Latest / UK Column Radio / Military Matters: Episode 7

Transcript

Military Matters: Episode 7 · UK Column Radio

0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode seven of Military Matters, and Brian, thank
0:28
Speaker 1: you very much indeed for joining me. Now, the reason
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm kicking off today is that we're going to go
0:34
Speaker 1: through what may be regarded as a case study in
0:37
Speaker 1: order to examine I think a whole lot of things,
0:39
Speaker 1: but at the heart of it really perhaps leadership and
0:44
Speaker 1: responsibility and where those two things lie. But the example
0:50
Speaker 1: we're going to use is set out in the Inquiry
0:54
Speaker 1: into the grounding of His Majesty's New Zealand ship Manawanui
1:00
Speaker 1: in Samoa on the sixth of October twenty twenty four,
1:04
Speaker 1: and it's a very technical inquiry. In effect, the ship
1:10
Speaker 1: ran aground under a set of circumstances that are supposedly
1:14
Speaker 1: clarified in the inquiry, but I think there's rather more
1:18
Speaker 1: to it in that. I think before we get into
1:19
Speaker 1: any of that, and in order to reassure people that
1:22
Speaker 1: we're not going to be entering into a very kind
1:24
Speaker 1: of technical mire, I think what will be really helpful
1:28
Speaker 1: is if you just describe how a ship's company operates
1:32
Speaker 1: and what is meant really by the chain of command,
1:36
Speaker 1: who has responsibility for what, you know, what the pattern
1:39
Speaker 1: of life is like when you are at sea and
1:43
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, just to give a bit of background.
1:45
Speaker 2: Certainly very good place to start, and of course I'm
1:49
Speaker 2: making these comments based on twenty one years in as
1:53
Speaker 2: it was for Majesty's Navy, going through the complete procedure
2:01
Speaker 2: entering Dartmouth, doing all the basic training and then essentially
2:05
Speaker 2: you work up as an officer through the training which
2:10
Speaker 2: is navigation training, so that you can be on the
2:14
Speaker 2: bridge and assessed and assisting a competent navigator or officer
2:21
Speaker 2: of the Watch. And then you will get to a
2:24
Speaker 2: point where you are sufficiently trained and experienced at sea
2:29
Speaker 2: in order to be qualified as an officer of the Watch.
2:33
Speaker 2: And what does that mean. That means that you are
2:36
Speaker 2: the person on the bridge responsible for maintaining the navigational
2:42
Speaker 2: track or whatever other activities are happening, and the safety
2:48
Speaker 2: of the ship is your responsibility as officer of the Watch,
2:52
Speaker 2: and your immediate point of contact will be the certainly
2:59
Speaker 2: in the row will be the captain. However, for certain
3:04
Speaker 2: other evolutions you may speak to other more senior or
3:09
Speaker 2: more qualified officers, such as a navigation officer who's got
3:14
Speaker 2: more training to be responsible for specific detailed navigation requirements
3:21
Speaker 2: such as pilotage bringing a ship in and out of harbor,
3:24
Speaker 2: for example. But once you achieve the status of a
3:27
Speaker 2: qualified officer of the Watch, you are the person on
3:31
Speaker 2: the bridge. You're responsible for not only navigating but also
3:36
Speaker 2: anti collision measures in accordance with what's called the rules
3:41
Speaker 2: of the Rules of the Road at sea, and you
3:45
Speaker 2: have the ability to take decisions for the safety of
3:49
Speaker 2: the ship. But on normal passage you will be required
3:54
Speaker 2: to stay within certain guidelines, informing the captain if you
3:58
Speaker 2: want to come out of those guidelines. Now, within that
4:03
Speaker 2: role around you, you've got a ship which is the
4:07
Speaker 2: captain is the ultimate authority for anything and everything that goes,
4:12
Speaker 2: whether it's operational performance or welfare of the ship's company.
4:17
Speaker 2: You've got a second in command, which the Royal Navy
4:20
Speaker 2: would call an executive officer, the number two. You have
4:25
Speaker 2: other trained specialists such as the engineering officer or what
4:31
Speaker 2: used to be the Weapons engineering officer dealing in weapons
4:35
Speaker 2: systems and heavy electrics, the supply officer looking after logistics,
4:41
Speaker 2: and then under that officer team would be specialist non
4:47
Speaker 2: commissioned officers who would be responsible for their particular parts
4:52
Speaker 2: of those departments. With essentially the same breakdown, but we
4:58
Speaker 2: could also bring in seamen ship. There's the maintenance of
5:02
Speaker 2: the ship, there's maintenance of the weapons systems, and ultimately
5:07
Speaker 2: you've got the ship's company, which are the sailors who
5:11
Speaker 2: are doing the day to day running of the ship,
5:14
Speaker 2: and the whole structure is usually divided into a divisional
5:20
Speaker 2: system where you have one officer and a senior rating
5:24
Speaker 2: responsible for a smaller group of sailors, which would put
5:29
Speaker 2: it on a direct parity with how the army operates
5:33
Speaker 2: if we're.
5:33
Speaker 1: Talking about it as we are in this instance. First
5:35
Speaker 1: of all, this was not what could be described as
5:39
Speaker 1: an operational deployment. They were conducting survey work. There was
5:43
Speaker 1: no threat to them. I just you just need to
5:47
Speaker 1: make that clear that there was nothing.
5:48
Speaker 2: There was no It was a peacetime it was a
5:51
Speaker 2: peacetime role. However, that when you read the report, there
5:56
Speaker 2: are some indications that surveying role that they were doing
6:02
Speaker 2: was tied in with some as I understand, military requirements
6:07
Speaker 2: in relation to surveying, but it wasn't. It wasn't as
6:10
Speaker 2: if they were tracking a Russian warship or something like
6:14
Speaker 2: that and something else. That's important for me to make
6:17
Speaker 2: clear is that in my experience of being at sea,
6:22
Speaker 2: I was on board of frigates and mine hunters and minesweepers.
6:29
Speaker 2: So these were ships which had a full operational role.
6:33
Speaker 2: They were not part of the hydrographic service. And the
6:37
Speaker 2: hydrographic service, both in the Royal Navy and other navies,
6:41
Speaker 2: is an inherently specialist role. So people will do the
6:45
Speaker 2: basic training in order to become captain of a ship,
6:49
Speaker 2: and then they'll be given additional training in order to
6:53
Speaker 2: take on the role of captain of a hydrographic vessel.
6:56
Speaker 2: So in making the comments that I'm going to make today,
7:00
Speaker 2: it's important for me to say, yes, there's certain elements
7:03
Speaker 2: of what was happening. I've got a very good idea
7:07
Speaker 2: as to what was happening, but I'm not trained as
7:09
Speaker 2: a hydrographic officer.
7:11
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's a good clarification worth making.
7:13
Speaker 1: But ultimately I think the way we're going to treat
7:15
Speaker 1: it that shouldn't matter, because we're going to be talking
7:18
Speaker 1: about the general principles concerned and what comes out from
7:22
Speaker 1: the inquiry. Another thing, again, the reason for mentioning the
7:27
Speaker 1: context in that this was a peace time operation, as
7:31
Speaker 1: far as we're aware, the ship was acting independently not
7:35
Speaker 1: you know, there were no other vessels in the vicinity
7:37
Speaker 1: concerned in that work. So therefore, with regard to command
7:40
Speaker 1: and control, who or what would they be communicating with
7:47
Speaker 1: in terms of their one up or you know, well, the.
7:51
Speaker 2: Ship would be in constant communications with the organizer, the
8:00
Speaker 2: higher organizational structure of the New Zealand Navy. So every
8:04
Speaker 2: day they would be receiving routine communications which could be
8:10
Speaker 2: about anything. It could be about the weather, or it
8:13
Speaker 2: could be about supplies which they'd ordered where they would
8:18
Speaker 2: ultimately receive those supplies spare parts. So all of that
8:22
Speaker 2: mundane communication would be going on, and then a layer
8:26
Speaker 2: above it, they would be receiving operational signals traffic talking
8:32
Speaker 2: about anything which impacted on their surveying role, and to
8:40
Speaker 2: some extent above it. It's difficult for me to gauge,
8:42
Speaker 2: because honestly, I don't know exactly how New Zealand Navy operates.
8:46
Speaker 2: But they would then also get a certain amount of
8:50
Speaker 2: intelligence signals traffic which would be briefing them about hostile
8:59
Speaker 2: military actions in their field, in their area of operation,
9:04
Speaker 2: and presumably that would be heavily focused on the Chinese,
9:08
Speaker 2: I would imagine.
9:09
Speaker 1: Okay. Now, the reason I ask is because what I
9:12
Speaker 1: want to do is get a sense of who was
9:15
Speaker 1: in charge, what are their considerations, and what's their remit
9:20
Speaker 1: And therefore we get a bit closer to talking about
9:24
Speaker 1: the ship's captain and whether or not there was any
9:28
Speaker 1: going to be any element of control from without that
9:32
Speaker 1: would change what they were doing on a daily basis,
9:35
Speaker 1: or does that responsibility rest solely with the captain.
