British Army: News

The £1 billion Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme (WCSP) is one of the largest and most significant projects being pushed through the MoD as it seeks to upgrade and refit the Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle with improved lethality systems and an electronic architecture that will future-proof it until 2040.
“Effectively this is about improvements to lethality that will really transform our military capability,” Lt Col Howard Pritchard, Senior Requirements Manager for the DE&S Combat Tracks Group, told Defence IQ. “Warrior CSP is the Army’s key priority.”
The UK government awarded Lockheed Martin the contract last year with Defence Secretary Philip Hammond saying that the new fleet will “give commanders and their soldiers greater flexibility and firepower.”
At an industry day at Lockheed’s Ampthill base last week Peter Pietralski, Business Area Chief Engineer Vehicles, explained how the firm is working towards future-proofing the Warrior out to 2040.
“The key area is in the ability to provide more power generation on the platform itself,” Pietralski explained. “The main engine generator has the ability to provide much more electrical power than is currently required, which provides a good growth path for the future should more equipment be added to the platform.”
In addition, Pietralski also said that the electronic architecture  will allow for a certain degree of future-proofing while the new 40mm cannon is a “new generation technology” that “has the potential for significant enhancements to its ammunition system to enable it to meet future threats.”
To make sure armoured vehicles are always future-proofed going forward, they need to be thought of as like “clothes hangers” according to Pritchard – they must be designed from the outset to be interchangeable and modular.
Prioritising capabilities
The principal upgrades Warrior is receiving with this £1 billion facelift are improvements to its lethality, electronic architecture and modular armour systems. Of the three, Pietralski said all were important but picked out lethality as being particularly prominent.
“The biggest priority is on the lethality side. We’re incorporating a 40mm cannon that will enable the crew to have a fire and move capability, which is something the current platform can’t achieve.”
Pritchard stressed the importance of this capability, saying that “it’s just something we haven’t been able to do before” and underscored why WSCP is the critical project for the Army.
On the commercial side Lockheed Martin was keen to stress the importance of its supply chain in delivering this contract and announced that it had opened a dedicated new facility at Nuneaton with its engineering partner, MIRA.
Lockheed will need to work closely with its partners as WCSP represents a step-change in the MoD’s reliability requirements. It’s something that is at the forefront of the team’s mind, especially that of Colin Gilding , WCSP programme manager, who said that “reliability is a big part of this programme … it permeates every decision we make.”
Pietralski agrees: “The key challenge for WCSP is to provide a reliable platform … [to] ensure it’s capable, not only for tomorrow but well into 2040.” He explained that Lockheed is implementing rigorous testing procedures at every stage and is looking all the way down to the sub-system level to achieve the reliability required.
WCSP progress
“We are integrating a number of new technologies into the existing platform around space, weight, height and power and we are making good progress on these fronts,” said Gilding. “Our focus is to ensure that the technology is mature by the time we reach Critical Design Review, which will be followed by firing trials with men in the loop in 2014.”
The most recent milestone saw Lockheed Martin conduct a System Architecture Design Review this month and it said design work will now continue to further reduce risk.
Lockheed is currently working towards completion of the demonstration phase and the subsequent start of production in 2016. The anticipated in-service date for WCSP is 2018, with the government likely to procure at least 381 vehicles.
£1 billion well spent?
With budgets tight some may question the obligation to spend £1 billion on upgrading an armoured vehicle considering today’s predominantly COIN threat landscape. So why is DE&S investing so much in Warrior?
For Lt Col Pritchard it’s simple: Warrior is “a central pillar for the Army’s future ground manoeuvre capability” because under the new Army 2020 structure the armoured infantry is pivotal.
What about armoured vehicles in general – haven’t they had their day? Pritchard doesn’t think so, far from it.
“We’re in the process of winding up a second counter-insurgency campaign in the space of ten years and that’s bought with it certain challenges in terms of what armoured vehicles need to do for us in that particular environment.
“What we must not lose sight of is that armoured vehicles warfare is still out there and we’ve got to build our requirements around a wider set of scenarios than just being able to do counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan.
“AFV design will change – it already has changed as a result of our operations – but the armoured battlefield I think is certainly here to stay.”

