Now
there's a shortage of helicopter pilots [16/06/09]
For
a long time the shortage of serviceable helicopters has
been one of the major concerns for British Forces in Afghanistan.
Now
it seems that a bad situation is being made worse by the
lack of sufficient pilots to fly the helicopters they have
got.
The
reported 10% shortfall not only means that existing pilots
are being over-stretched - deployed for longer and having
to fly more missions - it may also soon mean that operations
are compromised and the delivery of supplies delayed.
The
US military has just started field trials on a new high-tech
smart gun that can "shoot round corners".
The
manufacturers claim that the XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapon
can take out a bad guy behind a wall, beyond a hill or below
a trench. As the gun can hit targets without the need for
mortars, rockets, grenades and airstrikes, the XM25 is
expected
to reduce the high number of innocent civilian casualties
which is having such a controversial impact on the war in
Afghanistan.
Basically
it works like this: a soldier can, say, aim the XM25 at
a wall concealing a sniper and "dial in" or adjust
the distance by an additional meter above the target. When
fired, the Alliant Teksystems-built round will explode above
the enemy's position, essentially going around the obstruction.
At $25,000
each they're not cheap. UK Armed Forces could probably afford
two of them.
Mastiff
spares war: British Army loses out to US [18/05/09]
Hot
on the heals of the Vector fiasco comes another story of
broken vehicles and shortage of spares. This time its the
turn of the much lauded Mastiffs.
Because
of the exigencies of the situation in Afghanistan, UK Mastiffs
have had to be used in very rugged terrain and this has
resulted in a high level of damage to the vehicles.
Unfortunately,
owing to the contractural arrangements between NP
Aerospace (the UK company that customised the British
Mastiffs) and Force
Protection (the US Mastiff manufacturer), there have
been considerable delays in supplying spare parts to the
British forces. This is because under US federal law Force
Protection must give priority to the needs of the US military;
UK forces must wait in line.
As a
result up to a third of UK Mastiffs were out of action last
year while the two companies sorted out the supply problem.
Meanwhile British troops had to resort to using the less
protected Snatch Land Rovers and Vectors.
Camp
Barry Buddon scrapped: Army training to be privatised? [18/05/09]
It may
sound like a drag act, but Camp Barry Buddon near Dundee
was a training centre long before Lily
Savage strutted her stuff on a London stage.
It had been intended that a new £8.5million training
centre would be built at Barry Buddon to cope with the growth
in the number of recruits expected over the next couple
of years.
However,
although the number of recruits has been rising sharply
in recent months (up 14%) as a result of the recession and
Operation
Solomon, the powers that be have decided that the new
centre can no longer be cost justified.
The
cancellation of the project means that existing training
facilities will somehow have handle the increase in numbers.
And guess what? The MoD is now thinking of out-sourcing
training to the private sector! I don't think even Maggie
Thatcher thought of that one!
Blackhawk!:
ITS just what the
doctor ordered [18/05/09]
The
MoD have just begun testing 'smart' Warrior Wear supplied
by US manufacturer Blackhawk!.
The High Performance Fighting Uniforms come complete with
an Integrated Tourniquet System (ITS) at key areas on the
arms and legs.
Although Britain's frontline soldiers already carry a first
aid kit containing at least one tourniquet, lives are still
at risk due to the length of time it takes to get a tourniquet
applied.
The
eight tourniquets built-in to Blackhawk!'s combat gear can
be activated immediately and thereby save precious seconds
in an emergency, particularly when the injured soldier is
trapped inside a vehicle. The speed with which a tourniquet
can be applied will also free-up the medics to deal with
other life-threatening injuries.
The
kit is already in use with US military, police and private
security agencies. Hopefully it will soon be saving British
lives in Afghanistan.
Vulnerable
Vectors withdrawn from operations
[15/05/09]
Back
in August 2006 the Defence Secretary announced that an additional
100 Vector Pinzgauer-based protected patrol vehicles were
being purchased for Afghanistan making 200 in total. The
rushed order was a response to the criticism the MoD had
received about the lack of protection offered to soldiers
in Snatch Land Rovers. Several soldiers had been killed
when their Land Rovers had been hit by IEDs.
However
confidence in the replacement Vectors was shortlived.
