Feeling defenceless

A quick note, as I'll be off to the local Chinese takeaway in a minute.

Its striking the number of media articles and letters all complaining about the defence cuts that have come out based on the Libya evacuation fiasco. ( Caused it seems by ineffective civil servants - the product of Labour's emphasis on political correctness over effectiveness no doubt. )

Some complain about the absence of Ark Royal and its Harriers - without mentioning that it would be extremely vulnerable to air attack as Labour scrapped the Sea Harriers that at least had a air to air capability to make most air forces think twice. The ground attack Harriers just wouldn't be able to stop a determined air attack or for that matter defend themselves against a half decent air force.

Some complain about the low supplies in the armed forces and over stretch ( see Blair's wars and the Army's willingness to play along for the sake of a role ).

Then we have the bellyaching over Nimrods - without anyone paying much attention to the monumental waste of money and balls up that the Nimrod MR4 project has been. Apparent each aircraft had different parts and none were air worthy !

Then remember the debt. Yes the debt the repayments each year on which now dwarfs our defence budget.

If we are now defenceless - its because Labour wanted us that way.

We will have to sit out the next few wars as we rebuild our balance sheet, rebuild our stores, lick our wounds and prepare for the future without being betrayed by the monumental incompetence of the MOD.

We may well have to live through some nasty incidents and humiliations in the mean time - but its all necessary if we are to remain a sovereign ( ie solvent ) nation.

I'm all for a strong defence - but we need to acknowledge the depth of the disaster Labour have left us with and set about the very painful and not without its dangers job of putting things right.

We must also ensure that Labour and the worms like Ed Miliband are not allowed to escape their share of the blame for the weak state they have left the country in.

Why complain about the scrapping of Nimrod now ?

There's a lot more to the letter to the Telegraph today from ex-Service chiefs talking about he damage of scrapping the Nimrod MK4s.

Its all about timing and the dog that didn't bark.

Why complain when its too late. At least one airframe is wrecked - the others will be by the end of the week. In short its too late. When you complain about a course of action when its effectively too late to stop it your motives must be questioned.

And why did no one complain in these terms at the time of the announcement ?

I've already blogged about the mystery of the governments attitude to Nimrod, given our maritime nations obvious defence needs. But there's also the mystery of its critics.

Nothing makes sense - except ( and I hate to say this as I'm falling into the blogger typecasting trap ) a conspiracy.

The only people to be deceived, again, are the public. A game of politics is being played out with the security of the country and its very worrying.

Further: Thomas Harding reports service staff already starting to look around for a replacement for Nimrod ! Clearly something is very wrong.

To see the maritime aircraft your Govt. will be making you pay for in a few years (again) look here.

Also see this summary on spyflight.co.uk of the Nimrod MK4A project which perhaps gives clues as to why Govt. is so keen to hush everything up. ( This suggests is a Govt vs the people thing, not a party political issue - which in many ways is even more worrying. )

See also Dr Liam Fox answer's the critics here.

My view is that Nimrod was clearly a disastrous project - but it has been neither in the contractor's, MOD's, RAF's, nor politician's (of both parties) interests to admit as much.

Of course the need for a system such as Nimrod MKA4 is obvious ( hence all the press now ), but the lesson to be learnt is being seeped under the carpet.

The Nimrod mystery deepens

The govt is about to cut up the new Nimrods. You have to wonder why ?

Surely the logical thing would have been storage ?

Earlier Post: The Nimrod Mystery

The Nimrod mystery

One of the less commented on aspects of the defence review was the cancellation of Nimrod Mk4, even though its apparently almost finished. ( Compare this to the mass howling and gnashing of teeth over the Harriers being scrapped. )

It quite clear since the 1940's that the UK needs a maritime patrol aircraft. New Zealand has given up on most of its airforce, but kept the Orion patrol aircraft.

So why cancel something the UK so obviously needs just when its apparently ready to be rolled out ?

It doesn't add up ... unless there's more to the story than is be admitted to.

I think its a safe bet that within 10 years the RAF will be flying Orions also. But there something gone on here. Maybe its not the Nimrod AEW fiasco, but it seems to be in everyone's interests not to rock the boat on this one.

Nimrod reliability - government culpability

I just watched the BBC Panorama program on the state of the current fleet of RAF Nimrods.

The main point of their argument was that the existing aircraft are having an ever increasing amount of faults, particularly with the fuel systems. This in engineering circles is known as the bath tub reliability curve. When a product is new its often unreliable ( the Japanese have thankfully improved this situation with their commitment to quality - but military equipment is mostly UK built ). But after a while the bugs are ironed out and the equipment gives reliable service until a point is reached when the rate of detected faults starts to rise again - hence the bath tub, steep at both sides.

It looks to me as if Nimrod has entered the last phase of its reliability life cycle, and should be withdrawn from service or at the very least have its flying hours vastly reduced.

The RAF and government ministers must know this. What is holding them back ? Perhaps pride in not wanting to admit to the Americans that our airforce is barely functional in this aspect.

My wife and I are watching the West Wing on a DVD collection and there's a great quote about defence that I'll try to reproduce here: " Republicans always want a large military but never want to do anything with it, but democrats want a small military and want to use it all the time." (Tony Sharp gets the quote right in the comments below..)

In our case Labour has cut the defence budgets by 25%, tried to fight wars on peace time budgets and still kept prestige projects whilst letting the basics fall apart. ( EU Referendum has a good set of pointts on what sort of helicopters we should be purchasing/renting in Afghanistan that makes part of this argument.)

Our Navy is mothballed, parts of our airforce is clearly unavailable - or should be, and our best soldiers are war weary and under resourced.

This is adds up to neglect and negligence by the current Labour government and Gordon Brown.

What should we do ? One of two things:

1) Start to increase the military budget - and spend it wisely, not just on prestige projects.
2) Cut back our commitments.

There should also be Labour resignations- though given the rate of change at the MOD its only Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who can be pinned with the overall blame.

See also post from Sept 06: The loss of Nimrod air personnel in Afghanistan and cost to the families.

Updates:

Other blogger posts on subject:
Martin Cakebread - thinks we should just purchase Orion p8s and get it over with.
It doesn't look much better for the RAF's VC10 fleet (I'm not suggesting hazardous increase in unreliability - but they are getting fewer and fewer ) which is ageing also - see Keiran Daley blog with some personal memories here...

The loss of Nimrod air personnel in Afghanistan and cost to the families.

Having been on the beach in Nairn and watching an RAF Nimrod training over the airfield on Wednesday this all has some resonance.

When I was a boy my father was stationed at RAF Lossiemouth - just as it was changing over from a Naval Airstation and I attended the local school on the hill over looking the air station. One day we were in the play ground and noticed thick black smoke coming from the edge of the airfield. Some of my friends said a navy Gannet had crashed just short of the runway. At the end of the break the twins from the end of our road whose father (in the Fleet Air Arm) we knew flew in Gannets where first in line to go back in. That evening our mother came by to tell us he had been one of the casualties.

The impact was that they lost not only their father, but a way of life and his widow close contact with the friends in the services. They left the house to travel back south soon afterwards.

You can only guess that the same thing is happening again here. What makes these services deaths extra hard on the family is that they loose not just their husband/father, but also their house, social network and perhaps feeling of belonging which comes with the services. Many service wives will have given up on careers to follow the rapid postings around the country and world and may have less than many other people to fall back on.

I'd like to think the MOD will look after them well. But I have my doubts. Are we short changing the very people we should be most supporting ?