Bringing Out the Big Guns - the RUSI Report on British Army Artillery

The RUSI has published an excellent and extremely thought-provoking report into the challenges facing the British Army and its artillery capabilities, and the impact that this may have on operations.

The report by Jack Watling is an extremely thoroughly well researched and comprehensive analysis of the challenges in this area, coupled with a good credible look at what this means for the British Army as a whole. It rightly deserves widespread coverage and analysis.

The report was widely covered in the media in, perhaps, somewhat more sensationalist terms than the report itself reads. Widespread comments about how the British Army couldn’t defend itself against a Russian attack and how it was outgunned led to a perception in some articles that the UK couldn’t stand toe to toe with Russia in a fight.

There are two very different issues here that need consideration – firstly, the issue of going head to head with Russia, and secondly considering whether the criticisms made and challenges made are reasonable?

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The risk with reports that talk about the threat from Russia is that the immediate reaction in some areas is to try to compare like for like. This is probably not the best course of action – were the British Army to be foolish enough to advance across the Russian border and attack in a conventional conflict, then it almost certainly would be wiped out.

Similarly, if the British Army were dug in waiting to receive an attack from the Russian forces head to head on their borders, without any wider support then it too is likely to be a painful experience. Be in no doubt that the British Army may be fantastic, but it is not designed or able to go toe to toe alone with the Russian Army on their borders – and nor should it be.

Any comparison needs to look at the wider picture that a Russian attack on NATO member states would certainly be multi-national in nature, and quickly bring in a variety of other actors. It remains to be seen how quickly it would escalate, but there is a strong risk that such a move would quickly cross the nuclear threshold and move beyond control.

From a practical perspective though, when looking at the threat the Army faces from Russia, we need to look at two things. Firstly, how likely is it that the deployable division will be deployed to face off on the Russian border and secondly, where else could it occur and how does that change the equation?

Given the UK deploys only a relatively small force in Eastern Europe, to be at the stage where a full Division has been deployed indicates not only a protracted period of increasing tensions, but also sufficient indicators and warnings that a transition to war was likely enough to warrant putting a UK division (and allies) in the field in the first place – a significant escalatory measure in itself.

This lead in time means that to get multi-national NATO divisions into the field with the expectation of war means that we’re unlikely to see a traditional ORBAT deployed, but possibly an enhanced one as potential wartime measures are put into play by various countries. In other words, if we get to the stage when we have divisions deploying into the Baltic, then its going to be potentially very messy.

What this means is not to try and write off the report as a means of saying ‘don’t’ worry’ but actually try to contextualise that, if anything, a Russian artillery attack on UK forces right now is likely to be even more damaging than the media made out, because they will not be deployed at their full operational strength.

While the Russian Army remains a very potent and capable potential foe in their backyard though, are they credible beyond their own ‘near abroad’? This is where things get harder to judge – the Russian logistics chain seems to struggle to sustain credible longer range deployments, with the possible exception of Syria, so it is likely that any encounter between the UK and Russia outside of the Baltic would be far more evenly matched, as the UK’s arguably superior logistics chain compensated for the weaker force levels.

But credibly the one place that the UK and Russia are likely to come to blows kinetically is linked to NATO, so we must assume that any conflict will involve NATO powers too. Again, this is not to say ‘don’t worry’, but it is important that any match ups or ‘tank top trumps’ take into account that the UK is going to be one of several countries involved in any fight and this should be remembered – it is not going to be a one versus one conflict.

So from one perspective we should be careful not to read so much into the media hype that we assume that the Russian Army could beat the British Army outright in a straight fight. This scenario simply isn’t credible for the reasons covered above – but equally we should be wary of assuming that the UK is automatically going to triumph. In reality any conflict involving British and Russian forces firing at each other is quickly going to escalate out of control into a very dark place.

At the same time though the report raises some extremely fair criticisms about the wider state of the British Army that do warrant further thought. It is clear that for the last 30 years the Army has had to balance off two very different drivers in order to try and make ends meet.

The first is the desire to remain a ‘proper’ Army – in other words retain the ability to deploy and sustain a full spectrum fighting force, probably at Divisional level that can integrate into the US plan and be seen as a credible ‘day one’ force that planners want to deploy. In other words heavy armour, heavy guns and lots of vehicles and infantry able to fight in some really nasty places.

The counter driver though has been that the sort of operations the Army has been involved in are nothing of the sort. For nearly 30 years it has deployed lighter forces, with armour and artillery in relatively small numbers and under tightly constrained Rules of Engagement. Outside of 1991 and 2003 the ‘heavy army’ has been a nice to have that has found itself employed on the incredibly complex world of peace support operations.

For decades the Army has been forced to make some really difficult funding and prioritisation decisions that have seen significant investment flow into some areas, but at the expense of others. For example the modern infantry unit compared to one in 1991 or 2001 is utterly different – vastly better equipped and with modern equipment, there is a significantly different force in use now, and one that is very capable.

The price paid for the investment in these areas though has been what can at best be described as ‘benign neglect’ on other parts of the Army. The Armour and Artillery worlds have seen a significant lack of investment, with funding directed instead to either meet more pressing threats or possibly taken as a savings measure. If you glance back at the programmes mooted in the early 2000s for future artillery capability, so much of it fails to have existed as more than a glint in a powerpoint slide authors eye.

This perhaps highlights the huge difficulty facing budgeteers trying to work out what to invest in for the Army. If you were working on the equipment plan in the MOD back in the mid 2000s the threat was clear – it was about trying to upgun the infanteer and provide them with the ability to handle the threat on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan – a messy violent set of conflicts that didn’t define themselves by being a clear tactical problem to be solved by co-ordinated all arms violence, but very junior soldiers in patrol bases needing to work with a hostile population to build good relations.