Their poor under-belly armour made them too vulnerable
to roadside bombs and their suspension proved unable to
cope with the extra weight from armour and electronic
counter-measures equipment they carried. Combining this
with a shortage of spares, the Vectors in-service availability
fell below 60% in 2008.
It
came as no surprise therefore when the MoD announced last
week that it was withdrawing the Vectors from Afghanistan.
"Since
its introduction to theatre, the evolving threat from
larger improvised explosive devices on operations has
led to a requirement for more medium and heavy capability
vehicles to withstand these devices," an MoD spokesman
said. "Following the delivery of Mastiff 2, Ridgback
and vehicles from the protected mobility package announced
[by the MoD] in October 2008, we intend to withdraw Vector
from operations in Afghanistan."
A
large-scale replacement program is under way and this
year some 560 new armoured vehicles will start to deploy
in Afghanistan. These include a whole menagerie of types
including Jackal, Ridgeback, Panther , Wolfhound and Husky
at a total cost of £800million.
The
first tranche of Panther command and liaison vehicles has
arrived in Afghanistan. 400 Panthers have been ordered through
BAE Systems under a £160 million contract with a view
to eventually replacing aging CRVs, Saxons and Land Rovers.
Built by Iveco the Panthers have been modified to a battle-ready
configuration by BAE's Global Combat Systems.
The
modifications include a rear view camera, protected engine
compartment, electronic devices to counter IEDs, Bowman
digital communication system and a remote-controlled machine
gun.
The Panther will also be the first frontline vehicle to
feature a Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS). The
data gathered will help increase vehicle availability
and reduce support costs.
Time
will tell whether these new vehicles will give the troops
the greater protection they urgently need.
European
military integration? No tanks. [05/05/09]
Ever
since the Mark 1 crawled across the battlefields of the
Somme in 1916 Britain has had a tradition of producing some
of the world's finest tanks. All that, however, may soon
be coming to an end. With the closures recently announced
by BAe of some of its Global Combat Systems factories, Challenger
2 may well prove to be the last battle tank to be made in
the UK.
Although
this may please the anti-war demonstrators who marched through
the streets of Brighton at the weekend, the demise of tank
production in the UK will be another nail in the coffin
of our military independence and force us even further down
the road towards European military integration: we've already
got the Eurofighter, next it'll be the EuroPanzer.
BAe
blames the closures on the MoD and its disastrous management
of the FRES programme and the scrapping last December of
the order for 2000 armoured untility vehicles. Of course
the recession hasn't helped either.
According
to a local Colchester newspaper 300 members of 16
Air Assault Brigade have been unable to qualify as paratroopers
because a lack of aircraft has meant that they haven't been
able to get the practice jumps in.
Fortunately
these days 16 Air Assault, the spearhead of Britain's rapid
response capability, is not so reliant on its
parachuting skills; helicopters have proved more suitable
for the air assault role in today's conflicts.
The
newspaper article goes on to hammer the MoD for a catalogue
of cock-ups and disasters from the SA80 to Eurofighter and
makes the sombre comment: "If people find themselves
lining Colchester High Street to honour another dead soldier
from our town, it can only be hoped a lack of equipment
or air support is not to blame. If it is, heads should be
hung in shame, as well as sorrow, at the Government and
Ministry of Defence."
New
thermal imaging lets snipers see in the dark
[02/05/09]
Vasiliy
Zaitsev would
have liked this one. New thermal imaging means British snipers
in Afghanistan can hit targets at long range in complete
darkness.
Developed
by the Qioptiq Group, the Sniper Thermal Imaging Capability
(STIC) enables the standard two-man sniper team to share
the same thermal view.
Stanford
Training Area: MoD builds Darwishan in England's green and
pleasant land
[01/05/09]
In
the dark days of the Second World War villagers living
in 30,000 acres of quiet Norfolk countryside (2% of Norfolk
in fact) were evicted from their homes and farms to make
way for the Army's Stanford Training Area (Stanta). The
rolling fields and pastures were considered ideal for
preparing Allied troops for the up-and-coming assault
on German-occupied Europe. During the Cold War the Stanta
training facilities were updated in line with the need
to prepare for war with the Soviets and the mock village
of "Eastmere" was built, presumably to mimic
an East European kolkhoz. These facilities were also suitable
for training troops prior to their deployment to Northern
Ireland.
