The Defence Committee’s latest report titled ‘It is broke – and it’s time to fix it’, published today, has brought to light a series of serious deficiencies in the UK’s defence procurement system.
While the inquiry, led by Sub-Committee Chair Mark Francois MP, has criticised the system as a whole, the purchase of the E-7 Wedgetail AWACS aircraft stands out as a particularly troubled case.
In its analysis of the E-7 Wedgetail procurement, the report criticises a decision to reduce the UK’s initial order for five aircraft down to three.
According to the report, “the original order of five E-7s was estimated to cost £2.1 billion, while the three E-7s will cost £1.89 billion… Even basic arithmetic would suggest that ordering three E-7s rather than five (at some 90% of the original acquisition cost) represents extremely poor value for money.”
Additionally, the report raises concerns over the E-7’s delayed Initial Operational Capability (IOC). Initially expected in 2023, the IOC has been postponed to 2024 and might be deferred further to 2025. Boeing, the manufacturer, has attributed the delay to supply chain and workforce issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the Committee underlines that the delay is exacerbated by ongoing negotiations between DE&S and Boeing over the Full Business Case (FBC) and an in-service support contract. The report states, “DE&S are still negotiating an FBC and associated in-service support contract with Boeing, which should already have been successfully finalised long ago.”
The Committee also mentions the serious operational implications of this delay. The E-7 is meant to replace the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, withdrawn from service in 2021, leaving a significant capability gap, particularly in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine. The report states “the three E-7 Wedgetails which the RAF still intends to buy will be absolutely ‘prize targets’ for the air force of any potential adversary.” This makes the reduction in planned airframes from five to three seem like “an absolute folly, not just in financial but also in operational terms as well.”
The E-7 Wedgetail case, as discussed in the report, represents broader issues within the UK’s defence procurement system, emphasising an urgent need for sweeping reforms argues the report.
Same old, same old. Lessons are never learned.
And who will be held to account over the absurd decision to reduce the airframes from 5 to 3? No one I suspect….
A problem with procurement? WOW!
Depressingly normal, how did we end up being run by morons.
Pretty much the story throughout the higher echelons of power in this Coutry from business education and politics. It’s still who you know over what you know and promotion on merit a secondary consideration where the candidates are only candidates through privilege not capability far too often. And once there the prime function of these people is sustaining that system as the rest of us are simply not deemed trustworthy and a threat to their power structure. Even those from their background who try to change and modify the system will be inevitably ‘punished’ to bring them back into line and thereafter thrown out of the Club and the whole ‘regime’ controlled by the old boy network will ostracise them. You can break into it but only if you buy into their wholesale group beliefs and of course humans natural need to be accepted tends to encourage that process immensely. Reminiscent of cult mentality sadly and the Scientologists or the less well known uk Lighthouse Organisation, show just how it can mirror an establishment set up, benefit it and indeed benefit from it using all manner of coercion and persuasion to comply.
Delay it, gold plate it and buy less seems to be the order of the day.
And then decide the thing will be ‘for but not with’ gold plating…
So, another five years to reach that decision 😂
I have fears the change of government will result in an even worse situation , with the pressures on the public purse. Defence is not sexy or vote grabbing but Ben Wallace is correct on his three front analysis and spending on schools is pointless if they cannot be defended against all comers .
The days of waiting until the threat are on the horizon before we rapidly rearm are gone. We will start any war with what we have and right now it is not near enough.
Whilst I agree that Defence trditionally has not been seen as a sexy subject but from my newspaper at least it does appear to be coming up the agenda in the publics view. I have been involed in Politics in the past (to the right of centre) I simply do not think the left can ignore only a 5% pay increase for the military. There is cetainly pressure from both Nato itself and more importantaly Uncle sam that the UK must aslo increase capbility in both numbers and equipment. A really good excuse for the left is to increase the MOD budget and spend the lot on wages only! Listening to Potillo today and he expects things have not changed within procument a key area he was frustrated by was the NOBODY in the the Blob would take responcibilty. If I was writing a maefestoe and my views were to the left – I would be saying set up a Royal Commision on Defence matters. The Best way I know to kick the Can down the road for 5 years but it looks and sounds good to an electorate. Sadley this is not the answere those of us who lean to the right or support our miltary role as actions need to take place much sooner. as the Mark Francois (?) defence committee report states. the report suggests that we are now unable to make our Nato commitments (which will annoy other Nato members) Nor can we defend the Relme which is the Primry objective of anf Government. – This is dire_
As an engineering manager and. My bread and butter is high value contracts i despair at the waste in the MoD and the games that contractors play.,the Rob Peter to pay Paul, then rob Paul. We need an honest assessment(, not treasurer lead) of what this country needs in the way of a minimum armed forces and properly fund it!!
