British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK would help Ukraine “continue to push back the Russian invasion and survive as a free and democratic country”.
Britain has already sent anti-tank and anti-ship missiles, air defence systems and other weapon systems to Ukraine. This extra £1.3bn worth of support includes everything from radars to night vision devices.
The UK government have said that this is the highest rate of spending on a conflict since Iraq and Afghanistan. It is understood that the extra spending will come from a reserve used by the government for emergencies.
Boris Johnson said:
“Putin’s brutal attack is not only causing untold devastation in Ukraine, it is also threatening peace and security across Europe.”
What are the recent developments?
At least one of Russia’s most advanced tanks, the T-90M, has been destroyed by Ukrainian troops the British Ministry of Defence has said.
According to an intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defence:
“At least one T-90M, Russia’s most advanced tank, has been destroyed in fighting. The T-90M was introduced in 2016 and includes improved armour, an upgraded gun and enhanced satellite navigation systems.
Approximately 100 T-90M tanks are currently in service amongst Russia’s best equipped units, including those fighting in Ukraine. The system’s upgraded armour, designed to counter anti-tank weaponry, remains vulnerable if unsupported by other force elements.
The conflict in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on some of Russia’s most capable units and most advanced capabilities. It will take considerable time and expense for Russia to reconstitute its armed forces following this conflict.
It will be particularly challenging to replace modernised and advanced equipment due to sanctions restricting Russia’s access to critical microelectronic components.”
It’s good to see that now we back up our commitment to Ukraine with money.
It’s also good to see that the money is coming out of the national reserve fund and not the Defence Budget… Which suggests that the rundown of UK miliatry stockpiles “should” be replenshed.
Cheers CR
Talk in the media of the MOD procurement executive holdin talks with the UK defence industry of ramping up production.
Interesting.
Nothing like real world data to force a rethink.
I bet the Ukrainian’s are blasting through their stock of MANPADS at a seriously impressive rate. They won’t all hit their targets… So the MoD will be thinking they need more rounds as well as a need to step up supply to the Ukrainian’s.
Cheers CR
The USA manufacturers of stinger and javelin have already said they cant keep up with the current use in a peace time production
Begs the question of whether the Russian’s are able to replenish their war stocks. All the evidence (reported switch to dumb bombs) suggests that they are not and that they are depleting their complex weapons stocks quite quickly.
So if you want a long warning of miliatry action watch the other guys complex weapons production rates and stockpiles…
Cheers CR
Reports of examined Russian hi tech kit in Ukraine depends on foreign silicon chips. That’s where sanctions need to be heavily enforced.
The US needs to either develop a new short range ground to air missile or buy one from Britain. The Stinger is too old and difficult to find parts to build new ones for. It’s also now in the hands of the Russians so will be less effective when America has to use it again.
If you are looking for work, Thales are searching for people to work in Belfast funny old thing (It’s where they make Starstreak, Martlet and NLAW).
I’m all in favour of backing Ukraine in every way possible, but I also wish funding could be found to give our own armed forces what they need, including anti-ship missiles and Mk41 vls for Type 31, for the Navy, more combat aircraft for the RAF ( Typhoon Tranche 5 + 5 x E7)) and kit for the Army.
At least we’re getting much needed experience in properly equipping a military.
Hopefully some skills will be transferable..
We saw what the last uplift in defence spending bought. So any chance for new kit above what’s already expected will take a large amount.
If anyone knows what the extra cash bought last time please share
My first thought is are the services able to take on any more aircraft, weapons on ships, actual ships etc etc. Do they have the correct manpower. Say you want an extra squadron of typhoons. How many hundreds of people is that?
Those that will soon find themselves at a lose end as the Tranche 1 Typhoons are all finally retired could easily form an additional Squadron of Tranche 4/5. Upgrades to Type 31 won’t require additional manpower- just the provision of Mk41 Vls and weapons.
Hi Paul. It’s likely the retirement of the Tranche 1s will see a couple of Typhoon squadron’s convert onto F35 in the wake of the announcement to buy more.
