Select Committee on Defence Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1300 - 1319)

WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2003

AIR MARSHAL GLENN TORPY CBE DSO AND AIR COMMODORE CHRIS NICKOLS

  Q1300  Rachel Squire: Air Marshal, can I pick up on some of your comments so far on precision-guided munitions. Our information is, as you have already said, that they were a particular success of the Iraq campaign. Can you say whether the RAF involvement in the air campaign was restricted by the limited UK stocks of precision-guided munitions?

  Air Marshal Torpy: The simple answer to your question is that it was not limited. We had good stocks of our Enhanced Paveway, which was the new bomb. We had good stocks of our older laser-guided Paveway II and Paveway III weapons. We clearly had a limited stock of Storm Shadow, because it was just coming on to the production line; but it was adequate for the targets that the Americans particularly wanted us to fire against. Overall, I was very satisfied with our weapons stocks for the length of campaign that we envisaged.

  Q1301  Rachel Squire: Just picking up on your mention of Storm Shadow; although it was produced as an urgent operational requirement, your view was that sufficient numbers of Storm Shadow missiles were available for the use that you required of them.

  Air Marshal Torpy: That is correct. If more had been available, we could probably have found suitable targets to use them against, but they were predominantly used in the first few days of the target where they were targeted against particularly hard command-control targets, for which they were highly suitable.

  Q1302  Rachel Squire: Can you tell us today, or provide us with information in writing, on the exact number of Storm Shadow missiles that were launched and that were considered to be successful?

  Air Marshal Torpy: I can follow that up with a note to the Committee. Twenty-seven were fired. The detail of the weapons effects and such like are clearly classified, and we would have to follow it up.[4]


  Q1303  Rachel Squire: I was going to ask you about the targeting criteria adopted, but you have already referred to that, particularly the priority being given to avoidance of collateral damage—and you also said you would write to us on other things. Can I come on to the Brimstone air-launched anti-armour weapon which was originally supposed to be in service in October 2002. It would then have been available. Can I ask you to comment on the impact of not having the Brimstone for October?

  Air Marshal Torpy: There is no doubt that, as the air component commander, I would have liked to have Brimstone as one of the weapons which the crews might have had available. I think it would have had utility in certain circumstances against certain target categories. It was a weapon that, clearly, I would have liked to have used if it had become available. We did look at the feasibility of accelerating the programme, but we eventually took a judgment that with our other weapon stocks and the types of targets, it was unlikely we would be able to progress the programme sufficiently quickly to be able to use it in theatre in the way that we would like to use it.

  Q1304  Rachel Squire: If you had had Brimstone, would you have dropped fewer cluster bombs?

  Air Marshal Torpy: In likelihood, we probably would have dropped fewer cluster bombs, yes.

  Q1305  Rachel Squire: Can you comment on the criteria you used to assess the need to use cluster bombs in the operation?

  Air Marshal Torpy: In judging the weapons you use against any particular target, it is very much a judgment left to the crew, who have the detailed knowledge of the effect they are trying to achieve and the target make-up. Cluster weapons are obviously particularly relevant in the context of soft-skin vehicles, lightly armoured vehicles, and on occasions against heavy armour light tanks as well, particularly if they are grouped together. That is where cluster bombs offer a higher likelihood of killing more vehicles than one precision-guided weapon. Those are the sort of circumstances and considerations that the crew would have when judging what weapon to use against a target centre.

  Q1306  Rachel Squire: We were talking earlier about how the years of joint training and operations have brought the RAF and the USAF very close together in terms of co-operation and co-ordination. Can you therefore comment on the RAF's use of cluster bombs as compared to the Americans' use of cluster bombs? Are the criteria similar?

  Air Marshal Torpy: We all go through exactly the same thought process in terms of using the most appropriate weapon against a particular target set, taking into account collateral damage and such like as well. I think we use exactly the same principles.

  Q1307  Mr Havard: Are the cluster weapons used by the RAF and Americans set up the same for the munitions that are on the ground?

  Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot speak in detail about the American weapons, so I cannot answer your question.

