EU Referendum

Showing posts with label RG-31. Show all posts

link[i-link]The caption to the picture reads: "A Canadian convoy leaves a forward operating base in Panjwaii district, Afghanistan on Wednesday. The convoys are favourite targets of Taliban suicide bombers." Note the RG-31s used as convoy escorts.

The story is equally graphic:

In a country where everything is in short supply, the cargo carried by Canadian convoys is worth its weight in gold. "If the guys out at the front lines don't have the gear, they can't do their job, right?" says Master Cpl. Rich McLeod. "If they don't have their ammo, they don't have their food, they can't do what they gotta do." …

Adds McLeod, who had his worst day on the job during the first week in August:

(We) had a vehicle suicide bomber hit us and took out one of our tractor-trailers in the morning. Later on that day the convoy ended up getting mortared and they were blowing up all around us," he recalls. "Then on the way home in the evening we were ambushed by RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) and machine-gun fire."

If he'd been a British soldier, the chances are he would be dead or seriously injured. But hey! Why should a few lazy MPs be worried about details like that?

But you do wonder how they sleep at night.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]It has been known for some time that Taliban tactics are changing, with this blog reporting just over a week ago that they intended to resort to laying mines as a tactic to demoralise troops.

But it was also the case that they were going to be targeting troops with suicide bombs with the aim of killing as many soldiers as possible, to put pressure on the Nato governments.

And yesterday we perhaps saw another result of that tactic, a British Land Rover, part of a military convoy, damaged by a suicide car bomb in Kandahar, south Afghanistan. Three Royal Marines have been injured, one seriously. The other two are in a stable condition.

link[i-link]One thing is for certain, looking at the relatively modest damage to the vehicle, had the troops been riding in an RG-31, they would not even have had a headache. They might even have survived uninjured in a Snatch Land Rover – with its basic armour - but this is not even an armoured Land Rover.

It is a "wolf" version, stripped down and fitted with roll cages and weapons mounts – the so-called Weapons Mount Installation Kit (or "Wimik"). Fully equipped, it looks a macho machine in the style of David Stirling's World War II SAS jeeps. But it has no place as a convoy escort in Kandahar, where the suicide bomb is a known and potent enemy tactic and where, in the same town, two Canadian soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing last week.

link[i-link]Maybe yesterday, the three marines were "lucky" that they were just injured although, at least eight people other people were killed. According to Reuters, three civilians died when the bomber struck and five more were shot by troops afterwards.

As these appear to have been civilians, Nato spokesman Major Luke Knittig had said that the alliance will "establish the facts". But one fact is certain – deploying British troops in unarmoured vehicles in urban areas is too dangerous, exposing them to unnecessary risks. It is time to call a halt on this practice.

COMMENT THREAD

MoS%20CAMP%20001[i-MoS%20CAMP%20001]Not only the Telegraph but also the Mail on Sunday, The Independent and The Sunday Times all pick up on the story of idle troops at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

The Sunday Times has "British troops hide from bombers" and the Independent runs "Troops 'locked down' by suicide bombers", while the Mail on Sunday has a particularly strident headline: "Camp Do-Nothing". Its photographs tell the tale, some of which we have reproduced below, demonstrating how tough it is out at the front - something us "armchair soldiers" could never really appreciate before.

MoS%20CAMP%20005[i-MoS%20CAMP%20005]
What is interesting about these pieces is that they all tell the same story - with at least four newspapers carrying it. Yet four newspaper editors did not suddenly and independently come up with the idea of looking at the conditions at Camp Bastion, and their journalists did not all come up entirely independently with exactly the same story. At the very least, there is some collusion and there may well be a "guiding mind". In that case, who is doing the spinning, and why?

link[i-link]Whatever the reasoning behind the spin, it clearly has MoD approval as all of the papers seem to quote Lieutenant-Colonel Andy Price and they all mention the recent death from a suicide bomb of Marine Gary Wright (pictured right), although none specifically point out the vulnerability of the "Snatch" Land Rover in which he was riding.

link[i-link]And neither do any of the newspapers mention an ealier incident - this one in Kabul in early September. This was also another suicide bomber, in this instance driving a Toyota Hilux truck, but it was also another instance of a highly vulnerable "Snatch" Land Rover being targeted.

RG-31%20survivor%203[i-RG-31%20survivor%203]Now, purely on journalistic grounds, you would have thought that there was a story here, especially if a contrast was then made with the fate of a Canadian RG-31 which had recently been attacked by a suicide bomber, the crew having escaped without injury, the vehicle itself having limped home under its own power, needing only relatively minor repairs.

dingo_1.2[i-dingo_1.2]Add to this the recent experience of the crew of another Canadian RG-31 escaping injury after a mine explosion, and the similar fate of a German crew riding a Dingo mine protected vehicle and you have a superb story of British government incompetence.

Neither Canadian nor German (nor any other) troops have been confined to base because of a bomb threat yet here we are with all those tough Marines having to act like big girls' blouses and stay at home with mummy all because their patrol vehicles are crap.

MoS%20CAMP%20003[i-MoS%20CAMP%20003]But rather than engaging their brains, we get the MSM hunting as a pack, all following each other down the same line, holding each others' hands for comfort. Thus does the Mail on Sunday, like the Sunday Telegraph give the Marines' "Vikings" a puff, not stopping for one moment to look beyond the MoD spin and do their own background research.