9:39
Speaker 2: That is a very good question. In conducting the role
9:47
Speaker 2: on a day to day basis, that would fall on
9:51
Speaker 2: the captain. However, they could easily receive a signal saying
9:55
Speaker 2: that it had been decided by HQ that the surveying
10:00
Speaker 2: area was to be changed. All the time available to
10:03
Speaker 2: conduct the survey had changed, So there could be there
10:07
Speaker 2: could be an external conversation which would change the work
10:12
Speaker 2: that they did, if you like, on the ground on
10:15
Speaker 2: a day to day basis. But the conduct of that
10:18
Speaker 2: work on the ground would be the sole responsibility of
10:22
Speaker 2: the captain. And this is this is one of the
10:24
Speaker 2: key issues in talking about this. So so while operational
10:29
Speaker 2: control of the ship, a signal could come in saying
10:34
Speaker 2: we want you to stop the surveying role and you
10:37
Speaker 2: are to proceed immediately or to return to port in
10:41
Speaker 2: New Zealand, that that would be a legitimate external command
10:46
Speaker 2: from higher authority in the in the in the New
10:50
Speaker 2: Zealand Navy Operational Command Center. But once they were given
10:55
Speaker 2: a task on the ground, that would not the conduct
11:02
Speaker 2: of that hydrographic operation would not be interfered with from
11:05
Speaker 2: a higher command apart from so I've said, movement of time,
11:10
Speaker 2: scale or area.
11:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I think I just wanted to sort of
11:15
Speaker 1: qualify and clarify that because I think it's a really
11:17
Speaker 1: important point and I think people need to have an understanding.
11:19
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about this before, but the idea
11:20
Speaker 1: of what is described technically as mission command in that
11:25
Speaker 1: a superior authority or higher up of the chain of
11:29
Speaker 1: command may issue a directive a mission to a subordinate,
11:36
Speaker 1: but it is up to the subordinate to determine the
11:39
Speaker 1: best way to execute.
11:41
Speaker 2: That's absolutely true, Charles, because any order that any captain
11:46
Speaker 2: receives on any subject, including operational or in a threat environment,
11:52
Speaker 2: the ultimate decision is still down to them. But something
11:58
Speaker 2: I'd like to add on top of that is that
12:02
Speaker 2: we need we've mentioned communications, and we'll say that satellite
12:06
Speaker 2: and radio communications. So a message comes in to the
12:12
Speaker 2: ship in my day, that will be printed off and
12:16
Speaker 2: a teleprinter excuse me, a piece of paper would be
12:20
Speaker 2: handed to you to read what the higher command had
12:24
Speaker 2: to say. Of course, that then migrated into a digital format,
12:30
Speaker 2: so that people could also open up a specialist computer
12:35
Speaker 2: screen and see a digital copy of that message. But
12:40
Speaker 2: the other thing we need to talk about is data links,
12:44
Speaker 2: and essentially any warship also has the ability to commit
12:51
Speaker 2: to communicate raw digital data via a communications circuit. Usually
13:00
Speaker 2: it would be put through a satellite, and one of
13:04
Speaker 2: the things that this does is allows the ship to
13:08
Speaker 2: pass the picture it sees. Now what do I mean
13:12
Speaker 2: by that, Well, every warship, and it will vary a
13:18
Speaker 2: little bit for a hydrographic vessel, but every warship it
13:21
Speaker 2: sees is sucking in information. What is seen from the
13:25
Speaker 2: bridge and from lookouts, what comes in over electronic warfare sensors,
13:31
Speaker 2: what comes through sonar sensors, what comes in through radar,
13:36
Speaker 2: and a few other things. This is all put together
13:39
Speaker 2: into an operational picture, and that operational picture is displayed
13:45
Speaker 2: effectively on a big computer screen with all sorts of
13:50
Speaker 2: side information and the ability to interrogate and question and
13:56
Speaker 2: use that that operational picture. But whatever the picture is
14:03
Speaker 2: that a ship sees can be trans can be transmitted
14:08
Speaker 2: remotely to another location, so another ship can tap into
14:13
Speaker 2: what So if we have three ships A, B, and C,
14:16
Speaker 2: they each are compiling their own picture of the environment
14:20
Speaker 2: around them, but each ship can also pass and receive
14:25
Speaker 2: information with the ships in company. So ship B could
14:30
Speaker 2: say I want to see what the air picture is
14:32
Speaker 2: from ship A, and that's shared on a data link.
14:37
Speaker 2: And one of the core uses of the data links
14:42
Speaker 2: very much used to be in order to what they
14:45
Speaker 2: call compile put together the air picture, in which case
14:50
Speaker 2: you would also be sharing information with and receiving information
14:55
Speaker 2: from aircraft who would also have the ability to share
15:00
Speaker 2: their picture by a daytai link.
15:02
Speaker 1: I don't want to get dragged off topic, but.
15:04
Speaker 2: It's a fun subject.
15:06
Speaker 1: It is. But I think the wider application and let's
15:10
Speaker 1: look at failing corporations or governments and how what the
15:17
Speaker 1: one factor that underpins so much of that failure is
15:20
Speaker 1: communication and the promulgation of information and intelligence. And I
15:25
Speaker 1: think you know, we both come from a background where
15:27
Speaker 1: we see how it can be done effectively and how
15:31
Speaker 1: by using simple but effective systems to create exactly like
15:36
Speaker 1: you say, a picture. Everybody benefits because they know how
15:41
Speaker 1: it works and they know how to best use it.
15:43
Speaker 1: And I think we see now, you know, if one's
15:46
Speaker 1: to give them the benefit of the doubt and think
15:48
Speaker 1: that there are at least some people in government who
15:50
Speaker 1: are trying to work according to the remit of their
15:55
Speaker 1: particular job or within the civil service. I'm not going
15:58
Speaker 1: to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. There are
16:00
Speaker 1: and they are hamstrung by the absolute inability to be
16:05
Speaker 1: able to see the bigger picture or to communicate with
16:07
Speaker 1: even other bits of their department.
16:10
Speaker 2: This is a fascinating subject, Charles. Something comes into my mind.
16:14
Speaker 2: It was it was something that Captain said to me
16:17
Speaker 2: many years ago. I think it was. I think actually
16:20
Speaker 2: it was nineteen eighty one and at this stage satellite
16:24
Speaker 2: communications were just coming into to the Royal Navy, and
16:29
Speaker 2: the advantage of those satellite communications meant that in contrast
16:34
Speaker 2: to high frequency radio communication, you had reliable, twenty four
16:40
Speaker 2: hours a day communication, and to a large extent then
16:45
Speaker 2: it was unjammable. So you as a ship. You could
16:49
Speaker 2: be anywhere. You could be in the middle of the
16:50
Speaker 2: Indian Ocean or the Pacific or the Atlantic, and you
16:54
Speaker 2: could have reliable communications with the headquarters staff, and that
17:01
Speaker 2: that could be in a written message format that was transmitted,
17:06
Speaker 2: or you can actually have live voice communication. And this
17:11
Speaker 2: was a huge, a huge improvement because it meant that
17:16
Speaker 2: where there were difficult, very difficult decisions for a captain
17:20
Speaker 2: to deal with operationally or in a military in a
17:24
Speaker 2: military threat sense, they could pick up a phone and talk. However,
17:30
Speaker 2: what this captain said to me was that as we
17:34
Speaker 2: saw that satellite communication then had the ability to take
17:39
Speaker 2: the picture via a data link and put the picture ashore.
17:45
Speaker 2: He said, I worry that we're going to have people
17:48
Speaker 2: assure who think they have all of the picture that
17:53
Speaker 2: we see at sea and keep it simple. What was
17:57
Speaker 2: he worried about. He was worried about the fact that
18:00
Speaker 2: if you're there at sea on board the ship, you
18:03
Speaker 2: know what the weather conditions are, you're living the weather conditions,
18:07
Speaker 2: You're living the reality of the problems, and that is
18:11
Speaker 2: still a very That's a much better place to be
18:15
Speaker 2: than somebody as sure who is not feeling and experiencing
18:20
Speaker 2: those things who thinks they have the same information in
18:24
Speaker 2: front of them. So all those years ago, this particular
18:28
Speaker 2: captain saw that there could be problems if the data
18:33
Speaker 2: from a ship was all passed ashore, and then the
18:36
Speaker 2: staff for sure thought they could make as good decisions
18:40
Speaker 2: as the captain on the spot. It's an interesting discussion.
18:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it absolutely highlights the double edged sword nature
18:47
Speaker 1: of exactly that. But then we go back to the
18:51
Speaker 1: idea of mission command, which if exercise properly, should of
18:54
Speaker 1: course eliminate that problem. It's only when you have a
18:57
Speaker 1: command structure of interference with those in higher command appointment
19:06
Speaker 1: meddling in what they should not be meddling. They should
19:10
Speaker 1: be trusting their subordinates to carry out.
