The End of the Holiday - The RAF P8 Force Has Arrived.

The first Royal Air Force P8 aircraft has arrived in Scotland. Landing at Kinloss Barracks, formerly the home of the Nimrod fleet and now an Army base (albeit with an active airfield), the return to the UK heralds a genuinely exciting period of new capability and a welcome return to the long-range maritime patrol game.

This project emerged from the ashes of the 2010 SDSR which as part of swingeing cuts to the equipment programme deleted the overbudget and increasingly uncertain Nimrod MRA4 project and taking a ‘capability holiday’ from the MPA game.

In 2015 the RAF emerged from the previous SDSR with a firm commitment to purchase 9 airframes to provide ASW defence to the nuclear deterrent, and some measure of maritime patrol capability around the UK coastline and with our NATO allies.

Touchdown!- Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The programme has been underway quietly but effectively, moving from a statement of aspiration in mid-2015 through to the first jet in Scotland less than 5 years later. This is a good example of how the MOD can effectively manage and deliver a complex programme involving Foreign Military Sales with the US and bringing it into service in a very short time. For a great insight into the project, the current RAF Assistant Chief of the Air Staff has a super set of blogs that is definitely worth a read on this issue- https://highflyersonline.com/) 

While it is common to mock the MOD for late and over-budget projects, P8 serves as a reminder that the vast majority of MOD kit is procured quickly, effectively and with minimal hassle. This is down to the magnificent civil servants and military personnel working for DE&S and wider organisations like DIO who work hard to bring projects into service as quickly as possible.

The arrival could not have come at a better time, heralding a welcome step back into the capability space at a point when the Russians are proving themselves to be something of a nuisance. Increased patrols by genuinely capable submarines are of concern to NATO, only this week the newly reactivated US Navy 2^nd Fleet highlighted concerns about how Russian SSN deployers are increasingly hard to track and detect.

While the Russian surface blue water navy may be increasingly obsolescent, their submarine force remains a genuinely first-rate organisation. Well equipped with good vessels, modern Russian submarines are some of the most potent out there, and it is important to be able to track and detect this threat.

Although the numbers are not as large as cold war days, the Russian Northern Fleet remains home to capable submarines – mostly built around the Akula class, with a few newer ones entering service. One of the key questions though is how many new submarines are actually entering service?

The much vaunted ‘Yasen’ class was theoretically begun in the early 1990s, but to date of a class of 10, only one, maybe two has entered service. The capability on paper is impressive, but can Russian industry deliver in the numbers required to replace the legacy Soviet era vessels?  That said, the Akula class (and the other vessels like the Oscar and Victor class) may be starting to get long in the tooth, but they remain a competent platform that needs careful monitoring.

The introduction of the P8 provides the RAF with a chance to reduce its reliance on allies like the US and French, who have been very generous in their support for the last 10 years, and help to let the UK once again pull its weight in this space. It is a good opportunity to rebuild experience and expertise in an area where the UK once led the world. 

The only way that this has been possible has been through the genuine generosity of allies in hosting the so-called ‘seedcorn’ force of residual Nimrod crew for many years, helping build up a cadre of experience on the P8, and ensuring that the initial crews exist to get the plane into service. The challenge now is to ensure that enough personnel are trained here in the UK to ensure the force enters service properly crewed and able to handle all the likely challenges that could come its way.

For the UK this marks the continued investment in new and highly capable ASW forces able to meet the challenge posed by peer rivals. The introduction of the P8 sits alongside the refurbishment of the Merlin to update it, and the development of the Type 26 frigate. A significant proportion of both the RAF and RN procurement budget has been dedicated over many years now to tackling the submarine threat and providing resources to address it.

The challenge now is to work to bridge the gap ahead of the Type 26 introduction to service and help build a force capable of providing exceptional ASW capability against any credible threat. Within a few short years, the UK will possess a world beating combination of modern ships, aircraft and helicopters able to tackle these challenges.

There are wider lessons too to be drawn from this return to capability. The first is that this is a good reminder that for all the paranoia out there in some quarters, the RAF is inherently supportive of the maritime domain.

It is often quite uncomfortable to watch people with ties to the Royal Navy come out with nonsense about the RAF and its supposed threat to the Fleet Air Arm. At times its genuinely embarrassing to listen to people talk about conspiracies and see ‘those evil crabs’ as a greater threat to national security than our foes. Sadly these people still exist, although precious few of them are still in uniform, thankfully.

The reality is that the RAF has invested a lot of resources in recent years for both the P8 and the F35 to ensure that the UK is able to field a world beating package of fast jets and maritime patrol aircraft. When you look at the regularity with which RAF helicopters, such as the Chinook force, are assigned to operate from RN and RFA platforms, you’d hope that people would understand that the RAF has significant skin in the maritime game.

Another key lesson is that capability holidays do not have to last forever. This return is a good reminder that deleting a project or capability doesn’t mean that the UK can no longer do something. Instead it serves as an example of how sensibly planned personnel management, working with allies to bridge a gap and taking a pragmatic view of how to temporarily plug a gap is workable.

Its not perfect, but it does show that if required, risks can be taken as long as the mitigation strategy is there. This is perhaps even more timely given the looming Defence Review, set against a similar backdrop to 2010 of a grossly overcommitted budgets and no headroom to speak of is likely to force planners into considering different options around what capability to cut.

One must hope that the Review has time to put together packages that provide mitigation, noting risks where cuts are made, but making clear this is a timebound gap not a permanent one. The risk though is that our allies, while happy to bear the load for MPA, may feel more than a little aggrieved if the UK is seen as relying on a plan which seems to be ‘in order to bail our budget out, lets ask our allies to do the hard work for us’. The wider worry must be that when those favours get called in, the UK will need to be able to reciprocate in kind.

The wider aspect the Review will need to consider is the extent to which the UK wants to continue to invest in roles like ASW and maritime patrol, or in a tight budget environment, what does it want/need to stop doing in order to ensure that it can deliver this capability instead? There are likely to be difficult conversations ahead.

The final key lesson is that bringing a new aircraft into service is all well and good, but what matters too is ensuring that the Service can retain the people needed to operate it. Skimping on investment in areas like the material state of buildings, underfunding in accommodation or other areas, or even not ensuring that there is enough hot water available is going to put people off staying in.

The RAF must ensure that it invests as much as is necessary in its ground environment as it does in its airborne platforms. There is no point having a world class patrol aircraft if the people you need to operate and fly it have quit in disgust at not having hot water in their accommodation. Bluntly, the future RAF must ensure that proper investment in infrastructure is seen as being as vital a war winning capability as new aircraft or missiles.

This is borne out by the fact that Lossiemouth couldn’t host the P8 while final work is done to the site to prepare for its arrival (including a £75m refurbishment of the runway and taxiways). But more widely the RAF needs to be able to properly fund modernisation to its estate – too much of it is elderly, in poor condition and not fit for purpose. Realistically the RAF probably needs a lot fewer sites, with a lot more money spent on better facilities – but closing air bases, even for the right reasons is unlikely to be politically palatable to Ministers.

But when all is said and done, this is fundamentally a good news story. A genuinely world class aircraft has arrived in service, and will make a phenomenal difference to UK capability, and wider NATO allies too, for many years to come. Without doubt, this is a very good news story indeed for the RAF and Royal Navy.