Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1060
- 1079)
WEDNESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2003
AIR CHIEF
MARSHAL SIR
MALCOLM PLEDGER
KCB OBE AFC, BRIGADIER DEREK
JEFFREY, COLONEL
DAVID MARTIN,
BRIGADIER SEUMAS
KERR CBE AND
BRIGADIER SHAUN
COWLAM CBE
Q1060 Mr Hancock: Were you surprised
when you read the evidence that we have already had? You said,
Brigadier, that you had read the evidence about the ammunition,
but we are not talking about the odd soldier. This was a pretty
well-informed bunch of men and women who were actually expected
to do the fighting. They did not have enough rounds of ammunition.
There were helicopter crews who told us that they had insufficient
ammunition. They had a fifteen second burst worth of ammunition;
instead of having hundreds of bullets in the aircraft they had
tens of bullets. That, to them, seemed to be pretty unsatisfactory.
That was not a daily occurrence, that was a weekly occurrence
until it was remedied. I would be interested to know, if you have
read the evidence, if you have more to say to rebut what was said
to us.
Brigadier Cowlam: As a result
of my previous appearance in front of the Committee when I think
it was raised that helicopters only had four hundred rounds of
ammunition for operations, we did an investigation involving the
Joint Helicopter Command and the Joint Helicopter Force. We looked
at the various reports and returns that were submitted through
the chain of command and we interviewed the personnel responsible
for provision of ammunition to the Joint Helicopter Force. I think
the incident that was reported to you was very early on, just
after deployment, before operations, when training was constrained
because we did not have enough ammunition of the correct types
available at that time. However, there is no suggestion that the
Joint Helicopter Force deployed, on operations, with a shortage
of ammunition.
Q1061 Mr Hancock: That is not quite
what was told to us, Brigadier. They had a container full of blanks;
there was plenty of blank ammunition there that had been deployed
to theatre. Did you hear about that?
Brigadier Cowlam: All that I can
say is that we analysed the reports returned—
Q1062 Mr Hancock: Did you hear about
the container full of blanks that was sent to one unit?
Brigadier Cowlam: No.
Q1063 Mr Hancock: That was in the
evidence as well.
Brigadier Cowlam: Moving on to
the shortage of individual ammunition, on initial deployment when
self-defence was the issue, the ammunition that was available
in theatre which was limited at the very early stage, was spread
across the force so that every unit had some ammunition.
Q1064 Mr Hancock: So you are saying
to us, Brigadier, that when our troops went into action or hostilities
actually started, there was no shortage of ammunition either defending
air bases nor for those troops who were on the front line? There
was no shortage of ammunition for any of those personnel when
they went into active service.
Brigadier Cowlam: Yes, I am saying
that.
Q1065 Mr Hancock: That is fine. That
will be in the record and is different from what we have been
told.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
We will go back again and find this statement to put it into the
right context and provide the response to our looking at it. If
this is a real lesson then we must learn it. That is operational
risk that we need not actually take on.
Q1066 Mr Jones: You said there was
not much ammunition in theatre. In the early stages was it because
there was a problem getting the ammunition distributed in the
right types and mixes to the different areas?
Brigadier Cowlam: There was a
very significant challenge in getting it issued. Certainly I was
under considerable pressure by one UK armoured division to get
the ammunition forward quickly. I had to temper that with what
was physically possible in terms of making sure that correct and
safe processes were maintained. One of the reasons I am so confident
that there was no shortage of ammunition is that just before we
went into operation you can imagine this naturally becomes the
most important factor. We went to great lengths to make sure that
there was sufficient ammunition available to all the forces in
the quantities that they required to enable operations.
Q1067 Mr Jones: Can you just talk
us through what the process is, for example once the ammunition
arrives in theatre or sits on the dock side, what is the process
of getting that from there to the front line units? How does,
for example, the quartermaster up front request back?
Brig Cowlam We will talk the
specifics of Telic because that will paint the picture. Most of
the ammunition arrived in Shuaiba Port in Kuwait. Because the
port is not designed to handle ammunition, the ammunition could
not be held in the port at all so it was moved very quickly into
a desert site in southern Kuwait called Fox. In Fox the containers
were de-stuffed. The ammunition was taken onto account by 6th
Supply Regiment. They transferred the ammunition into unit loads
onto flat racks. The allocation of ammunition to a particular
unit was based on generic scalings. We know a unit's size; we
know how many weapons of different types; we know the scaling
of ammunition that had been allocated to that. Therefore we could
configure those flat racks for the units. The flat racks were
then moved forward both into TA Coyote in northern Kuwait and
forward—in the case of 7th Brigade—to TA Barnsley.