Labour leadership in turmoil over vote on UK military action in Syria


Jeremy Corbyn and the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, have adopted sharply opposing views on UK military action against Islamic State, hours after David Cameron argued it was time to extend bombing to Syria.

The Labour leader faced dissent in the shadow cabinet on Friday, with reports that most of the party’s front bench were considering supporting the prime minister when the House of Commons votes on airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria.

Corbyn wrote to his MPs on Thursday saying Cameron had failed earlier in the day to explain how an aerial campaign would protect UK security, setting up an intense debate in the party before an expected Commons vote next week to broaden RAF airstrikes from Iraq to Syria.

“I do not believe the prime minister’s current proposal for airstrikes in Syria will protect our security and therefore cannot support it,” Corbyn wrote.

The letter was met with surprise among the most senior Labour MPs, who were believed to have agreed to spend the weekend sounding out constituents on the issue before presenting their position next week. Emily Thornberry, shadow employment minister, said there was a “brutally honest” debate within the party and accepted that there would be a rebellion if a whip against airstrikes were imposed.

“I think that we have all agreed on a process, and the process is that there was a shadow cabinet meeting yesterday, we are then to go back to our constituents and ask them what they think,” Thornberry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday.

“We have an open debate, and a brutally honest debate, going on within the Labour party,” the shadow employment minister added. “I think there will always be divisions within the political parties – the Conservatives will have their divisions too.
“When it comes to an issue of war, it is something that people think very profoundly about. We do usually act collectively, but I think on issues like this there are times when people cannot stick to a whip which is imposed.”

Corbyn’s letter set the leader at odds with Benn, who had earlier told a meeting of the shadow cabinet that the arguments in favour of extending the airstrikes were “compelling”.

The shadow foreign secretary, who believes that the prime minister has fulfilled the conditions laid down in a motion passed at the Labour conference on Syria, also contradicted Corbyn in public.

Benn told the BBC: “We have heard compelling arguments both because of the threat to the United Kingdom and also because we are right to have been taking the action that we have in Iraq to support the Iraqi government in trying to repel the invasion from Isil [Isis].”

This weekend, Corbyn will seek to win the approval of the shadow cabinet to oppose an extension of the airstrikes. He is drawing up plans to reach over the heads of his frontbench with an appeal to a parliamentary Labour party meeting on Monday night, after winning the support of just four members of his shadow cabinet at a meeting on Thursday afternoon.

The Labour leader has pulled out of a planned visit on Friday to campaign in the Oldham West byelection in order to be in London to focus on building support for his position.

A spokeswoman for the Labour leader said: “Regrettably Jeremy Corbyn is not now visiting Oldham because matters to do with Syria mean he must return to London.”

The early skirmishes between Corbyn’s supporters and the once mainstream former ministers in the shadow cabinet came after the prime minister set out the case for an extension of the airstrikes. In a lengthy statement, Cameron said the UK was already facing the threat of mass casualties from Isis and argued that Britain could not outsource its security to allies.

‘Hit Isis in their heartlands’: David Cameron lays out his case for Britain to bomb Islamic State in Syria on Thursday
The prime minister, who was formally responding to a report by the commons foreign affairs select committee, which had opposed the airstrikes, told MPs: “We have to hit these terrorists in their heartlands right now: and we must not shirk our responsibility for security, or hand it to others. Throughout our history, the United Kingdom has stood up to defend our values and our way of life. We can, and we must, do so again.”

Downing Street is planning to table a vote in the commons next week amid signs that the prime minister is assembling a majority. In a sign that a Tory rebellion will be smaller than expected, the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, Crispin Blunt, who rebelled in a vote on military action in August 2013, signalled his support for the airstrikes. No 10 remains nervous about Labour’s position but believes that enough MPs will defy Corbyn to neutralise any remaining Tory rebellion.

