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British assault ship visits London

Yesterday, the British warship HMS Bulwark took a break from her busy training schedule to visit London. Vigilance learnt authoritatively that HMS Bulwark, the UK’s largest and most technologically advanced amphibious assault and command and control ship, will be mooring at Greenwich for 5 days.

: EDITORIAL TEAM; International Security, Safety & Strategic Defence; Posted On Thursday, 17 March 2011 17:42

Genuine acquisition reform: Neither “conspiracy of optimism”, nor “conspiracy of pessimism”, but better value for money for the British taxpayer

Today, Vigilance brings to it numerous readers worldwide, two views on British Defence Acquisition Reform in speeches delivered on March 15, 2011 by Peter Luff MP, Minister for Defence Equipment Support and Technology and Bernard Gray, Chief of Defence Materiel.The speeches were given at the RUSI/ Cranfield conference on Defence Acquisition Reform at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham.

Minister for Defence Equipment Support and Technology

10 am, 15 March 2011

RUSI/ Cranfield Speech at Shrivenham, Luff hits back at Jeremy Paxman, editors of national newspapers...”Yet whereas 90% success would be welcomed with open arms in the private sector, in the political world it is the 10% failure that the likes of Jeremy Paxman and the editors of national newspapers focus on.”

: PETER LUFF MP; International Security, Safety & Strategic Defence; Posted On Wednesday, 16 March 2011 11:07

Consigning Nimrod MRA4 to ash heap of history is worst example of budget balancing

Bernard Gray

BERNARD GRAY

Chief of Defence Materiel

RUSI/ Cranfield Speech at Shrivenham

10am, 15 March 2011

...It is not because I have a particular view about the importance or otherwise of this capability, I leave that well-worn fight to others. It is because the MoD will have spent £4bn on this capability over the past 15 years and ended up with, nothing.
...That is the worst indictment of the defence programme I can imagine. Just think of what capabilities we could have had for that money: imagine the number of aspects of defence that could have been improved. Or perhaps, don’t. To do so may be too disheartening.
It is the exemplar par excellence of what happens if the department lives beyond its means. Put simply, if you start more things than you can afford to finish, then sooner or later you are going to waste money by having to cancel some of those projects.

: BERNARD GRAY; International Security, Safety & Strategic Defence; Posted On Wednesday, 16 March 2011 10:57

Death knell sounds for Traditional Tokens

There is an often used phrase that the stars have aligned but, in 2011, it is the technology that has come together to hammer the final nail into the physical tokens’ coffin. The cynical among you would argue that this statement has been made before and yes, I concede that tokens have survived and are still prevalent, so, why is this year different? Let’s examine the evidence.