The amount of ammunition being consumed in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has surpassed all estimates.
This is starting to put pressure on the production and supply chains involved in the manufacture of ammunition for artillery guns among other weapons systems.
The amount of ammunition being consumed in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has surpassed all estimates. This is starting to put pressure on the production and supply chains involved in the manufacture of ammunition for artillery guns among other weapons systems.
This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
This is not an unprecedented problem. In warfare throughout history, armies have often underestimated the level of force and destruction of equipment that will be encountered and the amount of ammunition that will be consumed.
Time and again, this has affected military planning. For example, a lack of shells for British artillery in the first world war resulted in a crisis that led to the downfall of the government of Herbert Asquith.
But the protagonists of the two world wars were typically able to sustain their efforts despite huge levels of destruction comes down to the fact that weapons of that era were relatively simple to produce compared to today’s sophisticated military hardware. And the relative cheapness of the weapons allowed extensive numbers to be produced during the conflict.
Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help their readers understand the big issues. You can also subscribe to their weekly recap of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.
The Russo-Ukrainian war has not involved loss rates of equipment or consumption of material on the scale of the world wars. But, despite this, destruction of major, technologically cutting-edge, equipment can cause a headache for military planners and strategists.
Nato members and other European countries have sent a great deal of equipment, beginning with air defence systems and escalating more recently to main battle tanks such as the Challenger II and Leopard. If the security of individual nations, Europe and Nato is to remain secure, this equipment will have to be replaced.
Balance sheet
While losses of equipment in the Russo-Ukrainian are difficult to verify, various bodies including Oryx and Army Technology, an open-source intelligence site, have provided estimates on equipment losses. But when looking at these figures it is important not to look at just the raw numbers. Weapons lost, destroyed or used up need to be compared with the total numbers estimated to have been deployed.
Estimates of the numbers of Russian equipment deployed since February 2022 are 15,857 infantry fighting vehicles and 1,391 aircraft. Their estimated losses, up to the end of December 2022, according to Oryx, are 794 infantry fighting vehicles, 71 aircraft and 91 artillery pieces.
Ukrainian estimated available deployment has been 3,309 infantry fighting vehicles and 128 aircraft. Their estimated losses as of the end of December 2022 are 418 infantry fighting vehicles, 55 aircraft and 92 artillery pieces.
Major modern defence equipment, such as the F-35 Lightning fast-jet aircraft and the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, is becoming ever more sophisticated and expensive. So it’s no longer possible for replacements to be manufactured quickly. And the sheer cost of this hardware means it’s virtually impossible to keep replacements in reserve for when losses occur.
When ordering the F-35 Lighting, with the first deliveries expected in 2012, the UK originally set out to purchase a total of 138 aircraft. But the timeline for reaching this total has been delayed and now that number has been reduced due to affordability problems.
The first batch of 48 aircraft is due to be delivered by 2025, with an additional 27 by 2033. This delivery schedule, which represents less than four aircraft per year between 2025 and 2033, has been agreed with the manufacturer largely on production and cost factors. Such numbers make the creation of a reserve force next to impossible.
Such a delivery schedule, caused partly by having to spread deliveries over a longer time period due to cost implications, but also because of the length of time that such equipment takes to be manufactured, means these assets become of increasing value.
Reports suggest that it takes more than 41,000 hours per worker to manufacture an individual F-35 jet aircraft. Such a lead time in manufacturing limits the total amount that can delivered in any one year. With the current backlog of orders awaiting delivery, the replacement of aircraft lost to enemy action or flying accidents could take many years, and perhaps even decades.
Risk-averse
Losing such important and technologically sophisticated military assets, may lead to commanders in the field becoming more risk-averse when it comes to their direct deployment and engagement with an enemy that has an equivalent – or near equivalent – capability.
Without a mass of reserves to replace equipment that has been destroyed in the war, some of this equipment (which – let’s not forget – can cost millions or even billions of pounds) may not be deployed at all. While this is an extreme outcome, the potential for political backlash from the general public is great for politicians and senior military leaders.
This potential for increased risk averseness could mean these cutting-edge assets are not deployed or deployed only in exceptional circumstances.
Falling budgets
There’s also an interesting equation involved in modern defence budget calculations. The increasing sophistication and accuracy of today’s weapons means fewer can be deployed to achieve similar damage to the enemy. In other words, more can be achieved with less.
Defence budgets as a proportion of overall government spending have tended to fall since the second world war – and particularly since the end of the cold war. This is what’s known as the “peace dividend”.
But at the same time, individual pieces of equipment are vastly more expensive. Time will tell whether this will mean field commanders are more unwilling to commit to the use of such expensive equipment when it is more difficult to replace. This could change the nature of the conflict and bring another meaning to the phrase the “cost of war”.
Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of Portsmouth
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
So if we are risk averse in the deployment of technically complex pieces of equipment it means that the simplest solution needs to be relied on more than ever. That is boots on the ground with personal weapons and lots of associated ammunition.
There seem to be some large inconsistencies in the numbers in this article. I hope the author can put me right.
eg
“Estimates of the numbers of Russian equipment deployed since February 2022 are 15,857 infantry fighting vehicles and 1,391 aircraft. Their estimated losses, up to the end of December 2022, according to Oryx, are 794 infantry fighting vehicles, 71 aircraft and 91 artillery pieces.”
AFAICS the Oryx page linked actually says for IFVs lost:
“Infantry Fighting Vehicles (2206, of which destroyed: 1414, damaged: 66, abandoned: 119, captured: 607)”
That’s out by a factor of 3 just on reproducing a number from a piece quoted directly, which puts something of a question mark over the conclusions imho. Plus losses not visually confirmed by Oryx are not accounted for.
Similarly on the “91 artillery pieces”, the Oryx page says:
“Towed Artillery (185, of which destroyed: 79, damaged: 8, abandoned: 5, captured: 93)””Self-Propelled Artillery (362, of which destroyed: 235, damaged: 15, abandoned: 7, captured: 105)”
That’s also a huge difference between the author quote and his linked source, and non-visually proven items make the difference even larger.
Can the author back up his numbers and therefore his analysis? Or alternatively explain what I have wrong.
I think we also have to question comparisons of Oryx visually confirmed losses which are obviously on the low side, with CNN numbers from approx. day 2 of the war, CNN not being a very authoritative source. And we need to know that the categories used are comparable.
I’m hoping it’s just inadvertent category confusions or my mistake, and the author can clarify.
I suggest you look up Scott Ritter ex marine and un weapons inspector
Reports of the wargames on how a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would go, suggest the West wins only if the US can launch vast numbers of JASSM-ER & LRASM. Britain has spent £12 billion? on F-35 & QE/PoW carriers, yet that can only put 500lb Paveway IV on target. UK F-35B really need a large, stand off weapon under the wings quickly.
