Not on this planet

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.

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Latterly, we were told that the real reason for the claimed "maintenance problems" was that the UK supplier, Alvis, had withdrawn technical support for the model - for reasons we know not why.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."

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).

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.

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.

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Canaries down the mine

For an update on this post, see here.

According to the Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP, minister of state for defence, "we take all measures possible to ensure the safety and security of our troops deployed in Iraq". This is in response to an MP who had passed on a constituent's letter (a former serving soldier) expressing concern about "the safety of so-called armoured Land Rovers".

On the face of it, Ingram's statement is an out-and-out lie, except that in the weasel words that flow so easily from the civil service, to be signed off by their ministers, there is an important qualifier, in the use of the word "possible".

To the ordinary person, that word might encompass every measure known to man, certainly anything technically feasible, but in the dark halls of Whitehall, it would also include the issue of "affordability". Straight out of "Yes Minister", you can almost hear their honeyed words: "There is nothing allocated in the budget, Minister, so acquiring enhanced protection for our troops is not possible".

From there it is an easy step to write to the public, grieving relatives, worried parents, MPs and the rest, telling them: "…we take all measures possible". In strict terms, it is not a lie – but then it is not the truth either.

However, as we research this issue more deeply, inevitably the labyrinthine complexity emerges and what seems at first sight a straightforward black-and-white question of providing better armoured vehicles for our troops merges into complicated arguments about tactics, procedures, training and capabilities.

It is in this grey area that ministers are able to operate, obfuscating the issues and confusing readers of their letters, in which manner does Ingram soothingly declare, "mitigation measures are not just about equipment – all our forces undergo a comprehensive package of pre-deployment training to ensure that they are as prepared as possible for the specific operational environment they will encounter".

The sub-text, of course, is that it is not just about spending more money. In fact, implies the minister, our superb training, etc., etc., will prevail. Carefully does he avoid telling us, however, how any amount of training will protect a soldier in a lightly armoured vehicle from the blast of a concealed IED, triggered by an unseen operator.

It is here, therefore, that we pick up on the emerging story, broached in our two previous posts, here and here, which – on the basis of what we have so far found out - seem to show up the British at their very best and their very, very worst.

By way of background, we need to explore what is currently happening in the US-occupied areas of Iraq, where the scourge of the IED accounts for a full 68 percent of the battle casualties. To counter this threat, the Americans have been, since 2004 and now in increasing numbers, deploying new equipment, the Buffalo mine clearance vehicle (right) and the Cougar HEV/JERRV series (below left), together with the RG-31 series.

Bear with me briefly on the technicalities, but the basic strategy is, acting as a team, these vehicles are sent out onto the roads of Iraq to hunt out mines and IEDs and to destroy them. Then, as a final stage before the any particular road is cleared to allow ordinary patrols down them, the Cougar travels down it in a process known as "route proving" – on the basis that, if there is anything there, the mine protected vehicle will take the hit and the crew will survive.

Now, the thing is that this technique seems to have been pioneered not by the Americans but by the British in Bosnia, as early as 1999-2000. This is why the Mambas were purchased. But, even more intriguingly, it was there that the greater threat of the "penetrator mines" emerged, which led the development of British-funded counter-measures and the order of eight Cougar mine protected vehicles, in what is known as the Tempest project.

This, incidentally was in December 2001, in what appears to be the very first order for such vehicles, more than three years before the US forces placed their orders. Furthermore, the vehicles were upgraded to protect against the new mine threat. In other words, in a pioneering piece of research and development, we emerged with world-beating techniques and equipment, years before our more technically advanced cousins.

However, while the Americans have so far bought 122 Cougars - and have over a thousand more on order - we bought eight. I do not know yet whether they were deployed in Bosnia, but they do appear to have been sent to the Gulf, although I can find absolutely no reports of their having been used. According to one report, however, the vehicles are back in the UK being refurbished, prior to their despatch to Afghanistan where, it is claimed, the mine hazard is greater.

At a point, therefore, when the IED threat in the British occupied sector of Iraq is probably at its highest, the life-saving equipment pioneered by the British has been withdrawn, while the Americans are introducing it en masse, adopting precisely the tactics which our own Royal Engineers developed. You really could not make this up.