When it looked like this was going to be the future, this meant prioritising funding for tasks like this – but it also meant finding the money from elsewhere. A staff officer 10-15 years ago trying to make the case for divisional level artillery to face the Russian threat would have been given short shrift by people in daily contacts in Iraq and Afghanistan who needed urgent solutions.

The problem is that entering a cycle of neglect, where funding was deferred, and upgrades descoped or munitions stockpiles drawn down means that hard choices were taken then that are biting now. Its clear that the Army is increasingly finding it a challenge to maintain its ability to take part at the highest levels of warfare.

On a practical level the ongoing cannibalisation of the Challenger 2 and AS90 fleets make perfect sense in the context of when they were taken – planners knew the focus of attention, and the likely fights then were not going to need a full armoured division, and so risks were taken. The question is whether this was too great a risk under the circumstances or if mistakes have been made?

Its easy with hindsight to say ‘we shouldn’t have done X’ but perhaps harder to say what could have been done given the same problems and funding levels other than take those decisions. In an ideal world the Army would have had enough funding to support both current ops and retain a genuinely credible divisional capability – but we don’t live in an ideal world and it didn’t get enough funding, and really difficult decisions were taken.

Where we are now is that the Army seems to be trying to regain at pace its divisional capability and in some areas it has very significant reach and strengths. The logistical chain that enables the UK to deploy globally is genuinely impressive, as is the attack helicopter force and low-level infantry capability. But, what is lacking is a genuinely large enough set of modern tanks and artillery to do the job required of it.

In part this is a challenge of funding – paradoxically the British Army is probably overmanned for the jobs it must do. There are too many soldiers in roles that the budget simply doesn’t exist to provide them with modern vehicles and equipment – a smaller army would free up funds to fully equip the forces it has, rather than trying to strike an uncomfortable balance. For as long as the Army is tied by the force of emotion and cap badge politics to having to keep 82000 troops (on paper at least) it will struggle to properly equip the 65000 it realistically needs.

Similarly, replacing vehicles isn’t a simple game. While many in the British Army would probably deeply love to acquire M1A1 Abrams or Leopard 2 tanks from the US & Germany as a quick and cost-effective replacement for the increasingly elderly Challenger 2, this would come at a huge price for the UK domestic defence industry. In the medium term trying to understand what is more important – is it fighting capability or is it protection of industrial jobs is key. You could easily replace CR2 with a new tank very quickly and in greater numbers for less cost, but the potential political uproar over the perception of ‘lost jobs’ would be huge.

The wider challenge too is finding enough resources to rebuild the stocks of munitions, the expendable equipment for exercises and operations and focus on building a genuinely effective core of equipment that works, not ‘sexy stuff in numbers that looks good in a league table’. The answer may well be that for our allies the best thing the UK can do is invest in an enhanced brigade, but one that has a stonking set of war shots available to it – but domestically the pressure to say that ‘we’ve got an armoured division’ is more important – even if keeping vehicles on strength that we cannot properly support or provide full war loads for is the trade off.

Already the UK has hinted it is taking moves to increase stockpiles of munitions, but this sort of thing costs money – and this is money that could be spent on tangible tanks and planes that look good. Is this a price people are prepared to pay – namely a smaller military front line, but one that has deeper levels of supplies and equipment to keep it genuinely operationally effective?

Finally the challenge is working out how to deliver a policy compliant military that doesn’t break the law, but which somehow doesn’t get killed. This may sound flippant, but the report notes the strong reliance in exercises by the British Army on fire support through cluster munitions that are delivered by international partners not privy to the Cluster Weapons Convention.

This raises awkward questions about whether the Army reliance on NATO partners to support them in exercises will work in real life, or if the time has come to look again at whether ‘smart cluster munitions’ are the answer. Again, what matters more – is it cost effective munitions that can keep British troops safe, or trying to maintain a position of moral leadership in the arms control arena – even if this results in the deaths of British soldiers?

Defence is about taking tough choices based on the information available to decision makers at the time. The decisions taken years ago are now coming home to roost and frankly its pretty uncomfortable to look at. While it is dangerous to use the power of hindsight to criticise decisions made, its also hard not to feel that too great a risk has been taken in too many areas and the consequences may be significant in a negative way. On balance, the British Army has probably made some very difficult, but possibly long term wrong, decisions, and the consequences of this may be very severe until they can be fixed.

How fixable is the problem? On one level the British Army remains a fantastic organisation, genuinely capable of working in a variety of environments and conducting very challenging operations. But, while this may be the case its also true that it needs time and money to buy itself back into the very high end of divisional operations against a peer foe.

This will require wider difficult decisions about the role and value of deployable ground forces, and whether the willpower remains to want to invest in this capability. Putting a division on the ground is not only a sign of capability, but also a sign of long-term commitment – whether you want it or not. The UK deployed a divisional sized force in the 1990s to the Middle East and nearly 30 years later is still there with significant military deployments.

Whether the will exists to continue to fund this level of ‘door opening’ capability remains, or if other projects like maritime and air power find favour instead is not clear. To get the British Army to the state where it has a genuinely credible divisional force with genuinely modern equipment in numbers is going to take time and a lot of money – is this a price worth paying, or is it time to pare back ambitions and focus on other areas and step back from being a ‘top table Army’?

These are all questions that need to be answered soon, because if funding decisions on projects like the Challenger life extension programme aren’t taken quickly then whether the Army likes it or not, it will find itself outgunned, outnumbered and out of business.