The French government took the unusual step of expressing the hope that the Royal Air Force “will soon be working side by side with their French counterparts” in taking military action in Syria.

In a sometimes emotional appeal, the French defence minister writes in the Guardian that UK military capabilities would “put additional and extreme pressure on the Isis terror network”. Jean-Yves Le Drian said he wanted the RAF “to take the fight to the very heart of Isis, defeating it and making our countries and peoples safer”.

French diplomats have been in touch with Labour frontbenchers to supplement this argument in private. The statement by the French is unlikely to move Corbyn, who unequivocally rejected the appeal by Cameron.

In his letter, Corbyn said: “In my view, the prime minister has been unable to explain the contribution of additional UK bombing to a comprehensive negotiated political settlement of the Syrian civil war, or its likely impact on the threat of terrorist attacks in the UK.”

The Labour leader released his letter after he found himself in a minority at a meeting of the shadow cabinet, where he won the support of four shadow ministers. Corbyn was supported by Diane Abbott, Jon Trickett and Nia Griffith. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, did not speak but he supports the leader.

Corbyn’s supporters said he was not isolated because many shadow ministers said they were conflicted over the airstrikes. But Benn was supported at the shadow cabinet meeting by Tom Watson, the deputy leader, the shadow lord chancellor Charles Falconer, Michael Dugher and Lucy Powell.

A number of shadow ministers believe that the shadow cabinet should impose a three-line whip in favour of military action. But Corbyn is likely to appeal to the PLP if, as expected, he fails to win consensus behind his position at a meeting of the shadow cabinet.

The leader’s camp are also hoping that pressure from the Momentum group – the social movement which grew out of Corbyn’s election – will persuade Labour MPs to back Corbyn on Syria at the meeting of the PLP. Corbyn believes that he enjoys greater support proportionally in the PLP than he does in the shadow cabinet.

If the two sides fail to reach agreement, there is a growing expectation that Corbyn will eventually agree to allow Labour MPs to have a free vote. A three-line whip to oppose military action would split the shadow cabinet and lead to resignations.

Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor who is close to Corbyn, suggested that there would be a free vote for Labour MPs. He told Question Time on BBC1: “You can’t force people to vote to kill other people or not to vote to kill them. This must be a matter in which people have the freedom to express their own view. I suspect it will be [a free vote].”

Livingstone outlined Corbyn’s strategy in the run-up to the vote, saying: “I don’t think Labour is going to fall apart. We have got to decide whether we have a line or whether we allow a free vote.

“The simple fact is that although the shadow cabinet has quite strong support for bombing, I suspect the parliamentary Labour party is much more divided on that. Over this weekend MPs are going to go back to their constituents; they will be listening to what people say and they will find there is a lot less support out there among the public for simply bombing than there might be in parliament. There’ll be a shadow cabinet meeting on Monday to decide what to do.”

Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, rallied behind Corbyn. He said: “I believe that no Labour MP should be conned or browbeaten into supporting this incoherent plan, which threatens to involve Britain in its fourth war this century.”

THE GMB Union have issued an extraordinary warning shot across David Cameron's bows, as they warn that BAE job losses at Rosyth could see the new flagship supercarriers being held hostage.

Militarov wrote:"BAE Systems Land (UK) has formed 'Team Challenger 2' to bid for the life extension programme (LEP) of the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tanks (MBTs).

The main aim of Challenger 2 LEP is to replace obsolete parts that were originally developed over 20 years ago, and extend the life of the Challenger 2 MBT out to 2035. A total of 386 Challenger 2 MBT were built by the then Vickers Defence Systems at its Leeds and Newcastle-upon-Tyne facilities (both of which have now closed). For planning purposes a total of 227 Challenger 2s are expected to go through the LEP."