The shrinking Royal Navy

[Legend]

You asked what the gun was for, you were told (not just by me) what the gun was for.

Yes and I get it's useful for bombardment of shore locations. That was the experience of the Falklands . This led to guns being incorporated in the batch 3 Type 22s which were designed after the Falklands Conflict. But they are not an ideal weapon against a heavily armed warship. I understand that some Type 45s at least have Harpoon that was retrieved from the now scrapped aforementioned batch 3 Type 22s , but even these are pretty outmoded. So the question remains, how would one or more of our surface ships actually sink an enemy ship. I don't think they can actually do it!

[Bon Accord]

Yes and I get it's useful for bombardment of shore locations. That was the experience of the Falklands . This led to guns being incorporated in the batch 3 Type 22s which were designed after the Falklands Conflict. But they are not an ideal weapon against a heavily armed warship. I understand that some Type 45s at least have Harpoon that was retrieved from the now scrapped aforementioned batch 3 Type 22s , but even these are pretty outmoded. So the question remains, how would one or more of our surface ships actually sink an enemy ship. I don't think they can actually do it!

 

They have to rely on the equally ancient Sea Skua launched from a helicopter. However it's only a relatively short range weapon which means the helicopter has to get reasonably close to the intended target, a target that will of course be doing it's damnedest to shoot said helicopter down. Oh, and the helo can only carry two at a time.

[skipepsi]

You wait it is only a matter of time before HMS Victory takes to the water again..... Only for the top brass to find there aren't enough matelots left to crew it.

[Mark Saunders]

You wait it is only a matter of time before HMS Victory takes to the water again..... Only for the top brass to find there aren't enough matelots left to crew it.

Was that not why the Mary Rose was salvaged?

[pete_mcfarlane]

Was that not why the Mary Rose was salvaged?

HMS Belfast would be rather good for shore bombardment.

[petethemole]

Apparently the guns are trained on Scratchwood Services.

[Wheatley]

Principle surface-launched

anti-ship weapon is the Harpoon, carried on Type 23s.

[Ohmisterporter]

Just a thought, does the 29,000 manpower figure include the Royal Marines? I ask this because I am pretty sure the Marines are not counted in the army's compliment. If they are included in the Navy's total it makes the manpower situation dire indeed. I believe the RM numbers 5,500 of all ranks. I also think we have gone way past rock bottom in service personnel numbers in all services. If the aforementioned MoD department personnel figures are correct at 40,000 that is where the axe should have fallen long ago.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Ohmisterporter

[Bon Accord]

Just a thought, does the 29,000 manpower figure include the Royal Marines?

 

Like the running total of ships often bandied about, it will not be a realistic total and will be suitable massaged/truth stretched to include all manner non combatant types so as to make the figures look better than they really are.

[Fenman]

Like the running total of ships often bandied about, it will not be a realistic total and will be suitable massaged/truth stretched to include all manner non combatant types so as to make the figures look better than they really are.

 

Throughout the Cold War, stats were normally massaged the other way - the Warsaw Pact figures including all cooks, painters & decorators, drivers, gardeners, etc, to show the fearful western public how overwhelming was the threat we faced; while the corresponding NATO figures only included pure frontline troops.

 

Similar magic continues to be worked today on economic figures: because UK companies tend to outsource things like cleaning and catering, those staff don't appear in the "manufacturing industry" totals; whereas German companies tend to keep that work in-house, so all the staff are counted as working in the sector of the majority. The same staff, doing the same jobs, but in Germany they are assumed to be manufacturing useful widgets, in the UK they are part of the service sector. So Germany looks like it has a massively bigger manufacturing sector than the UK (in fact, it does: just not as big as it looks at first sight...).

 

Paul

[skipepsi]

Just a thought, does the 29,000 manpower figure include the Royal Marines? I ask this because I am pretty sure the Marines are not counted in the army's compliment. If they are included in the Navy's total it makes the manpower situation dire indeed. I believe the RM numbers 5,500 of all ranks. I also think we have gone way past rock bottom in service personnel numbers in all services. If the aforementioned MoD department personnel figures are correct at 40,000 that is where the axe should have fallen long ago.

The figure includes Marines.

[Ozexpatriate]

The real question is about defining the mission for a navy in today's world.  The fundamental question could be stated as "Is Mahan relevant in the 21^st century?"

 

China and India seem to think so.

 

You could argue that air transport makes Mahan somewhat irrelevant, but if a country's economy depends on trade carried in the hulls of ships, then one could conclude that Mahan remains just as relevant and a navy is an existential requirement for a trading nation.

