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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0328.PDF
328 FLIGHT, 11 March I960 Point-scoring at Westminster - - - - FRANK BESWICKLAST WEEK'S DEFENCE DEBATE AS SEEN BY ONE cold morning in the empty sunless Westminster Hall Iasked Lord Alexander of Htflsborough, then plain A.V.,who had taken over the re-created Ministry of Defence, how things were going. I was never certain whether it wijs theprevailing temperature or the impending problems which caused him to answer quite so despondently, "Too many imponderables." There have been many Ministers of Defence since Alexandertook on the job—nine in the last nine years; but none, surely, if complete honesty prevails, can suppress all sympathy for hispredecessor. Mr Watkinson, the latest in the line of Defence Ministers, announced in the Commons debate last week that "theGovernment are now engaged on a detailed review of our defence effort." These are familiar words. And a wise Minister, even afterthe review is completed, will not be too dogmatic about defence policy, for the technical facts of life with which he is concernedchange as the pages are torn from the calendar. Curiously enough, among all the changes the one constantthread of policy has remained the most neglected in practical application. Apart from the sort of platitude which Mr Watkinsonused—"our main objective is to keep the peace"—the phrase which has most often occurred through the post-war years hasbeen "need for mobility." Mr Watkinson himself said that "the new model all-Regular Forces . . . will have at their command adegree of transport ability and striking power such as we have never achieved before in our military history." Need for Mobility v ^r Amid all the controversies about conventional versus nuclearweapons, and regular versus conscript forces, most Ministers have found time to say something like this on the need for mobility.Yet Transport Command have only just received their second squadron of Britannias; there is as yet no firm order for amachine fitting the Minister's description of "a very heavy work- horse aircraft to carry big loads;" and the chances are that beforelong, with the retirement of the Comet 2, the Command will be without any jet aircraft at all. True, the Minister said thatthe RAF now had "under discussion" a transport jet aircraft which "might be based on the Comet or on the VC10, or possiblyboth." If an order is placed soon, and especially if the design is in harmony with the needs of the civil market, much might be for-given. Nevertheless it is fair to remark again how curious it is that in the field of tranbport aircraft, where there was least doubtboth about needs and technical possibilities, expenditure has been most restrained. And as Mr Watkinson saw fit to call atten-tion to the value of "Transport Command and the civil aircraft industry working together," one might even spare a thought forthe episode of the V1000 and the VC7. The Minister also stated that for the medium transport AW.660,for which there are now 20 on order with deliveries expected in 1961-62, there would soon be a follow-on order [for another 20, itlater emerged—Ed]. As for helicopters, the Minister said that these "include the Whirlwind, the Wessex to come, and now theRotodyne, a revolutionary aircraft with great civil and military possibilities." It was the redoubtable Col Wigg who most effectively dasheda little cold water on the Minister's complacency. "Sales talk," he called the Defence White Paper. Of anti-tank guided weapons hequoted from Flight of September 5, 1958: "Fairey Aviation have been permitted to state that they are the contractors for the anti-tank guided weapons for the British Army first announced in the Commons in May 1957." That weapon, declared Col Wigg, wasstill not with us and we should hear no more about it. Of the stand-off bomb he quoted Paragraph 10 of the Air Estimates for1956: "The Mark 2 Vulcans and Victors will be capable of carrying both free-falling and stand-off nuclear weapons." Thestatement, he declared, was an admirable one—but we still had neither the weapons nor the machines for launching them. Critical Analysis From the Government back benches the most informed andreasonable critical analysis of defence policy came from Nigel Birch, a former Air Minister. After a sweeping denunciationof the Opposition and all their works Mr Birch went on to look at what was being done by the Government which he so recentlyleft. He was certain about one thing: the defence policy was bursting at the seams. "There are more plans and projects afootthan possibly can be carried through within any reasonable defence ceiling. In the White Paper, apart from anything else, there areprojects for 11 different types of missile and 12 different types of aeroplane ... it will be impossible to have significant