The Big Ticket Items
The military budget is spattered with a myriad of projects & schemes from £100k to multi billion projects.
Each of the services has a big ticket item (to coin a current business speak phrase).
These are
1. Navy – Carriers (recently this project has slipped a bit, and looks rocky, but stick with me)
2. Army – Future Rapid Effects System
3. RAF – Eurofighter
For all these, the respective service chiefs would be prepared to “die in a ditch” defending.
Arguably there is a 4th, Political option, and that is “Nuclear” in the Trident renewal commitment made by El Gordo.
Now, we know full well in our heart-of-hearts that 4 multi billion pound projects are simply never going to get completed, and that at best, we can manage 3 (or more probably 2 and the third will be half baked!).
Now lets concider the timings of these things.
The whole british military is currently designed around the Holy Grail of fighting nations, namely LSDI (Large Scale Direct Intervention) which is the politically correct term for what used to be known as “fighting a proper war with a worthy opponent”.
For this we need a load of goodies, but mostly we need a deployable division (We have 1 & 3 at the moment) plus air superiority (much as it pains me, this is the jolly old RAF with their “crates”), and possibly a military sealift / amphibious capablility.
BUT. The massive overstretch that the army component has suffered in the last 5 years has knocked the stuffing out of it, and the big wigs have just done the sums, and told the government that it will not be able to deploy it’s division (if called upon) until at least 2016!!!
So No LSDI until 2016
This leaves some interesting questions / observations.
1. That we could simply cancel all eurofighter operations / flying /upgrades/ maintenance for the next 3, 4 or even 5 years. This would still give them 3-4 years to get ready to be able to provide the Army with it’s air superiority. C’mon RAF, we all need to make sacrifices! It is after all, All they are there for!!
2. That the Joint Strike Fighter, that is the essence of the Carriers is not going to be available to us until (at best efforts) 2012. Therfore, postponing the cariers is not such a loss as they are useless without the “crates”.
My money is on the Trident programm being the one that is “half baked, and the Eurofighter being drasticly cut. What say you?
St Crispin.
The Europlane was built for a war which isn’t ever going to happen now. Waste of money but kept going to protect jobs in marginal constituencies in Italy and keep our euro-enemies happy. Just like the carriers but we really need those. Fine, delay them and push the cost overrun on to the Conservatives in the next Parliament and blame them for the cash burn but they will never be canceled by Labour. Too many jobs/votes lost.
Dave, I think everyone recognises that the Eurofighter was built for a Cold War scenario and is obsolete, but what do you suggest? Design a more relevant plane at huge expense in this financial environment?
Bin them. Cancel ongoing orders. The political fallout would be unacceptable and expensive but it’s the right thing to do.
St Crispin will have an opinion on this, but paying for new carriers and the planes for a revived Royal Naval Air Force would be my plan.
VTOL is where we need to be for the carriers and not the planes they are proposing – but only as a sub-branch of a strengthened Navy. Odd, isn’t it…a strong Army and a strong Navy with the Marines on board – this country used to be unassailable.
So what should the Tories do next time round? The Snatch Jeep? I’d rather walk.
Are you pro or anti Trident then, St Crispin? Would be good to see an argument either way.
Steve, saw your message as am online now. Don’t know what St Crispin may think but I’ve got my views – maybe we’ll both post our opinions together in the next few days even if they are different. That’s the fun of multiple blog contributors.
St Crispin is Pro Trident. I have fought long & hard for this country, and am happy to say that with the nuclear option, we still deserve our seat at the high table of the UN (plus our not inconsiderable influence that comes from the commonwealth).
As for aircraft carriers. They need supersonic FGA aircraft like the F/A 18 Super Hornet. Vertol means that you are limited on range & operationally restricted by a thing called “bring back”, which basically means you have to ditch unused ordinance prior to landing, all very messy!
St C.