19:11
Speaker 2: There a little comment which is amusing and interesting, and
19:17
Speaker 2: that of course, is that the Russians, I'm not sure
19:21
Speaker 2: the system at the moment, but certainly in my day,
19:23
Speaker 2: during my time in the Royal Navy, for the Russians,
19:27
Speaker 2: they would have on board a political officer. And so
19:31
Speaker 2: the captain of the Russian captain was doing his job.
19:34
Speaker 2: He was keeping the ship safe, he was making it
19:36
Speaker 2: sure it could go from A to B. He was
19:38
Speaker 2: going to be in charge of fighting the ship if
19:42
Speaker 2: there was any conflict. But he also had a political
19:47
Speaker 2: officer that was monitoring the political mood of the ship
19:51
Speaker 2: and making his own reports on whether the ship was
19:54
Speaker 2: making the right decisions from a political sense, And that
19:58
Speaker 2: must have been truly horrible for the Russian captains that
20:03
Speaker 2: almost you had a state spy on board the ship.
20:08
Speaker 2: Now I don't know whether that system is still in place,
20:10
Speaker 2: but I know that even the Russians at one stage
20:13
Speaker 2: recognized this was undermining the ability of captains to fight
20:19
Speaker 2: their ship. But I smile while I'm saying it, because
20:22
Speaker 2: in a way, I've I think I've seen the rise
20:26
Speaker 2: of the political viewpoint in Western navies, and maybe we're
20:29
Speaker 2: going to touch on that again.
20:31
Speaker 1: What comes out in the inquiry is the pertinence and
20:35
Speaker 1: importance of qualifications and why that matters in whatever role
20:41
Speaker 1: it is that a naval vessel is tasked with, who
20:45
Speaker 1: does know their business, how long that takes, why it's
20:48
Speaker 1: so important, And in this particular instance, I should just
20:51
Speaker 1: sort of put in here if you're wondering why it is,
20:54
Speaker 1: we're talking about what might seem like a fairly obscure
20:57
Speaker 1: incident that occurred on the outside of the world concerning
20:59
Speaker 1: that New Zealand Navy. Part of that reason is because
21:03
Speaker 1: the captain in question was a transferry from the Raw Navy.
21:08
Speaker 1: So that's something that I just want to put out
21:10
Speaker 1: there because we will we will absolutely come back to that.
21:13
Speaker 1: But again, when we're talking about a specific tasking, just
21:19
Speaker 1: give me your take on qualifications and why they matter
21:24
Speaker 1: and how that affects the ability to be able to
21:28
Speaker 1: command effectively.
21:29
Speaker 2: Well, you've got two essential things. One is maybe three
21:34
Speaker 2: essential things aptitude. There are some people who come into
21:39
Speaker 2: the training system, they do their best, they're good people,
21:44
Speaker 2: but they actually do not have the aptitude to do
21:48
Speaker 2: a job that they might wish to do. And when
21:53
Speaker 2: I was responsible as part of Flag of SEC Training's
21:57
Speaker 2: role at Portland where ships were coming into that organization
22:03
Speaker 2: to be trained immediately after coming out of a refit
22:08
Speaker 2: or coming back for sort of additional training or doing
22:12
Speaker 2: a very hard work up to get them at full
22:15
Speaker 2: operational readiness. Part of the job of the Flag Office
22:19
Speaker 2: C Training staff was to monitor the performance of everybody
22:23
Speaker 2: on board a ship, and on two occasions I was
22:27
Speaker 2: asked to make the final to sit down with a
22:32
Speaker 2: person concerned and say this is not going well. So
22:34
Speaker 2: I did not make the decision that they were to
22:38
Speaker 2: be chopped, but I was asked to sit down and
22:41
Speaker 2: communicate that decision with them. And it's a very sad
22:45
Speaker 2: thing because you can have people who they've joined the
22:50
Speaker 2: Royal Navy, they want to do the job, they're working
22:53
Speaker 2: to their best, but it becomes obvious that they do
22:57
Speaker 2: not have the aptitude for the job. So people have
23:01
Speaker 2: to have the aptitude to be in whatever job it
23:05
Speaker 2: is at sea, and certainly you're going to say to
23:08
Speaker 2: become captain of a ship, you've got to have a
23:10
Speaker 2: sufficient aptitude to cope with everything that's going to be
23:13
Speaker 2: thrown at you. You've definitely got to be trained, because
23:18
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how good you are as an individual.
23:22
Speaker 2: If you are not trained to use the equipment or
23:25
Speaker 2: do the undertake the role you'll ask to undertake, you're
23:28
Speaker 2: going to fail. And then you've got to have the experience.
23:34
Speaker 2: You've got to have been brought up through that training
23:39
Speaker 2: sequence where you have been given adequate time to actually
23:45
Speaker 2: do the job and to learn as you do it
23:48
Speaker 2: and gain experience. And a simple thing to talk about
23:52
Speaker 2: when you talk about the Navy or talk about navy
23:55
Speaker 2: navies is everything depends on the weather because the moment
23:59
Speaker 2: the ship is at sea. If it's a calm sea,
24:01
Speaker 2: that can have problems in some ways. But certainly if
24:05
Speaker 2: the weather's bad it's foggy, or it's stormy, or we've
24:09
Speaker 2: got a very high sea state, or you've got ice,
24:13
Speaker 2: that is a factor which you can only start to
24:17
Speaker 2: deal with by experience of having been there. It would
24:22
Speaker 2: be the equivalent of you looking at me and saying well, Brian,
24:25
Speaker 2: until you've actually been there on the front and somebody's
24:29
Speaker 2: firing at you. You don't know how it is you
24:33
Speaker 2: have that experience. I don't, but for somebody at sea,
24:37
Speaker 2: it's the training, your trains. You've got the aptitude and
24:41
Speaker 2: you've got the experience to do the job that you're
24:44
Speaker 2: being asked to do, and if any one of those
24:47
Speaker 2: is missing it can lead to problem.
24:49
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to give the land variant of what
24:54
Speaker 1: I perceived happened in very short summary, and then i'd
24:59
Speaker 1: like your meant on what it is that is really
25:03
Speaker 1: at the heart of this. But it seems that manam
25:07
Speaker 1: Minui was on a particular course and was somehow put
25:14
Speaker 1: onto an auto pilot control, which was somehow not realized
25:24
Speaker 1: by anybody that was in a position to have realized,
25:28
Speaker 1: and they were heading in a direction that was going
25:32
Speaker 1: to take them directly onto a reef, and all efforts
25:36
Speaker 1: to change course and to slow the vessel down were
25:39
Speaker 1: thwarted by the fact that the autopilot was in effect
25:44
Speaker 1: in charge and that nobody realized this, And the result
25:49
Speaker 1: was they ran aground. Luckily nobody was injured, the ship
25:55
Speaker 1: was lost, but that was that was basically what happened. Now, again,
26:01
Speaker 1: somebody who has no experience of that sort of a
26:04
Speaker 1: situation in hindsight or with hindsight, it seems like a
26:09
Speaker 1: completely absurd situation. How on earth can that have happened?
26:13
Speaker 1: Because it wasn't that. We're not talking about something happened
26:15
Speaker 1: over the course of sort of five or ten seconds.
26:18
Speaker 1: This was over several minutes. Well, I mean, you could say,
26:22
Speaker 1: more than what are the considerations hearing? What should bear
26:30
Speaker 1: in mind? We've just been talking about qualifications where command
26:35
Speaker 1: for the execution of orders and all the rest of
26:38
Speaker 1: it lies. I mean, what are the fact is it?
26:40
Speaker 1: What are the considerations? What else should we be thinking about?
26:45
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's start at the beginning and keep it
26:48
Speaker 2: very simple. First thing is the ship itself. We need
26:53
Speaker 2: to talk about the ship itself because the ship had
26:56
Speaker 2: originally come from the oil industry as a support ship.
26:59
Speaker 2: So we're not talking about something like a frigate or
27:03
Speaker 2: a smaller ship of a mine hundraw. We're talking about
27:07
Speaker 2: a specialist What was a specialist oil rig support ship
27:14
Speaker 2: which the New Zealand Navy had taken on and one
27:19
Speaker 2: of the reasons it was being used for the task
27:22
Speaker 2: it was was because it had a particular type of
27:24
Speaker 2: propulsion system, and that was that instead of having two
27:29
Speaker 2: propellers screws sticking out the back of the ship, they
27:33
Speaker 2: push you forward and then when you want to maneuver
27:37
Speaker 2: the ship left or right to turn, you have usually
27:41
Speaker 2: two rudders at the rear of the ship which are
27:44
Speaker 2: going to move and steer you. Now, this system works
27:48
Speaker 2: incredibly well, which is why it's the system for most ships.