I would also do a quick buy of Ground launched SDB for UK MLRS, as an interim long range precision weapon.
NSM/ JASSM_ER are as you rightly state vital armaments and something the RAF/ RN needs to embrace as equipment fit for F35Bs/ Typhoons. The government have put all our investments and funds into the joint UK/ France future heavy stand off weapon which may or may not enter service, depends whether the French screw us over by withdrawing from the project just as it is about to reach completion, to then market their own “intellectual property” version and sell this themselves. Not like they haven’t done it before, Rafale was a son of Typhoon after all.
I’d like the RAF to get JASSM-ER pretty damn quickly and for the SSN fleet to be equipped with LRASM- is there a torpedo launched version?
Fully agree.
I know people say that Spear3 will be a fantastic weapon, and I agree with that, but we’re not getting it for at least another 4 years. Air-launched anti-ship missiles are needed now.
I’d say go for JSM and integrate it with F-35s, Typhoons, and also P8 Poseidons.
Even if JSM doesn’t fit into the F-35B’s internal bays, they can be carried under the wings. Whilst this does affect the stealth profile of the F-35B, it’s better than relying on 500lb bombs that have to be dropped so close that the stealth advantage is drastically reduced anyway.
Naval News has just posted a video on an arms fair in Japan. Japan has bought JSM for its F-35A. Kongsberg says it is willing to put JSM under the wings of Japanese F-35B, if the Japanese government orders it. If that happens, then I think it wise for the UK to also buy JSM for the under the wings of its F-35B.
So, HMS Victory cost £63176 in 1765. That same year, total government expenditure was £12M. So 1 ship was 0.52% of expenditure.
In 2020, total government spending was £948B. 0.52% of which is £4.82B.
Nice comparison, there. And as an indication of long term investment value, we still have HMS Victory 👍. Agree of course, we got some aircraft carrier hardware for not dissimilar figures i.e. always nice to see something for your financial outlay, even if folk then have the relatively luxury of indulging in whether it was quite the right thing.
Aternatively, though accept what Land Forces are saying e.g. £5B uplift not sufficient, it may have been sufficient it they had not spaffed, let me see, about 5B on – what, exactly 🤔.
Rgs
But the actual cost was only the equivalent of around £10 million today…government….comparisons are very hard…
Yeah, based on PPP or some other such stat but it’s nigh on impossible to make a truly direct comparison. We have to remember 99.9% of wealth was in the hands of 0.1% of people which skews data somewhat. GDP in 1765 was something in the order of £120-150M so gov spending was 10% of GDP. Now we’re at £3.9T ish & 30% gov spending (unrelated to Defence but let that sink in…).
£63k = 0.05% of GDP in 1765 which would work out to be £2B today – more than an Astute.
We can play with numbers all day: F35 takes 40k man hours, Spitfire was 4k. We built 20k Spitfire’s, so where’s our 2k F35s? Are the metals used so very precious?
My actual take on this article; nonsense. What’s expensive now are the weapons, not the systems used to launch them. Victory probably fired £1,000 (todays money) of metal at the French. The ordinance used had no shelf life & could be replaced by metal foundries within a week. In todays conflict, as an example; if we had LRASM, we could pop off £12m at 1 hostile ship in about 30 seconds. Then we’re waiting 2-3 years to make new ones as we lack a reserves AND the industrial capacity to make more quickly (which also affects cost).
But even this is minor really. Fact is, we as a nation, chose to spend our money on healthcare, social services etc. militarily stuff is fairly comparable to the past but we all just think it’s expensive. “£5B on Ajax” but no one mentions the Royal College of Surgeons study saying the NHS wastes £2B every year on unnecessary scans (no idea how true this is but…).
Indeed it’s such an impossible set of comparisons in reality…..a couple of 18c first rates like the victory could spend all day chasing each other around basting away and not really get very far….where as one well placed lRASM could end a large warship in moments…one Asute could send an entire fleet to the bottom of the sea. Its only every really possible to make comparisons in that moment of time…it’s sort of like people who make moral comparison or evaluation of historic figures….calling any human being from the 18c racist in the modern sense of the world is pointless…..it’s the same with comparing a modern aircrafts production with say spitfire production…no point…you have to compare it with its modern peers.
Some subtle digs in there 😁 very good 👍🏼
I agree though, it’s all relative to the moment. Hence I disagree with the article. Fairly sure nobody was bemoaning the cost of the Hood when she went down. Only the terrible waste of life. It was War & the cost (monetary) was irrelevant, as it will be in a future conflict. The only concern would be the loss of an asset when we have so few to lose.
Also agree with your (hopefully not sarcastic) statement regards judging people from the past by todays “standards”.
One of the items found in all infantryman’s packs across history was a spoon.
Nationhood requires a deep feeling of affection for the past, partly born out of feeling a kinship with it. Without comparing ourselves with it, there can be no kinship. Children would be denied the deep joy they feel when they discover an ancestor they had something in common with. Britain feels pride in itself precisely because of the continuity of civilisation and governance that it has sustained over centuries.
We have peace due to the American Empire conquering or subsuming its rivals with the help of allied states, just like the British and Roman Empires before it. That is continuity.
The past may be a different country, but we share some of its language. It is a delicate balance of appreciating what is different, and conserving what is similar.
Otherwise there would be no Early “Modern” period in historiography.
(If there was nothing to compare in history, there would be no military historians working hand-in-glove with armed forces across the West)
Hi there is a very big difference between trying to understand history, learning the lessons of history and making comparisons with history.The first two are useful as the first allows you to understand how we have got to where we are, the second can give us warnings…but comparison is a rabbit hole you should not go down….look how poor our navy is now compared to in the good old days when….or look how guilty we are as the empire was so evil because….. are both utter tosh..you can only do comparison against the norm of that time and to do anything else is profoundly destructive….a couple of examples:
1) the argument that the west owes repatriations for the actions of empire…as 16th-19th century empires were somehow abnormal…it creates a toxic debate of victimhood and puts modern moral equivalence to actions of the past that were then considered normal by everyone…..instead we should be having a debate on wealth differences in the modern world and fairness now against modern standards and needs…so move the argument from historical injustice as we see it now ..instead we should be comparing wealth inequality now and decide what we want to do about it because is right to do now…not for some moral equivalence argument about historic wrongs that creates Ill feeling and actually creates more intrenched positions.
2) The size and capacity of our armed forces is and needs to be assessed against its peers and modern roles we as a nation require…not what the navy was at the hight of empire..or what the army was at the hight of the Cold War.
