Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 24 MAY 2000
SIR ROBERT
WALMSLEY AND
VICE-ADMIRAL
SIR JEREMY
BLACKHAM
240. That was my next question. What does that
mean? Can you define the in-service date?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I could, but I cannot remember.
I wonder if Admiral Blackham can remember. We have it defined
is what I am trying to say.
Chairman
241. I think it is in the brief and in the Major
Projects Statement. Is it a brigade?
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I believe it is
the first brigade, in fact. If that is not the case I will let
you know but I am pretty confident it is.
Laura Moffatt
242. Let us move on. Was there any scope at
all for speeding up this process? Is there anything that you can
do to make it easier for those men and women in the field who
desperately need this equipment?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) If I thought that I would not
have outlined the plans that I have just tried to do which I have
to make it clear are my plans, I have yet to persuade my colleagues
of them and, most importantly, I have yet to get ministerial authority
for them. I have laid out for you as frankly as I can how I envisage
this programme going ahead. We have undertaken this personal role
radio programme, that is designed to provide some alleviation
to infantrymen. We have set aside more money for repairing and
supporting Clansman, that is designed to provide alleviation to
people who say that it is bust. I do speak to people in the Territorial
Army and the Regular Army and some of them say "Clansman
is great, all you have got to do is fix the aerial up properly".
There are various views on whether these systems work or not.
243. So the whole process of converting units
cannot be speeded up in any way and you say your timetable is
realistic?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) We have got a fantastically
complicated computer model which I have been to look at which
shows is it better to do it all in one big factory and bring all
the units there—I am afraid, Mr Gapes, it is not in your
constituency—or is it better to do it in five places around
England. The more you put into a computer the more difficult it
is to work out what the answer is. We do not yet know the answer
but we will make the right decision on which is the quickest way
of doing it.
244. When will that decision be made? Is that
the time when you begin to know who you are going with or is that
made independently?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I think it must be nearly made
now actually.
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) There is a fielding
plan. The difficulty is to balance the withdrawal of the units
to refit them with the new equipment with the need to keep the
right number of units on the front line to conduct operations.
You do not have to read newspapers for very long to see that operations
are not that predictable. So it is not impossible that that fielding
plan may have to be adjusted in the light of what actually turn
out to be commitments.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) One of the things which we have
done in terms of making the requirement less costly is we have
discovered that if we make these units absolutely geometrically
the same as the Clansman then quite a lot of it could be fitted
in line, could be fitted while the vehicle is still retained by
the army rather than handing it over to a factory to do it. That
is the sort of example where we have changed the requirement slightly
to reduce the cost and to speed up implementation.
Chairman
245. The original vehicles that Clansman might
have fitted into, for God's sake I hope they have been sold off
or given away.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) One Land Rover looks much like
another, Chairman, and I have spoken to this Committee before
about new Land Rovers.
246. On Ms Moffatt's question about the initial
starting date, according to your memorandum that has been defined
"as the date when a brigade HQ and two battle groups are
equipped and capable of deploying on operations other than war."
That is the answer to the question but it has raised another question.
What does it mean "operations other than war"? Does
it mean to say that your standards for this equipment in a war
scenario will be different from a situation in periods other than
war?
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) What is an operation
other than war? The sort of thing that is going on in Sierra Leone
or even Kosovo is an operation other than war. In other words,
it is the kind of operation for which a brigade is a suitable
deployment. War in this context means divisional deployments in
high intensity warfare.
247. The ISD, therefore, is for a Sierra Leone
type situation. What about an actual war fighting situation, are
the standards the same or different?
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) No. The standard
of the equipment would not be different. What would be different
would be the size of the formation that you would field. In other
words, you would have to be at divisional level if you wanted
to deploy something for what we are defining as war in these circumstances
and that would take longer to achieve. We will have a deployable
brigade, as I said just now and as you have repeated, at the in-service
date. A brigade is the sort of thing that we deploy in coalition
operations or low intensity operations: Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra
Leone and so on.[2]
248. Is this a standard definition when you
say the in-service starting date is for operations other than
war? Is this used just for this case or in other cases too?