27:52
Speaker 2: But the disadvantage is that when you get to low
27:54
Speaker 2: speed and you haven't got the water flow over the rudders,
28:00
Speaker 2: steering ability drops off. So if you want a ship
28:05
Speaker 2: to work in a very precise location and maneuver very accurately,
28:11
Speaker 2: you need a different type of propulsion. One of the
28:14
Speaker 2: key things is that many modern ships have what they
28:17
Speaker 2: call a bowl thruster, which is a little propeller embedded
28:22
Speaker 2: in the hull in the bow, which enables you to
28:25
Speaker 2: actually push the bow to the left or the right.
28:30
Speaker 2: But this particular ship had active propulsion pods, so the
28:40
Speaker 2: rudders were also combined with the propulsion pod for the propeller,
28:47
Speaker 2: and this means that you could turn the rudder extreme
28:51
Speaker 2: angles ninety degrees and therefore push the rear of the
28:56
Speaker 2: ship round in a very tight If you think about
29:02
Speaker 2: your car, when you try and park your car, it's
29:06
Speaker 2: easier to reverse into a space because you've got the steer.
29:09
Speaker 2: You're steering at the front and that works better as
29:13
Speaker 2: you reverse into a space. So people can feel this
29:17
Speaker 2: effect when they drive a car. Sometimes you get into
29:20
Speaker 2: a space and then you've got to work out how
29:21
Speaker 2: you move the wheel to get out. It's really the
29:24
Speaker 2: same with a ship, but for this particular role, because
29:28
Speaker 2: they were surveying seabed which the report itself said had
29:33
Speaker 2: been unsurveyed, you needed a ship which could maneuver very
29:40
Speaker 2: precisely at low speeds so that they could use a
29:45
Speaker 2: high frequency bottom scanning sonar in order to chart that water.
29:51
Speaker 2: So the first thing to say is that the propulsion
29:55
Speaker 2: system of the ship was not unique. Many ships use
29:59
Speaker 2: that sort of but it is different from a normal ship.
30:04
Speaker 2: And the operation of those propulsive pods at the back
30:11
Speaker 2: end of the stern of the ship obviously had on
30:14
Speaker 2: the bridge a control system where you could switch in
30:20
Speaker 2: an auto pilot, so the ship would follow a pre
30:23
Speaker 2: planned track and you could dial in course changes or
30:28
Speaker 2: dial in speed changes, and the automated system was make
30:34
Speaker 2: sure that the propulsion and the rudders acted to follow
30:39
Speaker 2: your commands exactly the same as an autopilot in an
30:42
Speaker 2: aircraft works effectively. So most airliners today take off, the
30:48
Speaker 2: pilots are in control, they take off, and once they
30:51
Speaker 2: get to a certain height, they switch on auto pilot.
30:55
Speaker 2: They dial in the altitude they want to reach, and
30:58
Speaker 2: they dialed in the heading and then the aircraft settles
31:02
Speaker 2: down and flies itself. So this ship had that ability,
31:07
Speaker 2: and this was very good because at relatively slow speeds
31:11
Speaker 2: they could follow a predesignated survey track to enable them
31:17
Speaker 2: to survey the seabed. And that was the basic system.
31:22
Speaker 2: After that it gets very interesting because yes, they were
31:27
Speaker 2: very close to the reef. They were only about eight
31:32
Speaker 2: hundred meters away, and they were will say they were
31:37
Speaker 2: moving parallel to the reef. They'd done one survey track,
31:42
Speaker 2: they turned to starboard, which is away from the reef,
31:46
Speaker 2: and then they were coming back on a parallel track,
31:50
Speaker 2: and then they were going to turn again to repeat
31:53
Speaker 2: the first track. But in the second turn that meant
31:57
Speaker 2: they were turning directly towards the and in that turn
32:06
Speaker 2: it ended up where the offers of the watch felt
32:09
Speaker 2: the ship was not responding to the rudder, and they
32:14
Speaker 2: ended up dialing in different commands, but those commands were
32:17
Speaker 2: going into the autopilot. Sorry, they were going into the autopilot,
32:23
Speaker 2: but the autopilot was actually acting according to an automated command,
32:28
Speaker 2: and so it ended up where the autopilot system drove
32:32
Speaker 2: them onto the reef, and they didn't realize what was
32:35
Speaker 2: happening because they didn't understand the autopilots of system sufficiently.
32:42
Speaker 2: But there are a number of factors that I found
32:44
Speaker 2: very interesting on this because they are charting waters that
32:49
Speaker 2: are uncharted. So you say, this is a very serious
32:53
Speaker 2: situation because you're taking a ship into an area of
32:56
Speaker 2: water where you're not quite sure what's on the seabed,
33:00
Speaker 2: because you are there to determine what's on the seabed.
33:03
Speaker 2: The other thing is that they were within about eight
33:06
Speaker 2: nine hundred meters of a reef. That's unbelievably close. Any
33:12
Speaker 2: normal captain would be getting very nervous. Mud is one
33:16
Speaker 2: thing we're privileged around UK to have lots of seabed,
33:21
Speaker 2: which is mud. You can run on to mud sometimes
33:24
Speaker 2: and get away with it, but you don't run into
33:27
Speaker 2: a reef and get away with it. So they were very,
33:30
Speaker 2: very close, and I am astonished that they were relying
33:35
Speaker 2: on an automated system and auto pilot to control the
33:40
Speaker 2: ship so close to a reef. And if I can
33:45
Speaker 2: emphasize this for people, the ship was actually doing six knots,
33:50
Speaker 2: so in six minutes it does a tenth of its speed,
33:52
Speaker 2: which is er point six of an aautical mile. An
33:56
Speaker 2: aautical mile we'll say roughly two thousand meters. So if
34:03
Speaker 2: you're thinking, well, they're quite a long way away. The
34:07
Speaker 2: moment they turned towards the reef and they were doing
34:11
Speaker 2: six knots and they accelerated to nearly ten knots. The
34:16
Speaker 2: ship covers that distance very very very very quickly in
34:20
Speaker 2: six minutes a tenth of the speed, and then so
34:23
Speaker 2: ten Nott ship is six minutes, one mile in six minutes,
34:29
Speaker 2: half a mile in three minutes, a quarter of a
34:31
Speaker 2: mile in a minute and a half. You cover a
34:34
Speaker 2: quarter of a mile in a very big vessel in
34:38
Speaker 2: a minute and a half. So once they'd made the mistakes,
34:42
Speaker 2: it was going to happen very quickly. So then my
34:45
Speaker 2: mind says, I can't understand what the organization was on
34:50
Speaker 2: the ship because the executive officer was apparently on the bridge.
34:56
Speaker 2: It's difficult to tell from the report because they don't
34:59
Speaker 2: identify people by their formal function. So he was on
35:03
Speaker 2: the bridge, but he didn't have training on the specific
35:07
Speaker 2: type of ship, so he was vulnerable from experience. But
35:12
Speaker 2: also there didn't appear to be any awareness for how
35:17
Speaker 2: close they were and what happened when something went wrong.
35:20
Speaker 2: They were in a low They were in a low
35:24
Speaker 2: state of watertight integrity. So a ship is divided up
35:29
Speaker 2: into water tight compartments, and as the danger increases, you
35:35
Speaker 2: shut more compartments, so if you get a leak into
35:38
Speaker 2: one or two compartments, the ship survives because it doesn't
35:41
Speaker 2: move on. But they were in the lowest the state
35:46
Speaker 2: that you'd normally use on passage in open waters with
35:49
Speaker 2: no risks, and yet they were within hundreds of meters
35:54
Speaker 2: of a reef. They didn't have the anchor ready for
35:57
Speaker 2: lenning go there's an emergency, you can drop the anchor
36:01
Speaker 2: that sometimes assists. They tried to do that, but ultimately
36:06
Speaker 2: they couldn't do it until they were already on the reef.
36:10
Speaker 2: So there were a whole lot of factors that when
36:15
Speaker 2: I read the report, I thought, my goodness, I can't
36:17
Speaker 2: quite believe what's happening here. So I hope I've explained
36:23
Speaker 2: that they were operating a parallel track. The reef was
36:28
Speaker 2: initially on their port side, the left hand side. They
36:32
Speaker 2: did a turn away from the reef to the south,
36:36
Speaker 2: they came back to the west, and then the critical
36:39
Speaker 2: thing is they turned to go back on that same track,
36:43
Speaker 2: but they got locked on a heading heading directly for
36:46
Speaker 2: the reef in autopilot, and nobody on the bridge knew
36:50
Speaker 2: what the problem was.