In the meantime, I have been sent an extract from the Regimental Journal of the King's Royal Hussars, which gives a graphic account of their recent deployment to Iraq. From this emerges that the current tactics adopted – unwittingly – are brutal and primitive. Quite simply, the troops are told to patrol their areas in lightly armoured Land Rovers until one or more of them are blown up. Then the Land Rovers are withdrawn and replaced by Warriors and Challenger tanks, until it is deemed safe to resume patrolling in Land Rovers again.

In effect – although they do so uncomplainingly – our soldiers are being used a "canaries down the mine" in a tactic redolent of the Red Army, in which punishment battalions were sent into minefields to clear the way for the assault troops.

From a more strategic point of view, this means that the Army can no longer function effectively. While Warriors and Challengers do provide additional protection, as the King's Royal Hussars report testified, their use "caused a major change in the way the Squadron operated, limiting the distances we could cover and the routes we could use." At one point, movement in "Snatch" Land Rovers was "deemed too dangerous" in Al-Amarah and helicopters had to be used to lift fully crewed Land Rovers out to the Iranian border where the Squadron was responsible for conducting patrols.

Returning, therefore, to Mr Ingram's claim that "we take all measures possible to ensure the safety and security of our troops deployed in Iraq", clearly this is not the case. The equipment and techniques do exist and, since the US forces introduced them, their casualty rate from IEDs has halved.

The problem is that Mr Ingram does not have the money. The government is happy to commit £14 billion to the FRES programme, and billions more on other equipment to provide our component of the European Rapid Reaction Force but that leaves nothing extra for the forces in Iraq. To spend a few million on new kit for them is simply not "possible".

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The wheels on the truck go round and round…

For an update of this report, see here.



Following my post on Sunday on How Blair is killing our soldiers, the story – if at all possible – gets murkier and murkier. Before proceeding, however, I must thank all those website and blog owners who linked to the piece and the many readers who responded and are taking action. I will keep you abreast of the responses they receive.

And so to the story as we left it on Sunday, with an account of how Lord Drayson, the defence procurement minister, on 12 June this year had dismissed the idea of buying the mine protected RG-31s to replace the "Snatch" Land Rover. Not only did he assert that the "Snatch" provided us "with the mobility and level of protection that we need", he informed the House of Lords that:

We had 14 RG-31s in Bosnia, which we took out of service some time ago due to difficulties with maintenance. We have looked at the RG-31 alongside a number of alternatives for our current fleet and concluded that the size and profile did not meet our needs. Size is important in the urban environment. The RG-31 cannot access areas that Snatch Land Rovers can get to.

According to the minister, therefore – and there can be no other construction from his words – the RG-31s were basically too large for the "urban environment", hence the choice of the smaller Land Rovers.

Well, as it happens, we have found a photograph of the "RG-31s" used by the British Army in Bosnia, which is reproduced at the top of this post. In fact, they were not RG-31s but Mambas, an earlier version of the vehicle – and even then they were not the standard body. They were, in fact, a rare, short-wheel-base version, variously known as the "Commanche" or "Acorn", converted by Alvis PLC, the British owner of the South African manufacturer. You can judge for yourself from the photograph how much of a handicap the size of these vehicles might be.

However, since "the size profile" did not meet the MoD needs, it was decided to replace the vehicles and, around 2002, an alternative vehicle was in the process of being procured. We know this because there was a Parliamentary Question on 5 February 2002 by Mike Hancock, Lib-Dem MP for Portsmouth South, from which we learn that the replacement was called a "Tempest". These were to be used for:

...casualty evacuation and route proving operations where mines are present and provide high levels of protection from anti-tank/personnel mine blasts.

Dr Moonie, who answered the question, was extremely reticent about the price, withholding information "in accordance with Exemption 7a(2) of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, which relates to information whose disclosure would prejudice commercial or contractual activities."

