Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
WEDNESDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2004
GENERAL SIR
MIKE JACKSON
KCB CBE DSO ADC GEN
Q260 Mike Gapes: You mention network
enabled capabilities and this is probably an appropriate time
to deal with those questions and then to move on to something
else. The Secretary of State has talked about "the exploitation
of the opportunities presented by new technologies and network
enabled capability". You have mentioned them, but to what
extent can these be exploited to the full in the land environment?
What constraints do you face in this, particularly in bringing
them in quickly?
General Sir Mike Jackson: I think
that you have put your finger on an eternal dimension. It is not
just about NEC, network enabled capabilities. The land environment
is more complex than my comrades-in-arms in the air and at sea.
If you take a warship, to equip that warship with all of the electronic
side of life that it needs, you have a single large platform and
you can deal with that technically in whichever way. You do not
need within that ship to have different parts connected, other
than obviously by voice within the ship itself. If you take a
deployed field army, my analogy is always the orchestra. You have
a number of instruments in the orchestra and they are spread out.
Somewhere there is a conductor; hopefully, they all have the same
sheet of music, and you try to get all that working together.
It is more complex. It therefore means that producing the maximum
value from better communications is a more complex thing, because
you are talking about every man now with his personal role radio.
You are talking about every vehicle with some sort of radio. Getting
all of that together is a complex business. Whether we are maximising,
I cannot answer that question because I do not know what the maximum
is. You do not know until you have got there. What I do know,
as I said a moment ago, is that we are putting a great deal of
effort—again, I hesitate to use the phrase and I was caught
up a little bit earlier for it—into something along the
lines of a quantum jump. Not the least is that we will be on secure
radio all the time. If you have ever had the joys of using code
at three o'clock in the morning, when it is pouring with rain
and you are trying to get it off a code sheet, you will realise
just what a huge jump forward having a secure radio at low level
is.
Q261 Mike Gapes: There have been
some reports about radiation burns and some other problems with
Bowman. The radio system might be secure, and it might be developed—
General Sir Mike Jackson: But
it sets you on fire? No, it does not.
Q262 Mike Gapes: Are you happy with
the operations of Bowman or are there difficulties at present?
General Sir Mike Jackson: Like
any major equipment programme which is groundbreaking in its technology,
you cannot expect everything to go perfectly from day one, because
life just is not like that. There have been—it is no secret—some
teething problems with this first tranche of Bowman, and you allude
to one of them. These are being worked through; modifications
are being done. I am not in any way downhearted by the way Bowman
is starting to enter service. There is more to be done of course,
because we have only got through about one and a half brigades'
worth of conversion yet. So I am not saying there are not teething
problems, but I do not see them as being fatally flawed.
Q263 Mike Gapes: The White Paper
talks about priorities to deliver network enabled capabilities
over three interconnected phases. Could you enlarge on that? What
are the priorities and what timescale are you talking about?
General Sir Mike Jackson: I described
NEC, network enabled capability, as much as a concept as not being
a single black box. There is some jargon here, which I am very
happy to share with you. The initial phase is characterised by
interconnection. In other words, things can connect one with another
without difficulty. The transitional phase, the second, is integration—where
you do better than that and you have the whole thing together.
The mature phase is characterised by synchronisation—we
are all informed, everywhere, everything. That is a conceptual
approach. There are many parts to this in terms of hardware. We
have talked about Bowman. There is the whole defence information
infrastructure, DII. That is all part of this as well. There is
a great deal.
Q264 Mike Gapes: What timescale are
we talking about? Are we talking about all three things happening
at the same time, or one after the other?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
they are sequential. We are looking for that first stage, the
initial stage, by 2007, the transitional phase by 2015, and the
mature phase beyond that. I think that it would be almost plucking
figures out of the air. So this is not an overnight wave of some
magic wand. It is not the arrival of a gee-whizz black box: it
is a very progressive programme, which depends on equipment which
is just coming in now, and some yet to come in.