36:51
Speaker 1: In actual fact, the situation was compounded by, first of all,
36:58
Speaker 1: the lack of awareness about the autopilot system being on
37:03
Speaker 1: and being in control but also how it dealt with
37:06
Speaker 1: any attempt to override it, because what was actually happening
37:09
Speaker 1: is that they ended up accelerating towards the reef in
37:14
Speaker 1: thinking that they were using, as you say, the boothrus
37:17
Speaker 1: as that they thought were going to act as effectively
37:19
Speaker 1: as some break, but it had the opposite effect. So
37:23
Speaker 1: there are so many elements here that push us towards
37:26
Speaker 1: asking the question about whether, well I suppose where responsibility
37:33
Speaker 1: lies because it looks like in some ways, and I agree,
37:38
Speaker 1: the inquiry makes it hard to tell who was who
37:40
Speaker 1: because they're just referred to as witness by number, But
37:44
Speaker 1: it does look like a collection of individuals, none of
37:48
Speaker 1: whom was really suitably qualified for the particular function they
37:52
Speaker 1: were meant to be carrying out at that time. And therefore,
37:58
Speaker 1: what do we take from on that it looks like
38:02
Speaker 1: a gigantic stitch up in some ways? Why on earth
38:06
Speaker 1: would you put that collection of individuals into that situation
38:11
Speaker 1: knowing that if such a situation arose, they wouldn't really
38:16
Speaker 1: know how to deal with it. And what I'd like
38:19
Speaker 1: to do is to link that talking point to what
38:25
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, which was that the captain had come
38:30
Speaker 1: from the Royal Navy and what was her part in
38:35
Speaker 1: all of this and what do we make of that.
38:39
Speaker 2: This is where it gets interesting. And at the time
38:43
Speaker 2: of the collision, a lot of the reports made focused
38:48
Speaker 2: very much on the fact that the captain was a female.
38:52
Speaker 2: She'd been in the Royal Navy, she'd transferred out to
38:56
Speaker 2: the New Zealand Navy, and then the reality was very
39:00
Speaker 2: quickly she was given command of this vessel, which was
39:05
Speaker 2: itself a specialist vessel, and so there was quite a
39:09
Speaker 2: lot of criticism of her by means of by virtue
39:15
Speaker 2: of the fact that this incident happened. But it was
39:20
Speaker 2: also apparent that at that time the New Zealand Navy
39:23
Speaker 2: was making a very big attempt to get more women
39:27
Speaker 2: into higher profile positions within the New Zealand Navy, and
39:34
Speaker 2: there was a group of five of I think it
39:37
Speaker 2: was five of these women who went off in particular
39:40
Speaker 2: roles where there were problems for all of them. And
39:44
Speaker 2: there were a lot of people, particularly on social media,
39:47
Speaker 2: that were very very critical of the captain of this
39:50
Speaker 2: particular ship because she was a woman. And something that
39:55
Speaker 2: I wanted to do in talking about this incident was
39:58
Speaker 2: broaden that out a bit one. I think any person
40:03
Speaker 2: that's been the captain of a ship has got a
40:05
Speaker 2: certain amount of sympathy for other captains, because every captain
40:09
Speaker 2: would have experienced an incident where they thinking but for
40:13
Speaker 2: the grace of God. So that's an important thing to say.
40:18
Speaker 2: But the fact that the New Zealand Navy was making
40:22
Speaker 2: this very desperate operational decision to try and get more
40:28
Speaker 2: women at sea, I think needs some further investigation because
40:35
Speaker 2: what I pick up is that they were so desperate
40:39
Speaker 2: to show that they were recruiting women and putting them
40:42
Speaker 2: in these very responsible positions that actually some of these
40:47
Speaker 2: women at least were lured into doing jobs for which
40:52
Speaker 2: they were not trained and may well not have had
40:55
Speaker 2: the right aptitude. So as I read the report, although
41:00
Speaker 2: there are some things which I'm happy to talk about
41:02
Speaker 2: which I think are utterly crass bad that did and
41:06
Speaker 2: did not happen on the ship, I can also I
41:10
Speaker 2: also find myself thinking, well, actually, that young female captain
41:15
Speaker 2: should not have been put in the position she was,
41:18
Speaker 2: and so I think we can bring a certain amount
41:21
Speaker 2: of even handedness into it. But the key bit is
41:24
Speaker 2: that she moved to New Zealand, to the New Zealand Navy.
41:30
Speaker 2: She had no command experience, and then she's put in
41:36
Speaker 2: charge of a very specialist ship on a very specialist
41:41
Speaker 2: role and on this particular survey was in That survey
41:47
Speaker 2: was a very very dangerous survey because they were so
41:51
Speaker 2: close to the reef.
41:52
Speaker 1: Just a substantiate what you're saying, And I think it's
41:56
Speaker 1: a point that we have to be really clear on
41:58
Speaker 1: that there does appear to have been this agenda to
42:01
Speaker 1: force women into particular roles and in a way hang
42:06
Speaker 1: the consequences, but certainly not prepare them, so absolutely setting
42:09
Speaker 1: the individuals concerned up for a fall. But paragraph thirty
42:14
Speaker 1: nine of the inquiry deals with training and expertise, and
42:19
Speaker 1: we have reference to their being people. Well, sorry, the
42:24
Speaker 1: survey planner not appropriately qualified and without sufficient navigation qualifications
42:29
Speaker 1: and experience to provide advice to the bridge staff. Also
42:32
Speaker 1: insufficient numbers of qualified survey personnel to conduct the plan
42:35
Speaker 1: prolonged survey task. And then we've got paragraph forty ships personnel. Sorry,
42:42
Speaker 1: the key ships personnel involved were found to have deficiencies
42:46
Speaker 1: in ship qualifications. And then the document that details the
42:52
Speaker 1: minimum qualifications and experience requirements for the ship had not
42:55
Speaker 1: been completed since the ship's initial operational release. This paragraph
43:00
Speaker 1: forty one the individual deficiencies in the platform related training
43:03
Speaker 1: and the qualifications and experience in planning and conducting survey
43:06
Speaker 1: operations of the nature being conducted collectively combined to contribute
43:10
Speaker 1: to the ship grounding. I mean, these are all really
43:14
Speaker 1: damning factors. Which is why earlier on the conversation, you know,
43:17
Speaker 1: I was going back to this idea of how exactly
43:22
Speaker 1: command works, and I think the critical part here, which
43:25
Speaker 1: is where responsibility actually lies. And this is what seems
43:28
Speaker 1: a bit interesting about the inquiry document because we know
43:32
Speaker 1: you've just said, you know, the New Zealand Navy was
43:35
Speaker 1: making no secret of the fact that they wanted to
43:36
Speaker 1: put women into high profile roles and this was in
43:42
Speaker 1: effect one such with you know, within the context of
43:46
Speaker 1: the New Zealand Navy. It failed because this happened. And
43:50
Speaker 1: this is not to point the finger out the woman
43:52
Speaker 1: in concern, because of course she was, like we say,
43:56
Speaker 1: it set up for a fort. It was obvious she
43:57
Speaker 1: was underqualified. Why would they not have qualified her? And
44:01
Speaker 1: indeed those that she had on board with her sufficiently.
44:04
Speaker 1: But what is very interesting to spare people the interminable
44:08
Speaker 1: detail of the report itself. What comes through very strongly
44:11
Speaker 1: is that the decision to appoint somebody who was underqualified
44:15
Speaker 1: is not criticized or dealt with at all in the inquiry.
44:19
Speaker 2: No, and of course a lot of informations redacted in
44:22
Speaker 2: the inquiry. But when I read this report, it wasn't
44:31
Speaker 2: so much a whitewash, but it was so carefully worded,
44:37
Speaker 2: and I thought, my goodness, the aim of this report
44:40
Speaker 2: is to dilute what really happened. That was my rule
44:45
Speaker 2: feeling about it, And so I read through it getting
44:50
Speaker 2: more and more suspicious about what had actually been going on. Normally, traditionally,
44:57
Speaker 2: if a warship is lost her Majesty's his majesty's warship,
45:03
Speaker 2: that is a court martial, of which the captain is
45:08
Speaker 2: the person who's going to be court martialed, because they
45:10
Speaker 2: have ultimate responsibility for the ship. So I was interested
45:14
Speaker 2: in this case. There is a much softer inquiry. And
45:19
Speaker 2: I don't know how this fits. Is this a precursor
45:23
Speaker 2: to their actually being a court martial the captain of
45:26
Speaker 2: this vessel? I don't know, But if I had a
45:30
Speaker 2: bit to those things you listed, the various weaknesses about
45:34
Speaker 2: people not being trained. I was very interested that the
45:40
Speaker 2: report says that the ship had a crew of forty five.
45:44
Speaker 2: It then says there was another fifteen people conducting on
45:50
Speaker 2: the job training, another seven from other government agencies, another
45:57
Speaker 2: four from Pacific Island partner trees, and another four of
46:03
Speaker 2: embedded forces, whatever those were. And so basically you had
46:09
Speaker 2: a ship's company trying to do a serious and difficult
46:13
Speaker 2: job and they were carrying about the same number of passengers.
46:19
Speaker 2: And I just find this extraordinary because yes, most warships
46:24
Speaker 2: from time to time will carry specialist people or passengers
46:28
Speaker 2: for various reasons. But when you have a ratio of
46:31
Speaker 2: one to virtually one to one, it's become a passenger liner.