  Q1308  Mr Havard: My understanding is that you can set them in such a way that the things will degrade quicker.

  Air Marshal Torpy: I cannot speak for the American weapons, I am afraid. Our weapons do not do that.

  Air Commodore Nickols: On the point about cluster weapons, you have to bear in mind the risk to your own crews, and if, with a cluster weapon had the opportunity, with a close-knit group of enemy vehicles, you are content with only one pass of your own aircraft instead of ten passes. That has to be taken into account because all the time you have got to look at the risk to your air crews as well.

  Q1309  Mr Viggers: You have explained that Jaguar was not used and that reconnaissance carrying pods were fitted to other aircraft instead. Why was Jaguar not used?

  Air Marshal Torpy: It was purely a factor of trying to find some additional room at various places to locate this aircraft. I was quite keen to use them because we knew that tactical reconnaissance is a very important capability. It is a niche capability that the RAF has developed over the years. I believe they would have had utility, as we had later in the campaign, and why we put the Jaguar recce pod on to both the Harrier and the Tornado. We were balancing the capabilities we needed and looked at what we would have to displace if we brought Jaguar in. Our judgment was that for that particular part of the campaign, it was better to stick with the structure that we had decided on, in the knowledge that we could put work in hand to bring the Jaguar recce pod on to the Harrier and Tornado later on where we always knew we were likely to need more surveillance as we transitioned into Phase 4.

  Air Commodore Nickols: You have to remember that Jaguars were operating on Operation Northern Watch, fully supporting that right up to the start of the main campaign, so they would not have been available to switch to the south until a very late stage anyway.

  Q1310  Mr Viggers: In relation to battle damage assessment, are there cultural differences between the manner of assessing battle damage by the Americans and the British?

  Air Marshal Torpy: No, not at all. Battle damage assessment is obviously a vital part of the whole execution process, which really starts with finding a target, identifying it as a target, and tracking it if it is a mobile target. If you decide to engage it, you then go through the process of deciding what you are doing to engage it with; carry out the engagement and create the effect you want. The final part of that equation is the battle damage assessment. You judge the effect you have had—"do I need to re-visit that target; have I created the effect I wanted?" It is a vital part of the whole process. The areas in that process that remain a real challenge are identifying the target, tracking it, it if it is a small target, and then the assessment afterwards. We have a vast array of collection platforms and collection capability. Joining that information together remains a challenge. As we improve our technical means in employing network-centric capabilities, then we will be able to get a better fused product, which would provide to the commander and his staffs the ability to improve both the speed and accuracy of battle damage assessment. I do not think it was perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and it is one of those areas we have identified where we need to put a lot of effort.

  Q1311  Mr Viggers: You anticipated my question. I was going to ask whether lessons were learned in terms of communication policy and communication between the Air Force and the Army. Are the systems capable of informing troops on the ground of the results?

  Air Marshal Torpy: Communications internally within the UK component is one of the major lessons of the UK out of this whole operation, and I think Air Marshal Burridge mentioned it in his evidence to the Committee. At the moment, we do not have a system like the Americans have, SIPRNET, which is used by all the components and allows very ready communication at every level between every different component in the force. We have discrete systems which are joined through suitable gateways, but it is not as efficient or as robust as the US system. Again, it has been identified as a major lesson, and indeed there is already work in hand with the Defence Information Infrastructure to provide the UK Forces with a system which will be comparable and compatible with the American system.

  Q1312  Rachel Squire: You mentioned earlier about close air support and how the core skill is air-land integration. You said that whilst there seems to be considerable satisfaction with the US Air Force and RAF co-operation, there does not appear to be the same level of peacetime exercise that took place prior to Operation Telic between land forces and US air forces. If that is the case, and there was a lack in that land-air support area, did it contribute to the need for further refinement and practice? Did even contribute to the friendly fire incidents?