That would marry up with the divisional logistic organisation
who were then responsible for the distribution forward to the
brigade and to the battle group. It was a very complex and a very
large scale task, but at that stage of the campaign that was the
number one priority.
Q1068 Mr Crausby: We are really trying
to get to the bottom of why there were any shortages. There were
clearly some shortages. With something of this size there were
bound to be some shortages. I want to examine why it happened.
Was it as a result of manufacturers saying they did not want to
prepare the boots because they had plenty of other orders? Was
that a difficulty?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
I think again it will be a whole series of different interactions.
The boots issue, for example, boiled down in the end to a matter
of sizing. Having placed a certain number on a mean average distribution,
unfortunately when it gets to whichever unit it is they do not
actually match that particular mean and therefore there will not
be a size 11½ size for the six people who need it.
Q1069 Mr Crausby: What about funding?
Was there any problem with funding? For instance, to replenish
stocks?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
You have heard about the UOR system. The UORs were placed against
a total requirement specified by this force. That is what the
estimate was about. Then the funding in each of the instances
you have heard was provided.
Q1070 Chairman: Did resource accounting
and budgeting add to your problems?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
It led to our problems of costing the outcome.
Q1071 Chairman: Would you elaborate
on that? It was put to us that the existence of resource planning
and budgeting meant that you got rid of a lot of stores because
it was costing you.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
You mean the origin of the problem rather than the way we solved
it using UORs. Again I think what the DLO embarked upon was a
reduction of unnecessary holding of stocks. The stock pile had
been reduced against those areas that we actually did not need
having done the estimates every year on logistic sustainability.
That is where it was deliberately targeted. The benefit of that
was in the account, but we did not reduce in those areas where
our sustainability requirements were still specified.
Q1072 Chairman: When you got rid
of the stuff did you go back to look at what you got rid of to
see whether you had made the initial decision correctly?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
No because the initial decision was done by comparing what we
had against what we needed, not simply by volumetric or financial
outcome.
Q1073 Mr Jones: Can I ask a question
on something the Brigadier Cowlam touched upon. He explained how
the system should work, but we talked to one quartermaster who
actually got into a lorry and went and got the stuff. Does that
not actually create problems if it is the survival of the fittest
in terms of going back trying to get equipment in the sense that
it breaks into a priority that perhaps you have in getting things
to the front? Is there a better way of doing that? Did this happen
and if it did happen did you learn any lessons? It is not the
one who shouts the loudest and gets there first who gets it. Would
it be better managed if it was to ensure that you get an overall
distribution rather than just the loudest first?
Brigadier Cowlam: You are absolutely
right. He who shouts the loudest should not necessarily get the
best service. There were several instances where units, rather
than rely on the supply chain to deliver forward to them—because
they knew the pressure and the time delays involved—did
go backwards to both the brigade divisional and logistic brigade
depot and collect their ammunition. You could argue that that
is a welcome development because that is a better concurrent use
of transport. Is it our doctrine? No, but we can understand that
if units wish to have ammunition earlier than what is programmed
then it may be a sensible thing to do. We would not turn people
away at the depot telling them they cannot collect their ammunition.
Q1074 Mr Jones: Does that not create
a great problem for you, though, if you have people turn up at
your depot actually demanding ammunition in terms of the priorities
you might have set out for getting the stuff out?
Brigadier Cowlam: We would not
issue ammunition or anything to a unit who did not have the authority
to have it issued. It is more a question of timing and is it quicker
for the unit quartermaster to go back to the depot and collect
it or wait for the supply chain to deliver? Sometimes a number
of units decided to go back and collect.
Q1075 Mr Jones: Is that something
you are looking at?
Brigadier Cowlam: Yes, it is.
Very much so.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
Can I try to answer this at a slightly higher level? I spoke earlier
about creating confidence in the end user. That is actually what
we are trying to face up to in the management challenge because
if you do not create that confidence you get that kind of behaviour;
you get scavenging; you get interruption and so on and so forth.
The dependency then does not work. We have to create confidence.