46:36
Speaker 2: And I can tell you that the result of those
46:38
Speaker 2: people on board will be that life on board would
46:41
Speaker 2: have got significantly more casual than when they were operating
46:47
Speaker 2: as their own tightly knit community. So I think that
46:53
Speaker 2: was extremely important. And also it had been reported that
46:59
Speaker 2: the shit, and this would have come under the captain
47:01
Speaker 2: because she would have signed off the signal had reported
47:06
Speaker 2: twenty personnel deficiencies in a crew of forty five. Now
47:12
Speaker 2: I don't think that means that twenty people were absent.
47:15
Speaker 2: What they're saying is that there were twenty problems with
47:19
Speaker 2: training courses or medicals. It could be so when you
47:27
Speaker 2: look at the ship and the crew, there was something
47:32
Speaker 2: very wrong because there were so many problems. And in addition,
47:37
Speaker 2: we've got all these passengers on board and that wasn't well,
47:41
Speaker 2: you could say it wasn't the captain's decision because higher
47:44
Speaker 2: authority would have said you are to take these people.
47:48
Speaker 2: But if there aren't any signals where the captain of
47:51
Speaker 2: the ship said this is I can't accept this, this
47:55
Speaker 2: is breaching safety, this is causing me these problems. If
47:59
Speaker 2: she didn't challenge it, the buck still comes back on
48:02
Speaker 2: her as the captain. But were the higher authorities responsible
48:07
Speaker 2: for partly responsible for this absolutely?
48:10
Speaker 1: I think that's the bit really that we need to
48:13
Speaker 1: get to. You have reported on UK column News many
48:18
Speaker 1: times in well, I mean over the years, but in
48:21
Speaker 1: particular in recent months, including just yesterday we're recording on
48:25
Speaker 1: the second of June on Monday. The first you used
48:28
Speaker 1: a clip from a report that Mark Felton had prepared
48:32
Speaker 1: on the state of the Navy as he sees it
48:35
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. And one thing that you commented
48:39
Speaker 1: on that absolutely shines through certainly where the role navy
48:43
Speaker 1: is concerned. But also in this inquiry is the extraordinary
48:47
Speaker 1: attitude apparently of those holding senior command appointments in the military.
48:53
Speaker 1: And this is not exclusive to the British Army or
48:58
Speaker 1: Armed Forces or you know, United Kingdom personnel, but also
49:05
Speaker 1: it seems in the New Zealand Navy. Which is that
49:09
Speaker 1: And to use a prime example, we've got Gwyn Jenkins,
49:14
Speaker 1: Admiral sorry, General Gwyn Jenkins, first y Lord at the moment,
49:18
Speaker 1: in charge of a navy that has been trashed before
49:22
Speaker 1: his eyes. I mean, he's a Romarine and he has
49:26
Speaker 1: served concurrent to a process which can only be described
49:31
Speaker 1: as the intentional destruction of the service he joined. And
49:35
Speaker 1: yet he is prepared to tow the political line which
49:41
Speaker 1: sees him describing the Navy in glowing positive terms as
49:45
Speaker 1: this hybrid force with a blend of capabilities due to
49:50
Speaker 1: autonomation and such like. Why does he and his cohort
49:58
Speaker 1: I absolutely include Walker heading the army at the minute
50:01
Speaker 1: in this who fall back on the sort of well,
50:05
Speaker 1: you know, if it comes to it, we just grab
50:07
Speaker 1: our kit and go, we'll make do. This is how
50:10
Speaker 1: we operate. They are totally failing to defend the service
50:15
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to be representing. And this seems to
50:18
Speaker 1: come through in the inquiry here. It is very obvious
50:21
Speaker 1: that the crew, the captain of Malauanui were set up
50:27
Speaker 1: for a failure. That responsibility lies with somebody not defined.
50:32
Speaker 1: And yet none of these people in these senior appointments
50:35
Speaker 1: have it within them to challenge that. Certainly not publicly,
50:41
Speaker 1: and it would seem not privately either. Now why is that.
50:45
Speaker 2: A really good question, Charles? And I'll have to apply
50:50
Speaker 2: my brain to it, because over the years that I
50:54
Speaker 2: served in the Royal Navy, as you get more senior,
50:56
Speaker 2: you become more inquiring people above you, and I saw
51:01
Speaker 2: things and witnessed things people getting more senior, and as
51:09
Speaker 2: their eyes as they become more senior, their eyes focus
51:12
Speaker 2: on the next high rank, and the key one is
51:16
Speaker 2: the desire to get to a you know, substantial rank,
51:21
Speaker 2: to become an admiral, commodore and admiral. That lights up
51:26
Speaker 2: their eyes and they will drive for that promotion and
51:31
Speaker 2: the status it gives, and they will I've seen people
51:36
Speaker 2: who are clearly prepared to trample over others to ensure
51:39
Speaker 2: that they get that, and then when they get the
51:41
Speaker 2: flag rank, the next thing is they're desperate to be knighted.
51:47
Speaker 2: They want the knighthood, they want to become sir. It's
51:51
Speaker 2: going to be lady now. They want that to happen,
51:55
Speaker 2: because with that comes a whole another layer of status.
52:00
Speaker 2: And I have seen people that I have thought to
52:04
Speaker 2: be very good, tough, perceptive officers that I respected, become
52:12
Speaker 2: complete jelly as they go up the system and their
52:16
Speaker 2: interaction with the political class increases. That this is one
52:21
Speaker 2: thing for people to understand that if you're in the
52:24
Speaker 2: military at a low level or a medium level, you
52:29
Speaker 2: are doing the job with other military people. But of
52:32
Speaker 2: course the moment you get well up in the food
52:35
Speaker 2: chain in doing your military job, you are automatically interfacing
52:41
Speaker 2: with politicians. And it was well known in the Rawal
52:47
Speaker 2: Navy that the moment you started to do staff courses
52:50
Speaker 2: which were taking you into wider realms than pure military operations,
52:57
Speaker 2: you were looking maybe into international relays and deeper politics
53:02
Speaker 2: to give you a better capability as a more senior officer.
53:07
Speaker 2: People who did those courses were also being measured as
53:12
Speaker 2: to their ability to get on and what that meant
53:16
Speaker 2: is their ability to get on with politicians, that they
53:20
Speaker 2: would they would be the right sort of person, they
53:24
Speaker 2: wouldn't upset the apple cart too much. So you were
53:27
Speaker 2: selecting people you could argue on their good interpersonal skills,
53:34
Speaker 2: or you could say you were selecting people who they
53:36
Speaker 2: knew would not have the wherewithal to stand up when
53:41
Speaker 2: politicians were making stupid and ridiculous decisions. Couple that with
53:47
Speaker 2: I want to get higher up the military food chain
53:50
Speaker 2: and I wanted to be knighted, and you've got people
53:54
Speaker 2: who are being brought under. It might be very soft,
53:57
Speaker 2: but it's a very powerful force of control. And this
54:02
Speaker 2: is the only explanation I've got for it, because many
54:08
Speaker 2: of the people who many of the people who commentate
54:12
Speaker 2: on the poor situate on the poor status of the
54:15
Speaker 2: military in the United Kingdom are commenting as retired senior
54:22
Speaker 2: military people, and they were in post when the damage
54:27
Speaker 2: was being done. They didn't say anything. It was only
54:31
Speaker 2: afterwards that they started to comment. And yet they had
54:34
Speaker 2: been in a position, as an admiral, for example, to
54:38
Speaker 2: be absolutely banging the table and resigning if necessary, into
54:44
Speaker 2: it in order to highlight the destruction of the armed forces,
54:49
Speaker 2: but these people just appeared to not have the courage
54:54
Speaker 2: to do it. And I've said on occasions that I'm
54:58
Speaker 2: astonished to witness senior military people that have got a
55:04
Speaker 2: really good track record on the battlefield and then they
55:08
Speaker 2: come into a position where they've got to challenge politicians
55:12
Speaker 2: and they become complete cowards. I've been fascinated by this.
55:16
Speaker 1: So we've dealt with the sort of the why in
55:19
Speaker 1: terms of the politicization and the sort of looking towards
55:25
Speaker 1: the dizzy heights, rank status, all that kind of thing.
55:30
Speaker 1: If anyone listening is still scratching the head thing, I'm
55:33
Speaker 1: not really sure I go along with that and set
55:34
Speaker 1: you up for another one because the other the other
55:39
Speaker 1: clip that was played on the news program yesterday, it
55:42
Speaker 1: was from Mike Elvis, who's the Lieutenant General commanding the ARC.
55:49
Speaker 1: The Allied Rapid Reaction Court, which based at Imagine in Gloucester,
55:52
Speaker 1: set up in nineteen ninety one and initially in Germany,
55:56
Speaker 1: moved back in twenty eleven into Gloucester, and the most
56:00
Speaker 1: interesting thing I think to come out there there was
56:02
Speaker 1: all the sort of well, first of all, if anyone
56:04
Speaker 1: hasn't seen that clear, it was an interview set down
56:07
Speaker 1: in the bowels and London underground with a telegraph reporter,
56:10
Speaker 1: absolute state propaganda, many things that we could talk about.