 

China is of course the big wild card. I saw an interesting interview the other day that due to China's aging population (driven in part by the legacy of the one-child policy) they will have to start redirecting money (away from 11% p.a. annual military spending increases) to welfare programs for the aging in the 2020s. This gives them only a few years of intense spending to leverage any military aspirations they might have - like hegemony over the South China Sea.

 

While the US remains China's largest trading partner, diplomacy remains pragmatic. Should the Chinese ignore that, then the question is whether anyone will forcibly oppose the Chinese, and if they did, whether the Chinese 'ship-killer' missiles will be effective against surface vessels.

 

Trying to do things by half-measures doesn't seem like the right answer. It's hard to keep one foot on the boat and one on the dock. The UK, Australia and particularly Canada have all shrunk their navies below defense against a serious aggressor and seem to be more focused on maritime border patrol - with the hope that if a serious surface fleet is required to defend them then they would depend on the US.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

I think there are quite a few issues that are at play:

 

- What is the purpose of the RN? Is it for power projection or self defence? That is such an obvious question that it seldom seems to be asked. The RN is much bigger than it needs to be for self defence but inadequate for power projection, or alternatively it is much more expensive than it needs to be in terms of what we actually need but woefully underfunded for what the government would seemingly like it to be.

 

- has been underfunded and over committed for decades. Defence missed out on the public spending extravaganzas of the Blair era and whether we like it or not the post 2008 financial state of the UK made spending cuts inevitable however the spending issue goes back many decades. Like most things, if you're not willing to spend much on something then that will be reflected in what you get. This was made worse for the RN by the Iraq and Afghan adventures which sucked in spending on urgent operational requirements for the army and air force.

 

- The defence establishment has made things much worse by its propensity to mismanage and lose control of major acquisition programs which has resulted in colossal overspends and long delays. Not all of this is down to the MoD or defence contractors either as one of the reasons the CVF program was so expensive was the delays and indecision in the will they- won't they dithering and changes in specification which resulted from political decisions made above MoD level. In a country where the NHS has quasi -religious status and where almost every spending decision made by the government gets reduced to the number of nurses that could be employed etc there is little political will to fund defence.

 

- Even without the poor acquisition management the costs of defence equipment have been rising and the balance between numbers and capability of each unit has challenged all military organisations.

 

This is not just a UK problem either, if anything things are worse in the rest of Western Europe where funding is even lower and military capability has been evaporating. Without a publically perceived external threat such as the Warsaw Pact it seems Europe has decided it is easier and cheaper to rely on the US to defend Europe if it becomes necessary.

 

The warships the UK has been building and designing over the last 20 years have been good. The Sampson radar and associated combat system are genuinely world class. Despite a lot of adverse comment the Astute is world class. The Queen Elizabeth class carriers are thoroughly impressive and very innovative vessels. The problem is hull numbers and crew resources.

[Ozexpatriate]

I think there are quite a few issues that are at play:

 

- What is the purpose of the RN? Is it for power projection or self defence? That is such an obvious question that it seldom seems to be asked.

It should be the governing question. If the role is self-defense, you don't need aircraft carriers, when your country itself can act as an aircraft carrier - unless their purpose is to interdict a threat approaching from a great distance, something less relevant in a North Sea setting.

 

The RN is much bigger than it needs to be for self defence but inadequate for power projection, or alternatively it is much more expensive than it needs to be in terms of what we actually need but woefully underfunded for what the government would seemingly like it to be.

But does it have the right assets in the right places to actually defend (versus patrol) the British coast? That was a question the article in the OP raised. Edited August 15, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

It should be the governing question. If the role is self-defense, you don't need aircraft carriers, when your country itself can act as an aircraft carrier - unless their purpose is to interdict a threat approaching from a great distance, something less relevant in a North Sea setting.

 

But does it have the right assets in the right places to actually defend (versus patrol) the British coast? That was a question the article in the OP raised.

 

I'd argue that in terms of self defence then yes the fleet is more than adequate to defend the UK against any conceivable threat. The original article makes some good points but it also a bit disingenuous. A Russian warship playing games is embarrassing but it is hardly an invasion threat and the Russian Navy has issues of its own. Ditto on the situation in Syria, the article points to a lack of carriers as highlighting our impotence without pointing out that the RAF has been launch regular air strikes against ISIS (whether that is good or bad is another question entirely). The article references the size of the fleet in 1982 but fails to really comment on either weapons system inflation or relative capability of ships. I really believe 6 T45's is inadequate for what the RN is expected to do (particularly if building two carriers),equally given the capabilities of their radar and combat system and when taken in conjunction with the RAF they'd provide a perfectly adequate defence capability. In terms of air defence capability they're a paradigm shift from the T42. The articles comments about the F35 are also somewhat inaccurate. The article does present a convincing case if referring to power projection, the problem is it seems to mix power projection and defence.