The current MoD procurement is not just crazy it costs the tax payer a fortune. A fortune that could be better spent providing the country with the defence capability it needs. How can we be the third ( just) biggest spender in NATO yet be so woeful under resourced across the spectrum.
This dogmatic drive for lower taxes is crazy. I for one do not object to increasing the eye watering amour of tax if it adequately funds our armed forces
I think this programme in particular is a shocking window on the reality and how much of the problem must be internally manufactured be it MoD, forces or/and business. Because this order initially went against established protocol (much criticised at the time) in holding a competitive selection process which gave the impression that decisive decision making was finally taking place when the obvious and best choice was made and of course subsequently this has only been shown to be the correct choice with the US going in a similar direction. Secondly this is a proven system, in service with the Australian Air Force and thus the risk element was much reduced.
So how worrying is it that despite all these advantages in getting it into service we still seem to be incapable of doing it efficiently, on time and to cost. There are clearly intrinsic incompetence in depth in our system that this even more clearly than Ajax demonstrates as a result.
There is a massive gulf between what we get/have and what we spend and it’s not for our betterment. I am a CMT Reservist in a Field Hospital (medical professionals mainly so very officer-heavy) and the amount of money spent on “Adventurous Training”/aka Jollies for people who could afford it anyway is shocking. On the other hand we do get to fire a rifle once a year!
I’ve lost some respect for Wallace. There is a rule you can’t take up a job in an industry that you oversea as MP for one year after you stop. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the election is likely due in autumn next year, aka 12 months time. Expect to see him pop up in a luxury defence role next year. Which clearly rises questions around kick backs he might have received during his term. Hopefully not and just built friendships but insights into workings of the government although I can’t imagine defence contractors don’t have that in-house already.
It might be just his looking after his future/family, as he must know that labour will probably win the next election, potentially making him unemployed. But equally his respected and so could find a safe seat if he wanted to stay.
All very valid points. I am rooting for Tobias Elwood but I Sunak is too spineless to give him such a high profile.
He is my opinion is a rare MP, someone there to serve his country.
I find it laughable that the likes of Trump criticise supporting Ukraine on the basis that US supplies of weapons and in particular ammunition are being gutted when in fact the War has done them a favour in showing just how complacent they and us all have been in decimating our capacity to produce these assets, 5 years of his Presidency did nothing to change that factor after all and if US stocks are being seriously affected now how the hell did he or others, think a conflict with China, had Ukraine fallen, one with Russia too on various fronts in some form, was going to be supported. Especially as his Presidency rightly or wrongly encouraged policies that made that likelihood much more likely.
Equally, using mostly weaponry that was becoming redundant to the US inventory Ukraine has actually been making the eastern flank of NATO more secure and no matter how much we hear the delusional America First outpourings the US itself safer too, the West is doomed if Europe fails to remain strong and independent after all. Surely, though it never seems to be spelled out (if only it had in US education) we can all comprehend in retrospect, and as comparison, just how the last time in the 30s that neo fascist inspired American chant took off, just how America not entering that ‘European’ War would have worked out for them on the global scale so deeply negatively, so it’s stunning to imagine how they have not learned that lesson on a likely even bigger scale and impending risk this time around. Ironically, by not surrendering to that trope if belatedly back then, made them post war the Great and dominant Country those very same proponents of ‘America First’ wish to restore.
In my opinion Ukraine are doing the west a huge favour. They are fighting a war that was coming, it has given us an opportunity to test and improve our weapon systems in a real world scenario and putting Russia back decades. It is unfortunate ukraine blood is being poured away to do it.
Time we accelerated giving Ukraine NATO jets.
The time to give Ukraine NATO jets was a year ago….
Agreed!!
It is a massive undertaking and needs to be progressed.
The west cannot criticise Ukraine progress if we force them to fight with one hand tied behind their back.