That is an area that is top of our hit parade not only in the
tracking issues but also in the management of this deployed inventory.
We have no doubt at all that we have to solve that.
Q1076 Chairman: We have the impression
that the stuff arrived fairly rationally and in most cases very,
very effectively. I would not want to give the impression otherwise.
However, once it got to the port it seemed to me to correspond
to the Liverpool docks circa 1965 when things disappeared fairly
quickly and there was no track of what had disappeared. Maybe
I am being very unfair, but I really have this image. The system
did not exactly fall apart but was working very ineffectively
and quartermasters were coming along, taking stuff away, more
than they required, so that maybe some of the boots you were looking
for went to a unit who thought they would take those boots now
because they may need them next time they come here. This was
an impression; it was not just some disgruntled soldier telling
us outside the room we were being briefed in. Of course you know
about this and hopefully next time around—should there be
a next time around—the system will apply more rationally.
We did have the impression that you lost track of some of the
kit. We were later told that maybe they had not been trained in
quite the right way. I hope the lessons have been learned because
they certainly need to be learned in this instance.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
I can express no surprise in your drawing that conclusion, but
I think I would like to give the opportunity to the man in theatre
just to respond briefly.
Brigadier Cowlam: You may get
the impression that I am passionately involved in this subject.
The truth is that the volume and complexity was quite a challenge.
Tales of people going down to the dockside and emptying containers
and walking off with things are not correct because we did not
hold things in the dockside because there was not the space there.
The main depot was in Fox. 6th Supply Regiment was in Fox and
did face a massive challenge to receive all this equipment and
take it on charge and account, and also to get it forward. Did
the system work as we would wish? Probably not. Could it be better?
Yes, we think so and we have identified already a number of lessons
both in process, organisation and training on the point you make.
Did our units lose confidence in the supply chain? I think they
became frustrated rather than losing confidence and the episodes
that you have described are a symptom of that. However, I also
have to say that this is the sort of thing that happen when you
have very dedicated professional soldiers at the front line becoming
frustrated because they do not have everything they need as quickly
as possible. What I was trying to do was to produce a distribution
service which met the priorities which were laid upon me. That
in no way, I hope, excuses poor performance. We are alert to difficulties
and some of the changes that we are planning will address them.
Q1077 Chairman: We were told that
there was nothing of a war winning nature that was denied, that
where there was a failure it was in things like boots, et cetera.
That is pretty uncomfortable when you do not have them, but they
were not quite as crucial. Is that a reasonable assumption?
Brigadier Cowlam: I think so because
the highest priority was on the war winning equipment, not least
the UORs. By logic, if something is going to be a high priority
there are other things which are of lesser priority. Following
the war winning equipment were vehicle spares. Could I draw your
attention to the very high availability of the vehicle fleets
throughout the campaign which suggests that the supplies were
getting through.
Q1078 Mr Hancock: You say that and
yet when the Committee visited some of the armoured units who
were actually doing the fighting, we were told that they ran dangerously
low in high explosive rounds. We heard this report on more than
one occasion. There were ammunition shortages during the main
phase of the combat operation and rounds for Challenger tanks
were in very, very short supply. In some instances tanks had no
rounds. How can you say that there was not a failure in providing
war fighting products to the troops if they were telling us that
there were tanks on the front line which did not have anything
to fire?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger:
I think again this is a matter of timing. The time at which they
were saying that was, we believe, early in the preparatory phase
in theatre. At the time of operational commitment there is, we
believe, no evidence to support that perspective.
Q1079 Mr Hancock: We have here reports
of ammunition shortages during the main phase of the combat operations,
notably of HESH high explosive rounds for Challenger 2 main battle
tanks. Why did they occur?
Brigadier Cowlam: If I could repeat
something which we covered earlier in this session over the visibility
and perspective of the unit, the unit knows what it holds but
does not have visibility of immediately what is behind it nor
in flanking units. At each level, from brigade to division to
force, there are different levels of prioritisation and asset
management. It is very difficult for me at my level to tell you
what was happening in the brigade, but having spoken to the brigade
commander at length about these issues he sequenced his battle
groups into battle. He could not fight all battle groups at once
and it may well be that on some occasions he prioritised the logistic
support to those battle groups in contact rather than those battle
groups who had just left contact. There was no shortage in theatre
of ammunition. The ammunition was readily available forward to
the front line.
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