Q265 Mr Havard: I was at a meeting
yesterday evening, with the Commandant General of Marines explaining
what he had seen in Iraq, what they had done, and a general discussion
about it. What was interesting was that he said that he had seen
two task-led—this was crucial to his command and control
and his view of the battle space and so on—and he said from
this experience he began to understand what he thought network
enabled capability could be—so that he could have UAVs,
helicopters, and so on. That is interesting. However, what also
came from that was the formation of things which made that up.
It is something you were saying earlier on, about a light, heavy,
medium, and so on. From what I understood he was saying, the formation,
the Marines' model, that they would like to see in the future
will include—and I understand you sort of agreed with it—main
battle tanks going with them into the littoral environment to
conduct ops. So the formation is a number of things, in order
to allow the capability to be connected together; because if all
the elements are not there then some are not in the connection,
are they?
General Sir Mike Jackson: There
is nothing new in putting main battle tanks into a marine force.
We have done that for many years. But it was done—you are
absolutely right—on the Al Faw peninsula. I would look at
this one—and this is almost mother's milk—as the way
you task-organise for a particular mission in that all-arms environment.
We are trained from the word go to think in an all-arms environment;
to be able to regroup from one task to another, so that you get
the right order of battle. At whatever level you may be talking
about—at battle group, at brigade, at division—this
regrouping, this sorting out of your order of battle right to
the next task, is bread and butter to us.
Q266 Mr Havard: So the network enabled
capability allows you to manage that process better at the time
of conflict.
General Sir Mike Jackson: Absolutely.
Q267 Mr Havard: But also presumably
leads you to be able to put the formation together, does it?
General Sir Mike Jackson: Of course
the formation itself has its default setting, which is its peacetime
structure which is, if you like, generalised. Take an armoured
brigade with its main battle tank regiment, its two armoured infantry,
its guns, engineers, sappers, et cetera. That is a peacetime structure
which is a general approach, but you can add to that, you can
take away from that, according to the particular tasking in hand.
Q268 Mr Havard: So is the network
enabled capability then leading you to break down the demarcation
lines which traditionally have been there within the armed services
about who forms what and how the traditional structures are built,
so that you can have the ability to pick and choose elements you
wish to put into any given formation with much more flexibility?
Is the idea of network enabled capability driving the reorganisation
change, or how is it working?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
I would not say that is right.
Q269 Mr Havard: Or is it for other
reasons?
General Sir Mike Jackson: The
language here is quite interesting. In the United States they
call it "network-centric warfare". "Centric"
is an interesting word there, is it not? That implies that the
network is at the centre. Our view is somewhat different, because
we do not quite see it that way.
Q270 Mr Havard: That is wrong.
General Sir Mike Jackson: At the
end of the day, being an infantry officer—if I may indulge
for a moment—you have infantry soldiers at the point of
decision. They will be at the centre, in that sense of decision-making.
I believe our phrase, "network enabling", is absolutely
right. Better, more sophisticated, and faster communications enable
us to do things we have done before—I am not saying that
regrouping is anything new, far from it—but much more quickly,
smoothly, securely, more easily.
Q271 Mr Viggers: I am sure we all
support the concept of network enabling capabilities that you
have been referring to, but as there has been some publicity for
two of the areas, could you say a word more about the difficulties
that you have been experiencing? As to Bowman, the publicity has
focused on these practical implications of the installation of
Bowman into a Land-Rover—top-heavy, breaking the chassis,
and so on. Could you say a word as to whether Bowman's difficulties
are practical in terms of implementation, or are they technical—which
might indicate a longer-term problem?
General Sir Mike Jackson: My best
judgment here is that there may be an element of both there. I
am not an expert when it comes to electronics and communication,
and all that. What I do know is that the Bowman system is very
ambitious. It is a whole leap forward in technology. I am aware
of the report about the weight. I do not think it is as serious
as perhaps some newspapers try to make out. It will be worked
through, and we will not accept something which is not going to
do the job. We are very clear about that, but I do not think we
are at that point.