We know it’s broken, now fix it and add the two additional airframes to the order!
Especially as we have the hardware eg radar sets and cabling/ control systems for those 5 airframes already ordered and paid for. its just daft.
Very interested to hear that the UK has equipment for 5 airframes. Here in Australia we had 4 E-7s on order and acquired equipment for 6. When aircraft 5 and 6 were ordered, our defence minister crowed about how cheap it was to expand the fleet by 50% ignoring, of course, that the equipment had already been paid for. At least we did get 6 but the original program of record was for 7 (and even that would be insufficient in a conflict). My question to UK defence chiefs would be “Are 5 E-7 really enough for the UK?” followed by the same question about the Poseidon fleet. The days of empire might be over but I believe the free world still needs a strong and mighty UK.
There is a lot of “other” equipment which doesn’t include the Radar system which make up an E7. Such systems include radios + antennas, computers and their displays, unique interconnecting looms as well passive defensive systems , recorders and cockpit military displays and controls not to mention the military items in the airframe and engines such as generators. refuelling equipment which are all necessary to build an E7 – these items do not come with a basic civilian airframe and they don’t come cheap.
No doubt it will require at least 30% cost increase to reverse the bungled decision.
Exactly which rather puts them between a rock and a hard place. Pity they built that hard place themselves isn’t it probably at a premium price too.
Don’t worry, it’s ok – we have two spare radars for the Wedgetails thanks to the MoD preparing for battle damage, apparently they bought 5 sets
Oh but…our allies will help 🙄
Not sure why you’d ever negotiate a business case with a supplier as that’s an internal document. Probably just semantics.
We expect nothing less than this from the Tories these days. Labour would be just as bad.
I don’t think people quite realise how terrible the Tories are and how devastating voting Labour would be. We are screwed.
Tend to agree. No real alternative thanks to a voting system and governance aimed at under the superficial semblance of ‘Democracy’ is keeping the entrenched in place in the same way our system keeps entrenched incompetents in place throughout society as a whole. I suspect Putin took a good look at this when instilling around him such a sycophantic power structure in his own Country, after all he would have great experience of our Public School and Oxbridge set up during his spying career. And Hitler did love the Boy Scouts after all in sustaining his 1000 year Reich.
A ten percent drop in cost for a forty percent drop in capability.
Someone must be held accountable!
The report also praised DE&S for their performance on Urgent Operational Requirements but chides them for their performance on long term projects.
Could it be coincidence that the former tend to be organised from the bottom up, while the latter from the top down?
No, Boeing put the price up that’s why we only got 3 for 90% of the ORIGNAL price for 5
Just basing my comment on the official report.
Bungled project management either way.
Agreed. RAF was managing to allotted budget. Boeing was able to change ground rules (not certain of legerdemain employed to accomplish this).
Considering how Boeing constantly succeed in screwing the US taxpayer, I guess we were a pushover sadly. That said I would love to know how they operate in Australia, both on this platform and others, in particular the Moonbat project. Haven’t heard any negative reporting, though perhaps distance plays a part. Maybe they are playing nice till they gain greater footholds. Anyone know?
Spot on, any historian can tell us how pre and even during WW2 the top down was mostly disastrous while the emergency propelled bottom up achieved most of our increasing success in that period by circumnavigating the former imposed intransigence from above. The SAS, the sticking of Merlin’s in Mustangs, the extravagant use of decoys, the jet engine, the Mosquito, all sorts of successes happened to a great degree despite the established power structure and systems, not because of it. Mavericks have always been behind great British success fighting against rather than with the establishment (with a few notable exceptions of individuals brave support within the establishment mind) and that’s generally only given that freedom to flourish in emergencies.
So unexpected.
Probably worth noting that MOD knows that the reduced order is an irrational decision, but one they’re forced into by the Treasury being miserly about the £0.2 billion difference. One can only assume the Treasury has the full support of the PM in order to feel able to adopt such a nonsensical stance.
But it wasn’t a 0.2bn saving. Boeing put the price up from the original £2.1bn. That’s why 3 finally cost £1.89bn so presumably 5 would have cost nearer £3bn albeit the cost of 5 radars are in the £1.8bn
That assumes costs scale linearly with the number of airframes procured, which isn’t the case because there’s a fixed development cost to factor in. Hence value-for-money always gets notably worse when an order is scaled back (or delayed).