One of my favourite examples of how to look at history to understand how history can get you somewhere and how you can learn lessons vs using equivalence is the Irish potato famine….it’s a real classic for what history can teach and what is bollox moral equivalence or capability equivalence…..leading everyone down the wrong rabbit holes…so a lesion in how to use and not use history 1 o 1 .…….the Irish potato famine.
the moral equivalence argument: The British should have prevented the famine and provided food for the Irish population and they even exported food from the country…this still resonates in the Irish people today as well as many American ( I have Irish relatives and have spent time discussing this with lots of Irish friends) and is one of those historical equivalences that still creates some tension and I’ll feeling ( and this type of ill feeling is important to understand in itself..even if it’s created by a bad use of lessons from history)
.so….
1) the food that was exported was grain from the east of the country caused more starvation and it was the British being evil and immoral….actual history: even if that had not been exported there was no significant famine in the grain growing areas…but also Ireland had no infrastructure for milling the grain and even more there were no road or infrastructure in place for the mass movement of food from east to wes..so this exporting made no difference to the outcome of the famine and Britain actually imported more food than was exported….but.
2) there was actually no real excess food anywhere and no mass international trade in bulk food that could feed a nation…infact the British government did source maze from the U.S. but there was again no infrastructure to turn it to flour or ability to transport it across from the east to the west coast of Ireland (where the famine was more devastating ) and the west coast of Ireland was death to sailing vessels so it could not be imported directly.
3) simply put there was no way for any 19th century nation to import and move food to the level to prevent a famine…only the modern world can do that…so it’s a false premise that once it started the British government could have done a thing about it….and. The west coast of Ireland was one of the harder to reach areas in Europe…a coast that killed ships and no real road infrastructure ( and remember at that time even good road were still shite).
But and this is the big one Britain’s could not prevent the famine when it had happens but did actually set lreland up for it to happen…that goes over everyone’s head. It’s was the introduction of a law a few centuries before that created the conditions that made Ireland dependent on potatoes…this was a Simple law that said if you were catholic you had to split the inheritance between all male children…this is perfectly normal and moral now…and we would say so what…but then it was devised to destroy the catholic ruling class/land owning families it was really pretty immoral and was done on purpose ( in this case the morality of the time would say that the law was a pretty horrible thing to do..but they could never have foreseen it causing a famine a few centuries hence) …it’s why the aristocracy alway have one main inheritor and still do…This law causes the break up of farms and farming in Ireland over a few hundred years..until land was parcelled into such small areas that the only way to support a family was by growing potatoes ( you get more calories per hectare from potatoes than any other traditional crop)…so a law passed in the Elizabethan age due to fear of the European catholic super powers created the potato dependent agriculture that caused the famine….but that’s not what every gets rilled up about…the fun I have when someone gives me the old potato famine line…
finally the lesson to be learn….( ignore the fact that a completely immoral law in the framing of the time that in the end caused immense death..but would now in the modern world would have no moral questions and be normal…everyone inherits equally)…was around agriculture and dependence on monocultures..at the time the agriculture on the island of great British had started to transition to being more potatoe focused ( people had picked up on the fact you could get more calories per hectare to feed the growing population in the manufacturing cities) but the lesson was learn don’t depend on one crop that can catastrophically fail ( potatoes are particularly good at that) and British agriculture focused on being more mixed as well as a concerted effort to move the Irish system away from only potatoes. But in the modern world we are again focusing on yield over diversity and may areas of the world are dependent on single crop types still….
so that famine is a great lesson in people going down a moral equivalence rabbit hole…..they should have supplied food ( ignoring the fact no 19c state could have done so)…while not even considering the mechanism that set the agricultural system to fail ( an immoral law at the time…that would now be considered normal)…with no one really taking in the actual lesson of history around the need for crop diversity.
My statement was not about shame (we agree on the Irish potato famine), but pride.
History is incremental. There is no absolute cut-off point. I will have more in common with an 18th century abolitionist, than with a 5th century post-Roman warlord. I will not have EVERYTHING in common with the former (he may have different views to me on women or sovereignty in line with the attitudes of his time), but the commonalities will be there.
Even in the deep past, some things reverberate across history. The Bible itself contains both abhorrent ideas by modern standards (stone adulterers!) but also ideas far ahead of their time (forgive sinners!). Like it or not, we have very a faint moral equivalence with the past.
Speaking of abolitionists (and to get to my original point), I feel pride in 19th century abolitionists and feel that they contributed to the world I now live in. To say that there is no link with them is patently absurd and cuts off an avenue for patriotism. That is unfair and edges close to wokeness.
I don’t disagree with that as I said understanding history and how it has created the now is important…my issue is the the use of equivalency between now and some time in history or some time in history and now… you can feel pride the history of your nation or cultures past achievements but you cannot place modern equivalency on actions in the past…
Fair enough.
Slightly off topic I agree but…I’d like to see what criteria they use to define ‘unnecessary scans’ – Are they scans that show no subsequent issues , or those that some pious expert in his field dismisses post scan result..as neither woud truly be unnecessary.
I doubt very much NHS GP’s send people for scans at every request – Although maybe they do if they have been slated previously for ‘missed opportunities’ …everything has a consequence not least the “wheres theres blame theres a clailm” culture we live in….
This is very true and it’s one of the things that both piss me of and make my job very hard…what people tend to do in health care is measure inefficiency by hindsight…look when you check against final diagnostic coding 50% of people did not need to be in an Accident and emergency department….the Answer back to this is Yes but from their initial presentation they did not know that and neither would a healthcare professional without actually examining them undertaking diagnosis tests and getting a diagnosis….
The cost of finding problems early and saving lives and function is that you will spend money on test and diagnostics you did not need….vs
Saving money on limiting diagnosis..but: The cost of limiting diagnosis is that you will miss people whose lives could have been saved or who’s function could have been preserved….you are then pissing money on lifetime care costs…which is potentially millions of pounds per missed episode.
The NHS (and I have worked in it for 26 years, in emergency medicine, investigating failure’s and harm as well designed developing emergency care systems) does not have a culture of over ordering diagnosis tests..infact my experience is that it’s the opposite..the lack of resourcing around diagnostics has created a culture in the NHS of less and later diagnostics than in almost any other western culture…this does mean that more people slip through the net than other systems….but it’s important to note these are small numbers and there is a balance that over testing systems such as the US actually tend to create more harm..through over testing.
Its the same question with screening…you have some very complex balances at play:
1) don’t screen and you will get a lot more late diagnosed disease and a lot of harm as well as massive increase in costs of active treatment.
2) screen everyone and you will get early diagnosis but you also get a shed load of false positives and people who have treatment and interventions they did not really need..also you are spending a huge amount of money on people who did not have the thing you are screening them for they and never will have.