The additional F35Bs will be block 4 with no given start date for deliveries of that batch……Tranche 1 Typhoon will be long gone before the first airframe leaves the production line, let alone arrives in the UK. We will have a considerable amount of fully trained Typhoon personnel looking for another job with nothing to physically work on…..
Unless Russia mobilises Ukraine will win this. Whether that victory will take us back to January or 2013 borders I do not know. Even if Russia does mobilise that won’t be a guarantee of a Russian victory.Their reservists will be even less well trained and equipped than their regulars have been. They will take eye watering casualties from the Ukrainians. If it brings quick victory it will pay off for him. If it doesn’t he will face mass protests from the population and mutines from within the armed forces. It would be Putin betting the house on a pair of two’s.
What is a win? Ukraine has been hughly damaged, will a Russia pay compensation. Will there be warcrimes trial.
I’m going to hazard a wild guess thaht the answers are No and …No .
Which probably means most Western sanctions won’t be lifted on Russia for decades.
Unless the West needs them to be lifted. The CEO of Lockheed Martin has reported that 70 PW engines have not been delivered due to lack of castings. Both Boeing and Airbus are big users of Russian titanium products.
I understand there are Titanium deposits in Ukraine. Your boss Putin, probably does not want the competition.
A win would be keeping most of the country free, given the Russian’s aim was to topple the government in Kiyv and haul Ukraine back into the Russian sphere, but it might not feel like it for the Ukrainian’s.
When the Red Army pushed the Finns back during WW2 the Finnish troops reportedly wept when they heard the terms of the peace agreement, but history paints it in a different light i.e. Finland inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army and kept it’s independence so won, sort of.
Victory is rarely clean or complete. WW2 was an exception borne out of the suffering of WW1 and the sense that it should NOT have happened again (fathers send their sons to do it all again!). Such a determination that only comes after lived experienced teaches hard lessons fades with time. After decades of peace in Europe those lessons only exist in books… which too few read!
Putin, however, may well have given the West the jolt it needs. We can only hope.
Cheers CR
Unlike some other European countries such as Germany, the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not prompt the Chancellor to announce further increased defence spending in his last budget.
True, but to be fair the UK had already increased spending significantly.
We need to do more, but it takes time to absorb a 5 to 10% one off increase in spending and there have been sugggestions that the MoD would struggle to absorb another large increase in the short term. (It doesn’t have enough properly trained people to effectively manage the projects it already has – as witnessed by the delays and cost over runs…)
I agree that we need to undo the damage to our defence posture that has been done over, well as long as I can remember!
Cheers CR
As always, spot on.
The thing is Simon nobody wins, it’s victory or defeat in this kind of war. If Ukraine is defeated so is the west and we cannot afford that to happen.
The word “win” is not terribly useful especially in this war. The gains that Russia has made since 2013 will be hard to hold assuming support from the west keep coming. The Ukrainians will slowly regain control of their skies, the Russians will run out of cruise missiles and/or the Ukrainians will establish a decent defence against them.
I suspect in the long run regions or sub regions will freely choose their destiny.
This will be hailed as a win by both sides.
In the next 10 years Putinism in Russia will be replaced.
The Russians may soon run out of cruise missiles but they are still reducing entire large towns to rubble by artillery (tube and rocket) and air attack.
True. Does this however help them with their war aims? They are alienating the population and wasting their ammunition from what I can see. In the end they are in charge of a pile of rubble which they then have to defend whilst their resupply routes are subject to attack? I am having trouble seeing how this might work for them.
A good point. It seems that the Russian infantry is either untrained in urban warfare or their Generals fear massive casualties and delays incurred. Hence the alternative of rubble-ising. It forces most of the civilians to flee out of the combat area. Putin might know that Ukraine lacks CB radar, the west is not supplying much arty and so can do little to take out his arty batteries.
It is terrorism – and genocide – which is part of Putin’s ‘playbook’. He surely hope to bring the Ukrainian government to the negotiating table and to do so from a position of strength/dominance.
Putin should have announced a ceasefire in his “Victory Day” speech. That way everybody would have “won”. Instead this “war of attrition” will carry on for many, bloody, pointless months.