Development costs would have been mitigated to a degree as it’s an existing design used by the RAAF
… and that as I mentioned elsewhere is the most worrying aspect. However because of the issue of obtaining suitable airframes I don’t know how that may have factored into the equation as time passed, I know the acquisition proposal changed at some point. Also begs the question where are the US going to get their airframes from, no idea how many they are ordering perhaps 15 initially to replace the outgoing 15 E-3s but that’s only half the fleet.
Reported in Defensenews.com a few months back the USAF planned to buy 26. That article also referred to concerns as to where the donor airframes would come from.
The USAF are on record as only wanting new build airframes.
Fails to mention that the kit including the Radars are included within the £1.89B. and there was no suitable 2nd hand low hours airframes. Basic truth and the finding that 3 airframes with the hours reported would meet the Uk Needs for 2 aircraft on station 24/7 one in maintenance. but there would be no need for pro-longed maintenance for 3 years. the Recommendations from Boeing is the development budget for the E7s for the USAF would develop the programme and the 4th and 5th airframe would have been delivered at a lower Tranche than the USA. sometimes just sometimes having 5 on order and all being delivered at once. looks good practise, but that wont sell the space between someone ears
Nobody’s interested in facts, just hysterical MOD bashing!
The report is from the defence select committee and based on submissions given to them by those involved in the project. But hey, why take their views into account when we can just listen to someone on the internet?
White paper issued on the USAF upgrade, Boeing not building airframe 4 and 5 due to the pandemic and raised the base cost. Internet is a great tool, but if you ignore the access it allows you. just makes you a big tool.
Always always blame me Americans. Even when it’s not even remotely true.
But luckily your not American are you, you want to be, but have trouble with the fence!
Simple answer, there is not enough money to have all we want, the E7 is the latest in a long line of delaying and reducing to save money in the near time but spend more long term. Aircraft carriers anyone? Type 26 frigates? Astute class Subs?
Spot on. No need for a mind numbing analysis or a Francois rant. The simple explanation is the right one. As my grandmother used to say, ‘your eyes are bigger than your belly’.
I often wonder if we should have gone for the SAAB GlobalEye. Can do AEW and maritime surveillance with a smaller crew. It could do some jobs instead of the P8s too. Seems like value for money is never an option for the UK.
Peer relationship and that Data uplink from USA is why Saab got rejected
You know more than me. However, with the vagaries of dealing with the US at the moment, it seems to me that we should looking more at the Swedish and French to plot a more independent course ahead.
Seems like the MOD has secretly cut the order number for the future medium lift helicopters. More cuts. If the expectation is for them to be built in the UK then there will always be a base cost to setup the production line so savings will be tiny.
Cut it to what number?
25
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/07/uk-reducing-new-medium-helicopter-buy-to-25-35-aircraft-airbus-exec/?amp=1
Don’t think it was secretly cut, it was announced at RIAT 23 that numbers would be reduced from 44 to between 25-35 cabs – so yes, probably only 25. It appears we don’t have enough money to procure 44 now!
Considering the number of deaths directly linked to lack of medium lift helicopters in both Iraq/afgan, the cut should be a national scandal if true.
Couldn’t agree more mate, it appears defence is heading to a really dark place in terms of capabilities. This cut will not help matters, only confirm that we are rapidly on our way to becoming a Tier 2 military force, with a few Tier 1 capabilities!
44 was always too high and totally unrealistic by past procurement purchases.
If one looks at what they will replace –
24 Puma in 2 Sqns – 33 and 230 Sqns. ( yes, used to be 40 plus a long time ago and according to SB1 230 has folded )
6 Dauphin in 658 AAC.
3 Bell in 84 Sqn, now using Puma.
Assume there were 3 Bell in 7 Flight AAC, now using Puma.
Even down to 30 might just be doable, but 25 is too few when the SF task is included in the totals.
It is why I’m irritated the Dauphin is in there. 658 has 6 cabs to enable a vital capability, that number needs to remain.
The replacement of the Bells made sense with a single type.
Well, the release said between 25-35 cabs, so you never know, might be 30-35! The 25 comment was just me being cynical, hope that that is the case.