Nor even do they get their facts right, the MoS citing the top speed as 60 mph, when it is in fact 60 kph (approximately 40 mph, and then only for relatively short periods), and the price as £80,000 when it is in fact $1,000,000 (as opposed to the £1m cited by the Telegraph).

Most significantly, the Viking is an amphibious vehicle, designed in Sweden primarily for amphibious operations and for their ability to move through swampy terrain, as well as snow. At twice the price of either a Bushmaster or RG-31, to use (and wear out) these highly specialised vehicles in a landlocked desert is little short of stupidity.

Luckily for our government and military, however, while this commodity is available in copious quantities, the MSM seems to be totally blind to it.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]
Weighing into the debate about British Army equipment today comes Booker again, in his column, with a piece headed: "Our troops will patrol in 'coffins on wheels’".

My%20little%20Pinzy[i-My%20little%20Pinzy]This is about the continuing scandal of the Pinzgauer, named after an Austrian pony and, by one of our forum members, "my little Pinzy". For all the use it is to our troops, it could just as well be a little girl's toy.

Anyhow, at the heart of the disaster gathering round Britain's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, writes Booker, is the fact that our Government has in each case sent in an inadequate number of troops, hopelessly ill-equipped to do the job which faced them, Nothing has more cruelly brought this home than the still rising number of soldiers who died because the Ministry of Defence failed to provide them with patrol vehicles properly protected against mines and roadside bombs.

link[i-link]Last week, he tells us, Dutch troops in Afghanistan were supplied with the first of 25 mine-protected Australian Bushmasters, costing £271,000 each. This means that every other NATO contingent, American, Canadian, German, French and Dutch, now has mine-protected vehicles, but not the British, who are still expected to patrol in wholly unsuitable "Snatch" Land Rovers, such as the one destroyed by a suicide bomber in Helmand ten days ago in which a British Marine died, with a second seriously injured.

The MoD says it will soon be equipping our troops with Pinzgauer Vectors. These are known as "coffins on wheels" because they are in some respects even more vulnerable than the Land Rovers; not least because the driver is sitting right over the wheels when a mine strikes, and because the nature of their armour is such as to confine the effects of a blast inside the vehicle, probably killing all inside. Yet each Vector costs £487,000, nearly twice as much as the much-better protected Bushmasters. In other words, we are spending a great deal more money to give our men even less protection.

link[i-link]When our Armed Forces minister Adam Ingram was asked on 18 October by Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock what "risk assessments" had been carried out on the Vector, he refused to answer, merely giving the condescending reply "we do not comment on the details of our vehicles' protection levels". The Tory spokesman Gerald Howarth, on the other hand, is so reluctant to recognise the failings of the Pinzgauer that he is even pictured in an advertisement for them on the makers' website.

With a sense of frustration that we can only share, Booker concludes with the question, "why is this national scandal not on the front pages of every newspaper in the land?" Certainly, it isn't on the front page of his own paper, but that does report separately a story of how hundreds of marines are "penned into base by suicide bomb threat".

This is an entirely preditable response to a development which, it is claimed, marks a shift in Taliban tactics but, as we recently pointed out, was itself entirely predictable.

LR%20Composite[i-LR%20Composite]
Nevertheless, we are told that military commanders ordered the "lock down" after receiving intelligence that many bombers plan to attack British troops in two towns in northern Helmand. One senior officer said that some of its fighters were now prepared to turn themselves into "human claymore mines" in a renewed attempt to drive the British from the province.

The two British bases being targeted are in Lashkar Gah, where 300 members of the Royal Marines are based, and the strategic town of Gereshk, on one of the main routes through Helmand, which is being guarded by 60 marines from 42 Commando. Limited patrols around Lashka Gar resumed yesterday only on the specific orders of the base commander, but high risk areas were avoided as was the centre of town.

link[i-link]So desperate are the Marines to strengthen their defences against suicide bombs, they are also deploying their BvS10 "Viking" all terrain vehicles, which were only delivered this year.

At a cost of cost £1 million each - nearly four times the price of the RG-31 or Bushmasters - they are being sold to the Telegraph's gullible Sean Rayment as giving "far greater protection than the infamous 'Snatch' Land Rover," even though the ballistic protection offered is about the same and the vehicle is rated to protect against pathetically meagre 0.5kg charge anti-personnel mines, compared with the 14kg protection offered by both the RG-31 and the Bushmasters.

Once again, therefore, Rayment - a specialist defence correspondent - misses the story and lets the MoD off the hook, while "my little Pinzy" toys pour off the production lines, unremarked by our skilled and diligent hacks.

COMMENT THREAD

ITN[i-ITN]News of the moment is that the Ministry of Defence is banning ITN – Britain's biggest commercial news broadcaster – from frontline access to the nation's forces.

This is picked up by The Times and others, retailing an account of how the government "has withdrawn co-operation from ITV News in warzones after accusing it of inaccurate and intrusive reports about the fate of wounded soldiers."

The MoD's director of news, James Clark, has accused ITN of a "hatchet-job", with reporting that relies on "cheap shots all over the place, no context, no reasonable explanation. Like the Daily Star in moving pictures."

The tenor of the reporting is by no means unsympathetic to the MoD and the news of the action has even travelled over the pond to Michelle Malkin, who has her own (very good) reasons for distrusting media coverage of defence issues.

