BAE Systems estimates it has carried out more than 200 urgent operational requirements (UORs) on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began.
Design changes to military vehicles and equipment have proved to be an essential element when it comes to adapting on the ground – and in the air – to threats posed in theatre. For example, the MoD has said that it has spent more than £3.6 billion on UORs in Iraq and Afghanistan since operations in the two countries began; about 85% of the money has been devoted to force protection.
For defence manufacturers, such as BAE and Thales, urgent changes to military equipment pose special challenges. While the requirements of the armed forces are reviewed at least every two years by the government, more frequent changes to designs have become an increasing tactical requirement as the threats to British servicemen and women in theatre have evolved. UORs have accordingly mushroomed in the last decade.
For BAE Systems, the UORs it has completed break down into many hundreds of modifications that it has made to vehicles and other equipment in more recent conflicts. But the requests themselves are not entirely new. For example, during the first Gulf war in the early 1990s and the war in the former Yugoslavia, there was the requirement to adapt vehicles at short notice for the conditions they were working in. Armoured personnel carriers designed for operation in Europe, for instance, had to be modified to cope with desert conditions during Operation Desert Storm. In Bosnia, vehicles were changed to cope with harsh winter conditions.
Some of these changes became permanent as troops on the ground recognised their value. Mike Pope, head of sales for the UK vehicle business at BAE Systems, says: “If you have a temporary flak jacket, if you go anywhere dodgy again you’ll be tempted to take it with you.”
BAE modified Warrior armoured vehicles and Challenger tanks for the first Gulf War. The Bradley armoured personnel carrier was also modified for the US Army, with the addition of bar armour to protect against rocket-propelled grenade attacks. Pope says: “But what is new for me [with the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan] is the pace of change.”
The second Iraq war was of a much longer duration than Desert Storm, which was over within six months and pitted conventional forces against each other. In the second war, there was more fighting in built-up areas and the character of the threat posed by the enemy had changed to what the army calls “asymmetric”, or terrorist-type, warfare.
The same is true of Afghanistan. In these circumstances, the UORs came to be a method of responding rapidly to modify personnel and equipment exposed to a different type of threat. Pope says: “We had to change priorities to deal with the evolving threat in theatre: in the early days, you’ve got a need for urgent solutions. Sometimes these become long-term fixes.”
Both BAE and Thales face manufacturing challenges when it comes to responding to UORs. One of these, obviously enough, is to deal with the request swiftly enough.
Thales, for example, delivered its Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – which completed its two thousandth sortie earlier this year – in six months once the UOR was made. The request, made by the government in 2007, was necessary to fill the gap before the arrival in theatre of the next-generation Watchkeeper UAV, which is due to replace the Hermes next year.
The Hermes 450 was manufactured using “off-the-shelf” technology that Thales had already developed with its partners and then adapted for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. It provides vital surveillance functions as part of the army’s need for airborne intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) equipment.
Through an onboard camera, it can search for insurgents laying improvised explosive devices, survey poppy fields, look for vehicles and relay images back to soldiers on the ground for analysis.
The more powerful Watchkeeper will perform a similar role, but will feature a radar system that will allow it to “see” through cloud cover and extreme atmospheric events, such as sandstorms.
Nick Miller, business director for ISTAR and UAV systems at Thales, says the company had to do its groundwork to respond to the demands of urgent operational requirements. “Site surveying is crucial for Iraq and Afghanistan. You have to take into account the environmental conditions, which are very harsh in terms of heat, dust and extremes of temperature. You also need to be able to determine the frequencies that can be used for communication and the restrictions on airspace in the operating environment.”
Logistics channels need to be established to deliver the equipment to theatre. And once it is there, users need to be trained in how to operate it. For this reason, Thales has some staff in theatre who help the armed forces get to grips with equipment it supplies under UORs. “We have a fantastic relationship with the army,” Miller says. “We work with the army on logistics and training both at home and in theatre. Simulators are used at home, for example.”
Pope says BAE is proud of its ability to respond to UORs. “When you do see some sort of new, unexpected threat, we do have the engineering teams and connections in the supply base to respond.”
Increasingly, the focus is on flexibility when it comes to providing upgrades aimed at protection of troops, such as extra armour on vehicles. For example, it may be desirable in a given area to protect a particular aspect of the vehicle, such as the sides or roof based on the situation on the ground. Vehicles cannot simply be loaded up with as much armour as possible because it greatly affects their manoeuvrability and, therefore, effectiveness.
Pope says: “You can’t account for all sides of the vehicle without making it incredibly heavy. In reality, you have to optimise protection for a particular direction. There is 360° cover but with reinforcements against a particular type of threat.”
Sometimes modifications to armour entail further modifications to vehicles. Improvements to the armour on Warriors necessitated tinkering with the suspension because the additions altered the ride height of the troop carrier, meaning that the crew was in danger of bottoming it out more easily.
The introduction of more electrically-powered systems on vehicles, meanwhile, can mean a shortage of power. “Some electrical power needs to be increased to accommodate new systems,” says Pope.
There are limits to what can be achieved with armour – the Taliban will keep building bigger roadside bombs in response – so BAE also pays a lot of attention to crew survivability in the event of a vehicle being hit by a blast. “Minimising serious injuries to crew is another area for UORs. A lot of early UORs involved slapping metal plates on to vehicles,” says Pope.
“But we need to consider the crew in terms of making sure kit is properly secured within vehicles, understanding the acceleration and G-forces they are subjected to in the event of a strike and looking at seating and restraints.
“In many ways, it’s like car design: you try to avoid a crash, but if there is a crash and a major deformation, you try to ensure people survive.”
For Thales, responding quickly to a request for a modification means carrying out design work in parallel with sourcing materials and components, rather than waiting for a design to be finalised.
It is a similar story at BAE. Pope says: “We parallel up activities because there can be long lead times for systems, materials and components. As we design new systems, in parallel we are ordering the components.”
For the engineers involved in delivering UORs at BAE, he adds, there is job satisfaction in terms of being involved in projects that come to fruition quickly and also in working with the knowledge that modifications are helping to save lives in Afghanistan. Pope says: “There is job satisfaction in dealing with UORs: it is challenging, short-term work, and many of our engineers enjoy working quickly.”
Miller says recent UORs have accelerated the development of unmanned aerial vehicles and that they are well-suited to asymmetric warfare. “I think we are likely to see more UORs from Afghanistan, and Thales will be ready to meet that challenge,” Miller says.
Pope concludes: “The army evolves the way in which it operates equipment and there is a need to evolve the way in which we design, develop and supply it.”