The simple fact is modern healthcare whichever way you go is massively inefficient…it cannot be changed..things like economy of scale do not work in healthcare…you cannot get one nurse or one dr to be more efficient…no matter how you try and work it is does not work that way. Also the more successfully a healthcare system works the more inefficient it’s becomes..the most efficient healthcare system is the one that only treats simple injuries that prevent someone from working or ensure basic public health and outbreak management…as soon as your system is keeping people alive through complex disease process or increasing life expectancy of people with complex disease process you are making a system that will as a function of success become more and more inefficient….that this the profound problem that people cannot get there heads around…the original premise of modern health systems was that if you made the population healthier it would cost less..the problem was medical technology and knowledge moved on swiftly in the 20c and it turned out what we are best at is keeping people alive living with conditions that should have killed them…that costs more and more as we add new people to that should be dead but being kept alive list every year..for reference most people in their 60s 70s,80,90 are on that list and the older they get the more different conditions they have that we are treating to keep them alive and the more it costs….one person with 4 conditions costs more that 4 people with one etc)…simple truth is that if we want the privilege of getting old and retiring enjoying a life that stretches into our very late 70s and 80s we will be paying out the nose for an inefficient health system..the efficient system would see you dead in your 60s to early 70s and focus all its money on making children and young people as healthy as possible…so they can live well until they get a complex costly disease or chronic condition..then just make them comfortable as they die…infact you could say our issue with spending huge amounts of money on inefficient health system comes fromthe western view that death is something that is not normal and to be avoided at all costs and that it’s something we actually have agency over…instead of a process of life which has to occur…infact we don’t have health care systems that are their to promote good health and happy lives..we have “avoid death at all costs..even if that cost is miserable life or having less money to ensure we have healthy children and babies” systems….there’s a thought.
Thank you for the insight. Really interesting ideas there that the populace (myself included) wouldn’t have considered.
I’ll only disagree slightly on one thing; economy of scale. The purchasing power of the NHS is insane & in some areas is wielded really really well. It could be used in other areas too but I suspect the structure may get in the way(?). I don’t know. I do know (from a supplier side) that it could be done better sometimes.
Really not the forum but this is a polite exchange so; I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this – I looked up OECD data on per capita spend on healthcare in developed nations. We rank 3rd or 4th.
The ‘avoid death at all costs’ is also interesting. Will need to give that some thought.
Hi stu the avoid death at all cost in the western world is actually one of those really import things to think about as it may become something very personal….stuff like wishes in resuscitation and what level of active treatment you would like are so very import questions that we very much fail to ask ourselves….we sometime therefore create suffering in the pursuit of life…I have seen people dragged off to surgery that really should not be….resuscitated into a vegetative state or to simply have to die a second time in a few hours….the amount of effort we put into the last year of a persons life or the last weeks and days is staggering..personally I would like to see a lot more spent on good palliative care than treatments that give a few more months suffering…or better early life care and health for life.
This is going to be a long one as I want to give you a really good backdrop
as for costs the NHS does have incredibly effective purchasing of the medication and gets some of the cheapest prices on meds in the world…although that can cause problems some times as the international markets mean that sometimes we over cheap and drugs get diverted to other markets and we re-adjust as we can….but you have to remember in healthcare the costs of buildings and equipment is nothing compared to staff..health is functionally very much about lots of skilled people doing lots of different jobs…not about the tec and other stuff ( it is important…but the best diagnostic and treatment tools are the human beings)….so it works out that the NHS spends 75 billion on its staff compared to 34 Billion on buying stuff, 15 billion was spent on buying primary care services the other 50 ish billion on everything else..public health….capital expenditure ect…..
now remember your GP practice, pharmacists and dentist don’t work for the NHS they are a small business that has a contract to provide services…most people forget the NHS is not actually a state owned organisation…it’s a system made up of over 20 thousand different organisations..which many thousand are private business ( 6500 gp practises and 11,000 Pharmacies with about the same again of pharmacies)….
in regards to health system spending you cannot use any one year even the preset as to how well your system is funded…they are strategic systems that need stable funding over decades…one of the big problems the NHS has is this government has just realised how buggered the Uk health system is and has been throwing money around that we cannot spend as it’s not long term spending…the workforce we have now was created by the last decades spend…the infrastructure and number of beds was created over a decade of a specific level of spend….the illness and waiting lists are locked in over decades….interestingly the nhs has a 10 billion pound maintance back log from 2004 till now…no government will pay for building maintenance as its not front line. The government tends to tell the nhs what it can spend its money on not what the nhs wants to spend its money on…so even if we cannot spend it that way because we don’t have the staff or needed it spend in a different d ways ( like training new staff) we cannot if it’s ring fenced for a government we have done this project…( I personally have to report every 2 weeks to someone in Whitehall as to a few hundred thousand here and there that our system is spend on nursing home beds…that’s one of the NHS big issues political interference.
so as for health spend you have to really trend over decades…
but as for average healthcare spend if you take 2020 ( a good a year as any)
the Uk spend £3005 per person…the average EU spend was £3655…10 EU countries spent substantially more per person that the UK…places like Germany, Norway, Sweden Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Ireland and Austria were spending around the £4500 pound per person mark..counties like France, Finland and Belgium spent the average at around £3600…the only countries lower than us were Spain and Italy at £2600 ( but they are special as there populations are healthier and less prone to long term conditions than Northern Europeans and they do not provide the same comprehensive care…relatives are expected to come in and proved basic care to relatives in hospitals…the staff do only medical care…no feeding washing dressing getting out of bed ect)…all the other lower spenders are Eastern European very poor nations and Greece.
internationally the U.S. spend more than we do by around 3 time more per person ( around £10,000 per year per person) Australia spends about £4000 per person per year…Canada is around £5000 per year per person…
That has been the trend pretty much for decades..so say you think it’s reasonable we have the healthcare system of say Germany we should have been paying the NHS around £1500 pound more per person every year…for the French system £600 pounds per person per year….that’s a lot of money…take that for the population of 70million… we should have payed the NHS around an extra 90 or so billion a year..after all in 2020 Germany spend around £380 billion pounds on its healthcare compared to the UK total of was around £180billion on the NHS and 250 billion in total ( only 70% of UK healthcare spend is controlled by the NHS)… now this extra 130 billion Germany spends on healthcare is every year….in a decade you are taking the NHS being underpaid against the standard of other European nations by hundreds of billions….you cannot gap that bridge with a few billion bung at the NHS in year because it’s collapsed…
Now the final amazing bit is that fully private market driven system called the US…they spent 4.1 trillion dollars on healthcare…that’s about 17% of their GDP ( we have bounced from around 8-11% over that last few decades..lit averages at around 9% of GDP…the US government funding via its tax base gives more per head of total population to the U.S. healthcare system for very basic provisions for 30% of its most at risk population and veterans than the UK does for the entire UK health system to provide birth to death universal healthcare for its entire population….an they have worse infant mortality than we do by 25% as well as a life expectancy of only 77 vs our 82-83…
a really good way to get a grasp of the profound difference in how the Uk has funded healthcare is to get all the commonwealth fund mirror mirror studies for around the last 30 years and look where the NHS had been…it’s generally been the 1st or second most efficient system ( the NHS and new Zealand system tend to battle for first spot) in those studies of western systems every year..it’s fallen back to the four most efficient in the last study as the collapse in social care has utterly destabilised it and the government has been having to throw wads of sticking plaster cash as around 25% or our hospital beds are filled with old people who need social care at home in a nursing home.