Any indignation, or sympathy for the MoD however, should be tempered with the knowledge that, when it comes to accountability, this ministry is the pits. It is not only one of the most secretive of government departments but is also quick to rely on the "security card" when it wishes to avoid scrutiny of its actions.

What is intensely frustrating though is that, while this story is quick to attract media attention, attempts by MPs to drag vital information out of the ministry are almost completely ignored.

Mike%20Hancock[i-Mike%20Hancock]The latest in this line is Mike Hancock, Lib-Dem MP for Portsmouth South, who has been trying to get to the bottom of the Pinzgauer issue with a Parliamentary Question to the minister asking:

…what risk assessment has been made of the ability of Pinzgauer Vector armoured vehicles to give adequate protection to the driver in the event of running over (a) a mine and (b) an improvised explosive device, with particular reference to the cone of destruction; and if he will make a statement.

In response, an MoD which, apparently in support of its troops, is so quick to squawk about the misbehaviour of the media, suddenly becomes rather reticent. The minister, Adam Ingram, replies:

To safeguard our own and allied troops, we do not comment on the detail of our vehicles' protection levels. However, the need to provide enhanced protection against the threats currently faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, including mines and improvised explosive devices, was a factor in the decision to procure rapidly a suite of protected patrol vehicles, including an additional 106 Pinzgauer Vector vehicles, which would give commanders a range of options dependent on the operational circumstances.

link[i-link]If ever there was a non-answer, that is it. And, if we had a halfway effective media, this would now be a serious issue, not least as we now learn that the Dutch have become the latest of the forces in Afghanistan to acquire mine protected vehicles. Only this week, the first of their $31.7 million purchase of 25 Australian Bushmaster armoured patrol vehicles became operational (pictured). Until recently, they had been borrowing five RG-31 Nyala patrol vehicles from the Canadians.

We now have a situation where German forces in Afghanistan are equipped with Dingo II mine protected vehicles, the French are being equipped with up-armoured VBLs, the Canadians and the US forces have RG-31s and the Dutch have Bushmasters.

link[i-link]Soon, uniquely, the British will have the only major contingent in Afghanistan which is not equipped with mine protected vehicles. Instead, troops are about to be supplied with Pinzgauer Vectors which, in some important respects, actually give less protection than "Snatch" Land Rovers – the vulnerability of which is only too evident.

Of course, this is far too complicated for the British media, which would rather see troops die than get its hands soiled with a little bit of technical detail. Instead, the hacks will wait until after the event, for a quick, cheap story when the bodies are being shipped back to the UK.

For once, though, we actually see an ordinary back-bench MP doing his job, and doing it well, which puts the self-serving preening of the media rather in perspective. This is an industry which gets excited about the fate of soldiers once they are wounded but is careless of whether they live or die in the first place - a rather odd sense of values.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]UPDATED: A Royal Marine from 45 Commando has been killed and another seriously injured after yet another suicide attack on a "Snatch" Land Rover in Afghanistan.

They were driving in a military convoy leaving the Afghan national police station at Lashkar Gar, capital of Helmand province, this morning. The marines were airlifted to a military hospital at Camp Bastion, where one later died from his injuries. An MoD spokesman said the dead soldier's next of kin had been contacted.

Ghulam Muhiddin, the spokesman for Helmand's governor, reported that the attacker targeted British soldiers. He said the bomber, who was on foot, also killed a boy and a girl, both under eight. Other reports speak of bodies of civilians, some with arms and legs blown off, scattered around the scene near the town's bazaar.

link[i-link]This is becoming an all too familiar scene and, while better-armoured vehicles do not provide complete protection – witness an incident earlier this month when a Canadian soldier lost his life after an attack on an RG-31 (pictured) – the overall experience is that troops are much more likely to survive, usually uninjured.

Apart from anything else, a "Snatch" Land Rover costs in the order of £60,000 and this – like others before it – is clearly a write-off, while RG-31s suffering similar attacks need only relatively minor repairs.

What is particularly disturbing though is that, while the replacement Pinzgauer "Vector" is no better protected than the Land Rover, already the MoD propaganda machine is moving in to tell the troops what a good piece of kit it is.

kit1[i-kit1]Thus we see in this month's Soldier Magazine a "Boys' Own" puff on the two new additions to the British order of battle, the tame hack gushing that the "meaty Mastiff" and Vector (pictured left) are "destined to make life safer for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The Vector – so soldiers are told – "will address the protection and payload problems of the Snatch Land Rover, making it ideal for Afghanistan." Surpassing the carrying capability of the Snatch, the Vector can carry an additional specialist, such as an interpreter, plus enough water for a ten-hour patrol. The piece adds:

"With Vector we have an improved payload capability, better mobility and improved protection,” said the vehicle’s project manager, Ben Onslow. “It will also have air conditioning, which is important for comfort.” The first of approximately 170 vehicles ordered should be delivered by February – just ten months after Pinzgauer started work on the variant.

Minister for Defence Procurement Lord Drayson told reporters on Salisbury Plain: "The Snatch Land Rover will continue to be an important part of our equipment. But we have identified that we need to give commanders more options. It is vital that we give our soldiers the kit they need. But it is down to the commanders in the field to choose the right tool for the job."

