Thin Pinstriped Line

  There was a minor furore recently in some parts of the media over the decision by the British Army to rename Mons Hall, at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMA) after the King of Bahrain. This was in response to a generous bequest from the King to pay for an update to the gymnasium, which was apparently in desperate need of an update. There has been opposition from those that claim that the renaming of the building was somehow a snub to the veterans of the battle of Mons, despite there already being a number of memorials on site and elsewhere for the battle, and also there is a history of the RMA naming buildings after generous benefactors. As Humphrey sees it, the issue is not so much about the renaming, but instead it is about two distinct matters – firstly, the issue of expenditure on historic buildings, and secondly, the issue of training foreign officers at Sandhurst. On the matter of maintaining the estate, the MOD finds itself in an ever more challenging ...

Humphrey is travelling again in a location where posting on blogger tends to have non western  orientated formatting. This article will be reformatted on his return to the UK. News today in the media that the Territorial Army (TA) is losing over 1000 personnel per year, at a time when it is supposed to be expanding to meet the Governments remit of having a large reserveforce to meet the Force 2020 structure. This is apparently seen as a disaster for the military, seemingly blows holes in current defence policy. The reality though seems somewhat more mundane – turnover in the TA (and other reserve forces) has historically been relatively high (some reports placing it as high as 30%). As an organisation, the reserves fall into a very peculiar place when it comes to a recruitment proposition. They are asking someone to join the military, albeit on a part time basis, and be prepared to spend a significant proportion of their spare time working, and then on a regular basis be pr...

Some newspapers have recently reported that hundreds of vehicles and thousands of ISO containers worth of equipment in Afghanistan could be left behind or scrapped as part of the withdrawal plans to ensure UK forces leave the country by 2015. This has raised eyebrows in some quarters over what may appear to be an example of profligate waste by a seemingly cash strapped department. In reality the authors own view is that is it not only inevitable, but actually rather sensible that not everything in Afghanistan comes back to the UK. The first point is that all withdrawals of military equipment since time immemorial will result in a detritus of kit being left behind. Things that are too old, too broken or frankly just no longer needed will often be sold on, or scrapped locally, raising a small amount of money into the bargain. One only has to look at the post war drawdowns and withdrawal from various colonies to realise that a lot of equipment is often no longer required once a base...

  At the end of Part One, we’d taken a look at the size of the 10 year equipment programme and noted the sheer level of funding involved, the complexity of the challenge in supporting a UK industrial base and maintaining world class military capability   and also the length of time involved in procurement. On paper it is positive news that a 10 year programme exists, on paper at least, which will enable the MOD to push forward an equipment programme with some certainty and allow industry to plan with a reasonable level of confidence. In Part Two, Humphrey intends to focus on the bigger picture and look at some of the challenges and risks which may be associated with the programme. The first thing to note is the announcement of a reserve of funding (some £4 billion) to cope with project cost increases, and a further contingency fund of some £8 billion over the period to allow spending on currently uncommitted items. On paper both of these are welcome announcements. ...

Last week the MOD announced plans for the equipment programme for the next 10 years (HERE) which ostensibly sets out the broad direction and levels of investment in UK defence capabilities over the next decade or so. This total spending plan covers over £160 billion in programmed funds, which cover everything from next generation nuclear reactors through to combat aircraft and logistics vehicles. It is also critical to note that this is not £160 billion of money just for procurement – in fact barely half the funding announced will be going on new procurement of capability (some £86 billion according to the National Audit Office), while the balance will go on equipment support and maintenance of the capability. Humphrey took a keen interest in this announcement, and in particular the NAO report which underpins it (HERE) Due to time constraints, this article is being split into two shorter parts, but its aim is to try and look in a little more depth at what this announcement may...

  So, a few weeks after an initial intervention involving just two RAF C17s, the UK has now found itself committing a significantly higher number of troops, equipment and capabilities into play in Mali and the wider West Africa region in support of French operations there. At home, the debate suddenly seems to have intensified over the size of the Defence budget, and how much national treasure needs to be spent on security. There have been many complex issues discussed, and in this piece, Humphrey wants to try and put out some wider thoughts about what the Mali intervention may mean. The first and foremost lesson is very simple – namely that the UK has quite clearly retained a superb ability to deploy military personnel on operations around the world, even in areas where there is no traditional UK support network at very short notice. The initial deployment of C17s showed the real value of 99 Squadron, while wider deployment of Sentinel, ISTAR assets and provision of a RO...