guarantees of any of the weapons. We therefore run the risk not onl- ofwasting money and scarce skills but, at the end of the day, ofbeing weak everywhere and effective nowhere." '' Mr. Birch went on to argue that if we are to be more selectiveabout the choice of weapons then, for Britain, nuclear arms are out. In the first place, in our confined island (he claimed) it wasnonsense to talk of using the Great Deterrent independently Secondly, he thought that conventional arms had a continuingpart to play. After all, they had settled many things since the war As he forcefully put it, "Conventional arms ended French influencein South East Asia. Conventional arms have kept Malaya free Conventional arms have kept Hungary slave." Nevertheless hewas not for leaving the nuclear club; our membership would be part of an alliance. And if we were to equip ourselves on thatbasis, then Blue Streak should be cancelled forthwith. Blue Streak, in fact, was poorly supported in the debate. Eventhe Minister was restrained about its prospects; work upon it had taught us much about the technique of propulsion and the com-plications of guidance and computer systems, but no promising operational future was depicted for it in its underground, silos. TheMinister brightened perceptibly when he went on to talk of the possibilities of Polaris and the emergence of Skybolt, Thislatter ballistic missile, said Mr Watkinson, would undoubtedly be eminently suitable for our V-bomber force and would extendits life very considerably. Not unnaturally, the official Opposition had much criticism tomake of the credibility of the British nuclear deterrent. Mr Strachey spoke or large, clumsy, unprotected, slow-firing Thorrockets, sprawled over our countryside, trained on Russian cities but also right under the enemy's guns. Blue Streak's story, he said,was a sad one; that rocket was unlikely ever to go into production. Of the claim by the Secretary of State for Air that the projectedearly warning system would "preclude surprise attacks by missiles" he said that a "more outrageously untrue statement" had neverappeared in a Service memorandum. Mr Strachey contended that Bomber Command as a credibledeterrent was better than Thor but that we should consider very carefully the possibility of the world-wide dispersal of bomberbases with improved means of protecting them. General Cowley's Words From the Government benches Sir Fitzroy Maclean made itclear that, with other Conservative ex-Ministers, he was a member of the Cowley Club; and he claimed the Secretary of State forWar, also, as a supporter for the case summed up by General Cowley in the words, "the British contribution to the peace of theworld can be far more useful in other directions than in producing weapons which can only be useful because of their threat andwhich can only be threatened in very exceptional circumstances." Sir Fitzroy also put the case for mobility in General Cowley'swords: "we should do better to rely on rapid arrival than on heavy armament." Cdr Maitland brought up the heaviest guns in support of hisown Ministers. Whilst we still pinned our faith on the deterrent it was a great pity to play it down. He thought the V-bomber forcetoday was probably the most effective vehicle in the world for carrying megaton bombs. He believed that we had sufficient ofthese weapons to paralyse or destroy an enemy without any assistance from any other nation. Nevertheless he did not thinkwe had yet achieved a genuine nuclear stalemate, and we should press on until we had reached that position. We could not claimto have reached that position until it was possible to say that even if one side were completely wiped out there would still be inevitabledestruction for the other. The official Opposition amendment, "whilst recognizing theneed for an adequate policy for collective defence and security," went on to censure the Government for its vacillations and con-fusion. It was not difficult in the course of political cut-and-thrust to point to the obvious confusions among Opposition spokesmen.Inevitably Mr ShinwelFs known lack of affection for his present leader (and former Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Fueland Power) attracted wide public attention and provided oppor- tunity for easy debating points. But beneath all the politicalcandyfloss this defence debate did much to make some of the, problems clear. If the solutions were not unanimously agreed thenthat only emphasizes that A. V. Alexander had greater justification than he realized when he complained of the imponderables. If Iwere to be dogmatic about any one point brought up in this two- day debate it would be that it is time that talk of mobility wastranslated into something a good deal more tangible—a few squadrons of transport aircraft, for instance.
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