Equipment shortages put UK soldiers at risk
Updated on 13 October 2009
British troops are being supplied with unreliable equipment, and the Ministry of Defence has failed to supply enough spare parts for armoured vehicles and helicopters.
That is the finding from a influential committee of MPs released.
The Public Accounts Committee did find improvements in supplying body armour and medical equipment to the front line, but said that trucks and helicopters were rendered unusable by a lack of parts.
A report said that while most of the equipment acquired through the urgent operational requirement (UOR) system had performed well, there had been serious problems.
Since July 2007 only half of the equipment demands made in Afghanistan had met supply chain targets, the report said. Also in some cases a lack of reliability only emerged once the equipment has actually been deployed forcing soldiers to rely on contracted and coalition supplies.
One vehicle, the Vector, which was originally bought to replace the lightly-armoured Snatch Land Rovers, performed so poorly it had to be withdrawn and replaced with an upgraded version of the Snatch.
When the Mastiff armoured vehicles were initially deployed to Afghanistan last year, at one stage only 20 per cent were classified as "fit" due to the effects of the harsh terrain and a lack of spares, although the situation has since improved.
Edward Leigh MP chairman of the committee criticised the MoD system saying that both ground vehicles and helicopters had suffered from "shortages of spare parts".
"Helicopters back home have had to be cannibalised; and our forces in theatre have been compelled to rely on contracted and coalition helicopters," he said.
"The process of getting equipment and supplies out to our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is undeniably an extremely demanding one. But the fact that the MoD continues to fail to meet its own supply chain targets is of concern."
Leigh also expressed concern for the shortage of equipment used in post-deployment training: "Pre-deployment training is constrained by a number of factors, particularly the shortage of appropriate equipment to train with and delays in replicating Middle Eastern environments," he said.
"The proportion of soldiers and Royal Marines who are not training with their units before deploying is increasing, passing risk on to theatre commanders."
The committee said that the forthcoming strategic defence review should "fundamentally re-examine" whether the current equipment programme was delivering the right balance of capabilities for both current operations and future needs.