LOL! Ukraine should keep on fighting until all their land is back under their control. Especially the stuff Putin annexed in 2014 under Obama/Biden.
The US has supplied APKWS.
Nice low cost conversion.
Can we have some please?🙂
Cheers CR
What would fire them? What would illuminate the targets? What would be the targets?
A very good weapon that suited recent US wars where the answers to your questions would be clear. But, in a hostile AD environment like Ukraine, much more problematic.
Nope, wrong again! And any condemnation of Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine yet?
Not so sure, you can ground launch from a flatbed and laser designate from a smaller drone or any elevated position. Its just creates another problem for Russia as they have to have tactics to defend against a wide range of weapons systems. Ukraine has been very good at confusing/distracting Russian forces then hitting them in a way they don’t expect.
The Russians have been very good at confusing themselves with their absolute incompetence mate, for sure.
I was being slightly tongue in cheek as I think we need to ‘low’ cost weaponary in the mix…
Cheers CR
Yeh. But point taken about the low cost.
They can be fitted to a ground launcher that is in turn fitted to a vehicle. A ground based laser designator can then be used for targeting.
Ukraine do not have any manned aircraft that uses the 1553B mil spec databus. So they wont be able to use Western electro-optical turret with a laser designator. The TB2 UAV may have one so could be used. There have been rumours recently, that the US may be supplying Ukraine with MQ-1 Predator UAVs. These can both self-designate a target and fire at it. APKWS can be used from these UAVs.
Thx. Can the Mig-29 fire the APKWS?
No, not even the Polish or Slovak ones. They still have the legacy Russian based weapons data-bus.
Mmm. Thx. Pity.
There’s some speculation the Mi17s sent may be retrofitted. Speculation only at this time.
Article on Warzone suggest TB2 or Mi17 supplied by the US could be retrofitted. 70mm rockets can be ground launched as long as the target is illuminated which could be done via smaller drones.
Lots of options. Be interested to see how things turn out.
US says that their first Mi-17 was delivered today.
I’m much better condition than your Russkie ones son!
Can the US give its poor British AAC relations a gift of the nine near new MD530F, destined for Afghanistan?
The AAC have the much loved Wildcat…lots more leg room and a bigger boot; and British!
British military helicopter numbers have dropped by 200+ over the last 12 years or so. The AAC used to have over 100 Lynx. We need to boost helicopter numbers. The Ukraine conflict has shown the need for armed overwatch.
I understand. But they are surely vulnerable and expensive compared to drones?
You need both. A drone can be sent nearer to danger. A light helicopter can get in & extract a walking wounded case from a tight spot that a larger helicopter cannot get into.
That’s good news, Paul; I didn’t know that. And I totally agree with CR – we should have some. Any piece of kit which transforms a bunch of random rockets into precision guided weapons has to be worth it. And at only $20k a pop (one third the price of the OTS purpose-built ones, apparently), they surely are.
And to all ye BAE-bashers out there, note the designer/manufacturer. BAE could easily (if asked of course) set up a UK production line on one of its 4 munitions sites or the electronics factory in Rochester. If there are any US components (GD and NG are partners apparently), then licence-build them over here too. This is just the kind of smart procurement we need, maintaining sovereignty, preserving jobs and £s. We shouldn’t have to ask any other country’s permission to use a weapon system.
But some eejits in the Treasury (maybe the Army too) will no doubt want to buy American OTS, or demand an open competition, adding a few years to the project, and then some for testing and everything. All of which the US has already done for us.If the US objects to UK manufacture, we just have to man up and threaten to walk away.
So, yes please. These are just the kind of low-cost game-changers we need.
It seems you can fit a laser designator to a Puma drone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/06/pentagon-weapons-drones-ukraine/
But query how to replenish stocks when the relevant kit is no longer made eg stormer ?There is a strong case for certain procurement decisions to be accelerated (eg air defence Boxer, IFV turreted version of Boxer) and for some of the cost to come from treasury reserve given donated stormers/mastiffs cannot be replaced “like for like”. Done cleverly it could mean an effective boost to defence capacity that is paid out of treasury reserve not MoD budget, at least for certain army kit.