Anyhow, we also managed to find a photograph of the Tempest (left)and some details from the Royal Engineers website. Known officially as "Truck, Mine Protected Vehicle" (MPV), as readers will discern from the picture, this is based on the chassis of an articulated truck. The Royal Engineers describe it thus:

The MPV, formerly known as Project TEMPEST. The planned role of the MPV is route proving and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC). The donor platform for the cab and chassis services is the Peterbilt 330 articulated tractor unit. The front and forward rear axles were removed and replaced by a Marmon Herrington 4 Drive conversion. MPV is a modified Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) equipment procured against an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) and replaces the MAMBA vehicle fleet of the mine protected vehicles. The vehicles were assembled by Technical Solutions Group in the USA with the UK EOD specific requirements incorporated by Supacat Ltd.

Thus we see the MoD, having decided that the Mambas were too big, decided to replace them – at unspecified expense – with a truck at least four times the size, buying fewer of them into the bargain, for use in exactly the same role. And so desperate was their need that they bypassed the normal competitive contract process and acquired the equipment against an "Urgent Operational Requirement".

Now it begins to get interesting, and not a little murky as we follow two separate threads.

First, we follow Technical Solutions Group. It is owned by a US company, Force Protection Inc, which currently manufactures a range of mine protected vehicles for the US Army and Marine Corps. More of this company later but what is most interesting at this stage is one particular member of the management team, a certain Murray Hammick (below left), who joined the company on 12 February 2004.

Although on the company website as late as 6 June this year, he has suddenly disappeared from the line-up. But, through the marvels of the Google cache system, his details are still accessible, and fascinating reading they make. As "Vice President, Integrated Logistics Support":

Before joining Force Protection, Murray Hammick owned and managed UK-based Seafire Ltd., developers of specialist military vehicles; he was centrally involved in the 2001 sale of the Tempest MPV to the UK MOD. He was head of business development for UK defense contractor Alvis Vehicles Ltd, handling sales, marketing and new product development roles involving the UK MOD, US DOD, NATO, and the UN. He set up and managed the first international transfer of mine-protection technology out of South Africa covering the Mamba series of MPVs, and was ground forces editor for Jane's International Defense Review from 1990-93.

Mr. Hammick is a retired British Army major. He served over 24 years in regular and reserve armored and airborne units and ran armor anti/armor research trials. Mr. Hammick holds a bachelor of science degree, and formal qualifications in military design & technology.

From a separate website, we also see that Hammick's job was to oversee and co-ordinate all projects at both Force Protection and its wholly owned subsidiary, Technical Solutions Group, reporting directly to Michael Watts, the Company's then CEO.

We also learn from this website that Hammick not only won the contract to sell MPVs to the British Army but, while working for Alvis, had been appointed Product Manager, responsible for developing two armored vehicles and one Special Forces vehicle. He subsequently established Seafire Limited and went on to win a number of contracts, including some in partnership with TSG and Supacat.

What this demonstrates is that the very technology that went into the Mamba and subsequently the RG-31 was exploited by Hammick and used in the production of the Tempest, for which the British taxpayer paid a no doubt handsome – if unspecified - price. We also know that, armed with the knowledge of that design and the experience of having built the vehicle, Hammick joins Force Protection.

With that under our belts, let us now follow the second thread – the Tempest itself. A search for information on this vehicle eventually leads you to this site, a general site on "vehicle protection". However, it does have an entry for the Technical Solutions Group (TSG), under which is an active link marked "Tempest". When you click that, you arrive here.

Surprisingly, there is no mention at all of the Tempest. The page is headed "Cougar", a mine protected vehicle made by none other than Force Protection Inc. Furthermore, helpfully, there is a picture of the Cougar (right). As you will see, for all intents and purposes, the Cougar is the Tempest, designed and paid for by the British taxpayer and handed on a plate to the American company by Mr Hammick.

Force Protection is doing very well out of the deal. Not only has it already sold a considerable number of Cougars to the US forces, it has teamed up with none other than our very own BAE Systems to produce a variant called the Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle, acquiring a recent contract from the US Army worth $180 million for 378 models, which could increase to $445.4 million for 1,050 vehicles, if all options are exercised.

