Make Do And Mend

 Make Do And Mend

An Introduction

           Ajax is a name almost synonymous with everything wrong with defence procurement in the modern government, probably one of the longest, most reported on and costly cock-ups the MOD has ever seen. Due to a massive amount of engineering defects - not least the fact that personnel involved in the trials are now partially deaf - it was up in the air whether General Dynamics would actually be able to get the vehicle into service but a series of positive press releases seem to be suggesting the worst of the vibration issues have been overcome.

            With the billions sunk into the project, and the unfortunate likelihood of war in Europe within the next decade, Ajax is needed.

            But a rather large reconnaissance vehicle isn't all that's needed; wholesale change within the Army is required to bring the Army back into the modern era. A strategic plan needs to be formed, optimised but not completely focused around the Russian thread.

            This would require a force that can fight across most of the spectrum of warfare, from farmers in flip-flops to full peer-on-peer combat. This means we can't afford to look solely at one threat, and that any force needs to be expeditionary by design - basically the only certainty in this context is that we won't be fighting in Great Britain.

            With this in mind, we can construct our force around a few main trends and points, using trends from conflicts past and ongoing and various studies notably Colonel D. Macgregor, US. Army (ret)'s Reconnaissance Strike Group, Conceptual Force 2035 and various organisational structures from allied (and other) armies around the world. This leaves us with a few key takeaways, namely:

• Long Range Indirect Fires integrated at all levels of the Conceptual Force, from Mortars and Non Line Of Sight Short Range Missiles at Company level to Precision Strike at Divisional Level - allowing destruction of enemy positions without significant infantry assaults needed.
• Significant use of Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, in every cavalry troop and infantry platoon - both mounted and dismounted, direct and indirect, reusable and disposable variants. 
• Integral Reconnaissance assets at Battlegroup, Brigade and Divisional Levels, using both covert, small teams and systems and full-scale fighting for information - with various weapons types up to MBTs.
• Remotely Crewed Systems for both reconnaissance and strike, integrated at all levels (noticing any patterns here) and adding extra levels to the Conceptual Forces' situational awareness.
• More and meaningful co-operation with allied forces, culminating with a British heavy division operating within an allied Corps.

            Any future force needs to be able to act and respond to any threats that could come about across the medium to long term (I'm defining medium as about 5-7 years and long as 7+) while not ignoring the Bear in the room, so to speak. I would suggest that, to that end, the army focus' right now on maintaining a singular hard as nails armoured Brigade, with the intention of expanding over the medium term. The force should then aspire to maintain several levels of operation, either:

• One Armoured Division, either as part of a UK-led, mainly UK operation or as part of an Allied Corps, as a one shot deployment.
• One Armoured/Mechanised Brigade as part of a wider Allied formation, contributing a Divisional HQ and specialised troops occasionally, indefinitely as part of a rotational deployment
• An armoured Battlegroup to a multinational deployment indefinitely as part of an allied operation, while maintaining a presence in Estonia.

            What this means in fighty terms is that the Army should aim to complete an Iraq 91, Iraq 04, or KFOR+Cabrit while maintaining a lighter force for a Falklands style operation at all times.

            What this means in practice is that smaller all-arms formations with masses of indirect fires, able to operate in small Battlegroup sized formations all the way up to Divisional level (as part of a multi-national corps). For this, our tried and tested* (*note - not actually tried and tested, who do you think I am?) plan is going to need several planning assumptions, notably:

• Any more money that becomes available is going to be spent primarily on upgrading and enhancing already in service or ordered systems, with no new 'big ticket' procurements (that means no CV90, sorry!)

• The army isn't getting bigger, so plans have to be near enough manpower neutral (or have a reasonable place to steal manpower from)

• All already ordered platforms need to be used as procured, although small modifications (after initial entry into service) are acceptable

• For Multi-National operations, interoperability with the allies we expect to work with the most is always a good thing™

• The Land Industrial Strategy should be kept in mind as far as possible (although promptly ignoring it wouldn't make much of a change)

            Bearing in mind the above, I think that the optimal armoured division would be a relatively large square division, with both wheeled and tracked platforms.

            The wheeled platform would obviously be Boxer, and potentially a cheaper companion, while the tracked platforms would be Ajax, Challenger 3 and eventually it's replacement.

            Overall, the Division should be formed of two armoured, two mechanised, one Deep Reconnaissance & Strike Brigade, an Operational Sustainment Brigade, and a Headquarters and security brigade.

            In this little series of articles, I'm going to outline my thoughts on this structure in quite a bit of detail, but first we're going to discuss the main problem preventing it's implementation: the cap-badge mafia.