Don’t we have lots of soon to be obsolete CVRT to put the missile launchers on?
Paul, I instantly thought of CVR(T) STRIKER! An excellent long range ATGW system, sadly retired years ago, without replacement, and mostly in the hands of private collectors, I would have thought.
Of course missile launchers could be fitted to any flat top (non-turreted) soon-to-be-obsolete CVR(T). But 2 problems –
I am probably over simplifying things in thinking that all you need to detect, track and fire is contained within the launcher itself. If so you could unbolt it and fit it to any other vehicle.
The better CVR(T) version that could be used as a ATGM platform would be based on the larger Stormer chassis. Which is about the right size to house a battery of Spike NLOS or longer range Brimstones.
If push came to shove we can make fresh CVRT Chassis – for Afghanistan ops some new Scimitar Hulls were built by BAES from memory.
The CVRT is a wonderful vehicle, Get some new ones with Brimstone on. Being replaced with something weighing 40 Tonnes????
AA
I have long been a fan of CVR(T), but the design is about 55 years old.
CVRT is a great little asset, very useful in its time but is now very out of date and the light weight ally armour tends to melt. But, useful in its time, filled the required niche. However agreed, recce by stealth is long gone with the prospective use of Ajax!!!!
I mean the same argument could have been made when CVRT was introduced, after all the Daimler Dingo was half it’s size and weight.
Anyway, the Americans have been using the M3 CFV for Armoured Recce for years, and that’s about 30+t and similar dimensions to the Ajax.
Aye ducking awesome how about donating the same amount to HM armed forces or maybe helping out the people of The U.K. who could do with a wee leg up .
wallopers the lot of them in Westminster
🏴🇬🇧
A most interesting read:
NCOs: America Has Them, China Wants Them, Russia is struggling without them
One reason the Russian military has struggled to win territory in Ukraine is its lack of a strong corps of non-commissioned officers, or NCOs, which are more crucial than ever to success on the modern battlefield, U.S. military officials and experts say. In the American military, NCOs—enlisted service members at or above the rank of Army and Marine corporal, Air Force staff sergeant, and Navy petty officer—are trusted experts who execute officers’ battlefield directions and take care of the troops. But while China is working to develop a corps of enlisted leaders, Russia seems stuck in an older model.
“The Russians are practicing a top-down, very, very top-heavy directive in nature–sort of, settled orders coming from the top, which is not necessarily the best thing to do in a dynamic battlefield,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday to the Senate Appropriations defence subcommittee.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Russia’s failure to “integrate aerial fires with their ground manoeuvre” was due to the lack of lower-level leadership. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., who served as a Sea King helicopter pilot in the Navy for 10 years, said Russia’s performance in the war reaffirms her own experience: the military doesn’t function without an empowered NCO class. “I could have told you that certainly, that is the backbone of the U.S. fighting force. And I think we’ve seen the lack of that in the Russian military and how that impacts their ability to conduct this war and certainly, the inability without the mission command to really have anyone other than the actual general lead with the commander’s intent,” Sherrill said. But others note that the Russian military has historically done reasonably well without a NCO corps. Michael Kofman, research program director at CNA’s Russian Studies Program, said that Russia and the Soviet Union have won wars in the past. In Ukraine, he said, the lack of an NCO corps is not the problem, but the top-down decision-making structure.
The Russian military is considered rigid at the tactical level and flexible only at the strategic operational level, Kofman said, leaving ownership and independent thinking to the officers. At these higher officer levels, he said, “That’s where you see the Russian military really sort of affected structurally as a force in terms of its culture and how it operates.”
Russia’s version of NCOs are mostly contracted troops who do not have a leadership role or manage discipline like their counterparts in the U.S. or British militaries, Kofman said.
“They are not in charge of, you know, adapting the unit. They’re not in charge of tactics and things like that…The person in charge of everything is the officer. That’s why the Russian military is officer top-heavy. The officer corps handles all those issues that NCOs might,” he said.
