Colin’s address was one of those delightful and insightful lessons all too occasionally encountered. Beginning with a brief treatment of the difficulties in understanding Open Architectures in vehicles. Continuing with the challenges of maintaining MOD interest in terms of finding funding through proposal writing. Imparted wisdom included Colin’s comments on the transitions within the MOD towards Bidding overtaking the traditional budget allocations and the issues duly presented.
Colin Newell’s review of the current position identifies three areas foremostly; Strategic Requirements, Trends and the move towards All Electric Vehicles:
Strategic issues include unpredictable and complex environments (like Iraq), scalability of campaigns (sometimes concurrent and often co-alition); Cited was the example of the Challenger 2 Tank designed for European Cold War but currently deployed in Middle Eastern Campaigns. Challenger 2 suffered from front armament only as it was intended for frontier confrontations and was therefore considered obsolete 5 years ago along with the obsolescence of the European borders themselves. It was redeployed for Iraq on account of its heavy ordinance, breadth of armaments capability and out and out fire power.
General Trends identified in the Lecture included: Overcoming obsolescence as a key driver for Vehicle Integration projects. The driver for new technology should be a high capability across platforms. Priorities presently include support to new campaigns, through life vehicle campaigns (TLCM covered later), and contingent operations (i.e. maintaining capacity to respond militarily anywhere in the world whilst conducting theatre in the Middle East). Utility, change and restructuring were identified as key processes.
Reportedly, Current Campaigns are supported by an Equipment Program and the management of Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) which are more prevalent in Vehicle Technology than in any other part of the military. UORs have been applied for directly with successful results through the Treasury of the UK Government. This is an interesting counterpoint to the recently reported differences over funding between the British Army and the British Government.
Through Life Capability Management (TLCM) is challenged by changing threats. The MOD is promoting internally the need for consultation with industry, preferably early on in the production cycle. TLCM is compounded by increasingly complex systems which also increases the width of the skills base required.
TLCM opens up quicker routes to deployment but that still requires training for vehicle operation and maintenance; training, equipment, personnel, information, concepts, logistics must all be considered before deployment. This leads to problems of overburdening and a slower pace of progress.
All Electric Vehicle: There is a £7.5m pound program for a Vehicle Technology Integration Demonstrator which is currently being developed under the spectre of the All Electric Vehicle, the consequences of the advent of this technology cannot be foreseen with clarity. This progress was transposed against the