You would expect a tame house magazine to deliver that sort of guff, but it would be nice if the supposedly independent media took time out to tell our soldiers the truth. Unfortunately, it would seem that hacks are more concerned with the threat of external censorship, without realising that self-censorship, ignorance and indifference are probably the greater dangers.

COMMENT THREAD

RG-31%20survivor%201[i-RG-31%20survivor%201]Although the meat and drink of real politics might be about dots and commas in draft legislation, it is also about life and death, as we have pointed out before. And there can be no better an illustration of this, and the total failure of our political process, than the contrast between this photograph (left) and the one below.

The first shows a Canadian RG-31 Nyala in Afghanistan which, according to CTV News was today attacked by a suicide bomber in a vehicle. The soldiers inside escaped unscathed and no other Canadian troops were hurt in the attack.

We are told that the attack took place about two kilometres from the regional international reconstruction headquarters in Kandahar and, according to reports, the suicide bomber tried to ram a vehicle into the convoy that was travelling through the city of Kandahar on its way to the main Nato headquarters at Kandahar Airfield.

The bomber was driving what appeared to be a minivan in front of the convoy. The driver pulled over as the convoy approached, then turned around and drove into one of the vehicles in the convoy. Soldiers said there was little warning of the attack.

wterror105.0[i-wterror105.0]Now compare and contrast with the outcome of a similar suicide attack earlier this month, only this time against British troops. They, to their misfortune, were riding in a lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rover. And, as a result of the failure of the MoD to equip our troops properly, they died.

This, as the media are belatedly beginning to realise, is one of the more egregious failures of the MoD procurement process, but one that has – with a few honourable exceptions – been almost totally ignored by the British political "blogosphere".

Nevertheless, the combined effort of the blogs that did engage, with the help of a cross-party and cross-House alliance of Parliamentarians, the support of Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph and the intervention of The Sunday Times, the Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne was forced to purchase armoured vehicles for our troops.

This does show the power of the political process when it is harnessed properly and focused, hence my irritation when the growing power and influence of the blogosphere is frittered away on trivia and puerile "tee-hee" comment.

A graphic illustration of that dynamic comes from Ian Dale's website which has recently made a rare expedition into defence issues, but only to report on this issue of utmost gravity:

As part of the government's Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), it was decreed that the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) and the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) - don't they just love acronyms - should merge.

I see from the the (sic) current edition of Jane's Defence Weekly that, from 1 April 2007, the merged organisation will be known as Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S). Even by the standards of NuLab, it seems a bit much that the Secretary of State should be naming part of his empire after himself!

RG-31%20survivor%202[i-RG-31%20survivor%202]By his own estimation, Iain Dale's site is third in the rankings of top British political blogs and thus in a position to influence the political process for good or bad. And, while it is not entirely fair to single out Dale's abysmal efforts, his output typifies much of what is wrong with British political blogging – and illustrates how it is failing to capitalise on the blogosphere's growing power and influence.

Although not of a religious bent, I am reminded of the parable of the talents. More prosaically, one of Rudyard Kipling's quotations comes to mind.

COMMENT THREAD

soldiers[i-soldiers]Under the heading, "They deserve more", The Sunday Telegraph today is launching a campaign to "get the Government to reward our soldiers properly".

Central to this campaign is the argument that the government now pays a newly qualified teacher £52.49 per day whereas a private "dodging bullets, bombs and missiles in Afghanistan is paid £39.24p a day for the privilege".

Illustrating just how lame this argument is, the paper is referring to the lowest level of wage, which would be paid to an 18-year-old soldier after 20 weeks of (free) training, a young man who may have no qualifications or experience.

By the time a soldier reaches the age of 21 – the age at which a newly qualified teacher might start – he will be on £54.60 a day (with no student loan repayments), unless of course he has been promoted, whence as a lance-corporal he will be earning £57.10 or, as a Corporal, a minimum of £64.48p. And, of course, certain specialists (such as parachutists) receive additional special pay, currently £4.85 per day.

Add to that a non-contributory pension – which can be carried over to other careers – plus tax-free lump sum after completing 18 years service, and the last problem soldiers have is their pay-scale. It is certainly not, as The Sunday Telegraph claims, a "pathetically inadequate level of pay", and far from being an "outrage".

Snatch%20bombed.0[i-Snatch%20bombed.0]What is an outrage though is their pathetic level of equipment, which Booker addresses in his column. He writes:

When Cpl Mark Wright of 3 Para was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, attempting to rescue six comrades who had been badly injured when their patrol vehicle was hit by a mine, this brought to 35 the number of our Armed Forces killed since their new deployment in Helmand. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been at pains to conceal the vehicle's identity, but the evidence suggests that yet again it was a Snatch Land Rover.

When Canadian and German patrols were also hit by explosive devices, their occupants escaped largely unscathed because their vehicles, an RG-31 and a Dingo, are designed to be "mine protected". This underlined the MoD's scarcely believable folly in sending our troops into action in Afghanistan and Iraq in unprotected vehicles, with the wholly predictable result that more than 30 have now died.

The MoD seeks to reassure us that it will soon be sending 100 Pinzgauer patrol vehicles to Afghanistan, costing £487,000 each. What they do not admit is that these "coffins on wheels", as they are known, offer less mine protection than the £60,000 Land Rovers. Meanwhile the RG-31s used by our allies, costing just £320,000, have saved scores of lives. Not the least forgivable aspect is how the MoD uses spin and deceit to conceal its incompetence.