Mmm. Indeed one patient with 4 conditions is more expensive to treat than 4 people each with one condition. I think the main issue with the NHS is that it works like a production line factory making model T Fords. The goal is efficiency and minimum cost. People with one condition usually go on to have more condition because frankly the treatments don’t work. ( Keir Starmer’s favourite phrase these days is ‘sticking plaster’ – its interesting that his wife works for the NHS). You must treat the patient not the disease. A person suffering a bereavement ( in which I include comparable emotional losses/ blows such as divorce, miscarriage, abortion, PTSD, abuse) will typically suffer from progressive chronic decline if the cause of his or her distress is not dealt with. We have a culture that is making us all ill.
Perhaps as a student of history you could tell us where we went wrong 😀
Hi Paul, yes it’s unfortunately true we do have a society that is making us I’ll, to be honest it’s not just the a UK problem but it seems to be most prevalent in Northern Europe, North America…I think we can probably take some leaning from places like Spain and Italy..as noted they spend far less than we do on healthcare and in the main that’s because they have a healthy population….the best way to control health spending and put the NHS back on an even keel and keep a responsible spend is to have a healthy population. To be honest it’s not really rocket science what makes for a healthy population we know it but we will not do anything about it:
yes there are actually five major issues…with probably the most impactful related to big food and how we live and work…
Food:
1) food..this is probably the single biggest issue in the west our diet is specifically designed to destroy our health…our processed food, high sugar diet is essentially poison ( sugar is actually a toxin and the body manages it much in the same way as it does alcohol…to much sugar destroys your liver as effectively as to much alcohol…so a lot of our long term conditions are caused by sugar. It also causes insulin resistance…..liver disease and diabetes 1 o 1 it’s causes by refined sugars and starches
2) gut health..if your gut is not healthy you basically leak the contents of your gut into your bloodstream this causes systemic inflammatory response..this damages all you organs over time..heart disease, kidney disease here we come. Your gut health is dependent on having a health set of gut bacteria….for this you need to be eating around 20 different types of plant based food in your diet. ( that’s not 20 different fruit and veg..you can have seeds, nuts, even high coco chocolate is a plant based food…the stuff living in your gut also needs lots of fibre as this is what it lives off of..
2) low fibre processed food…I’d you eat a whole food..say a porridge you can only liberate around 70% of the starch from the fibre matrix so around 30% of the calories are not used…this 30 ish 30% of energy you can’t exact from whole foods is what your gut bacteria live on….instead of making you fat..process foods even with “added fibre” is pretty much 100% available to you..it makes you fat and your gut bacteria starve.
3)the fatty liver….the way the body uses sugars and starch means you lay down fat on your liver….fatty liver is a killer..generally from a health point of view you use the rule 10…liver fat ( fat in your liver) is 10 times more damaging that visceral fat ( fat around your organs ) and visceral fat is 10 time more damaging than subcutaneous fat ( the fat you can pinch that’s under your skin) so 1 kg of fat on you liver is like 100kgs of fat sitting around someone arse..that’s why you can be thin…eat Mac Donald’s every day and yet be more unhealthy than a really fat looking person who spend their time eating lots of prime steak and mountains of veg.
4) eating window….we are designed to eat over a short space of time..in the wild a person would get up go gather their food before eating…there was not such thing as breakfast…when it got dark you would go to bed…there was not such thing as all night dining..our gut is designed to only really work for around 8-10 hours a day…we are designed to spend around 12-14 hours a day burning fat stores and actually feeling a bit hungry…the problem is refined sugar and process foods actually drive hunger and we get sugar lows…that’s not natural that’s created by modern processed foods…they drive us to eat more at the wrong times.
5) carbs..we are not designed to eat lots of carbs….protein we need lots of to build muscle mass as well as the complex bits found in plants…carbs are used as a bulk food….in nature we eat meat, fruit, veg, nuts and seeds….not bread pasta, rice, potatoes….
Exercise:
we are designed to be physically stressed every day…specially before we eat a big meal…we are meant to enter a fat burning state…as well as build muscle by destroying muscle.our cardiovascular cardio vascular system also needs that daily stress….muscles and bones build due to daily physical stress…we are a biological machine designed to walk very long distances in a day not sit around.
stress response:
we have a stress respond designed to jack out our strength, speed, responses and awareness in time of danger…to do this it shuts down a lot of build repaired and things like digestion and our immune system…but it was designed for a sudden burst danger…modern life provides constant danger…work,every day..paying the bills, face book the news….that buggers up our systems.
mental health.
1).we are designed to spend lots of time walking..when we don’t our mental health is effected…we call it cabin fever..but it’s effectively our biological need to walk our territor.
2) the stress response is designed to make us hyper aware of danger..but it’s only meant to be triggered in short bursts….when hunting or being hunted…modern life triggers it all the time so we spend all our time in a hyper aware state…that’s the biggest mental health issue.
3) resting our brains..we actually need a lot of time with no major mental input..it allows us to process almost being eaten by that tiger…modern life engages the brain at all times..TV..the net….no time to process stuff that then starts causing problems…I’ve seen loads of awful things…some I just processed others not so well..
Not breast feeding….
1)what can I say other than bottled milk is proven to increase incidents of all gut related disease..there are specific things in human milk that are needed to mature the human gut….look back to when a lot of gut diseases started to get through the roof in the west….
2) brain development…bottle feeding on cows milk impacts on brain development…children brains feed on bottled cows milk are impacted…simply put bottled cows milk has made us all a bit less clever have slightly less developed brains than we would have…
3) mother child bond…bottle feeding impacts on that..that impacts on how we are as adults
just to say my personal veiw is that formula should be prescription only….the evidence base shows it’s negatively effects a persons health and well-being.
Unfortunately to change all this we would have to fundamentally change our society..which we will not..the cost of that is paying vast amounts in healthcare bills…but it’s a price we must pay for 24/7 access to sugar, processed foods…24/7 lifestyle…working lives that chain us to chairs..and more freedom for women to not spend years at a time with a baby chained to them.
Well Jonathan, that’s an impressive list of health guidance. Sadly most people have neither the time nor the inclination to take any notice of it. Swamps and alligators syndrome I’m afraid, everyone is too busy earning money to survive and buy optional extras like a home and a family. As my grandmother used to say, advice is only for those who will take it. Our problem is that we have a disease of the soul but we are so smart we ( including and perhaps especially the NHS which is at the core of national culture) don’t believe such a thing exists. What we have instead is ‘an epidemic of mental illness’. At some point we will realise that we are doing it to ourselves – but I’m not holding my breath.