Q272 Mr Viggers: Would you similarly
say a word about ASTOR, the airborne stand-off radar, about its
application and the problems it has experienced?
General Sir Mike Jackson: Now
we go back to this question of what does NEC mean. Information
is all part of that. That airborne radar is going to be quite
a jump forward on anything we have now. Airborne radar uses the
principle which we have used elsewhere, but this is a tailor-made
aircraft and we very much look forward to it coming into service.
I am sorry, the second part of your question was . . .?
Q273 Mr Viggers: The delay which
has been experienced and the timeframe within which you see that
being resolved.
General Sir Mike Jackson: The
ISD, as I understand it, is 2005, next year. I cannot help you
more than that. That is, into service date. Forgive me for using
alphabet soup.
Q274 Mr Roy: Can we move on to restructuring
the regiments? General, you will know that there is significant
opposition to the restructuring programmes, especially from Scotland
and the area I represent which takes in the King's Own Scottish
Borderers. What progress have you made towards reaching a consensus
on that particular restructuring programme of the regiments?
General Sir Mike Jackson: You
will be aware that the Secretary of State, as part of his July
announcement, said that the Army would reduce its order of battle
by four battalions, and he said that one of those would be found
from the six battalions currently recruited in Scotland and three
from those recruited in England. So be it. You also heard me speak
earlier about the inevitable requirement, having decided to stop
arms plotting, to restructure the infantry on to a large regiment
basis, so that we can move individuals around with them still
feeling that they are identified with their own regiment and they
are not having to go from one regiment to another, with all the
administrative difficulties and lack of identity that that incurs.
So the Army Board then asked the divisions of infantry—you
know how we split up the infantry into six divisions—and
said, "We need to restructure on to regiments of at least
two battalions", but that left the door open for more if
that was suitable. What we want to do, if we can achieve it, is
to get the Army Board's top-down direction on this meshed with
the wishes of the divisions themselves coming bottom-up. If we
can mesh those two together, then we will achieve what we must,
and have done it pretty smoothly. I am not saying yet that we
have achieved that, and the definitive announcement is not going
to be made for a little while yet—certainly this side of
Christmas. The exact date is not yet clear, and the Army Board
has a final meeting yet to come.
Q275 Mr Roy: Can I just clarify?
The Army Board will not be coming back with a decision on the
Scottish regiments this year?
General Sir Mike Jackson: It will,
this year.
Q276 Mr Roy: It will or it will not?
General Sir Mike Jackson: It will.
Again, let me be constitutionally correct here. I say "the
Army Board will . . ."—it will recommend of course
to the Secretary of State. I have spoken to the Secretary of State
on many an occasion about this, and we are both quite clear that
we need to have this sorted out this side of Christmas—and
clear and announced.
Q277 Mr Roy: When will the Army Board
make their decision? When is that due? Is it this week or next
week?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
it is not as imminent as that. I cannot give you an exact date
because it has not yet been decided, but we are quite clear that
the announcement needs to be made and made public this side of
Christmas.
Q278 Mr Roy: Would that mean there
is a possibility that that could be made during the Christmas-New
Year recess of Parliament?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No.
You are taking me into areas which are arguably not properly my
call, but the intention is to get it done well before we break
for Christmas. Does that help?
Q279 Mr Roy: That is very helpful.
Probably not agreeable, but at least it is helpful.
General Sir Mike Jackson: I said
before, Mr Roy, that I understand and sympathise hugely with the
emotional pain which this restructuring brings with it; but I
would not be wishing that on anybody if there was no point in
doing it. That would be a stupid thing to do. I do believe the
prize, which I have outlined, of an infantry which is structured—I
hope for a generation or two to come—is greater than this
difficulty of getting from A to B. I do not want another Army
Board to go through what we are going through now, and to have
done so three times before. It is time to move on.
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