56:14
Speaker 1: What I'd like to get to, though, is this idea
56:17
Speaker 1: that we are facing an existential threat from Russia. Because
56:20
Speaker 1: we've just talked about the likes of Gwyn Jenkins and
56:23
Speaker 1: really Walker presiding over the destruction of the force. They're
56:26
Speaker 1: supposed to be running literally the rug pulled out from
56:29
Speaker 1: under them at the same time as trying to pretend
56:32
Speaker 1: that everything is great. Now, that is an absolutely extraordinary
56:35
Speaker 1: position for the head of an armed force and armed
56:38
Speaker 1: service to find themselves in. We then have Mike Elvis
56:43
Speaker 1: pontificating on what might happen with Russia were they to
56:49
Speaker 1: decide the Russians, were the Russians to decide to see
56:53
Speaker 1: hostilities with Ukraine in order to switch fire to the
56:57
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. Now, if if that were the case, he knows,
57:04
Speaker 1: Elvis knows how ill prepared and poorly armed, defended whatever
57:11
Speaker 1: you want to call it, the armed forces actually is.
57:14
Speaker 1: And yet he still follows or pushes out the line
57:20
Speaker 1: that you know, Will will sort of muck in and
57:23
Speaker 1: do what we can. So he in a way is
57:27
Speaker 1: sort of totally on the money. His thing. The thing
57:29
Speaker 1: that I thought was very interesting though, was for him
57:32
Speaker 1: to describe Headquarters ARC, or indeed the Allied Rapid Reaction
57:36
Speaker 1: Call itself as as being the de facto command structure
57:40
Speaker 1: for the British Army.
57:41
Speaker 2: It was the news, so you could only do so
57:44
Speaker 2: much on it, but I was fascinated with what he
57:47
Speaker 2: was saying.
57:48
Speaker 1: It was very interesting because it does it's sort of
57:50
Speaker 1: two things. First of all, exactly like Jenkins trying to
57:53
Speaker 1: bang the drum for a hybrid navy, when what he
57:55
Speaker 1: really means is we haven't got anything left, and Elvis
57:58
Speaker 1: is in a sense doing the same thing. That everything
58:02
Speaker 1: now has to be double hatted because you can't pretend
58:05
Speaker 1: that there is a separate command structure from the ART,
58:08
Speaker 1: because there are so few people, so little hardware left
58:11
Speaker 1: that in actual fact he is correct that the ART
58:14
Speaker 1: is the facto in command of the army. But of
58:17
Speaker 1: course the missing part what he didn't say was that
58:20
Speaker 1: actually that that means the strings are being pulled not
58:23
Speaker 1: from within the United Kingdom, but that his command structure
58:28
Speaker 1: goes back onto the European continent and indeed into the
58:32
Speaker 1: architecture of the sort of construct that is the European Union.
58:38
Speaker 2: Well, this is Mike Robinson's EU military unification system and
58:45
Speaker 2: we can smile what we say, it's Brexit without the exit,
58:48
Speaker 2: which is a UK column phrase, because we can see
58:51
Speaker 2: here very clearly that the UK's military control has now
58:57
Speaker 2: become has now drifted sternally.
59:00
Speaker 1: At a time and this is the fascinating part of it.
59:04
Speaker 1: At a time where there is a flood of information
59:09
Speaker 1: in the public domain about how poorly resourced the armed
59:13
Speaker 1: forces are, and yet at the same time they are
59:16
Speaker 1: talking about this existential threat from Russia and indeed an
59:21
Speaker 1: ability to meet it. It is it is utterly hollow
59:26
Speaker 1: by their own admission. So so what are we to
59:30
Speaker 1: take from it? And you know, to what extent does
59:34
Speaker 1: this absolutely destroy the mainstream narrative about Russia being a
59:40
Speaker 1: threat because if it really worth you know, the words
59:45
Speaker 1: of Vladimir Putin have been twisted forever and ever, but
59:50
Speaker 1: the idea that explicit threats have been made against London,
59:55
Speaker 1: you know, in totally unqualified sense. I mean, what are
59:59
Speaker 1: we what are we to make of it?
1:00:01
Speaker 2: What? What?
1:00:01
Speaker 1: What should people be thinking about this?
1:00:05
Speaker 2: Well, one people should be getting very concerned. If they
1:00:08
Speaker 2: don't understand it, they should be concerned that we've got
1:00:12
Speaker 2: a senior military, an army of senior army officer left
1:00:18
Speaker 2: and general, having an interview with the Telegraph and they
1:00:23
Speaker 2: are discussing how to make the population of this country
1:00:26
Speaker 2: more fearful to the idea that there's going to be
1:00:29
Speaker 2: World War three. That was breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking, and as
1:00:35
Speaker 2: the band says, we should be more fearful of World
1:00:38
Speaker 2: War three. If that statement was true, which I don't
1:00:41
Speaker 2: believe it is, he should have been absolutely recognizing the
1:00:46
Speaker 2: pitiful state of the of the of the military across
1:00:51
Speaker 2: the board in the UK. But he doesn't want to
1:00:53
Speaker 2: talk about that, of course, because he'd be he'd be
1:00:56
Speaker 2: losing his job. So we we something think very pernicious
1:01:02
Speaker 2: is coming to the surface. We've talked about it when
1:01:05
Speaker 2: it's been underneath the surface. But essentially we are seeing
1:01:09
Speaker 2: that our armed forces and control of those armed forces
1:01:15
Speaker 2: are no longer happening within the control limitations of the
1:01:21
Speaker 2: Constitution and the nation state. Those elements are being drifted across,
1:01:28
Speaker 2: subsumed into this pan European structure, which is a mix
1:01:34
Speaker 2: at the moment isn't it of the European Union and NATO,
1:01:38
Speaker 2: so our ability to operate as a nation state is
1:01:43
Speaker 2: being destroyed. And this fits other analysis that the column
1:01:47
Speaker 2: is doing. But several of our viewers said it was
1:01:52
Speaker 2: very interesting because Elvis was sat there with this funny
1:01:57
Speaker 2: smile on his face a couple of times, as if
1:02:01
Speaker 2: he realized that what he was having to say was nonsense.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: He was, he was, It was almost like he was
1:02:10
Speaker 2: he realized he was playing a game, and he had
1:02:12
Speaker 2: to smile because he knew the answers he had to
1:02:15
Speaker 2: give otherwise he'd be losing his job. His post were ridiculous.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: Yes, I think this is it that there is no
1:02:24
Speaker 1: there's no train of logic to describe something as being
1:02:27
Speaker 1: so absolutely terrifying and dangerous and in a very current sense.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: And yes, at the same time saying that it is
1:02:37
Speaker 1: just going to sit there and wait until we're ready
1:02:40
Speaker 1: to something else he.
1:02:42
Speaker 2: Did, which I thought this is indicative of the modern
1:02:47
Speaker 2: senior officer, and that is he was. He was asked,
1:02:51
Speaker 2: what is it about the Russians you're scared of? And
1:02:55
Speaker 2: of course his immediate reply should have been, I'm not
1:02:58
Speaker 2: scared about the Russians. I am deeply concerned with the
1:03:03
Speaker 2: fact that they now have a battle hardened army, military system.
1:03:09
Speaker 2: In fact, so I was amused that he was prepared
1:03:13
Speaker 2: to go along with the line that he was scared
1:03:16
Speaker 2: and not deal with that immediately. That to me showed
1:03:19
Speaker 2: a certain a certain weakness. But it was a horrific
1:03:25
Speaker 2: construct construct And when he when he was talking about
1:03:29
Speaker 2: sort of dispersal of forces in order to keep them safe,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, well, if you pay attention to what
1:03:35
Speaker 2: happened in the Second World War, that's exactly what was done.
1:03:39
Speaker 2: Factories were moved to different positions, Ammunition was put in
1:03:43
Speaker 2: holes in the ground all over the country. What did
1:03:47
Speaker 2: we do under privatization? And Margaret Thatcher's era would have
1:03:52
Speaker 2: been the start of this. We started to privatize defense
1:03:56
Speaker 2: industry what's the word elements, and a lot of that
1:04:06
Speaker 2: did the exact opposite. It got rid of dispersed and
1:04:10
Speaker 2: albeit inefficient storage systems or supply centers, and it concentrated
1:04:16
Speaker 2: them in one because TESCO will have one big one
1:04:19
Speaker 2: and that works very efficiently. We then applied it to
1:04:22
Speaker 2: the military model. And now the war in Ukraine has
1:04:26
Speaker 2: brought home due to Russia. Russia's excellent technology that you
1:04:32
Speaker 2: concentrate your forces, they're going to be destroyed. And this
1:04:35
Speaker 2: man is talking as though this is a this is
1:04:37
Speaker 2: a surprise to him.