From all accounts, the money will be well-spent. The USMC who already have the equipment, speak very highly of it. In addition, one crew gave written testimony to Force Protection of how it had undoubtedly saved their lives:

Just wanted to write a quick note to all of you at your company to thank you for the hard work you put into the Cougar vehicle. We are stationed in [omitted] Iraq and about 2 weeks ago our JERRV Cougar ran over [deleted] mine coming back from a call downtown. It had been raining that night and the mines were placed in a hole filled with water. Right after the explosion, the Cougar was driven for two miles on the three remaining tires at speeds in excess of 20 mph so that we could make it to a safe area.

Once we got to the safe area we were able to survey the damage and everyone was amazed how far the vehicle had driven. The three of us inside were all okay other than slight concussions and a headache that lasted a few days. We know that if we had been in another type of vehicle that the outcome would have been much worse. We were also able to get a replacement Cougar within 24 hours. Thank you for everything and keep up the good work.

If that does not tell the story, the photograph (above) provides adequate evidence of the life-saving capability of this remarkable machine. And, unlike the RG-31s where, since their introduction, three vehicles have been destroyed by IEDs and enemy action, with five fatalities, as of June 2006, with more than 130 Cougars and the similar Buffalos in Afghanistan and Iraq, the vehicles have taken about 1,000 IED hits without a loss of life.

So far, therefore, we see a life-saving vehicle, designed and developed at the expense of the British taxpayer, being successfully introduced into the US forces, while our own defence procurement minister declares that a much smaller vehicle, based on the same technology, is far too big for our troops. They must continue to use lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rovers. Of the eight Tempests still presumably in service in the British Army, we know nothing of their whereabouts.

Incidentally, when researching for what amounts to the first part of this story, I was puzzled by the absence of photographs of Land Rovers that had been hit directly by IEDs. I have since found one from a different conflict and can now see why. After a hit, there is often nothing left but smouldering wreckage, barely recognisable as a vehicle – compare and contrast (above right) with the picture of the Cougar above.

Even with this, though, the story does not end. To complete the saga we must go back to the British Army Mambas in Bosnia – those which the MoD was so eager to dispose of.

While in the Balkans, the Army came across a new and more deadly type of mine – the TMRP-6 "shaped charge" mine - for which the Mambas provided no defence. A South African technology company therefore was commissioned to design counter-measures which were applied to the Mambas.

The lessons learned, however, did not stop there. Applying them and the technology that went into the RG-31, Alvis PLC set about building as a private venture a brand new, state-of-the art armoured patrol/ reconnaissance vehicle which emerged as the Scarab (above, left).

This vehicle was then offered to the MoD in the 2001 competition for the Army's Future Command and Liaison Vehicle (FCLV), alongside the RG-31 and its smaller brother, the RG32M and the Fench-designed ACMAT. We covered this competition extensively in earlier posts, here, here and here. Without revisiting all the details, suffice it to say that the MoD introduced another vehicle to the competition, the Italian-built Iveco Panther (below, right), after the shortlist had been closed in breach of its own rules. It then went on to select it as the winner, paying £166 million for 401 vehicles, equating to £413,000 each.

And, as we now know, the MoD civil servant who was "the only person to have been intimately involved in this programme from initiation to contract award," a Mr Andrew Simpson of Bath, now works as a consultant for the Italian manufacturer.

Although a mine-protected vehicle in its own right, it is unlikely that Mr Simpson's Panther was any match for the Scarab – which has since disappeared after Alvis was taken over by BAE Systems. It is now marketing the Panther after it had been awarded the MoD contract for it.

While the Scarab, in its patrol or reconnaissance configuration, could have provided a valuable additional tool in both Iraq and Afghanistan – and given state-of-the-art protection - the Panther, barely if at all adequate as a command/liaison vehicle, would make a poor patrol vehicle. Not that the troops are likely to be given the opportunity to try it out. It is designated for the medium armoured brigades which are to form the heart of the British contribution to the European Rapid Reaction Force, in which Tony Blair has invested so much political capital.

With the money spent on this and other extravaganzas, there is no money left in the defence budget for new kit. British troops must make do with their lightly armoured "Snatch" Land Rovers. The US troops, on the other hand, can enjoy the comfort and security of their Cougars, designed and developed at British taxpayers' expense. But hey! What price soldiers' lives when European defence integration beckons?

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