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) We
inherited a whole range of definitions of in-service dates when
we came together at the end of last year from the different services,
partly because of the way in which equipment is brought in. For
example, in the case of a ship it is handed over before it has
completed a lot of its trials and work-up because it needs a naval
crew on it to do those trials. In the case of some other equipment
it has to be handed to the user. We are now looking to see whether
we can produce a common in-service date which will revolve around
the deployability on operations. In this case it does revolve
around the deployability of a specified size of unit.
Mr Viggers
249. Switching to a different subject, the common
new generation frigate is a generic term covering both the HORIZON
frigate, which was intended to replace the Type-42, and also the
missile system. The missile system has prospered but the HORIZON
frigate project has been disbanded and has now been replaced by
the Type-45 project. Can you tell us how the Type-45 project has
proceeded?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Yes. We expect to place the
contract for what is called demonstration and first of class manufacture,
in other words ordering the first ship, or maybe it will be two
or maybe it will be three, this year. That is what we are working
towards. That leads us towards a situation where the ship will
then be deployable in the sense that Sir Jeremy has just outlined,
properly ready for operations in 2007, the first one. We are deeply
involved with the contractors in sorting out how we are going
to do this.
250. At the in-service date of 2007, how many
ships will be available?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) The first one. First of class.
251. Available to the Royal Navy then to go
through sea trials?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) No.
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) No, available for
operations. This is part of the work that we are doing to change
the definition of in-service date. So the date Sir Robert has
just given means that the ship has conducted its trials and its
work up and will be able to be deployed operationally.
252. Can you give us some idea of—
(Sir Robert Walmsley) It is either late 2005 or early
2006. It does not much matter. The contractor is in charge of
the process of taking the ship, which is then a technical entity,
out of the yard and proving its systems, that it does everything
it can. We want to hold to the date when the ship is useful, not
the date when you can push it out of the shipyard.
253. So at what point is the navy involved in
sea training?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) From the moment that the ship
passes what we formally call the acceptance date. It will be about
15 months before the in-service date.
254. What used to happen, as I understand it,
is that ships were handed over to the navy and went down to Portland
for sea training.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) That is a different sort of
training. I would just like to make it clear that a first of class
ship has to go through all its weapons systems, that is what uses
up the bulk of the time before they go to Portland. Follow on
ships are much, much quicker, it is just the operational training.
With first of class the bulk of it is proving the systems, seeing
do the missiles hit the targets as often as they are supposed
to and if they do not we will not pay the money.
255. So the date is in-service with the navy?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Spot on.
256. Does that mean that it has been through
the sea training?
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) It does. It means
that it can be deployed on operations, the Commander-in-Chief
can do want he likes with it.
257. Is this related in any way to the trimaran
which Vosper Thornycroft is bringing forward? Do you think perhaps
that lessons learned from the trimaran might influence your judgment
over the Type-45?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Absolutely not, but it is relevant
to the Type-45. There is no question of changing the Type-45 hull
into a trimaran, it would be far too soon. The trimaran has not
started its sea trials yet, as you know. The second order connection,
if I can put it like that, is that the trimaran is the first steel-hulled
ship that Vosper's have built for the British Government for a
number of years. That has reminded them about the industrial processes
and the ways of doing business on that. That prepares them very
well for what will be a pretty tough competition of quite a complex
sort for the Type-45.
258. Will the Type-45 have a high stealth specification?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I have to defer to Admiral Blackham
on that. The truth is you cannot make a ship of 6,000 tonnes disappear.
Chairman: Our last Government made lots
of ships disappear.
Dr Lewis
259. This one is not doing too badly.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Let me say to be both present
and not visible, which is a much more difficult thing. We will
do our best to reduce the stealth of the ship but it will not
be very stealthy. It has got one of the highest powered, highest
duty radars that you have ever imagined on this, so making it
stealthy is not a practical proposition.
(Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) What you can do
is take steps to reduce its signature, for example, its radar
signature, by the use of angles and the materials you use, as
has been done with the Type-23. As Sir Robert says, since you
can actually see a ship 15 or 16 miles away at sea there is nothing
you can do to make it invisible.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) It will not be following the
hull outline of the Vosper's stealth ship.
2 See p 94 Q7. Back
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