Now in the age of the War on Terror, the MoD has revamped
the training area once again and has spent £14million
on building a Middle Eastern landscape complete with villages,
Afghan tribesmen, bazaars, mosques and hamams - the smell
of cooking food wafts through the streets and even synthetic
aromas, such as rotten meat and camel dung, are pumped
out from aromamatics. Rumour has it that tons of sand
had to be from the Maplin sandbanks, transported on massive
barges up the East coast and dumped on the Norfolk fields
to form a desert terrain. It is also reported that hundreds
of palm trees were purchased from Saudi Arabia and transplanted
onto the artificial sand dunes.
Every
British soldier sent to Afghanistan - an estimated 11,000
a year - will train at the facility. The first troops
to experience the meticulous level of detail, 11 Brigade,
are set to arrive in two weeks' time. They are bound for
Afghanistan.
General
Sir David Richards, Commander in Chief Land Forces, praised
the camp. "These new training facilities mean that
we will be giving our soldiers the very best chance to
succeed in today's complex operations and return home
safely."
...
and just to be on the safe side: Ian Levett of Natural
England said: "Natural England has worked in close
partnership with the Military on this project to ensure
that they have been able to fulfil their responsibilities
towards nature conservation at the same time as providing
their training needs. "
I've
only just got round to reading the Defence Committee's Defence
Equipment 2009 report published in February.... and
now wish I hadn't.
There
have been numerous articles about the Future Rapid Effects
System (FRES)
in recent months and most of them have been saying what
a disaster the whole project was turning into. The Defence
Committee's report, however, makes even more depressing
reading. I quote the FRES summary:
"The
FRES programme has been a fiasco. In February 2007 we concluded
that the MoD’s
attempts
to meet its medium-weight vehicle requirement had been a
sorry story of indecision, changing requirements and delay.
Two years later the story is, incredibly, even worse. We
find it extraordinary that, some seven months after announcing
General Dynamics UK as the provisional preferred bidder
for the FRES Utility Vehicle, the MoD has announced that
priority is now to be given to the FRES Scout Vehicle.
Whilst we recognise that the MoD’s equipment requirements
need to reflect changing threats, that is no excuse for
the MoD’s behaviour in this programme; they have wasted
their and industry’s time and money.
The FRES Utility Vehicle programme was, from the outset,
poorly conceived and managed. The MoD must work out what
its requirements are for medium-weight armoured vehicles
and identify lessons from the saga of the FRES Utility Vehicle
programme. In its response to our Report, we expect the
MoD to set out the cost to date of the FRES Utility Vehicle
programme and how it plans to take forward this programme
in the future."
This
is the MoD's major project for the Army with over 3,000
armoured vehicles involved! What are they playing at? What's
also really galling is that the project has been cocked
up and delayed for so long now that it's sure to fall victim
to Mr Prudence's budget cuts.
At a
ceremony at AgustaWestland in Yeovil, it was announced that
the Future Lynx aircraft is now to be known formally as
the AW159 Lynx Wildcat.
The
Lynx Wildcat programme will deliver a fleet of 62 new light
helicopters for the Army and Royal Navy from 2014 and 2015
respectively.
The
Army variant of Lynx Wildcat will perform a range of tasks
on the battlefield including
reconnaissance,
command and control, transportation of troops and materiel,
and the provision of force protection.
The aircraft
will have a high degree of commonality and will be able
to switch between Army and Royal Navy roles, principally
through the changing of role equipment. Their capability
will be a significant advance on that provided in both Iraq
and Afghanistan by the current Lynx fleet.
The
MoD has just placed a £74million order with the Supacat/Babcock
consortium for 180 new armoured vehicles - 110 Jackal 2
(the enhanced, latest version of the original Jackal design),
and 70 of the new 6x6 ‘Coyote' Tactical Support Vehicles.
This order has been made under the MoD's Urgent Operational
Requirement (UOR) scheme and forms part of the £700
million Protected Mobility Package announced by the MoD
late last year. The vast majority of both vehicle types
are scheduled for delivery in 2009 to support operations
in Afghanistan.
Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Quentin Davies
says that the additional floor armour being provided in
these
vehicles will give Britain's frontline troops the added
protection they urgently need. Lets hope so.
email:
aquilavic[at]hotmail.co.uk