Hi Paul, yes that’s the fundamental problem..unfortunately modern life is disconnecting people with the needs of their minds and bodies….and I agree mental health in modern society is a very big problem and I do agree mental health is a Cinderella service in this county…we talk about parity between physical and mental health but we don’t have it…I think it’s because you can measure a physical health intervention…give a prices vs benfit… it’s so much harder to do that with mental health interventions.
Its easy to measure the effects of ‘mental illness’ …as the saying goes ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. 🙂
E.g. get smashed> think with your gonads>vote for brexit>lower GDP
Hi, apologies for the delay, been a busy week or so. A lot of tongue in cheek here so please don’t be offended, not my intent. Don’t feel obliged to answer all the questions either. Just the one on global rising costs. 😊
Could not agree more on the ‘avoid death at all costs’. Everyone I’ve discussed this with (many people) sided with a dignified end at 70ish rather than a vegetative blob at 80+ (excuse the harsh terminology). For me, once I can’t wipe my own bum, if something happens, just let me go. “DNR” as our American chums call it.
Re staff costs; it’s not unusual for a business to have staff costs be 50-60% of overhead.
Re using 2020 as sample; I seem to recall there was a bug going round at the time… I’ve been looking at 1990-2019 to avoid muddy waters.
Re USA; they’re an outlier. A crazy system where government spending still includes significant profits for their providers. I would ignore their numbers.
From the data here; https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
Over the last 30 years, we’ve been on par with Finland and ahead of Spain & Italy. So why a decline? Did they see a similar decline? Spain & Italy had their economy significantly improve over this time too so can’t be because everything is so much cheaper there can it?
OK, we can spend more to be on par with France & Germany but where does the cash come from? We have to reduce something & our three big bills are Health, Welfare, Education. You already mentioned welfare cuts just shift work to hospitals (agreed) so… if it’s welfare, do we lose JSA? OR we save on admin costs throughout government (I can assure you there is some dead weight there) OR we just borrow more – our Grandchildren will still be paying for our current debt already so… OR we have to boost the economy so there’s more in the kitty. I can’t think of any other solutions. If we start slashing everywhere, the press shout “austerity!” And everyone freaks out. I’m down though; Cut subsidized solar & wind, cut foreign aid, cut JSA, cut HS2, cut everything and everyone that isn’t Crime, Defence, NHS, Education, Welfare and roads. The spiderweb of taxation, tax breaks and subsidies is insane. ‘Gas prices up, people can’t afford so they use taxpayer money to pay everyone £350 to help out’. Result; the energy companies record record profits. 🤔
One thing I’m wondering though is; why does it cost so much now? Inflation tracking shows £1 in 1990 is £2.50 now. Salaries have increased at around this same pace (ave salaries tie into inflation rates, who knew!? Maybe we should tell Rishi…) so I assume NHS salaries have also (give or take). So why has per person spending increased by 6x? And how has it increased by 6x & we’re told the service is getting worse? Is penicillin more expensive? This isn’t just a UK thing as the increase appears global. If we continue, I estimate that the NHS will be 100% of public spending by 2100.
One last simplified query; We all agree we want Universal Healthcare in the U.K. Ever heard the phrase; you can have it great, cheap, or fast, but you can only choose 2? Ie you can’t have great quality, fast service for cheap. Do we all need to sit down and decide which we want the NHS to be? OR (and this is my idea), do we pass a law which requires an amount of annual spending on the NHS tied to an average plus/minus x% of health spending by selected nations (I.e. France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden etc etc) to remove the political football. Each year, Treasury uses OECD data & cuts a cheque. No arguments.
As is said, not sure how true. It was a year or two since I read it. Wasn’t attacking the NHS, just a throw away example of “waste” of £2B here, no one is bothered. ‘Waste’ £5B on Ajax & it’s front page news. That is to say, we’re all given to believe by media that defence spending is ‘insanely expensive and wasteful’ when it isn’t.
10 billion not million today
Indeed… Thankyou a slip of the keyboard.
I tend prefer comparisons from the early 20th century because if you go back to the 1700s you’re comparing against a pre-industrial economy.
Fair one. Shall we do the QE of 1914? Love a bit of maths in the afternoon.
Cost £3,014,103 then. U.K. GDP was £3B ish. So 0.1% GDP.
Today, GDP = £3.9T so 0.1% = £3.9B
Total Gov spend in 1914 was roughly £400M so 0.75% was on one ship. Equal to £7.35B today. 7 Astutes-ish for the price of one QE battleship.
We laid down 2 that year and 3 more in 1915.
I’m not at all sure the article is on point.
What we have learned is that old school Soviet tactics around carpeting use of artillery waste massive levels of munitions to little real gain.
It doesn’t follow from that the all warfare expense massive levels of munitions.
Whereas we have learned is that relatively small numbers of highly precise weapons have had a very strong asymmetrical effect.
HIMARS – not even the long range version
NLAWS – not even very expensive
Javelin – older models
Stinger – older versions
And that using those very precise weapons has had a devastating effect on the Russian military machine.
I would argue that had the Russian military machine been exposed to the full gamut of NATO’s;
EW; and
Fast Jet Air Power; and
Close in Air Power; and
Current Weapons Versions; and
LGB; and
Cruise or Storm Shadow; and
would have been so deverstated in a few days that it would have been reduced to irrelevance.
Hm, agreed, SB, and naturally the same issues of bringing equipment on line in a meaningful timespan will affect your modern opponent. Still, as we’ve been previously discussing, guns will again have their day with smart / extended range shells. Also, simpler items like JDAM offer a comparitively cost effective solution. Not forgetting UK’s own policy with regard to missiles of making them familial derivations of one another to a great extent.
Hi SB,
I think we agree there is a place for a Hi Low mix of capabilities. As we have all said having one mega super widget capable of stopping anything that comes near it is all very well, until you find out your enemy has simply driven around it and is now sitting in your capital city with a pistol held to the heads of your ruling elite…
As a rather extreme example of a Hi / Low capability mix, I was watching the BBC News the other night and one of the correspondents was doing a report on the frontline near Bakhmut. He visited a Ukrainian bunker right in the frontline and as he entered his commentary said that the static nature of the battle meant that the Ukrainians were using a mix of 21st century and 19th century weapons. At first I thought he had made a stupid blunder until the cameraman swung his lens onto the firing position and there sat… a Tsarist era MAXIM machinegun. I kid you not. The Ukrainians reconed it was around 100 years old. After I picked my jaw up of the floor I figured why not. The young soldier sat next to it was very proud of his gun! (See link below, nice picture of said MAXIM at the end of the report).