  Air Marshal Torpy: As I mentioned in my other answer, air/land integration is without doubt one of those areas where we need to do more. We identified it before the campaign started. I think we are probably victims of past campaigns in that Operation Desert Storm was a discrete air operation followed by a short land campaign, and very little integrated air-land operation took place. Afghanistan was the first time we saw closer integration between air and land, but on a relatively small scale in terms of the land component. This was the first operation that I have certainly seen for many years where we have seen such close linkage between the air and land components. As a consequence of the last ten years' experience, we have forgotten some of the things that we were quite good at during the Cold War, where we had a very closely integrated air-land battle. There was an organisation called the Air Support Operation Centre, whose job it is to co-ordinate air-land operations. We have probably neglected the exercising of those over the years, for the reasons I have explained. There is a lot of work going on now on both sides of the Atlantic between our air forces and our respective armies, to look at how we can refine our procedures and create training opportunities where we can on a routine basis—I would hope daily—with air crew working with our land colleagues, doing all the things which we saw we would have to do during this operation. Importantly, we also need to exercise the whole command and control organisation from the Combined Air Operations Centre through the ASOC at a tactical level, with air controllers, be they on the ground, in the air or whatever. There is a lot of attention going into that area as we speak; and it was going on before the operation started.

  Q1313  Rachel Squire: That is clearly very good news, and I can take from that that some of your traditional training exercises are actively being examined in the light of the Iraq experience. Would you like to comment on whether you will require additional funding to implement the lessons on close air support that have been gleaned from Operation Telic?

  Air Marshal Torpy: There are probably two aspects to this. First, there are the processes—and we can sort that out and that will not have significant cost implications. Exercising may have some cost implications, depending on where we have to go to do these sorts of exercises. I know that we will be able to do some of that training in the UK. The British Army already train in a place called BATUS. We sent aircraft last year and this year to BATUS to start training in a more integrated manner with the British Army. The United States Air Force and Army have an exercise, and I hope we will be able to integrate that training in the course of our normal exercise programme. There may be additional resources required, but I do not know yet. There is also an equipment element to this as well. I mentioned in answer to another question about the need for more targeting pods, and ideally every aircraft which is going to be operating in a Close Air Support environment or Kill-box Interdiction environment should have a targeting pod so that he can identify targets. As we get increasing stand-off with our weapons, we will need improved pods which can identify targets at greater stand-off ranges. So there may be a resource bill in due course for that, but it would have to sit within the priorities of the overall programme, clearly.

  Q1314  Rachel Squire: Can I ask you about the comments of General John Jumper, the USAF Chief of Staff, who I understand has greatly increased US Air Force support to the Army by using strategic B52s and B1s. Does the RAF intend to follow his example?

  Air Marshal Torpy: One of the aspects which came out of the campaign was the utility of the large bomber force, be it B1s, B2s, B52s. They have persistence and they have a large payload, but they have to have the environment to be able to operate. Our ability to gain air supremacy quickly enables us to use those aircraft to the fullest extent. Whether that will always be the case I do not know. We would like to be able to create the conditions so you can use those sorts of assets, but there will possibly be circumstances where they cannot be used. As always, it is about having a balanced structure. The United States Air Force clearly has the resources to have capabilities that our Air Force will never be able to have. I do not think probably our Air Force needs a squadron of B1s or a squadron of B2s—

  Q1315  Chairman: Can we dig up the V bombers? The B52s are going to be older than I am before they are retired.

  Air Marshal Torpy: They certainly will be, Mr Chairman.

  Q1316  Mike Gapes: I want to ask you further about how you allocated your forces to provide air support to land forces, when air support was requested. Can you go through how that process works?