U.S. military services, by comparison, entrust leadership to NCOs. Mission command is pushed to the lowest possible rank, meaning that officers give objectives—for example, to seize a hill— and NCOs work out how to accomplish it, said Army Sgt. Maj. Jeremy Crisp, a spokesman at III Armoured Corps at Fort Hood Texas. “But for instance, if you’re running up that hill and all of a sudden there’s a roadblock that the commander didn’t say in his initial intent, the soldiers are allowed the flexibility to figure out how to either go around, above, below, or through that roadblock to accomplish the mission, because the commander hasn’t micromanaged it to such a point that the NCOs and the junior officers can’t accomplish that mission,” he said. NCOs are also responsible for the combat readiness, including the general well-being, of their troops. In March, a senior U.S. defence official said that Russian forces had struggled to feed their troops. “If you’re not taking care of your soldiers, they’re not going to be happy and they’re going to be miserable. And then that’s when the unit cohesion falls apart, that’s when things like mutual trust falls apart. That’s when things like shared understanding goes away,” Crisp said. A large number of Russian generals have reportedly died in Ukraine, a rare occurrence in recent wars. Kofman said one reason is because Russian officers tend to lead from the front and survey battlefields themselves.
“They are a military where officers take a lot of risks that ours wouldn’t,” he said. “Second, there are definitely aspects of Russian military culture where a lot of what happens with the unit heavily depends on the officer and their personality and their performance. And so officers show up to the battlefield to lend their personality to the fight.” Kofman said Russia’s generals feel like they must do this because the military does not sufficiently delegate authority and lacks ownership in the lower echelon levels. “And that’s in part because it doesn’t have an NCO corps and it also doesn’t have that kind of culture,” he said. In the U.S. military, officers and non-commissioned officers are linked together. Each commander has a non-commissioned officer counterpart, from the platoon level up to the chiefs of the service branches. Crisp, who has served in the Army for 21 years, including 15 years as an NCO, said the U.S. Army would “fall apart” without a strong NCO corps. “Readiness would decrease, the ability to function would decrease, the ability to be lethal would decrease. You can’t even fathom it,” he said. Perhaps heeding that warning, China is working to develop its own NCO corps as part of its effort to make its People’s Liberation Army a world-class military by 2049. Personnel issues have been “one of the real challenges” for the PLA over the past 30 years, according to David Finkelstein, vice president and director of CNA’s China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs division. In the late 1990s, China established its first program to develop a professional NCO corps, but it has not been working out as well as they had hoped, according to Finkelstein. In 2013, China’s Communist Party decided they needed to “perfect the non-commissioned officer system,” he said. “So they understand that they’ve got some issues.” The PLA is a mixed force of conscripts and volunteers, Finkelstein said. A conscript may elect to join the regular army and go to a school to become an NCO. “But it’s not exactly clear how the system is working for them,” Finkelstein said. “But they’re very attuned to the fact that they’ve got to do better, because as they aspire to fight the type of high-tech, multidomain campaigns that they envision, they know that they have got to push authorities down to the lowest level… And pushing authority down to the lowest possible tactical level is really anathema to the PLA culture, where they have a very vertical and stove-piped command-and-control system.” The PLA is also the “armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party,” Finkelstein said, where people who want to become NCOs or officers are looked at for their political attributes.
The PLA was probably “quite taken aback by the challenges that the Russians have had” in the first phase of the war in Ukraine, he said, because they have traditionally held the Russian military in high esteem and because of Russia’s battle experience over the past 30 years, which the PLA does not have.
Finkelstein is certain that the PLA is studying how Russian forces are faring in Ukraine at the strategic and tactical levels..
“Ukraine is really going to be a battle lab for the PLA, to the degree that they can observe and learn anything about the Russian experience.”
Excellent piece, informative good read. Thanks Farouk.
China’s quite taken aback by Russian ineptitude …So they are working out how to encroach on Russias eastern flank ensuring success then whilst pretendinig to support Russia in its ‘special operation’…clever sly basterds these chinks hey 😂
I hope the Chinese are watching closely as a taster of what might come to pass in the future. I must say the actuality of this conflict is demonstrating war-craft way in excess of simply the “top trumps” variety. Simple large numbers is not king. The value of training, and here I must say that training against other nations is key, cannot be underestimated. A relatively small number of advanced weapons appears to be having an effect out of all proportion, and all this without an awful lot of said training on the part of the users. Indeed the effectiveness of some of these high tech weapons is stunning considering you open the box, point and shoot.
