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The RB44 Story Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Researched by forum member Just Popped In

PART 3 The costs involved.

The RB44 Heavy Duty Utility Truck

RB44 Army Light Vehicle From government papers.

Dr. David Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what date his Department withdrew from service the RB44 Army light vehicle; and on what date his Department was first alerted to the problems with braking mechanisms of the RB44. [6987]

Mr. Arbuthnot: The issue of braking first arose during trials in 1989, but the shortcomings were addressed before the production contract was placed in 1990.

The vehicles were temporarily withdrawn from service in June 1992 following problems with braking performance reported by the Royal School of Artillery in May 1992; after modifications, they were restored to service in November 1992. Following the results of

further testing under stringent conditions in August 1993, the vehicles were withdrawn from service in December 1993, but were accepted again for service in August 1995.
On the RB44 Heavy Duty Utility Truck, braking faults began to appear in April 1991 following delivery of production vehicles to Units and, in December 1993, all RB44's were declared "vehicle-off-the-road" and could not be used until the fault had been rectified. To rectify the problems and make the vehicle fit for service use the contractor spent an estimated ￡250,000, whilst the Department estimated that it spent an additional ￡1.5 million and incurred an additional ￡1.7 million storage costs.

The Committee asked why the Department had to pay so much and the contractor only ￡250,000.
The Department told us that it had been too deeply involved in setting the specification so that the truck's ultimate performance was not entirely the responsibility of the contractor and the Department ended up paying for the additional costs. Recognising these shortcomings, the Department explained that it was trying to move away from specifying detailed solutions and towards specifying only the equipment performance which it would hold the contractor responsible for meeting.[

On the RB44 programme the Department specified very closely how the truck should be made rather than the performance it should achieve. As a result the truck's failure to work properly was not primarily the responsibility of the contractor and the Department ended up paying ￡3.2 million to rectify the situation. The Department will need to follow rigorously its new approach of specifying contractual requirements in performance terms, thus laying responsibility at the door of the contractor for delivery of equipment which meets its operational needs.

7. Others will come back to this and I will certainly come back to one of the points you made in a moment. In taking evidence on the 1997 Major Projects Report?I think you were with us Sir Robert?we heard about the technical difficulties which you had in procuring TUL/TUM Land Rovers which pulled to the left on braking.

I remember you brought us the rubber bush that caused the problem. Paragraph 3 of Box 4 details the problems which you had in the earlier procurement of another utility truck?the RB44?which again revolved around the problems with braking. In the RB44 case you spent almost ￡1 million modifying the braking system prior to acceptance. How is it that the braking problem re-occurred once the vehicle was in service and why do you seem to be unable to prevent such basic technical difficulties re-occurring? My own handwritten note here says it is not rocket science. Mr Tebbit?

(Mr Tebbit) You have got one here which I agree is partly our fault but I will ask Sir Robert Walmsley to cover it in detail.

8. There we are, a hot pass, Sir Robert!
(Sir Robert Walmsley) It is not rocket science, Chairman, but it is an extremely complex interaction between suspension and the front axle and the effects of braking. I cannot explain why it is so hard to make trucks, whether medium or heavy, that brake in a straight line.

As to your specific question as to why did we keep on thinking we had fixed it and then find we had not, I think there is a clearer story. First of all, after the initial production vehicles came off the line we tested them. We asked for it to be fixed.

Because we had asked for a specific problem to be fixed we introduced extra tests and it was those extra tests which showed that there was still a problem. We then fixed that and put the vehicles into service; that was the first stage. Additional tests uncovered additional faults. The second stage was that in operation we discovered that the brakes required far too frequent adjustment in order to keep them up to scratch in terms of performance and it was not really a practical proposition for the Army to keep on doing this continual adjustment, so in some vehicles where they did not continually adjust the brakes the performance was not adequate, that is why we reverted to automatic break adjustment which had been in the original specification but which we had removed. The third problem is that a lot of these vehicles were kept in store.