  Air Marshal Torpy: As I mentioned, in constructing a day's flying activity—and we are talking here about anything between 2,000 and 2,500 sorties—the process would have gone through the CAOC planning. We would have identified certain tasks and certain target sets which fall out of that. A request will come up from each component—land component, maritime component, special forces component, the air component—"I need, in an ideal world, these targets to be serviced in a 24-hour period". Inevitably, we will not be able to service all those targets because there will be insufficient resources, so we then prioritise. The staff in the CAOC do that in consultation with the components, so we match capability with resources and come out with agreed targets that we are going to attack. It then comes down to allocating the most appropriate platform to a particular target set. That is one of the reasons why in the CAOC there are experts on each of our weapons platforms, and they are involved in that target or that platform allocation process where they say, "for that particular target, a GR4 with Enhanced Paveway is the ideal platform." That, in general terms, is the process that goes on. That is exactly the same with Close Air Support and kill-box interdiction as well; it is trying to match a particular platform and its capabilities to the particular task. It may be that, for instance, a Harrier, which is fairly short range and short endurance, will be used closer to its base than, say, a Tornado GR4, which has a longer range and can be used deeper into the battle space. It is impossible, for instance, to say, "we are only going to use UK aircraft to support the UK land force" because that would be an inefficient use of air power. Inevitably, we would not have sufficient UK assets to provide cover for instance to a UK land component 24 hours a day. That is why air power has always been used and planned on centralised methodology; and then we decentralise the execution of the operation. It is trying to make the best use of the resources across the battle space and in time.

  Air Commodore Nickols: The percentage of sorties that go into any particular type of activity is decided at the joint level—and that was General Franks in this case. It is not decided by the Air Commander. He then gets on and allocates that. The other point that is perhaps worth making is that of those sorties that are allocated in direct support of the land commander, he decides what they do; the Air Commander does not; he merely sends them to where the land commander needs them to do his business.

  Q1317  Mike Gapes: There were liaison cells with the land forces and an embedding of this network in the Air Operation Co-ordination Centre; but how did they work in practice? Do you think there are lessons you will have learned from it? Will they be a regular feature of future operations?

  Air Marshal Torpy: You are absolutely right. I have already mentioned that I believe the Air Support Operation Centres are one of the areas to look at where we could train more appropriately and more regularly as well. There were two distinct aspects to this in the execution of Iraqi Freedom, in the use of US marine-air, and I would say other air. The US Marine Corps has a highly integrated force structure, because their air is used really to supplement their long-range artillery that the US Army or our Army has. As a consequence of that, they are highly integrated and used as long-range artillery. As a consequence, their equivalent of the Air Support Operation Centre is exercised on a very regular basis. I would not say that that was the same for the 5 Corps ASOC which was controlling a lot of the other air. We need to draw the lessons from the level of training and integration that the US Marine Corps achieved and translate those lessons across to the exercising procedures used by the other ASOCs.

  Q1318  Mr Cran: It is our understanding that the US Marine Corps has its own close air support aircraft and that these were not pooled during the campaign. Can you confirm whether that was or was not the case? The more interesting proposition is that Air Marshal Burridge told us that the Marine Corps model was worth looking at for the British Air Force. I am bound to say that that confused me, but I would like to ask what is your view of that, and if that does not clear up my confusion, I will tell you what it is.

  Air Marshal Torpy: It leads on from my previous answer. You are correct in saying that the US Marine Corps—the first priority was to support the 1st Marine Expedition Force. Any excess sorties were then offered to the CFAC to be used throughout the battle space. We can argue as to whether that is the way it should have been done, and we can have a debate with our US colleagues on that. There are some very good lessons to be learnt from the way that the US Marine Corps is integrated together, and the way in which they operate their aircraft. I do not think though, from the UK perspective, that we should follow that model of having direct support allocated to a particular army unit. I say that because of comments I made earlier about the way that air is used across the complete battle space. We need to make sure that those resources are used most appropriately at a particular phase in an operation. If you attach a particular piece of air to a particular ground formation, that will inevitably lead to inefficient use of air. We need to pick out the good bits, and there are some very good bits in the way the US Marine Corps integrate their air together. We need to make sure that those good lessons are translated into the good doctrinal practices that I believe we do have for use and control of our air.

  Q1319  Mr Cran: What are the good bits?

  Air Marshal Torpy: I think the Air Support Operations Centre is well exercised. Predominantly it is exercised on a very regular basis, and as a result of that, their performance is good. That is one of the major lessons that I would take out of the whole operation. In all other respects, their procedures are exactly the same as those used throughout the rest of the air operation—Kill-box Interdiction, Close Air Support. They are exactly the same; it was just the efficiency of the way the air was integrated together in the US Marine Corps.


4   Ev 415 Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 16 March 2004