Put it to the average soldier to whether they would prefer a wage rise, or decent kit that might keep them alive, and I have no doubt where their choice would lie.

So what is it with these gormless hacks that they so consistently grab the wrong end of the stick?

COMMENT THREAD

A German Dingo mine protected vehicle[i-A German Dingo mine protected vehicle]Via The Times, agencies and others, we learn with great regret that the Army lost three more soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday, with 11 other troops injured.

Particularly distressing was the death of one of the soldiers after his vehicle hit a land mine, with five other troops also seriously injured. Another soldier received minor injuries.

The incident took place in the north of Helmand province, and occurred after the soldiers' patrol strayed into an unmarked minefield. There was no contact with the Taleban.

Very few news reports mention a vehicle, however, and the MoD have not disclosed the type. The likelihood is that it was a "Snatch" Land Rover. From the number involved and the fact this vehicle is the most widely-used patrol vehicle, the odds point very much towards this.

Another soldier of the three who died today one of the crew who was ambushed by a suicide bomber last Friday – an attack that had already left one soldier dead.

Yet, German forces have recently been subject to an attack by a suicide bomber while one of their patrols also hit a mine. Riding in mine-protected Dingos, however, both crews survived with only very minor injuries.

In May, a Canadian vehicle also ran over a mine after it had been sent to aid a resupply convoy that experienced a breakdown of one of its vehicles.

A Canadian RG-31 Nyala[i-A Canadian RG-31 Nyala]Fortunately, the vehicle was an RG-31 Nyala. Although the crew was briefly hospitalised after the incident, Brig. Gen. David Fraser, commander of the Canadian contingent in Afghanistan, was reported to be smiling as he left the hospital after visiting the soldiers.

For the British yesterday, there were no smiles. Yet the tragedy of the mine and suicide bomb incidents is that the deaths and serious injuries were almost certainly preventable. Unlike the other nations providing major force numbers in Afghanistan, though, British soldiers have no mine protected vehicles for carrying out patrols. Had they been German or Canadian, their odds of survival would have been that much higher.

And the only thing on the horizon for the troops are lightly armoured Pinzgauer trucks, which provide no mine protection either.

When the hell is the MoD going to do something about these unnecessary deaths?

COMMENT THREAD

Mamba%20DM[i-Mamba%20DM]
We did it on 3 July, barring a key bit of information that we had to tease out of the MoD through a Parliamentary question. This the Scotland on Sunday picked last week and we followed through last Friday.

Now, today – two months after we broke the original story - the Mail on Sunday has finally run it. Yet, at the end of the same month that we first ran it, little Shane Richmond, Telegraph web news editor, was happily pushing out an inane comment from Malcolm Gladwell, the author and New Yorker journalist, that blogs are "derivative".

Yet again this illustrates that sections of the MSM are so far up their own backsides that they haven't even begun to realise that, increasingly, blogs are running the agenda on certain issues. They are ahead of the curve.

As for the MoS, typically, it has gone for the cheap, sensationalist angle and has missed key parts of the story. That makes it just another space-filler rather than a contribution to the debate about the inadequacies of the MoD, which would have moved the issue forward.

RG31%20Canada%204.0[i-RG31%20Canada%204.0]Not least, it parrots uncritically the MoD line that the Mambas were "too heavy", without stating why - and that they "were not designed as a patrol vehicle". Yet, that is precisely what they were designed for, a task - even as we write - at which, in the form of the RG-31, they are excelling in Canadian hands in Afghanistan.

It then mentions that, last month, the MoD "revealed" that the Army is to get 300 new, "tougher" armoured vehicles for use in Iraq and Afghanistan - failing, of course, to note that 100-plus of these are the useless Pinzgauer coffins on wheels. This, incidentally, is from Whitehall correspondent, Jason Lewis, who should have been aware of what was happening. When the butcher's bill comes in, you can bet the MSM will be waxing indignant but now, when there is an opportunity to do something and actually save lives - they are silent.

And, although all the information for the MoS piece came directly from the exertions of this blog – they even used the same photographs – was there any mention of EU Referendum? I'll give you three guesses.

COMMENT THREAD

The Alvis 8 in Bosnia - claimed by Drayson to be an RG-31[i-The Alvis 8 in Bosnia - claimed by Drayson to be an RG-31]Regular readers will recall our campaign on "Snatch" Land Rovers and our calls for more better armoured vehicles, in particular the mine-protected RG-31 used by both US and Canadian forces.

During this campaign, it emerged that the MoD had already purchased a fleet of 14 RG-31 type vehicles - the precursor version called the Mamba (although they were also called the Alvis 4 and 8 series) – for use in Bosnia.

As a result, through MP Mike Hancock, questions were put in to find out what happened to these vehicles, knowing that some were actually in use in Iraq, being used to protect US diplomats travelling between Baghdad International Airport and the Green Zone.

The answers were picked up by Scotland on Sunday last week and make fascinating reading. It seems that all the vehicles in the fleet, which originally cost £4.5 million to buy, were sold abroad for the princely sum of just £44,000. Nine went to Estonia, four to "a US company" – which we know to be Blackwater Security Consulting - and one to a company based in Singapore.

pm1[i-pm1]Even now, though, the MoD is still attempting to put their "spin" on the deal. It claims that the modifications of the Mambas left them "too heavy" to go on patrol. This, as we know, was the addition of underside armour to deal with the TMRP-6 mine threat, the armour having been developed specifically for the MoD by a South African technology company (see right).