That’s concerning I thought 40 seemed very low. However in the article I mention above (I only read it a few days ago but don’t know the date of publication) Airbus was saying the Pumas have no end of life date and could theoretically go on well past 2030 and as such were not even certain a new helicopter order would even materialise. All seems very much (not) up in the air it seems. Would like to think US hybrid copter developments are playing a role here too on decision making but who knows and could we afford it anyway and then there’s the combined NATO project but that’s all very nebulous at the moment but could affect export potential perhaps from UK production lines longer term.
While on the US hybrid project I note that the Army had concerns about whether a tilt rotor could successfully operate in the same way as the Blackhawk, ie in a substantial hovering mode that the Osprey as we see from video never exploits in the way it is used in contested areas, it’s always dash in and out which the tail ramp isn’t ideal for. It’s one of the major reasons for the Valor only swivelling the nacelles rather than the whole engine as it allows the traditional side doors on both sides to be used like with the Blackhawk.
Hi Spy,
25-35 seems a tad low to me, although I imagine the RAF would bite your hand off for 40 cabs!
It is my understanding that the initial OSD for the Pumas was 2025, which has been extended to 2027ish!! Not sure where the 2030 figure is coming from, although entirely possible I suspect, if we throw lots of money at them.
Some people have been advocating keeping them until the early 2030’s so that we can align ourselves with the US Valour programme. Not sure if that’s possible, or indeed that we would want to, given that we don’t yet know when Valour will come of the production line and more importantly, how much they will cost? Can’t really see them being as cheap as NHM if they are more capable. Surely that would mean we needed more £ for the same number of cabs, or even less cabs for the same money, if Valour is what we actually need.
Both potential suppliers have said that production would be heavily reliant on exports to sustain it, think Airbus mentioned they were talking of 40 for us as the base order.
To me the export part makes no sense as all the options are already available from other factories, why would a country buy from the UK instead of another European one. Thanks to Brexit the supply chain will be more expensive (import duty on parts built in Europe) and so unless we build enough for ourselves to bring economy of scale (25 does not) then we won’t be competitive
It’s seemed to me for a long time that HMG runs defence procurement to maximise the profits for defence firms, mining the public purse. HMG certainly isn’t in it for the benefit of the country or the people, just their own class of investors. Wolves in sheeps clothing comes to mind.
Blame goes to the top Sunak and Hunt. We get much noise about increases in defence spending, next week we hear this is cut and that procurement is slowed to save cost. Whilst our arm forces are not like for like with Israel. Their MOD does the same thing as ours with 300 staff ours 11000 ! It’s the MOD that needs streamling not our forces. At the most 1000. The saving will purchase two extra wedgetails and convert 50 more Challengers to 3s.Plus replace those canalbised parts I have little doubt.
You want to reduce the 11,000 plus DES to 1000? 😀
DES does more than procure, but that little detail seems lost in the wind here…
I have to say that I’m struggling here, really struggling to ‘compute’ the figures involved in the purchase of an AEW&C.
The Boing 737-8 which I believe is the most up to date model, retails at $130 million.
So to my simplistic mind, 3 Boing 737-8’s works out to say $400 million. Work with me here, but I do not see where the billion comes into the calculation. Oh I understand that a ‘standard’ 737-8 has to ‘chopped about’, welded here and there, have extra metalwork chucked in to reinforce the bloody things, and then provide space for radar and whatever.
So that costs i.6 billion then???
I thought the 737’s we are converting were pre owned….not brand new from Boeing….I seem to remember a discussion on here about the previous owners
That’s not a problem of procurement…the procurement team ordered and got 5 for a good price…every knows that if you then go back and cut the order you will get screwed….the fact a politician ( and this would have been a political decision and senior leader decision Above all else) decided to save some cash in the short term has cost the county in the long term..that’s not a procurement problem.
The order was cut because Boeing put up the price, trying to milk their defence work to offset the B737 max issue and the Covid collapse of civil aviation at the time.
Haven’t they also got 5 radars and only 3 planes? Why not fix it now and order the remaining two?
Just seen that PaulT has made the same comment.
I think there might be a reason for this. I do wonder whether the MOD will look to acquire some former civil 737-700 airframes second hand and send them to Boeing to convert into Wedgetails to try to add more later on at a cheaper price.
