UK Defence White Paper 2003

Maritime

4.10 Our emphasis in the maritime environment is increasingly on delivering effect from the sea onto the land, which includes a land attack capability, supporting forces ashore and on securing access to the theatre of operations and protecting the crucial sea lines of communications from the home base. The new amphibious ships coming into service over the next two years, together with the existing small aircraft carriers and Tomahawk land attack missiles, offer a versatile capability for projecting land and air power ashore. We are developing the increased use of secure joint sea-based logistics, particularly for operations where Host Nation Support is limited or where, for force protection or political reasons, we would wish to reduce our ashore footprint. The introduction of the two new aircraft carriers with the Joint Combat Aircraft early in the next decade will offer a step increase in our ability to project air power from the sea.

The Type 45 destroyer will enhance protection of joint and maritime forces and assist force projection. Some of our older vessels contribute less well to the pattern of operations that we envisage, and reductions in their numbers will be necessary.

Land

4.11 Future land forces will be equipped and trained to deliver a decisive impact across the full spectrum of operations.

An appropriate force package will be selected for each operation, drawing from a flexible and balanced land force structure. UK land forces currently consist of a mix of heavy and light capabilities. The former offer firepower, integral tactical mobility and protection necessary to carry out ground manoeuvre warfare but require a considerable effort to deploy and support on operations. Light forces in contrast can deploy rapidly anywhere in the world but lack much of the firepower, mobility and protection to conduct decisive operations against an enemy equipped with armour and mechanised forces. To increase our flexibility in responding to crises, a new set of medium weight forces will be developed, offering a high level of deployability (including by air), together with much greater levels of mobility and protection than are currently available to light forces.

4.12 Medium weight forces will not, however, remove the requirement for heavier armoured forces, the attributes and advantages of which were demonstrated in the conflict in Iraq. Heavy forces will continue to be held for operations where the greater protection and combat power offered by Challenger 2, Warrior and AS 90 is required. Moving to a more graduated and balanced structure of light, medium and heavy forces will over time lead to a reduced requirement for main battle tanks, other heavy armoured fighting vehicles and heavy artillery, offset by a new requirement for medium-weight forces based on the Future Rapid Effects System family of vehicles. We judge that we can reduce the size of our armoured forces now. We intend to create a new light brigade and reduce the number of armoured brigades from three to two. This new brigade will both enhance our existing intervention capability and enable the Army to meet more easily the roulement demands posed by enduring peace support tasks through the availability of an additional pool of combat forces as well as key logistics and other specialist enablers.

Plans for future Army forces structures are still evolving – further details will be announced in 2004.

4.13 The forthcoming introduction of the Apache attack helicopter represents a step change in capability compared to current in-service helicopters. Attack helicopters will be in high demand to support the full range of contingent tasks, not just Large Scale operations. We are therefore reviewing how best to integrate the capability into an Army force structure optimised for Medium and Small Scale operations.

Air

4.14 We want to be able to project air power from both the land and the sea, offering capabilities across the range of air operations, but with a clear emphasis on offensive effect. Storm Shadow missiles will provide an air launched long range stand-off precision strike capability, while the increasing availability of ‘smart’ bombs such as Paveway IV ensure high degrees of accuracy in our offensive operations. Additionally, Typhoon and the addition of the Joint Combat Aircraft, will offer much greater flexibility and balance in the air component of the future, reducing the need for singlerole fast jets. Multi-role capability will also allow deployed force packages to be smaller where coverage of multiple roles have previously required additional aircraft. We are now considering how and when we should reduce the numbers of combat aircraft in order to reflect these developments

Strategic Enablers and Logistics

4.15 The increased frequency and duration of operations has emphasised the need to plan carefully and utilise our logistic enablers to best effect. This has led us to consider logistics as a component of capability in its own right.

Recent deployments have reinforced the importance of visibility of assets, and better understanding of the relationship between lead times and stockpiles, in order to improve the synergy between our stock-holding requirement and ‘smart’ contracts with industry (either to stockpile for us, or to manufacture quickly as and when required). This in turn will enable us to reduce logistic risks in our planning for future operations.

4.16 We will also strive to minimise logistic demand by improving the inherent reliability and ease of maintenance of equipment, and the effectiveness and efficiency of engineering and asset management processes. This will be optimised within the logistic elements of the NEC framework.

4.17 The requirement to plan to support three concurrent operations, one of which is an enduring peace support operation, requires rebalancing and further investment in a range of strategic enablers and logistics. We will seek to reorganise logistic enablers to maximise their utility on expeditionary operations, seeking to project a smaller, lighter and more rapidly deployable initial presence, while alleviating the demands placed on specialist personnel.

4.18 Such rapid deployment of land and air combat power is dependent on having sufficient sea and air transport with the capacity to lift over-size loads.

The core of this capability will continue to centre on the C-130 fleet, and the A400M when the latter replaces older C-130s from 2011. We have already announced that we are considering the options for retaining a small force of C-17s after A400M enters service, in order to carry the largest air deployable items. We now also have our fleet of six Roll-on/Roll-off vessels that proved their worth in moving our forces to the Gulf. They are crucial to achieving a rapid build up for Medium Scale operations. Entering service next year will be the first of four new Landing Ships Dock (Auxiliary) which will replace the older Landing Ships Logistic – each new ship will be capable of deploying twice the quantity of vehicles and stores of their predecessors. We also have plans to procure new ships under the Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability programme, which, when in service, will deliver afloat support to deployed forces. For larger, more deliberate operations, we will continue to need to charter both air and sea lift to augment this core capability.