1:04:39
Speaker 1: A very good topic for a future episode, because I
1:04:42
Speaker 1: know we're short of time, but I think the I
1:04:44
Speaker 1: think that relationship, the way in which that relationship has drifted,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: I think be an excellent subject and just and I
1:04:50
Speaker 1: would just sort of close it with an aneucdate, but
1:04:54
Speaker 1: just I think this ties in so well with what
1:04:56
Speaker 1: you've just been describing, but also this idea that there
1:04:59
Speaker 1: is a political line and they're all towing it. I
1:05:02
Speaker 1: happened to meet Elvis's number two, the Italian major General
1:05:07
Speaker 1: second command at the ARC in the last few months,
1:05:11
Speaker 1: and I had a fascinating conversation. It was quite brief,
1:05:15
Speaker 1: but very interesting conversation with him, in which he spouted
1:05:20
Speaker 1: exactly that same line that he was completely certain that
1:05:25
Speaker 1: we the United Kingdom, and as far as he was concerned,
1:05:29
Speaker 1: we Europe and specifically the NATO, Allied Rapid Reaction Court,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: the British Army, all the elements that are connected with
1:05:37
Speaker 1: were on course for conflict with Russia. There was no
1:05:41
Speaker 1: doubt in his mind and questioning on the okay, so
1:05:46
Speaker 1: why why not know? Then? If we're underprepared and therefore vulnerable,
1:05:54
Speaker 1: why is it not happening now? And there is no
1:05:56
Speaker 1: answer to that question what we started out by dealing with,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: which was this incident concerning that the New Zealand Navy.
1:06:07
Speaker 1: I think this is what comes through line and.
1:06:10
Speaker 2: Clear, notwithstanding the fact that the captain of the ship
1:06:14
Speaker 2: was set up to fail by virtue. Of all the
1:06:19
Speaker 2: problems that were highlighted in the report, there was twelve
1:06:22
Speaker 2: of them altogether, just reeled them off very quickly. Training
1:06:26
Speaker 2: and experience and experience, military hydrographic planning, orders, instructions, procedures,
1:06:35
Speaker 2: operational risk matrix, force generation, operational release, supervision, validation, haste, leadership, distraction,
1:06:46
Speaker 2: interruption and the last one was hollow this and I
1:06:49
Speaker 2: put some question marks under that because I didn't understand
1:06:51
Speaker 2: what that was. But that's missing personnel or personnel who
1:06:55
Speaker 2: haven't been trained properly. So the captain was set up
1:06:58
Speaker 2: to fail by the fact she was put in a
1:07:02
Speaker 2: very difficult position. She wasn't trained, she hasn't got any
1:07:07
Speaker 2: command experience, she's on a very specialist mission. She hasn't
1:07:12
Speaker 2: been trained on the ship all of these things, but
1:07:17
Speaker 2: she was a trained offster the watch and a trained
1:07:21
Speaker 2: after the Watch in the Royal Navy has the ability
1:07:25
Speaker 2: to be on the bridge and be responsible, totally responsible
1:07:30
Speaker 2: for the safety of the ship. Captain maybe asleep and
1:07:35
Speaker 2: you still as afster the Watch have to make all
1:07:37
Speaker 2: the decisions, whether it's avoiding collision, whether it's mitigating or
1:07:41
Speaker 2: dealing with navigation risk, it's to do with fire or
1:07:45
Speaker 2: machinery breakdown. Once you are a trained officer of the watch,
1:07:49
Speaker 2: that's your responsibility. And the idea that she was not
1:07:55
Speaker 2: concerned that her specialist ship was within eight hundred meters
1:08:02
Speaker 2: this is This might sound like a big distance to
1:08:05
Speaker 2: people in normal life, it is not. When you're at sea.
1:08:09
Speaker 2: If you're eight hundred meters away from something, you're virtually
1:08:13
Speaker 2: alongside them. And she was in a cabin writing night
1:08:18
Speaker 2: orders because it actually got dark a few minutes after
1:08:23
Speaker 2: they'd hit the reef, so she was not on the bridge,
1:08:27
Speaker 2: and she was eight hundred meters away from a reef
1:08:32
Speaker 2: which could and ultimately did destroy a ship, and that
1:08:38
Speaker 2: to me says that there was a failing also with her,
1:08:44
Speaker 2: and that was partly I believe that she had not
1:08:48
Speaker 2: done her command experience, she had not been had that
1:08:53
Speaker 2: additional training for command. But I am absolutely sure she
1:08:58
Speaker 2: was also felt more confident than she was because the
1:09:04
Speaker 2: attention she'd been given as a woman in a position
1:09:09
Speaker 2: within the New Zealand Navy. I'm very confident this is true.
1:09:15
Speaker 2: And the executive officer who was on the bridge was
1:09:19
Speaker 2: also not type trained in that ship, but also to
1:09:24
Speaker 2: have him on the bridge, and he couldn't deal with
1:09:27
Speaker 2: the situation either, as second in command says, what was
1:09:33
Speaker 2: going on. But the key thing is when you were
1:09:35
Speaker 2: at sea, if you were on board a ship, you
1:09:38
Speaker 2: have to be aware of everything, which is how close
1:09:41
Speaker 2: the bottom is, what the bottom is, is it mud
1:09:44
Speaker 2: or is it rocks? What you're heading is how far
1:09:48
Speaker 2: you have to go before you're going to hit something unpleasant,
1:09:51
Speaker 2: whether it's a rock or another ship. This is the
1:09:54
Speaker 2: basics of being the watch or captain of a ship.
1:10:00
Speaker 2: And she failed at that, and we also need to
1:10:06
Speaker 2: recognize that. But she failed. She failed in a situation
1:10:10
Speaker 2: which was also made much more complex by failings of
1:10:15
Speaker 2: the higher command around her, and I think we shall
1:10:19
Speaker 2: absolutely recognize that. So it's it's it's a fascinating thing.
1:10:26
Speaker 2: My last comment is that we saw women being put
1:10:30
Speaker 2: into the military become a policy across Western militaries. And
1:10:37
Speaker 2: because I happened to be part of that Flag ofviously
1:10:40
Speaker 2: Sea training body when the first wrens went to see
1:10:45
Speaker 2: in this country. I know to many people what I'm
1:10:49
Speaker 2: saying will be deeply unpopular, But the moment those young
1:10:54
Speaker 2: women went to see, the whole atmosphere on board the
1:10:58
Speaker 2: warships changed. It went from being what you could feel
1:11:03
Speaker 2: as a male disciplined environment to something much much looser
1:11:11
Speaker 2: and under the surface of course the driving forces. If
1:11:15
Speaker 2: you've put young men and young women in a steel box,
1:11:19
Speaker 2: sex becomes the issue. Relationships become the issue, and you
1:11:24
Speaker 2: could see the downward spiral in the capability of those teams.
1:11:31
Speaker 2: And although time's gone on and we've said, oh well
1:11:33
Speaker 2: it's normal now you've got much higher women to male
1:11:38
Speaker 2: men ratio on board the ships. Everything's okay now, No,
1:11:42
Speaker 2: I don't believe it is. I believe what's happened is
1:11:45
Speaker 2: that you've normalized at a lower operational level. That's my opinion,
1:11:52
Speaker 2: and i'd it would be interesting if there's any female
1:11:57
Speaker 2: military people who wanted to discuss this with me, I'd
1:12:01
Speaker 2: be very happy to do it because I'm not in
1:12:04
Speaker 2: the first instance talking from well, they're women and they
1:12:09
Speaker 2: can't do the job. It's not as simple as that,
1:12:12
Speaker 2: because often they can do the job, but what they can't,
1:12:16
Speaker 2: what unfortunately they're not helping is the environment.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, absolutely, but I think you know, to
1:12:25
Speaker 1: qualify it's not it's not in any way blame to
1:12:30
Speaker 1: be abortioned to the the women that have that have
1:12:34
Speaker 1: decided that they will take up that sort of you know,
1:12:36
Speaker 1: oftenlier because they've been encouraged exactly exactly, and this is
1:12:40
Speaker 1: the critical part. So say that result that the change
1:12:44
Speaker 1: of the dynamics is absolutely one hundred percent predictable, and
1:12:47
Speaker 1: therefore we have to examine this in the light of
1:12:50
Speaker 1: it being entirely intentional as a consequence.
1:12:53
Speaker 2: An unfortunate sinking. It's it was really excellent that nobody
1:12:59
Speaker 2: lost their lives or what's severely injured. Whether we go
1:13:04
Speaker 2: on to see what happens in a court martial of
1:13:06
Speaker 2: the captain and more information comes out remains to be seen.
1:13:12
Speaker 2: But a disaster at all levels from the point of
1:13:17
Speaker 2: view of the New Zealand Navy, their higher level command
1:13:24
Speaker 2: and control structure, right down to what was happening on
1:13:27
Speaker 2: board that ship on the dessert on the day, and
1:13:31
Speaker 2: if it's indicative of the overall standard across the New
1:13:34
Speaker 2: Zealand military, they've got major problems because they are on
1:13:40
Speaker 2: the verge of breakdown in my opinion.
1:13:42
Speaker 1: Indeed, and on that note, I think we have to
1:13:47
Speaker 1: end there. So thank you very much for listening, Brian,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: thank you very much Deve for joining me, and I
1:13:53
Speaker 1: think we have plenty teed up for the next episode.