As part of the defence cost studies we decided it was not sensible to go on maintaining everything we kept in store as though it was in operational use. What we missed?I cannot explain it?is that some seals on the brake cylinders, which anyone who has tried to fix their brakes will know, perish if they are kept in store. If we had not conducted the maintenance these vehicles would be brought back into service and the braking problems exhibited. So they are sensitive to not following maintenance. We did not and that is why there was a problem. We follow the maintenance now. The vehicles now brake properly.

9. I hear what you say. One has to say, however, that interactions between mechanical systems are the sort of problems that designers in the commercial vehicle industry solve all the time. As for storing vehicles, one often sees lots of vehicles stored in the open and they are sold afterwards and they are not expected to go wrong. I think we are going to find people coming back to this question because it seemed to me to be quite straightforward, as we discussed last time you were with us.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) And they were commercial vehicle manufacturers, Chairman. It was them who did not understand the effect of the bushes and it was them who did not understand they needed a tie rod between the axle and the structure of the vehicle.

10. It was your Department who set up the contract with them and you should have demanded that from them.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) We do not specify how to build vehicles, Chairman, we specify the performance we want and the performance was found to be inadequate.

RB44 Vehicles

Dr. David Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many of his Department's RB44 light vehicles are roadworthy; and when they became so. [40396]

Column 92

Mr. Arbuthnot: A modification programme to render the Reynolds Boughton RB44 heavy utility truck roadworthy was initiated on 2 October 1995, with approximately 50 vehicles being modified each week. To date, 136 vehicles have been modified and are thus considered roadworthy.

Dr. Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department has spent on servicing the RB44 light vehicles since purchasing them; and by whom the servicing of his Department's RB44 light vehicles is conducted. [40397]

Mr. Arbuthnot: Servicing of the RB44 heavy utility truck is conducted by military or civilian maintenance personnel or under contract by commercial companies.

Information on the cost of servicing the vehicles is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Dr. David Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which company carried out the repairs to his Department's RB44 light vehicle; how many vehicles were sent for repair; what was the total cost of repair; and who will pay this bill. [9952]

Mr. Arbuthnot [holding answer 18 January 1996]: Modifications to the RB44 heavy utility truck in 1992 were made at the manufacturer's expense. Following the identification of continuing braking problems in 1993, and analysis of these by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, in consultation with the manufacturer, a further modification programme to 824 vehicles was started in October 1995 and is due to be complete by the end of

9 Feb 1996 : Column: 384

March 1996. The modification kits have been provided by the company, and about 100 of them have been fitted by the company, at its own expense. The remainder are being fitted by military or civilian personnel in unit workshops. The direct cost to the Department of carrying out these modifications is estimated at some ￡100,000. In addition, other costs to the Department associated with rectifying the problem include the analysis and trials of DERA at a cost of some ￡310,000 together with the costs of returning vehicles to serviceable and roadworthy condition and maintaining other vehicles used while RB44 have been out of service. The latter costs are not readily quantifiable. The total costs to the Department on this basis are assessed to be less than ￡1,000,000.

And As A Last thing to add.

Public authorities must disclose properly requested information unless an exemption applies. In most cases, even where an exemption applies, they must still disclose information to the public if the public interest in disclosure is greater than the competing public interest in the particular exemption.

The Government revealed in February that the National Archives, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the MoD were top targets for requests under the new regime - but the MoD must surely claim the prize for the most unusual requests, including:

1. "Have we done any experiments with aliens? Have aliens actually landed on Earth? There are thousands of questions I could ask, but what I really want to know is are there extraterrestrials on this planet? Please, please, please could you tell me if there are photos? Because I really need to know. I PROMISE to keep it a secret."

2. "Please can you tell me which kind of tea is drunk by the Ministry of Defence?"

3. "Do you have or know where I could get a workshop manual for a Reynolds Boughton RB44 as I'm doing an overland trip from Sweden to Cape Town?"

4. "Can I have an old Royal Navy recipe for Sauteed Kidneys and Curried Meatballs?" and

5. "Please could you send me a copy of the MoD's policy on alien abduction?"

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