Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
SIR ROBERT
WALMSLEY AND
VICE-ADMIRAL
SIR JEREMY
BLACKHAM
Mr Gapes
80. May I ask you about the decisions about
airlift? As you are aware, the Ministry of Defence has had a long-term
airlift requirement which was for 45 future large aircraft or
their equivalent in C-17s or C-130Js. Last week the Secretary
of State's welcome announcement said that 25 A400Ms would be purchased.
Can you explain why the requirement was reduced from 45 to 25?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I think we said
the requirement was for up to 45 future large aircraft. What we
have been doing is a great deal of balance work and as a matter
of interest we are trying to replace 51 Hercules C-130Ks. We have
already purchased 25 C-130Js.
Chairman
81. Are they operational now? I did not realise
that.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) No, not yet, but
nor have any of the C-130Ks gone out of operation yet either.
82. When is the air force actually going to
have them.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) It has some now
and they are entering service. There has even been a ceremony
to celebrate the arrival.
83. I wish I had known; I would have come. When
are the Hercules C-130Js going to be deployed. Could you let us
know?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I am afraid I shall
have to get back to you with a date on that.[3]
Mr Gapes
84. When you said "up to 45", 25 is
a fair way up from 25 to 45, is it not?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Yes.
If I may continue, the 25 A400Ms will carry a great deal more
than the 25 Hercules they are replacing, around one and a half
times more. So the total amount of airlift available would be
significantly greater than it is today. Of course airlift is not
the only issue when you are putting a force into some part of
the world, not even if it is the Joint Rapid Reaction Force. There
is a whole range of equipment and stores which require sealift
as well, so we have to achieve a balance between the two. We have
to achieve the most sensible balance in the light of the programme
as a whole. That balance of investment work, which is one of the
important things my organisation was set up to do, has been going
forward and we concluded that the right answer, assuming the other
parts of the lift, both air and sea, is 25 A400Ms.
85. Will these 25 be enough to move the Joint
Rapid Reaction Force?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) The question is
not capable of being answered in that way. No aircraft would be
enough to move the Joint Rapid Reaction Force because it consists
also of tanks and other heavy items which will have to go by sea.
It will be enough to ensure that the lead elements of the Joint
Rapid Reaction Force can be supplied by air.
86. If we were deploying the Joint Rapid Reaction
Force, over what timescale would such a deployment be possible
and how would that compare with the current time it would take
to deploy it?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I am afraid I am
going to give a rather vague answer again because the Joint Rapid
Reaction Force is a large golfbag of forces and those forces add
a whole range of different relevances ranging from 48 hours out
to a number of days. The elements you select will obviously depend
on the operation you envisage and whom you are doing it with and
so forth and what elements you have agreed to contribute. The
Joint Rapid Reaction Force as a whole may never be deployed anywhere
in any circumstances or indeed it may be deployed in three or
four different places with different clubs being selected for
the purpose. To specify how the Joint Rapid Reaction Force might
be moved and in what timescale, apart from deciding where this
is and what distance it is at, which is a pretty critical part
of any sum like that, is not really something we would engage
in. We are trying to answer the question: can we deploy the lead
elements, the ones at high readiness, in the timescale of their
readiness? The answer is that we shall be able to do so when we
have acquired those aircraft.
87. Let us concentrate then on the heavy stuff.
You mentioned tanks. Clearly if we need to deploy things which
are heavy, we still would be requiring transport by sea of this
heavier equipment.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Yes.
88. Does that mean that there is not really
much flexibility for deploying heavier follow-on forces by air
under this requirement?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) We have not envisaged
deploying those sorts of elements by air and of course it is easier
to look at a tank but a tank by itself will not achieve very much;
it is usually a squadron or a regiment or brigade of tanks. That
also spawns a need for a range of other recovery equipment, fuelling
equipment and so forth, all of which is, in terms of its weight
and numbers, not suitable for airlift, which is why of course
we are providing sealift. Obviously if, as time goes by, we can
find faster forms of sealift, and that is a gleam in a range of
people's eyes, that will affect the balance between air and sea
possibly and it would improve our ability to get things quickly
to various parts of the world. We will always need a range of
sealift to take the heavy equipment.
89. As I understand it we are leasing these
four C-17s and they can carry tanks.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) They can carry
one tank each.
90. As long as we have the C-17s, presumably
we could then get heavier equipment into theatre than we shall
be able to once the lease has ended.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) A C-17 could take
one tank, but as I have already said, a tank by itself is not
up to much. You have to have a range of other equipment and that
was not a factor in our decision to acquire C-17s.
91. You are not concerned that we would lose
the capability to move heavier equipment with a C-17 once the
lease had come to an end?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) No. If I could
move a whole regiment of tanks and their supporting equipment
by air, that would be a very convenient thing to do, but I cannot
see that is ever going to be a practical proposition. No, I am
not worried. It was never part of the early requirement that we
should be able to do that.
92. You do not see a need in the long term for
rapid deployment of heavy armour and main battle tanks.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I do and the way
I should like to do it would be by fast ship.
93. Only by fast ship.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Yes, because of
the weight of numbers you can get in in a single day lift.
94. Are you doing any work on the possibility
of deploying tanks by air, either in terms of aircraft or by reducing
the weight of tanks so they would be more easily deployable?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) It is certainly
something I am interested in. Clearly there are two parts to deployability:
one is the vehicle to deploy things in and the other is a deployable
vehicle. If we could solve the problem of having tanks with the
same level of protection as they now have but weighing much less,
that would be highly desirable. Work is going on in the United
States in that area and we are earnestly watching it.
95. Only in the United States.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) As far as I am
aware and we are watching it.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I would just say that one of
those programmes with the United States is the TRACER programme
which is for a much lighter vehicle; it weighs about one third
of what a main battle tank weighs.
96. As things stand we are not really able to
deploy tanks or heavier equipment by air for the foreseeable future.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) No, and we are
not alone in that regard.
Mr Cann
97. At the moment I think we have a very good
operation on the ground in Sierra Leone where we have put a spearhead
battalion on the ground, the SAS, a company of Gurkhas, we have
ships at sea with marines on board, a perfect operation as far
as I can see to date, touch wood. What do we want to buy all these
aircraft for? Why can we not keep leasing Antonovs and things
like that? Has that been gone into? I am not one to argue for
privatisation but it does seem to me that this has been achieved
in the power projection way that the Government wanted through
the SDR, so why do we have to invest in all these aircraft? Please
prove me wrong.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) As you rightly
said, there are some Antonovs on the market now. The A400M is
going to be in service in 2030 or 2040, which is probably beyond
the Antonov's life. The Antonov was obviously something we considered
carefully in assessing our short-term requirement, the one for
which we have just announced the lease of four C-17s. I am slightly
treading on CDP's toes here but the Antonov has some significant
disadvantages when compared with the C-17. In particular it is
not nearly as manoeuvrable on the runway and therefore requires
much more airport area for a much longer period of time than does
the C-17 and therefore in terms of fast deployments in operational
situations it is less effective and less efficient than the C-17.
98. Could we keep leasing the C-17s?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) We are leasing
the C-17 now, but our requirement does not demand the lift of
tanks, which is why the A400M, which has been designed specifically
to meet our requirement, is in fact ideal.
Mr Gapes
99. If we do not need the capability of the
C-17, why are we leasing C-17s?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Because we do not
have A400Ms today.
3 See p 93 Q5. Back
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