we would have saved Sterling and had the aircraft sooner with less lumps of concrete replacing not in service items of equipment. That said the Typhoon, designed as a Cold War era interceptor, has been skilfully modified to have a wider capability even though it is a true multi role aircraft. Crucially a Typhoon would not be strong enough to operate off our new aircraft carriers in anything like current form. In some ways Typhoon is showing its long gestation in that it is not stealthy and lacks even TSR2’s ultra low level flight characteristics so is vulnerable, unlike F35.
Continuing still with air, we have the saga of the A400M. The UK has 24 of these multi national military cargo planes on order. Even after an excessively prolonged project definition phase when it was called FLA (Future Large Aircraft), this project has run into severe trouble. A400M has a design payload of 32 metric tonnes but has been at the Frankfurters and looks like porking out at 25 tonnes only payload. Doubtless more solid gold bungs in EADs direction and major redesign and compromises in operability will see the payload creep up to 27 tonnes. This charade is masked by the fact that the whole project is already years late and looks like needing at least a further two more years making it at least four years En retarde. Some of this delay is due to the engine consortium solving major problems such as gearbox case failures and digital engine control delays. The former is costly ion weight penalties and the latter is expensive. Many European nations are thinking of both suing EADS and pulling out. The UK is unclear on what it wants, no surprise here. In Britain we already have a mixed fleet of decrepit C130Ks and too few much younger leased and purchased C17 Globemasters. In some ways the C17 is our salvation in Afghanistan especially as overland resupply is becoming more fraught. It is to the RAF’s credit that they have extended the operational envelope of an already capable aircraft.
Let us be under no misconception, military Freighters are hard aircraft to do but in the 1960s the UK had 10 of 30 planned Shorts Belfast Freighters. These aircraft could and did operate with a payload of 36.25 Tonnes although range at that sort of payload was a short 970 miles! In the operational concept of the 1960’s, such short range, about half of A400M’s was acceptable with many post Empire RAF stations around the globe. The fact that the RAF only had 10 out of 30 planned was because of Labour financial mismanagement forcing Britain to seek loans from the IMF. Part of the price of US support for this first of possibly a number of bail outs was that we had to buy C130s instead of the remaining 20 Belfasts. Until quite recently there was a Belfast in service in New Zealand as a special heavy lifter. Given more up to date versions of the Rolls Royce Tyne engines a modern Belfast would show much better fuel economy and hence range.
On ships, the European influence is showing it dead hand. The new wonder Type 45 destroyers have only minor weapons and a 4.5” gun each. Their missiles, being European are stuck in the pipeline somewhere for delivery this year, next year, sometime, never, as the nursery rhyme goes. With this armament our wonder destroyer currently has the firepower of a WW2 Armed Trawler.
The Euro Saga gets worse when it comes to military vehicles. The Future Rapid Effects Systems range of vehicles is years late despite being based on “off the shelf ” designs and despite the Army having shown its preference for the Canadian built option instead of a dubious European one that was not even on the short list for New Zealand’s two Ranger Regiments. In the case of Army Lorries, the decision of the MOD to buy MAN vehicles is deeply regrettable, not least because Britain used to do Army Lorries so well. Those of you who have soldiered and lived alongside our Army as long as I have will recall Bedford QL, RLs and MKs and the more recent 1990 Leyland 4 tonnes with affection, they were simple, rugged, and fixable, even if not absolute paragons of reliability. Most of them had service lives in excess of 25 years, a lifetime no civilian operator would contemplate. Further more the MAN vehicles are not fit for purpose, indeed MAN lorries have proved hard propositions to sell to civil operators even when heavily discounted- hence the political fix. What other options did the UK have here; well we could have bough common trucks with the US forces Made by the renowned American firm of Stewart and Stevenson. Stewart and Stevenson are BAE subsidiaries. Alternatively we could have ordered Paccar trucks from Sandbach with either Leyland or DAF labels on their Cabs.
On the other hand I was pleased to see the UK has decided to keep Challenger 2 in service for another decade until 2035, although that pleasure is not unalloyed since we are having to adapt it to take the same gun as Abrams and Leopard 2, which while marginally improving its anti armour capability, reduces precision accuracy of the high explosive rounds that have hallmarked British Cavalry versatility since the 1950s. As Afghanistan progresses, the UK decision to withdraw Scorpion and its 76mm gun from service is to be regretted. We are having to consider deploying Challengers in Afghanistan with attendant logistic penalties.
The more one looks at UK Defence Procurement the more chaotic it appears. This is partly because of political considerations driven now by Europe and partly because of enduring ineptitude by MOD Civil Servants and senior service officers. The ineptitude is a result of lack of technical experience and judgement and inter service rivalries coupled to insufficient scepticism of scientists. One could recall the tragedy of TSR2, the lack of a Super Harrier, which could have operated off current sized aircraft carriers. One can deplore the lack of battlefield support aircraft such as Vampires or Strikemasters.