Of course, we in the West still use a very old design, the Browning 50cal although I doubt very much that any of them are 100 years old. Also, there are the B52’s and FV432 (sorry Bulldog) so maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised.
The point to note is that the even old weapons can be and are still very dangerous things.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64955537
Cheers CR
PS Those reporters and their crews who go into the combat areas with a microphone and camera have got some nerve. They’re not the only ones of course.
There is a use for some Hi/Lo mix where it doesn’t over complicate things.
I’d agree things like the 50 cal are fundamentally good and useful.
I’d be surprised if the MAXIM was that accurate compared to a UK spec 50 cal?
Accuracy matters a lot. It is one of the reasons the Ukranians are using so much ammunition. Yes, they are more considered than the Russians who fire in the hope not expectation of hitting things. And yes the Ukrainians are using better targeting. Fundamentally if the weapon has less accuracy and range you need more shots for the same effect: if you can even achieve that effect at all.
So there is a balance of inventory/logistics/manufacturing to keeping old kit going.
The multipliers are not small if realistically you need 10x more ammunition to keep a 2 gen old weapon in use then you have to pay for 10x stockpile and 10x manufacturing to be kept warm. What is the opportunity cost versus buying 20% of the number if the old kit to augment front line kit? That is the real maths to do.
Hi SB,
I agree with everything you say, however, the point I am making I suppose is that when you are really up against it anything is better than nothing and old kit can keep you in the fight whilst prodution is ramped up. Desperate times mean desperate measures and lets not kid ourselves the Ukrainians are still seriously up against it despite what Zelensky says.
This old Maxim gun is helping to keep them in the fight and the Russians are helping by using WW1 style human wave tactics. The Maxim proved itself to be more than good enough to slaughter thousands in WW1 when such tactics were common, I’m sure you remember what happened on July 1st 1916. I suspect that it is just as good today, sadly for the Rusian conscripts. That young Ukrainian reconed his gun had killed hundreds of Russians. Probably a serious over estimation but it does suggest a sufficiency of effectiveness for the old gun to hold the line until ammunition runs out or modern kit from the West arrives.
Damn, war is a bloody business.
CR
PS My comment re Zelenski is not critism, the man is a politician and his only weapon is language which he has proved very adept at deploying. Morale is everything for Ukrainians and Zelenski is a big part of that for the Ukrainain people.
The Polish buy of Korean FA-50 small fighter shows the necessity of a low cost aircraft because quantities matter when shtf.
In peace you can play the hyper high tech card but when losses and heavy maintenance starts things change and you still need tools to fight.
A mix of high-end systems (here the F35) and a less advanced and less expensive fighter (so not the EF2000…) will become mandatory to maintain enough systems.
The Polish buy of FA-50s is intriguing only time will tell if they are mad geniuses for buying an inferior low end jet that likely cannot compete with latest Mig and Sukhoi variants or the FA50s will offer a genuine 2nd line capability for close air support and light bombing as well as anti-drone, anti helos interception. Numbers have a capability on their own and if we had enough kit we would’nt be worrying about some attrition loses. the fact the RAF/FAA is down to around 130 high performance jets is the concern. MPA fleet of just 9, AWACS- only going to be 3 wedgetails for now- all very concerning.
What’s probably more important is the systems it has and the weapons it carries. A super manoeuvrable jet is useless if it’s been wiped out by a missile at 40 miles.
Poland seems to be getting the FA50 quickly which is important to them. Will be great for Air patrol, bomb drops etc. No doubt cheaper to operate.
The thinking being it’s an suitable replacement for the mig29 and su22.
Quantity. if your frontline fighters gets reduced operational numbers due to repairs, losses you need something in place to replace it, also to do the missions you made reference too like hitting enemy drones, helicopters and the enemy Su-25 and other Russian land attack aircraft. Don’t waste flight hours and pilot fatigue with your top of the line fighters going after helicopters and such things.
The real “Peace dividend” is the Russian invasion(Mk2) of Ukraine & an agressive PRC. Short sighted folly from incompetant leadership.
Think we have to accept that that is what democracies tend to do i.e. as opposed to authoritarian states. Takes a lot to overcome us in the end.
Another factor is the reduction in the size of armed forces manpower leading to a tendency to offset that with very high quality and high capability equipment – hence a tendency to ‘gold plate’ – particularly for an army that will have lost around 100,000 regular posts since the 1970s/80s.
Also the UK’s manufacturing base has reduced over time, especially for the manufacturing of military equipment (not so much naval equipment, though). The manufacturing facilities for AFVs are seemingly limited to assembly halls, so much sub-contracting is required even of major items such as hulls.
“not so much naval equipment, though”
We came perilously close to loosing that too.
T26
Mk41 VLS – USA
5″ gun – USA – although the barrels may be made in Barrow
30mm – Sweden
Radar – UK
Sea Ceptor – UK
Electric Motors – UK
Diesels – Germany(?)
GTs – UK
Sonar – UK
T31
57mm – Sweden
40mm – Sweden
IshM – Denmark
Sea Ceptor – UK
Diesels – Germany(?)
CMS – Thales
Radar – Thales
Mk41 VLS – if fitted – USA
The days of trying to make absolutely everything in the UK are long gone. Some items there is zero point in trying to make yourself when a perfectly good MOTS or COTS version is available from a very reliable friendly (I don’t mean Switzerland who have probably made sure that the UK won’t be buying from them again or USA who try and control everything using ITAR make them less than a choice partner if you want to do anything with the products).
Thanks SB. My comment really related to where the naval ships as a whole were built (ie in British yards with substantial and impressive facilities, by British companies) – rather than certain major items within a ship.
In contrast, Ajax is made in just part of a fork lift truck factory in Wales by a small offshoot of a US company, with hulls (the major structure) coming in from a US company in Spain etc and turrets (the next most major structure) coming from a US company based in the UK elsewhere. The facility in Wales is an assembly hall rather than a proper manufacturing site. I understand that there is no local test area for the finished vehicle. Not too impressive.
I think the 30mms are US Mk 44 Bushmasters. I’m not aware of any Swedish 30mm system. In the cold war they operated ADEN and Oerlikon KCA on aircraft.
BAE Bofors has a 40mm product?
https://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/product/40mk4-naval-gun
If commanders and politicians are more risk averse there’s perhaps less chance of a war starting in the first place in all but the worst of situations.
So long as all countries use that method of thinking.
I think the Russian material and troop loses are likely far higher than those outlined above.
I have been rather sceptical about the merits of buying very expensive platforms in ever smaller numbers, versus maintaining mass at the expense of sophistication, but the latter is pretty much what the Russians have done and it hasn’t gone well for them. To illustrate the point about defence inflation: HMS Dreadnought- the technologically-revolutionary capital ship of 1906- cost £1.8 million, which according to the Bank of England is ~£1.7 billion in today’s money. HMS Hood cost ~£400 million by similar measures. A modern T45 destroyer alone costs about £1 billion, so the shrinking of the RN is not altogether down to a parsimonious Treasury.