But we also know, from an exchange of e-mails with some of the soldiers who operated the vehicles out in Bosnia that they remained perfectly serviceable with the additional armour. Latterly, we were told that the real reason for the claimed "maintenance problems" was that the UK supplier, Alvis, had withdrawn technical support for the model - for reasons we know not why.

The Scotland on Sunday paper remarks that while the financial loss to taxpayers is another embarrassment for the MoD, but adds, "far more serious is the suggestion it could have put the lives of British troops at even greater risk."

Bound for the airport on the way from the Green Zone[i-Bound for the airport on the way from the Green Zone]For sure, 14 vehicles would not have made much difference in Iraq, where over 200 "Snatch" Land Rovers are operating, but even they could have helped. At least one death, for instance, was attributed to a Land Rover ambush, where the vehicle was being used to ferry an officer from the British base to the airport – precisely the use to which the Mambas are currently being put by Blackwater Security Consulting. And, as we also know, Blackwater vehicles have survived at least two IED attacks (see picture below).

A Mamba damaged by an IED - the crew and passengers escaped unscathed[i-A Mamba damaged by an IED - the crew and passengers escaped unscathed]Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth insisted that the government should have kept hold of its Mambas when it had forces in such danger in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told Scotland on Sunday that, "To flog these vehicles so cheaply when there must have been a reasonable chance of them being usable in both Afghanistan and Iraq is unforgivable." He is absolutely right on this. As have Blackwater Security done, the additional armour could have been removed for the different theatres where there was no TMRP threat, and the vehicles would have been perfectly usable.

The British version of the Cougar - aka 'Tempest'[i-The British version of the Cougar - aka 'Tempest']But, perhaps, an equal scandal is that the replacement vehicles – the Tempest MPVs, on which the US Cougar design is currently based, were not used in Iraq beyond the initial "war" phase of the invasion. The eight purchased have now been returned to the UK, pending despatch to Afghanistan.

It is decidedly ironic – if not tragic - that, having recognised the potential of these vehicles nearly four years before the US forces realised their value, the Army failed to exploit them. Only now, is the MoD buying a hundred to supplement the "Snatch" Land Rovers – with deliveries to start at the end of the year.

All of this, though, simply reinforces the wide-held and accurate view that, when it comes to understanding the equipment needs of our troops, and managing the procurement process efficiently, the MoD is simply not on this planet.

COMMENT THREAD

On the road to Al-Zubair - a Snatch convoy ambushed[i-On the road to Al-Zubair - a Snatch convoy ambushed]Famously, in the days when we had a nationalised railway network and the system was routinely brought to a grinding halt with the even moderate winter snows, a hapless executive was hauled before the cameras to explain why, on one particular occasion, a particularly light fall of snow had brought trains to a complete halt.

It was, he explained to the incredulous media, "the wrong kind of snow". This he later expanded upon, telling us that it has been a very fine snow which, while not heavy enough to block the lines, had invaded the engines, blocking filters and shorting out electrics. This was plausible enough but too late. Forever in the vocabulary now rests that sneering commentary on the inadequacies of nationalised industries, "…the wrong kind of snow".

Reviewing now the recent performance of the Israelis in the Lebanon campaign – something which I promised in a post a week ago, I suppose the best that can be said of it is that the IDF was fighting "the wrong kind of war".

link[i-link]What brought this to mind was a photograph in today's edition of The Sunday Telegraph which we published on this blog nearly a month ago (so much for blogs being "derivative"), which illustrates a different facet of precisely the problem which the Israelis currently face (above left).

In the instance illustrated by the photograph and the accompanying story we have an issue rehearsed at length (and in depth) by this blog, where we argue that British troops attempting to police southern Iraq are dangerously ill-equipped.

More specifically, we have an army in theatre relying on equipment such as the Challenger Main Battle Tank (MBT) (pictured above, on patrol in Al Amarah, southern Iraq) and the Warrior Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) which were devised as the core weapons of armoured divisions intended to combat a massed Warsaw Pact armoured thrust in northern Europe. In short, they were never intended for counter-insurgency operations (especially in the high temperatures of the Iraqi theatre) and are wholly unsuited to it.

Snatch Land Rovers on the dock in Belfast[i-Snatch Land Rovers on the dock in Belfast]Partly recognising this, in late 2003, the British Ministry of Defence drafted in a consignment of mothballed armoured Land Rovers (the nearest equivalent to the up-armoured Humvee), themselves designed for dealing with street violence in Belfast and other Northern Ireland locations, during the height of the "troubles".

wirq20b.jpeg[i-wirq20b.jpeg]Known universally as "Snatch" Land Rovers, these might have been adequate for dealing with the provisional IRA and general street violence but against an enemy which had access to any number of munitions and increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs – such as the explosively formed projectile (EFP) roadside mine – they proved easy prey. Thus it was that, by early this year, soldiers patrolling in "Snatch" Land Rovers had accounted for more than a quarter of our combat deaths in Iraq.

This was a problem which has also faced the US forces, which have suffered a higher proportion of casualties and larger absolute numbers from what are generically known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs.

