Defence procurement priorities

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Subject: Defence procurement priorities
spsun10000 10/29/2006 3:09:39 PM

The defence procurement budget is under enormous strain primarily because: 1) Although defence spending has increased against general RPI in real terms, the cost increases for defence equipment are far higher than normal RPI so procurement spend is shrinking in real terms. 2) Gordon Brown changed the accounting rules a few years back which had the effect of cutting the defence budget by £1 billion. 3) Operational costs in Afghanistan and Iraq are not being fully funded by the Treasury and are therefore eating into the defence budget. 4) Our desire to design and build every piece of equipment the military needs means that we don't get value for money from economies of scale and the defence industrial base is too small leading to a lack of real competition. Companies bid low knowing once the project starts the MoD will have to pay whatever it takes to get it finished. Hence the cost of everything over-runs. The only area of defence procurement spend which is untouchable is the Eurofigher which over coming years will account for half of the UK's procurement budget. Yet tactical fighters (or in the case of Tranche 1 aircraft purely air defence fighters) are well down the list in terms of defence priorities. The air defence threat to the UK is virtually nil and tactical fighters are of limited force projection use unless there is a friendly country near to hand. The real defence procurement piorities are what are actually being cut to pay for the Eurofighter. The army doesn't have sufficient helicopter support, personal equipment and armoured vehicles and the Royal Navy is becoming a coastal defence force. To my view the RAF fighter force is priority number three behind the ability of the army to fight medium intensity wars agsinst organised insurgents and the ability of the Navy to project air and amphibious support onto land. In my view the priorities we should be investing in are (in no particular order): 1) More medium transport helicopters like the Merlin and heavy lifters like Chinooks (which are repeatedly being asked for by force commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq). 2) More C117's to replace Tristars and VC10's which are years past their sell by dates. 3) More armoured vehicles that can withstand RPG's and IED's to offer troops protection beyond armoured Land Rovers which are wholly inadequate. 4) Better personal protection and communications equipment for the infantry. 5) Enhanced UAV capability. 6) Constrcution to start on the Royal Navy's 2 new aircraft carriers. 7) A return to the 1997 Defence white paper levels for the Royal Navy's escort and nuclear submarine forces. There is no point in having amphibious and carrier based force projection if you can't protect it in theatre. 8) Deployment of the tactical Tomohawk cruise missile to the Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers. 9) Additional intelligence aircraft to replace ageing Nimrods. Given we are contractually committed to Eurofighter and governments are more worried about jobs than properly defending the country, I think we should start to consider some radical options to free up funding for the sort of priorities I've set out. I've put some suggestions below - I'm not saying they are the only ones or that we do all of them but they are just some food for thought on how we could reduce spending on what is a low priority item to find it for high priority items. 1) Given that Tanche 2 and Tranche 3 Eurofighters will have a ground attack capability we could withdraw the Tornado GR4 force from service. I'm not aware of any ordnance that the Tornado can deploy that the later versions of Eurofigher cannot. 2) Pull out of the proposed procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter and convert the Tranche 2 and 3 Eurofighters to serve on the Royal Navy's two new carriers. 3) Reduce the Joint Strike Fighter procurement and deploy them on the Carriers only in an air defence role with the strike role being done by existing Harrier GR9's. 4) Slow down Eurofighter production. 5) Mothball more Eurofighters than currently planned (amazingly we already plan to mothball some of these aircraft having ransacked the defence procurement budget to pay for them). 6) Be for more radical in RAF base closures. 7) Close one of the Navy's bases at Plymouth or Portsmouth. I'd rather thave warships than empty berths in dockyards that have excess capacity. Any thoughts?

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Yimmy 10/29/2006 3:52:44 PM

The Typhoon is the worst buy we have made in recent history. Not because it is a bad aircraft but because it is not what we need. Tornado GR4 is s completely superior ground attack aircaft, it carrying more and further, with an addition crew member.

We can not afford to cut back on F35, as it will provide a major component to the RN/FAA's projection of power capability.

There are various ways we could increase funding for the army and the navy. We could for instance cut back heavily on funding to the NHS. However, I feel probably the best thing we could do, would be to dispand the RAF and split the (of use) assets amongst the RN and Army.

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frog RE: Defence Procurement Priorities 10/29/2006 4:03:59 PM

Good Suggestions.

However...

I think that we would be better of buying between 70-80 JSF's Fleet, and letting the RAF have their white elephant Eurofighters. Build a few more Type 45's, advance MARS and get the french or uncle sam to build our carriers, using MARS to make up for the loss of the Carrier orders to the UK ship yards, and getting us out of this Lego Carrier approach, bring the total order of Astutes up to at least 8 (allowing for a follow on class to replace the remaining Trafalgars). And lest we forget grant the Army's wishes, boost the number of regiments, boost army kit, and ensure we have a good reliable support infrastructure put in place ready for future deployments.

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lightningtest 10/30/2006 6:32:14 AM

Good Suggestions.

However...

- Why so down on the carriers?

, bring the total order of Astutes up to at least 8 (allowing for a follow on class to replace the remaining Trafalgars). And lest we forget grant the Army's wishes, boost the number of regiments, boost army kit, and ensure we have a good reliable support infrastructure put in place ready for future deployments.

Money is too tight to this.. short of a coup. I am thinking that the time taken to rebuild a capability once you put in onto the back burner (so to speak) should be compared to the minimum likely time a new threat will emerge which forces us to rebuild the "gapped" capability.

Taking the capabilities from the top in terms of cost, procurement and running cost average over life of program, (just my view of course - no real figures to go on);

SIGINT

IMINT

NUDET monitoring (not the siesmic kind, the orbital based stuff)

Nuclear weapons delivery platforms

New aircraft carriers

Eurofighter

Astute

T45

Naval Bases

Son of Skynet 5

The rest must be smaller that these line items - yet I don't seem to have listed anything useful when fightning the well trained Terrorist....or at least anything the American haven't done better already and we couldn't use when required.

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Norvicension 10/30/2006 2:54:57 PM

Couldn't scrapping the deterrent radically increase procurement funds for the conventional armed forces? Obviously this would never happen as any money saved from the nuclear deterrent would not be going into the defence budget but potentially what could we do with cash saved by scrapping trident?

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Norvicension 10/30/2006 2:57:11 PM

Oh and I'm not talking about whether we should scrap Trident, I'm just saying if we did, what should be done with the money?

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Yimmy 10/30/2006 3:10:05 PM

Oh and I'm not talking about whether we should scrap Trident, I'm just saying if we did, what should be done with the money?

The purchase of Trident Mk II?

We would need to replace the missiles with a similar capability...

But I do see your point that an awful lot of money goes towards it.

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streaky bacon RAF 10/31/2006 4:35:42 AM

I would like to see the RAF procure systems which can effectively provide support to our combat troops. Would it not be a good idea for the RAF to re-design some of the C130 Hercules into Gun ships, surely these aircraft would offer excellent fire support to units on the ground!

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perfectgeneral 11/5/2006 5:37:12 PM

As a first measure in converting them they would need explosion suppressant foam units fitted to the fuel tanks. The MoD aren't even willing to stump up for this yet.

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Yimmy 11/5/2006 8:09:18 PM

According to Janes some of the fleet are getting the foam tanks.

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Donkey 11/6/2006 5:34:59 PM

According to Janes some of the fleet are getting the foam tanks.

I believe that 1 aircraft has so far been modified!

Donk

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