14.1 |
Military equipment (post-conflict)
456.
While the
requirement to deploy quickly must be included, ECAB was asked
to
endorse the
FRES Steering Committee’s view,240
that it
“should not overly distort” the
need to
provide “an effective family” of vehicles across “the full spectrum
of operations”.
457.
ECAB agreed
Brig Moore and Brig Inshaw’s recommendations on 26
May.241
The FRES
Steering Committee “had identified a potential conflict of
priorities between
FRES as an
element of the medium weight capability, and FRES as the Army’s
light and
medium
Armoured Vehicle replacement programme”.
458.
Gen Jackson
“said that ECAB agreed that the purpose of FRES was to equip
the
balanced
force and that within this, both the development of a medium weight
capability
and the
replacement of increasingly obsolete CVR(T), Saxon and FV430 fleets
were
equally
important”.
459.
On 8 June,
Maj Gen Rollo set out the Army’s equipment priorities for
the 2007
Equipment
Programme (EP07) in a paper that would go to ECAB later that
month.242
Following
the 2005 Programme, the challenge to identify savings while
funding
necessary
equipment enhancements to support current operations (including
an
investment
in light protected mobility) had meant that “a number of very
painful savings
measures
and slippages had to be absorbed”. FRES had been protected “apart
from
a slip
to 3 variants at the back end of the programme”.
460.
Maj Gen Rollo
wrote that the slip in the FRES ISD suggested the Army
“should
invest
further in the transitional medium force” but any additional
purchase “should not
threaten
the FRES ISD”. Maj Gen Applegate’s team was “examining
this issue in detail,
looking at
innovative ways of finding the necessary resources and assessing
the STP
and EP
impacts”. It would report in July.
461.
It is not
clear what the details and results of this work were as the minutes
of the
next three
ECAB meetings do not record that Maj Gen Applegate’s team
reported back
to the
Board in July.243
The MOD has
been unable to find any supporting documents.
462.
Addressing the
various programmes under way, Maj Gen Rollo wrote that
there
was “a need
in this planning cycle to determine the protected mobility
requirements
for light
forces across the Army”.244
He cited
DUCKBOARD and Vector as examples of
“disparate
programmes” that might need to be “rationalised” in the future
programme to
“provide a
coherent solution” for force protection.
240
The Inquiry
requested all meeting minutes from the FRES Steering Committee
between 1 January
2005 and 1
January 2008. The MOD has been unable to locate any such
records.
241
Minutes, 26
May 2005, Executive Committee of the Army Board
meeting.
242
Paper ACGS,
8 June 2005, ‘Army Equipment Priorities for EP 07’.
243
Paper ACGS,
‘Army Equipment Priorities for EP 07’; Minutes, 20 June 2005,
Executive Committee
of the
Army Board meeting; Minutes, 6 July 2005, Executive Committee of
the Army Board meeting;
Minutes, 22
September 2005, Executive Committee of the Army Board
meeting.
244
Paper ACGS,
8 June 2005, ‘Army Equipment Priorities for EP 07’.
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