There aren’t many left now though. Off the top of my head, you’re only looking at Southwest, United and Delta really. The former have an incredible 230+ of the 7Max on order which are supposed to be arriving by the end of this year. Boeing are still inching through the certification process with them. Once they start replacing the 700s at Southwest there will be a raft of 700s coming onto the lease market. The vast majority will just go for parting out and recycling but there will be some that will be comparatively low cycle/low hour frames that the MOD might look favourably at to acquire for Wedgetail conversion. All the earlier Southwest frames and I would imagine the United frames as well would be a non-starter as they have been worked very hard for 20 years on a lot of short duration hops that will have knackered them out. The later birds though will have a lot less cycles – Southwest in particular used the 700 a lot of the long transcons which will push the utilization rates right down and should make them attractive candidates.
As I say: there aren’t that many-700s on the second hand market just now but that is going to change shortly.
So (while I don’t want to try to defend what looks indefensible) I do wonder if the MOD might be looking at an eventual fleet of seven or eight for example wanted to use conversions for the majority of these to save money. You’d want newbuilds as the first tranche to establish best practice and currency and then to add frames later, you could look at conversions. Likely to save 80-90m per frame to add second hand birds vs newbuilds. Not peanuts by any means. In capability terms you could add five conversions for the price of three newbuilds, more or less, at a semi-educated guess.
Personally I give it less than a 20% chance the MOD has had such foresight or engaged in a rare bit of joined up big boy big pants thinking as this, but we live in hope.
Another idea I had was that the three Wedgetails are perhaps just a placeholder just to retain the capability at bare minimum cost, basis the RAF going in big on the next gen new concept AWACS platform that Airbus are studying. You’d think it would be a modular solution with an A320NEO/220 as a base. Underpinning this is the desire for the NATO allies in Europe to replace the old E3s at Geilenkirchen with something much more modern and capable and that for this solution ideally to be of European origin.
Airbus are bound to come up with something – not least because the timing is right. The E7 is by no means old hat but it is 90s tech and has been flying in service for almost twelve years now. If you think it will take Airbus ten years from this point to bring something compelling to point of IOC, then you’d be into the second half of the design life of the E7s in service and Airbus would be targeting these to replace with their new platform. The NATO AWACs force can probably soldier on until then, and if they cant, then there are Wedgetails off the shelf to retain capability.
So maybe the MOD feel the Wedgetail is good but now too old and not “expandable” enough to lump on big time with everything and that the smart move is to use it as a placeholder to get the next gen Airbus product, and really help drive its development pathway and features/spec?
Again, I give it less than a 20% of happening, but it is at least semi-plausible.
Surely the new agreement to share, cooperate upon basing and improve the Wedgetail platform over time being signed between UK, US and Australia rather suggests we are committed to it. Whether it means eventual supplementing the numbers eventually, well who knows but certainly not short term one presumes.
The US is the biggest single contributor to the NATO AEW Budget – I doubt they would support an Airbus purchase.
I don’t disagree with you John.
I think one of the things underpinning the current dire situation is a curious effect of social politics in the UK. What we have witnessed in the last 6-8 years is a rise and pivot of the militant hard left. They have always been there but have mostly in the past been underground. The rise of social media and the “leftification” of the political middle has seen the hard left move from an underground political movement with very definite policies and manifestos to something different. Now they are a ideal-led political class who have traded policies for finger pointing. You actually see this from Labour in the UK – they have done the same thing and are much more interested in pointing fingers and criticizing and opposing than they are in working toward any kind of ideal. The age of policy is over – we are in the PR age now. Its not what you do, its what you can accuse the opposition of to stoke a class war divide, that counts.
Now, defence spending has never been a favourite thing of the left but it has been pushed towards the right a bit. Opposition to Trident, Dreadnought, criticism of F-35, calls to cancel Ajax and so on have come largely, or at least to a great extent, from the left. So we find ourselves in a dangerous position where in this age of gesture politics, defence spending is a “right” thing and the left as we know want to dismiss and cancel anything that has the slightest tinge of Tory to it. Anything that takes money from social welfare or furthers the ability of the state to wage war is Tory and must be canceled, etc. The worry is that when the current Conservative government goes the way of the Dodo as it surely and deservedly will, that the left will have a bonfire of defence projects to be seen to be “cleaning out the Tories and their fascist Tory vanity projects”. This is the real betrayal of Boris and his idiot cronies – they have all but ensured this catastrophe is going to happen. We haven’t even seen the real damage of what they have done yet.