Ian, You rightly comment that the Russian concept of quantity over quality has not worked for them, but there are other reasons too for their high casualty rates.
In the West our forces have reduced in size dramatically and we have become very reliant on small numbers of high quality equipment. However our lack of mass may well count against us in combat against a better than average opponent with greater mass, and if engaged in high intensity conflict that lasts for many years.
Can somebody explain to me what this means, please:
“Reports suggest that it takes more than 41,000 hours per worker to manufacture an individual F-35 jet aircraft.”
What is “41,000 hours per worker”?
The linked article says “41,500 worker hours” for an F35-A, which is one variant and not the figure for “an individual F35”. it is also a 2017 number, which is not reported above.
I’m sorry – I’ve lost patience.
This piece is incoherent, and has no place in UKDJ as it is way below the normal standard expected.
It’s an odd phrase but clearly means man hours and is an accurate number. 41000 hours per worker would mean the poor fellow would take over 22 years to assemble one F35. A Spitfire took 13000 man-hours but that was the total not just final assembly. The F35 is the figure for final assembly by LM only.
One problem any military analysis has is the influence of the two world wars. These total wars required enormous mobilisation not just of military manpower but of countries’ entire industrial capacity. In that respect they were unusual- most wars being on a far less intense scale. Whether a similar scaling up of military production could be achieved today is doubtful. Development times of new aircraft, ships and even land systems is extraordinarily protracted and construction schedules of what are far more complex pieces of equipment much longer. To a very large extent, you fight with what you have. And whilst it is fairly easy to keep a stockpile of small arms and non smart ammunition, electrical and even more so electronic systems are much more problematic.
It does seem that Russia, whilst showing little of Western countries’ aversion to human casualties, has been very cautious in risking its manned combat air assets. Would other countries, equally unable to replace lost assets quickly,if at all, be compelled to adopt a similar approach?
Cheers.
Which is why modular systems are becoming more and more important in this day and age. Type 31 and T26 frigates are built to be modular and have modules which can be swapped out alongside navy pods to quickly upgrade other vessels quickly and at a lower cost than a swap out module/refit so the navy is on a good path in the future for it’s modularity plan. Mine warfare is also being reborn with the unmanned systems able to be carried on all future vessels so is another good example of moduler warfare.
This is exactly the right direction the navy especially need to be going as it allows maximum efficiency in its assets while having the right fit for every mission at a decent price compared to have expensive dedicated fleets sitting alongside waiting to be used and using up finite resources in manpower.
I for one welcome more modularity and think in the future should become base design standards in all our assets, think of the issues the army have and how modules on all land vehicles would help (boxer is start).
I just about remember the acronym BAS-RARS. Battlefield Attrition Study – Review of Ammunition Rates And Scales. It was from BAOR days, possibly in the 1980s. There was a realisation that the British Army had far too little ammunition of all natures, especially arty. Hopefully it led to an uptick in depot stock of munitions. That was then.
Time for a new BAS-RARS study, I think.
Is that were DROPS come from as well?
It does look like the study was linked to the fielding of DROPS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demountable_Rack_Offload_and_Pickup_System
Seems a logical part of the study. 40 years later and Russia found out the hard way why it was needed
But is Russia running out of ‘dumb’ artillery rounds? They still seem to be trashing Ukrainian cities, sadly.
I was think more of that long stalled column off Russians last year and the lack of logistic
A few hundred Bradleys, Strykers, Marders IFVs, PT91, T72, a handful of Leopard 2 and CR2 will drive a spring offensive by Ukraine which will regain some territory but not all of what has been lost since 2014. Then it becomes a contest of industrial might between the west and a Russia which looks as though it might become a vector for Chinese industrial and cultural expansion westward. Or this an opportunity for Orthodox Russia to evangelise China?
We do have way too few weapons. We need high (expensive stealthy) and low capability (cheap, buy in much bigger volume) mix in all spheres air, land and sea.
Land:
We should expand on how to use cheap drones to do small bomblet release and make loitering munitions. In this sense I think it make sense to have a small government owner=d company to assemble and manufacture with DSEI creating the prototypes or adopting from industry. and FPV drone with a n attached heat round still does a lot of damage and relatively cheap to manufacture (3D print).
Sea:
More river types to act as hosts for drone boats (with potential to add explosives), underwater drones/torpedo and all of them to have a pair of S-100 with martlet as an option. Relatively cheap to operate but still causing problems for anyone out there, and ensure the main gun is 40mm bofors with 3P rounds for air defense and UAV / small boat targeting. Similar UAVs to extend sensor range on T45/31/26 as well.
Air:
Our hawks should all be able to be used as low intensity warfare fighters, so some simple AA missiles, maybe something like brimstone and a radar – these days they are quite small AESA ones you can fit. OR accelerate Arealis to give us equivalent. Also looking at cheaper UAVs like Bayaktar TB2 to add to the high cost ones. UAVs are not expendable when they cost 12m USD a piecs or whatever the Predator cost is.
Integration with F35 seems so slow and potentially you can argue on purpose by US/Lockheed. I know we also lost a bit of our place in dithering on B/C in 2012, but that was 10 years ago!. How long does it take to integrate a bit of software to program a target coordinate and release a weapon! We should be able to carry storm shadow, brimstone etc on F35 as well since we have so few of them.
My, you are keen on drones. Fair enough, but we need a lot of manned systems too in each environment.
I’m not sure when you originally wrote the article, but your Oryx figures are way off. The Russian’s IFV losses as of today are: 2226, of which destroyed: 1429, damaged: 67, abandoned: 119, captured: 611 Self-Propelled Artillery 364, of which destroyed: 237, damaged: 15, abandoned: 7, captured: 105 and Towed Artillery (187, of which destroyed: 81, damaged: 8, abandoned: 5, captured: 93)
Depending on who is purchasing them, Javelin missiles seem to cost between $80000 and $200000 a shot. With the latest lightweight CLUs recently ordered by the UK MoD the system can conduct line of sight engagements out to c. 4.500 metres. However, for roughly $1000 or as little as 1:200 that price, you can buy an FPV drone that can conduct non line of sight engagements, hover and check out a target, wave off if a nearby civilian is identified, and put an PG-7 grenade into the most vulnerable part of whatever target is selected, out to similar if not greater ranges. Sure it is a day only MCLOS system, but I am sure it would not take much to add the ability to lock on to a target and even a cheap thermal camera would only increase the cost per munition by perhaps 4x. They could even be reused if the target somehow escaped. I think we should be urgently looking into deploying this and other cheap drone tec. and also into forming a large scale local defence volunteer force that could train with these systems and provide a pool of expertise and manpower should we ever need them.