Awesome show of strength for 'minimum force'

The government says the task force is the minimum back-up needed to evacuate civilians from a volatile area. Most others say it is gunboat diplomacy and creeping military intervention. Either way, the British forces in and around Sierra Leone represent an awesome show of firepower.

The government says the task force is the minimum back-up needed to evacuate civilians from a volatile area. Most others say it is gunboat diplomacy and creeping military intervention. Either way, the British forces in and around Sierra Leone represent an awesome show of firepower.

For nearly a decade, disgruntled defence staff have persistently claimed successive budget cuts have left the armed services - especially the Navy - in a parlous state, dangerously underequipped for certain types of operations. Since the Government came to power three years ago, it has failed to order a single new warship. The last four conventional submarines have been leased to Canada, two minehunters have been sold to Greece, and four frigates are to be sold or decommissioned. There have even been reports of the Navy running out of fuel.

Yet within days the biggest expeditionary force since the Falklands was put together and dispatched to West Africa. Defence sources say the final decision to send them was taken by the Prime Minister, despite warnings from the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Charles Guthrie, that it would be impossible to carry out a quick "in-and-out" operation as ministers had subsequently claimed. "But," said one senior officer, "once the decision was taken, we showed what we could do."

The 650 paratroops of the 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, were first to arrive with the mission of securing Lungi airport and other strategic points. They are armed with automatic rifles, light support weapons, heavy machine-guns, mortars and anti-tank missiles and they have 62 Land Rovers.

But the Paras were not the first British soldiers in Sierra Leone. Two troops of the SAS, totalling 40 men, were already operating there. Their main role had been to track the movements of the Revolutionary United Front and other armed factions.

The lightly armed troopers have state-of-the-art surveillance devices and miniaturised satellite communications. They have been moving in small units away from the capital, Freetown, and are able to call in helicopters fitted with low-noise rotor blades flown by pilots with night-vision goggles.

Offshore, in one of the biggest natural harbours in the world, there are eight RN vessels with around 3,000 sailors. The flagship is the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, with 1,190 personnel, seven Sea Harrier FA2 fighters and six Harrier GR7 bombers used extensively in the Kosovo War.

There is also the new helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, with 1,094 aboard, including 806 Marines from 42 Commando with support units. The Ocean carries helicopters - four Sea King Mark 7s, two anti-armour Lynx Mark 7s, two Gazelles and two Chinooks.

The fleet includes two frigates, HMS Chatham and HMS Argyll, and three Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, Sir Tristram, Sir Bevidere and Fort Austin. There are enough supplies on board to enable the ships to remain in the area for several months.

Brigadier David Richards, who had served in East Timor and Northern Ireland, is the British commander in Sierra Leone and entitled to call for reinforcements he considers necessary from Captain Mark Stanhope on the Illustrious, Captain Scott Lidbetter on the Ocean and the rest of the fleet. Brigadier Richards, who is working closely with the Indian Major-General Vijay Jetley, in charge of the United Nations force in Sierra Leone, reports to Admiral Sir Ian Garnett, chief of joint operations at Permanent Joint Head Quarters at Northwood, Middlesex.

He, in turn, reports to General Guthrie. The general visited Sierra Leone on Sunday and is touring Nigeria and Senegal. Ministers insist on calling the armada an evacuation team. But the servicemen see themselves as a rapid reaction force, and senior officers say it is more than adequate to deal with anything the rebels can throw at it.