Thin Pinstriped Line

The Ministry of Defence has failed to have its equipment plan judged as being affordable for the 3 rd year in a row. Just 10 years after the 2010 SDSR made swingeing cuts to the budget to try and put things back on track, the MOD now faces a deficit of between £3-£13bn in its future plans. This is the damning verdict of the National Audit Office(NAO), whose report into the state of the MOD future equipment plan (EP) makes deeply uncomfortable reading today. The NAO is known for its hard hitting and objective reports, and much of the small print in this is not nice to see. Bluntly put, the NAO is not impressed with how the MOD is running things. How concerned should we be, and what does this mean for the forthcoming Integrated Security Review, and what does it tell us about the state of Defence today? Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright At its heart the audit concludes that the MOD expects to spend £180bn on defence procurement and support over the next 1...

The one constant about military capability is that it is always changing. There is always a new ‘new shiney’ that is the next big threat. There is always a game changing innovation around the corner and technological change shapes in a huge way how the armed forces evolve and defend the nation. You only need look at the variety of ways that the British Armed Forces have been equipped within the last 30 years to realise an enormous swathe of technology has come into service, changed the way we do business and then been replaced as obsolescent – often in a few short years. In many ways the military of today is unrecognisable to the military of 1980 or 1990. The current perceived threat is about the challenges posed by information dominance and the way that the current ‘next generation’ of technology can be exploited by opponents to threaten the UK. Exploring how to respond to this was the subject of a lecture last week at the RUSI by Maj Gen Copinger Symes, at the innaguaral S...

According to an exclusive Sun story, based on MOD material so elusive and secret that it was publicly released and extensively commented on in the defence media recently, the Royal Navy is delaying the full introduction to service of the Type 31 frigate. The delay, of approximately 4 years, means that when combined with the planned paying off of the Type 23 frigates, the Royal Navy will, allegedly, have the same number of ships in service as the Italian Navy. According to the Sun, and at least one rent-a-quote retired Admiral who, it omits to mention, was partly responsible for this situation in the first place, this is apparently a bad thing. How big a deal is it though, and what is really going on – should we be concerned, or is the issue more elusive than perhaps thought? Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright The first question is a simple one – how many escorts will the Royal Navy have between 2023 and 2027? On paper the force is mandated to be 19 esco...

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH (QE) has returned to port in the small hours of a Friday morning, docking in Portsmouth Naval Base after several weeks conducting F35 operations in the North Sea. So far, so routine. Yet the decision to bring the ship into port at around 0300 has led to claims of coverups, and that the Royal Navy has something to hide. Apparently, according to an article on the Portsmouth News website, there must be something wrong with the ship. The article suggests that there may be something wrong with the ship, and that she has only been away from home for a relatively short period of time, so her unexpected return is a cause for concern. It even quoted a ‘senior retired naval source’ (Rear Admiral Madeup RN?) citing safety issues. Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright Articles like this are really frustrating to read because they amount to little more than a fishing trip in the hope of getting some form of gossip or...

The Sunday Times is reporting that tough questions are being asked of the MOD and BAE Systems about the continued reliance on ordering bespoke warship and other military designs. The question is whether, instead, the UK should ‘buy off the shelf’ from other countries instead and save money, and ensure delivery to cost and time. ‘Commercial Off The Shelf’ (COTS) is something that gets talked about a lot in defence social media channels. The usual line is ‘why don’t the MOD just buy Design X off the shelf and save a fortune in procurement costs’. The purpose of this article is to look at what COTS is, and some of the challenges it poses, and asks whether on balance it would be good, or bad for the UK to go down this route. At its simplest the idea of COTS is that the MOD should look to buy a tank, plane or ship from an existing offer. After all if the manufacturer has the design good to go, why not buy it right away? On paper this is an excellent idea, and offers potenti...