Armed Forces: Capability

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for introducing his debate. I remind the House that I might still technically have an interest.

I return to just one issue that I raised at our last defence debate about the need for a large-scale overseas deployment exercise. That is where a division with at least two brigades is moved along a land line of communication of at least 500 kilometres and then the two brigades are manoeuvred around the area of operations. In other words, how do we know that our aspiration to be able to deploy at divisional level against a peer opponent is realistic? Computer-simulated or assisted exercises are no substitute. The British Army’s deployment on Exercise Saif Sareea in 2001 significantly improved the outcome of Operation Telic 1. Vital lessons were learned about equipment capability and hygiene in desert conditions.

We still have a fabulous officer corps and we should be proud of them. However, while they may be experienced in very difficult and complex operations, they are not experienced in large-scale deployments, moving brigades around the area of operations. That is a serious weakness.

Unlike many Armed Forces, we maintain a comprehensive capability and can deal with most threats. Most importantly, our capabilities are balanced—a strength that many overlook or are unaware of. But, to be a bit Rumsfeldian, there are known weaknesses, of which the staff are aware and are taking a known, calculated risk. The maritime patrol aircraft would be a good example. The risk has now become so unacceptable that something has been done about it. But there are also unknown, or at least unacknowledged, weaknesses. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I forget about the sexy G3 stuff and produce a boring and, I hope, fictitious G4 example. I do not know whether my illustrative example is real, but neither does the Minister.

Take, for instance, a rough-terrain container handling truck. This equipment is absolutely mission-critical to the logistic operation. It is very low population, especially in theatre, it is expensive and it requires specialist equipment to move it around because it is rather large and awkward, but it is not immune to breakdown or operational attrition. How can we be sure that we have enough of this equipment and other types of specialist equipment, especially if we have not tested its capability in realistic conditions on exercise? It may well be that an SO1 somewhere is well aware that we have too few, but perhaps, given that there are two spare ones in the depot, no one really listens to the problem. It is unfortunate to experience serious logistic problems on a deployment exercise, but an absolute disaster on an operation. How can we be sure that our logistics work if we do not test them realistically?

Yes, such exercises cost money, but not very much compared to the positive effect and benefits. If we do not demonstrate the capability to deploy at large or even medium scale, we still have the cost of having that capability but without our opponents being deterred by our conventional capability or our friends feeling that they need our capability. We do not necessarily need to deploy in strength in, say, the Baltic states if we can demonstrate that we are able to deploy a potent capability. Therefore I hope my noble friend will tell me that I am ill informed if I believe that the forthcoming Exercise Saif Sareea in the Middle East is to be a pathetic battle group rather than a proper medium-scale deployment.