Scottish defence policy 6.3: non-army departments

imagining the Scottish armed forces 10 years after winning the indyref in 2014

Sadly, Scotland did not vote for independence in 2014. But what if we had? This three part series answers that question, examining what the Scottish armed forces might look like in 2024, 10 years after voting for indy.

Part one looked at threat assessments and capabilities needed to combat those threats. Part two looked at the Scottish army. This part three looks at other parts of the armed services, including the air force, navy, security service and procurement.

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Scottish Air Force

Eurofighter Typhoon

Scotland received 24 Eurofighters from the UK in the independence negotiations, and has subsequently bought 12 more. Most of these are operated from Leuchars or Lossiemouth airfields. This represents the main piloted combat strength of the Scottish air force. Their role in war is to intercept enemy aircraft. They can also be used to deliver anti-ship missiles, for example against Russian vessels in the Arctic ocean.

(In comparison Finland has 62 F/A-18 Hornet, which it is replacing on a one-for-one basis with F-35s).

The air force also operates small numbers of utility helicopters. In peacetime these are used for search and rescue.

The main offensive capability of the Scottish air forces is in drones. Following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022, Scotland has been extensively helping Ukraine, and has also seen how useful drones are. Short range battlefield drones are operated by the army, but long range ones are operated by the air force. These typically have a range of 1000 km and carry 50 kg of explosives. They are guided by GPS, by command from a human operator, by visually identifying a target, or by other means. In particular there are drones that can home in on enemy radar signals. The drones are modular in design, sharing a common airframe but having interchangeable sensor and warhead modules. It is also possible to carry less fuel and have a larger warhead, achieving a larger effect at the expense of range. (See also my pervious article about drones).

From 2022 onwards Scotland has been closely collaborating with Ukraine to produce drones of Scottish and Ukrainian design for use against Russia.

Scotland also ordered 2 Saab Globaleye aircraft from Sweden. These can be used for airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) -- i.e. locating enemy aircraft by radar and directing fighters towards them, and also for maritime surveillance.

Scottish Navy

HMS Argyll

Scotland inherited from the Royal Navy 2 Type 23 frigates, Lancaster (renamed Glasgow in Scottish service) and Argyll.

Type 214 submarine in South Korean service

As well as surface ships, Scotland wanted a fleet of submarines. In a war against Russia, they could be used to lie in wait for Russian submarines attempting to enter the North Atlantic or North Sea. And against Russia or a revanchist England, they would be effective at attacking the enemy's commerce and surface fleet (NATO submarines have often "killed" aircraft carriers in exercises).

So Scotland chose the German Type 214 design which was already (in 2014) in service with the Greek, South Korean and Portuguese navies, and build the three ships of the Unicorn class (Unicorn, Unseen, and Unity).

The Scottish navy also operates several patrol boats, able to be conduct policing functions and a large number of aerial, surface and underwater drones.

Intelligence and Security Service

The Scottish Intelligence and Security Service has branches for intelligence (equivalent to the UK's MI6), counter-intelligence (equivalent to MI5), SIGINT (equivalent to GCHQ) and information security (making sure its own information and computer systems are secure).

Unlike the UK equivalents which host their top secret data on Amazon's AWS (I am not making this up, I wish I was), the Scottish Intelligence and Security Service puts its data on its own private servers that in controls. As does the rest of the Scottish government -- Scotland has created its own cloud product which has similar functionality to AWS and Google Workspace, and which all the Scottish public sector uses, as do many private sector organisations and citizens; the Scottish armed forces and Scottish Security Service use separate instances of this cloud product.

Procurement

The Procurement Department buys weapons and manages Scottish arms factories. Procurement Department's unofficial motto is "the best is the enemy of the good" and they strive to provide good-enough solutions on a budget, and not gold-plated (and therefore unaffordable) non-solutions.

Within Procurement Department there is an experimental unit that tries out new weapons and tactics, and brainstorms ways to counter perceived future threats.

Shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it was realised that in all NATO countries stocks of ammunition were too low, nor could it be manufactured in large enough quantities. Consequently, Procurement Department began greatly increasing ammunition production. By 2024 this had borne fruit, and Scotland now has the ability to manufacture large quantities of ammo, including:

• 155mm artillery shells

• 120mm and 81mm mortar shells

• Grad artillery rockets

Appendix: costings

So how much would all this cost? I worked out a total cost of all the weapon systems mentioned in this series, and it came to €8917M:

I'm assuming that Scotland spends €5000M on defence a year which is about 2% of GDP. From this, if equipment procurement is 1/3 of the defence budget then buying all these items would take 5.4 years.

Assuming Scotland became independent in 2016, 2 years after the indyref, that gives 8 years in which to set up the armed forces.

These figures don't take into account cost of ammo or other supplies. Nor do they include the costs of any other equipment. It may be that some of the more expensive equipment (such as 200 K2 tanks at €8.5M each, totalling €1700M) might be bought in the years after 2024.

All of these figures have large error bars, but I do think armed forces of this size are plausible for Scotland -- not least because Finland, with similar population and GDP, has similar-sized armed forces. If they can do it, we can too.