They will absolutely gut what little capability we still have and we will be watching things like Type 26 and 31, Ajax, Boxer and so on for cuts. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to find a way to bin off C3 as well. The cuts will be very public and very deliberate. Anything that has the Tories behind it or involved in its procurement will be cast aside if at all possible. We’ll see a massive “deTorification” of the country carried out with social media at the very forefront of the move. Its easier to blame the previous incumbents and to dismantle what they have been doing than actually come up with a unified and constructive policy manifesto. The relationship with NATO will give them the excuse they need – NATO will protect us and we can free up tens of billions to put into “social welfare” and building more social housing for anyone who wants it – this is the sort of thing that plays so well to the younger generation of their followers who all but guarantee them power and an unassailable parliamentary majority. They have been brainwashed to equate centre right with far right fascism and to blame the Tories for every single thing that is wrong with the country. Anything they disagree with or who disagrees with what they say and do is either racist or fascist or Tory and must be mindlessly canceled immediately. There are so few young tories now. Those who agree with a centre right or right facing political ideal cannot speak up now lest they be canceled themselves. You cannot publicly declare yourself to be a Tory.
Hopefully most readers of this sad diatribe know where this ends up.
We need to have a cross-party mindset on defence policy. It has to be one of those things that arches over the parliamentary divide but it isn’t and that is a huge threat. In the mad, pell mell rush to cancel anything Tory and to remove all stains of Tories and their work in the UK, defence spending may well end up getting thrown out with the bathwater, so to speak. This what happens when you have rabble-rousing charlatans as MPs and no credible alternative because nobody wants to get anything done as it is just about one-upping the other side. When the flames of a class war are being stoked by the left and the right are too busy feathering their own nests and serving themselves, we are headed for a really turbulent and unpleasant time. Defence should be something that over-arches this but it isn’t. Make no mistake – the war the UK faces is a domestic class war and defence spending will be the first major casualty.
Just my two cents.
Yes, we are indeed banjaxed mate. I’m miserable just typing that out. What has happened to us?
We were once brave, honourable, learned people who stood up for things we believed were right and made sacrifices to ensure our people retained the freedoms we shaped. Now it is all just self-serving finger pointing and passing the buck. Truly gutted to see what we have become.
Conservatives that conserve nothing !
And that use of seesaw totally sums up the real problem. When you know that eventually you will return to power when the electorate inevitably tires of the incumbent Govt there is no real impetus for change and new ideas, indeed there is even temptation to stick up the next Govt to get you back in power quicker and can start from a lower base from which to offer ‘new hope’ and offer up statistical success thereafter.
So now with the report out, will the UK buy 2 more aircraft?
It is almost like todays politicians actually want Britain to fail in being able to defend its sovereignty. Whilst the E-7 Wedgtail AWACS capability is probably one of, if not the most critical enablers in 21st century Airborne warfare, In my mind, working on the rule of three basis, the RAF would ideally have a requirement for circa 12+ airframes to maintain a continuous operational tempo in full scale combat engagement. Here superior situational awareness and Command and control become invaluable.
Just 3 airframes, so perhaps might expect 1 or 2 to be available for tasking. This is not good enough.
America are about to order the wedgetail in a large amounts, which should bring the cost down astronomically, (https://www.australiandefence.com.au/defence/air/us-buys-26-e-7a-wedgetails) so a good time to order a few more?
As Stalin said “quantity has a quality all of its own”. The UK should accept that we cannot afford to gold-plate everything in Defence or we end up buying about 6 of everything. Should we have tanks at all if we can only have 150 up to date ones? And unless you assign them to home defence how do you move them? Our heaviest air transport can move only 1 at a time.
Would it be better (ironically) to learn from ISIS and have a large number of modern but simple “Technicals” with (demountable) HMGs/GMGs and an AT missile launcher or a modern recoilless rifle with a decent sight? (the problem of the recoilless rifles crazy firing signature giving you away could [erhaps be solved by using the system developed by the Germans’ Armbrust of plastic flakes rather than a sheet of flame as the recoil) I have no doubt that there are many issues with this, I’m just throwing it out there, but it could be ideal for Reservist units.