The RG-31, operated by Combat Engineers in the USMC[i-The RG-31, operated by Combat Engineers in the USMC]In response to that – after a series of false starts, which included a programme of adding armour to the standard utility vehicle, the Humvee – the US, led by the US Marine Corps, started a re-equipment programme using vehicles based on Rhodesian and South African experience, specifically designed to deal with the IED threat. These include the RG-31, the Cougar and the Buffalo.

Less obviously but just as significant, the US forces are undergoing a fundamental restructuring. In the war against the hit and run bomber, who will fight in civilian clothes and merge with the civilian population, there is no front line. Casualty rates amongst non-combatants (known from Vietnam days as REMFs) have matched those in combat units.

The USMC 'JERRV' Cougar vehicle used by ordnance disposal teams[i-The USMC 'JERRV' Cougar vehicle used by ordnance disposal teams]Thus, in this type of war, the spearhead troops are no longer the infantry and the tankers but the combat engineers. Numbers of these troops in the US order of battle have been increased substantially and, using their new RG-31s and other equipment, they have been active in hunting out IEDs. As a result, they are most often at the sharp end in the vicious fire-fights that develop when insurgents ambush the bomb hunters.

In Lebanon, the problem confronting the IDF was much the same – the hit-and-run fighter in civilian clothes – but the weapons employed by the enemy differed. In Iraqi desert conditions, where there is often little cover and most of the roads are metalled, the roadside bomb is the weapon of choice. In Afghanistan, where cover is also sparse in some areas, but many more of the roads are unmetalled, the mine is commonly used. But in south Lebanon, where the topography is in places more similar to the rolling, verdant hills of Gloucestershire and Somerset (not for nothing is the area known as "Little England"), the man-portable anti-tank weapon comes into its own.

A Sagger missile - demonstrated by Hezbolla in yet another photo-opportunity[i-A Sagger missile - demonstrated by Hezbolla in yet another photo-opportunity]With thick cover, or the protection and disguise of civilian villages, small teams using RPG-7s, or the fearsome RPG-29, anti-tank teams can wreak havoc with armoured formations in what is nightmare country for tankers. Hezbolla have even been pressing into service Russian-made "Sagger" wire-guided missiles – which caused such great slaughter of Israeli tanks during the Yom Kippur war – and even captured (or purchased) US TOW missiles.

Combined with roadside bombs – some disguised as boulders, copying techniques pioneered by Iraqis, who have been known to cast their bombs into kerbstones) – these make a thing of the past, rapid armoured thrusts of the type that so thrilled us during the 1967 Six Day War, and the inspired counter-thrust over the Canal during Yom Kippur.

Instead, like the Americans have learnt to do, and the British are now following with a batch of Cougars on order, the Israelis have had to "up-armour" their engineers, on whom they rely for route clearing before what are now considered "conventional" armoured forces can be deployed. Thus did we see the widespread use of the Puma in the first, cautious phases of the ground campaign.

One of the most-photographed vehicle types[i-One of the most-photographed vehicle types]These vehicles, deployed by combat engineers, are little more than turretless Centurion Main Battle Tanks, known as the Poretz Mokshim Handasati (minefield breakthrough vehicle). Although better than nothing, they are far from ideal, not least because they lack the essential attribute of an armoured personnel carrier – a rear exit door. Egressing troops are forced to clamber over the hull, exposing themselves to fire.

An Abrahms tank destroyed by an IED[i-An Abrahms tank destroyed by an IED]Furthermore, as US forces have found – and as will the British – up-armouring invites a version of the arms race, where the terrorists use heavier and more sophisticated weapons, to the extent that not even the US 65-ton Abrams Main Battle Tank is immune from attack. As well as passive armour, therefore, a way of bringing the battle to the enemy must be found.

It was here, as we observed on this blog, that the Americans found a way, in the battle of Falluja which, when they comes to be drafted – will re-write the tactical manuals.

Contrary to perceived wisdom which has declared that tanks in urban warfare are death traps, the US used their Abrams as "point" to flush out the otherwise invisible enemies by presenting them with a highly attractive target. Dangerous it might have been for the tank crews but, generally, even if an Abrams is disabled, the crews tend to survive an RPG attack.

The US Predator UCAV[i-The US Predator UCAV]One the attackers had revealed themselves, above them were circling reconnaissance drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs) which would relay their co-ordinates to the artillery. Borrowing from a technique pioneered in Viet Nam, these were located in fire-bases away from the action and, within minutes, could bring down highly accurate, targeted fire on the insurgents, bringing instant death.

Additional assets, which could perform the same function as the artillery, were armed UAVs (known as UCAVs) or fighter-bombers stacked in the sky awaiting targets.

IDF%20damage[i-IDF%20damage]This, in the early stages, is what I though the IDF was doing, but it does not seem as if they had got the phasing and the tactics right. Casualties in tanks and crews, therefore, seem to have been relatively high, without corresponding gains in terrorists killed.

And, if this is the ground battle, there is the other element – the Katyusha strikes. In Iraq, the US forces are also prone to such attacks but their greater danger is the "White Van" mortar team. Merging with civilian traffic, these vans can park momentarily and discharge a mortar team to lob a few bombs, which then re-mount and drive off into the traffic, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other vans on the streets.