One poster said that the Stormer/Star streak combination is something like 95% effective, a figure you can nod at on paper until you see a Hind (or whatever it was) simply break into two bits when hit by a missile so fast that there is no escape from it. Scary.
Targeting personnel (generals) from afar using advanced gizmo packed aircraft, drones or what have you, if true, is something from a Tom Clancy novel. The financial war will, in my opinion, be even more devastating the longer the conflict goes on. All this stuff is here, and now. Well scary.
AA
The problem with this assessment is that China has much more numbers (maybe an order of magnitude more) than Russia.
Russia is not the USSR of WW2 that could sent a million man army to its death one month and raise another million man army the next. It no longer has an unlimited pool of man power from which to raise armies and its military industrial complex is much diminished from the soviet days and much less than what China has today.
The West would struggle in a war of attrition against China in the same way Japan and Germany struggled against the industrial might of America in WW2.
The one child policy, means an only child is less likely to risk himself on the battlefield, when he knows his parents/grandparents depend on him.
Is a boxer air defence variant going to take its place?
I have heard nothing as to the mix of Boxer types we are buying – that info should be out by now. I hope the Infantry will get a turreted version with a 40mm stabilised cannon.
I do hope so Graham, it’s a tremendous piece of kit….
The Ukraine shows us that your APC had better be equipped with capable, accurate and rapidly trainable firepower…
I would have preferred Warrior with WCSP.
How the UKs military support for Ukraine is ultimately being funded remains vague – probably deliberately. I was expecting an announcement in March that cuts to the size of the British Army would be cancelled or least postponed, but they seem to be proceeding as announced in the 2021 IR. I gather from the newspapers that the PM sided with the Chancellor and agreed that there would be no increase in the UKs defence budget, effectively meaning a cut in real terms this financial year (2022/23) due to much higher than forecast inflation. It now looks like last year (2021/22) will be a spending peak. If some of the defence budget is also being diverted to support Ukraine, then bad news will slowly emerge as the MOD tries to quietly cut its fuel bills, etc.
Given the economic forecasts I can’t say I’m surprised. Interest rates are expected to keep increasing through to the summer of 2023 at least. The cost of Government borrowing is going up, while we could tip into recession by the end of the year. The outlook is gloomy enough for the Chancellor and PM to not want to commit to any spending increases, but if they do spend on something I’d imagine it will be on the cost of living. Energy bills could increase by another £1,000 in the Autumn when the current price cap is reviewed.
Now that the USA is giving an extra $40 billion to Ukraine, I would advise against the UK giving any extra cash to Ukraine. Given the corruption there pre-war, there is too high a risk of the “usual suspects” diverting cash into their offshore accounts. By all means send Ukraine, weapons, medicine, food, fuel, but no more cash.
Even some American “talking heads” are wondering the wisdom of sending Ukraine $40 billion, without adequate oversight.
I believe its coming out of the UK gov “emergency funds”
With this talk of Russia struggling to replace equipment I do have to wonder what the arrangements are for us to do the same seeing as we keep giving it all away.
most of it is surplus kit thats stored and most of the missles were nearing the out of service date as were america’s javemlins they donated
I always use my eggs before best before date …sausages I can get away with for a bit longer….
I would like to no more about this ‘reserve’?
I mean is this a hidden fund, how much is it?
And could it be considered the UK’s black budget?
No, don’t think so. I’m no expert but I believe HMG always have a contingency reserve.
As for a “UK Black Budget” I think most Is in plain sight. The SIA, which is now published where once it was secret, but not the detail on the what’s and how much for what area is usually asterixed out in annual HoC ISC report.
MoD UKSF their budget is also similar. What it goes on exactly is very hard if not impossible to track.
I doubt we are like the Americans with their black budget programmes. Their BB is bigger than most nations defence budget.