The trouble with armoured vehicles, now over on Defence of the Realm.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
What you are not allowed to see
COMMENT THREADDead soldiers tell no tales
One of the things that is possibly upsetting the defence establishment is this blog's pursuit of the story about the Iveco Panther – the latest development I have been sitting on, while other more pressing issues were dealt with.
As it stood, we had found that this absurdly expensive machine, ordered in 2003 at a cost of over £400,000 each, had to be converted at an additional cost of £300,000 to make them suitable for use in Afghanistan, bringing the price to well over £700,000 each for a four-seater protected patrol vehicle.
However, we had also established that only 67 of these vehicles were being put through this conversion process, leaving 334 from the original batch of 401 that are basically unsuitable for deployment. Thus, it was left to Ann Winterton to ask what was to happen to the rest.
Answer there came from Quentin Davies that the remainder would be used for pre-deployment training individual and collective training, and trials and development. Never in the field of human conflict, he might have observed, have so many been used to train so few.
The more serious point is that, while the Army is crying out for protected vehicles, we have these useless machines stuck at home, when a fraction of the cost could have bought decent protected vehicles and had them in theatre.
Apart from Booker, however, only Defence Management was taking an interest in this procurement disaster. The rest of the media (and most of the politicians) - so full of faux concern for "Our Boys" - isn't interested in getting its hands dirty and actually reporting what is going on.
But then, an in-house cock-up by the MoD does not fit the narrative. Unless the story is about Gordon Brown and his "penny pinching", leaving "Our Boys" without the kit they need, the popular media does not want to know.
It is actually too much to hope for a responsible media though. Even if the story was handed to it on a plate, it would probably get it wrong and, if anyone gets near reporting the truth, we see the result . 
However, one of the pieces can still be found on Google cache. This is what you are not allowed to see:Hundreds of Panthers cannot deploy
Even this fairly anodyne report, however, is too much for the defence establishment. It is far more important to stifle criticism than to protect "Our Boys" from getting murdered by the Taleban. In one of the more recent strikes, they only pulled the top half of the driver out of the vehicle. There was nothing else of him left. But hey! Dead soldiers tell no tales.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The MoD has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on a new armoured vehicle that will mainly be used for training in non-operational settings.
Only 67 Panther armoured vehicles are in suitable condition to operate safely in Afghanistan according to the MoD.
Yesterday the minister for defence equipment and support Quentin Davies admitted to MPs in a written answer that 334 of the Panther armoured vehicles "will be used for pre-deployment training, individual and collective training, and trials and development."
The Panther Command and Liaison Vehicle (CLV) was procured earlier this decade to provide commanders and combat support services with better protection when they are on the battlefield. At £400,000, it will undoubtedly serve as one of the most expensive Army training vehicles, ever.
The vehicle has been riddled with problems from the outset, resulting in just 67 being available for Afghan operations due to a lack of capability requirements.
In May Defencemanagement.com revealed that none of the vehicles had originally been delivered with the required capabilities for Afghan operations, despite extensive field tests in Afghanistan earlier this decade. As a result, procurement officials were forced to spend an additional £20m upgrading just 67 vehicles.
This resulted in further delays to a programme that was already running over a year late.
The vehicle additions included a better protected engine compartment, the addition of Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) equipment, air conditioning and adding space for a fourth crew member to the vehicle.
Richard North, author of "Ministry of Defeat" said recently that the Panther "is a fine modern product of the Italian automobile industry, and therefore completely unsuitable for military use."
The outer portion of the vehicle, when hit by an IED or landmine is likely to be permanently damaged.
According to a National Audit Office Report, the MoD originally planned to buy 486 of the vehicles but due to "affordability" issues, was later forced to reduce the order to 401 Panthers. It is not clear whether the MoD will pay for the other 334 Panthers to be upgraded to combat standards.
As the threat from IEDs and landmines has grown, so has the demand for better protected vehicles. Ministers insist that they are sparing no expense in ensuring that troops have the best protection money can buy. However problems with the Snatch, Vector, Viking, Jackal and now Panther, leave these claims in doubt.
COMMENT THREADThe censor strikes
We've been getting quite a good press recently in one particular specialist journal, Defence Management. But no more. All the stories they have placed which mention this blogger (bar one which seems to have escaped) have been pulled. A search on the site yields the results shown above.
By way of a replacement, one of the latest feature stories is a puff for the Jackal, demonstrating that this journal has been pulled into line.
We knew this was going on, of course – and was bound to happen, ever since I published Ministry of Defeat. The MoD will not confront the issues raised directly. Instead, creature of the night that it is, it briefs behind the scenes, warning journalists not to touch it. And those that do can expect a torrid time.
That is the way the system works. The action is never overt – banning the book, for instance, or raising a "D-notice" would have raised the profile of the book. But, overt or not, the message is clear: informed criticism is not allowed.
COMMENT THREADPropaganda daily
Embraced by the BBC and occupying nearly half a page in the print edition ofThe Daily Telegraph - the warmists' favourite newspaper – is an outrageous "puff" for the rather seedy government of Tuvalu, proclaiming that it is set to become the world's first zero-carbon country.
Missing from the on-line edition, however, is the short, but telling phrase which tells us that the state "relies on foreign aid as its main source of income". As such, the government is playing to its paymasters who have long exploited the totemic significance of an island that is supposed to be threatened with submergence as a result of rising sea levels due to climate change.
The premise is, of course, absolute tosh, debunked fully in the Booker column in March. That piece, incidentally, came under sustained attack from the warmists, via the Press Complaints Commission, which has been seen off.
Any halfway respectable and honest journalist would be questioning why about £12 million is to be spent on this fatuous and wasteful project, in a tiny, impoverished country, and why it is being used for a transparent propaganda exercise instead of being used to more worthwhile ends.
The uncritical presentation of this story, however, tells you a great deal about the modern media. It no longer offers news, but simply projects a series of narratives, shaping a "world view" to which the receiver is expected to conform. Any deviation from the narratives is treated as an abnormality, to be shunned, all in the interests of securing conformity.
It seems extreme, nevertheless, to categorise the media as the "enemy", but that it has become, by act and default in failing to challenge those influences which are encroaching on our freedoms and prosperity, while actively supporting those who would do us harm. The worst is that too few people recognise it for what it is, or has become.
COMMENT THREAD
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
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