To counter this, the US has used counter-artillery radars which can locate the firing points of mortars within seconds and, with orbiting UCAVs, fighter bombers or even helicopter patrols, they can return accurate but lethal fire within minutes – or, if preferred, guide ground forces to intercept. Such would have been the expected response from the Israelis so, far from being impressed by their videos showing Katyusha launches, followed by IAF strikes a day or so later, this demonstrated that the capability was lacking.

The propaganda war

Alongside the shooting war, however, there has also been the propaganda war and it is here that the Israelis have proved dismally flat-footed. They are fighting an enemy which, as we have seen with the Qana incident – and many more – is willing to parade the bodies of its dead and, while hiding behind civilians (and even keeping them in harms way) exploits a sympathetic media and an "international community" which is locked into the paradigm that war is the greatest of all evils and any other solution is preferable.

lebanon%20raids.0[i-lebanon%20raids.0]Hezbolla in particular are aided by the notoriously poor local building standards and their fragile, reinforced concrete-framed buildings which give rise to such spectacular pictures of collapsed buildings after relatively modest impacts. But, in using ordnance such as 500-1000lb bombs, with every attack, the Israelis have been creating propaganda opportunities for their enemies and detractors rather than achieving tactical battlefield gains.

And, while propaganda in war has always been important, it is more so in current campaigns. In the past, when Israel could conduct "lightning wars", by the time the international community had mobilised to enforce a cease-fire, the IDF had usually achieved its tactical and strategic goals.

But the nature of war has changed. No longer is territorial gain the objective and neither are the opposing armies conveniently lined up in uniform, fighting an open war. The objectives in this new type of war are to bring the enemy to battle and to kill people, to disrupt the hierarchy, the command and communication systems and to destroy materiel.

That process, against the weapons the enemy is prepared to deploy and tactics it uses, takes time. But, even at the glacial speed at which the international community operates, no sooner have the opening phases of combat been rolled out and the pressure is on to bring overt hostilities to a halt. To enable the battlefield objectives to be achieved, therefore, the armed forces also have to win the propaganda war, to give them enough time to complete their tasks.

Collateral damage

In this war, the currency is collateral damage – dead babies and destroyed buildings, images of which have had more effect on the battle than the tanks and guns deployed by the IDF (for a more detailed discussion, see here).

Therein, like the British Army in Iraq, the IDF is using the wrong weapons and tactics. For it too, it is the "wrong kind of war".

Much has been said and written as a result about the limits of military power – much of it nonsense. Of course, final solutions require diplomatic initiatives and societal changes but, when you have any enemy with weapons who is attempting to kill you, there is only one response – to kill them. That means military action and, therefore, war – by whatever name you call it.

An IAF F-16[i-An IAF F-16]But it is how that war is conducted that makes the difference, and the difference is a matter of technology. The IDF currently is equipped for its previous wars, with superb armoured formations and a fleet of high performance fighter bombers that are capable of executing great slaughter of conventional forces. But they are the wrong weapons for this type of war.

On the one hand, in the style of the Fallujah-type operation, they need heavy but highly mobile armour to protect their troops as they provide targets for the enemy, in order to flush them out. And, coming into service is a new generation of artillery with rates of fire that are simply stunning. Capable of firing 40 or more shells a minute, these guns can also lay up to seven shells on a target to arrive simultaneously. Combined with unprecedented accuracy from GPS guidance built into the shells, these can intervene immediately with deadly but highly localised force on any terrorist foolhardy enough to attack.

Viper%20strike[i-Viper%20strike]For the Katyusha problem, what is needed is not fast jets with limited endurance and, therefore, loiter capability, dropping big bombs. The weapons needed are long-endurance UCAVs and platforms like the AC130 Spectre, with high-precision, small-warhead weapons. One such, in the process of development, is the Viper Strike which, with a 7lb warhead, can kill the occupants of a car without scratching the paintwork of the next car in line, or take out the occupants of a room in a building, without disturbing the neighbours.

AC130[i-AC130]Suitable platforms, guided by sensor arrays in satellites, UAVs and electronic warfare aircraft, can loiter the battlefield and, when a fleeting target appears, can launch instant but again highly localised death, making terrorist attacks near certain suicide.

Will we learn?

Since Israel is fighting for its very survival, the odds are that it will learn its lessons from the Lebanon campaign, and apply them. There is some confidence that the US forces will do likewise – they, after all, are developing the technology.

One casualty will almost certainly be the multi-billion dollar project called the Future Combat System (FCS). The plan here is to equip forces not with heavier armour, but lightweight, air-portable vehicles, relying for their protection on sophisticated sensors, the rapid exchange of intelligence and stand-off weapons to take out the enemy before he is within range and can do damage. But, when faced with an enemy that has the capability to deliver lethal blows and reveals himself only in the act of firing his weapon (or not at all in the case of an IED or mine), this system is fatally flawed.

Many knowledgeable commentators believe the US will scrap this system but, as a letter in the Sunday Telegraph reminds us, the British Army is still committed to a similar system, a £14 billion fantasy known as the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), all geared to providing the European Rapid Reaction Force with its "teeth".

Should this go ahead, we will find that not only are the British forces currently equipped for the wrong kind of war, they will perpetuate the error, at enormous cost in money and – eventually – lives. For once, we should look further afield and watch very closely what the Israelis do.

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