[Ozexpatriate]

The article does present a convincing case if referring to power projection, the problem is it seems to mix power projection and defence.

One can presume that by building aircraft carriers the intended role of the Royal Navy is to project power anywhere in the world's oceans. They (and the battle group needed to keep them safe) are not defensive weapons - unless to intercept some hypothetical mid-Atlantic threat.

[jjb1970]

One can presume that by building aircraft carriers the intended role of the Royal Navy is to project power anywhere in the world's oceans. They (and the battle group needed to keep them safe) are not defensive weapons - unless to intercept some hypothetical mid-Atlantic threat.

 

I agree. That is why I think the fundamental question is whether the RN should be configured to defend us or to project power. If it is a defence force then we do not need carriers. If we want to project power we need a lot more resources to be able to assemble effective carrier battle groups and to sustain such groups. The problem I have with the article is it talks about defence but then proceeds to base most of its arguments on an inability to project power, based on an assumption that power projection and defence amount to pretty much the same thing.

[skipepsi]

The carriers were not fully thought through that much is obvious now another support ship is up for sale. The people who started the carriers idea did not think about what a carrier task force actually consists ot, not difficult the US has several of them cruising around to work from. From wikipedia;

 

A supercarrier, which is the centerpiece of the strike group and also serves as the flagship for the CSG Commander and respective staff. The carrier is commanded by an aviation community captain.
A carrier air wing (CVW) typically consisting of up to nine squadrons. Carrier air wings are commanded by an aviation community captain (or occasionally a Marine colonel).
One or two Aegis guided missile cruisers (CG), of the Ticonderoga class—a multi-mission surface combatant, equipped with BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability, each commanded by a surface community captain.
A destroyer squadron (DESRON) commanded by a surface community Captain (O-6) who commands the escort destroyers, with two to three guided missile destroyers (DDG), of the Arleigh Burke class—a multi-mission surface combatant, used primarily for anti-aircraft (AAW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, but which also carries Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability. A destroyer is commanded by a surface community commander.
Up to two attack submarines, usually of the Los Angeles-class used to screen the strike group against hostile surface ships and submarines, but which also carry Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability.
A combined ammunition, oiler and supply ship (AOE/AOR), usually Supply-class (T-AOE); provides logistic support.[7]

 

Not always the same set up but if you want to project power the hardware needs to be there to be believable.

[Bon Accord]

The carriers were not fully thought through that much is obvious now another support ship is up for sale. The people who started the carriers idea did not think about what a carrier task force actually consists ot, not difficult the US has several of them cruising around to work from. From wikipedia;

 

A supercarrier, which is the centerpiece of the strike group and also serves as the flagship for the CSG Commander and respective staff. The carrier is commanded by an aviation community captain.

A carrier air wing (CVW) typically consisting of up to nine squadrons. Carrier air wings are commanded by an aviation community captain (or occasionally a Marine colonel).

One or two Aegis guided missile cruisers (CG), of the Ticonderoga class—a multi-mission surface combatant, equipped with BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability, each commanded by a surface community captain.

A destroyer squadron (DESRON) commanded by a surface community Captain (O-6) who commands the escort destroyers, with two to three guided missile destroyers (DDG), of the Arleigh Burke class—a multi-mission surface combatant, used primarily for anti-aircraft (AAW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, but which also carries Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability. A destroyer is commanded by a surface community commander.

Up to two attack submarines, usually of the Los Angeles-class used to screen the strike group against hostile surface ships and submarines, but which also carry Tomahawk missiles for long-range strike capability.

A combined ammunition, oiler and supply ship (AOE/AOR), usually Supply-class (T-AOE); provides logistic support.[7]

 

Not always the same set up but if you want to project power the hardware needs to be there to be believable.

 

Quite. At the moment the intention is that the QE class will float around with only a single T45 for company with an RFA oiler/stores ship somewhere in the vicinity. Of course the carrier itself will only be carrying perhaps 12 fixed wing aircraft.

I'm not sure as to whether we expect any enemy to actually consciously take heed of the "power" on display, or whether we expect them to be incapacitated because they'll be too busy crippled laughing at it's impotence.

[skipepsi]

May be we could sell them to the Chinese to finish off?

[pete_mcfarlane]

It's worth pointing out that very few of those American carrier groups are actually deployed at the moment, nor do they carriers have as many embarked aircraft as they used to. The US navy has financial issues of it's own. 

 

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2016/06/06/navy-aircraft-carrier-strike-groups-deployed-china-russia-operations/85526820/

[Ozexpatriate]

It's worth pointing out that very few of those American carrier groups are actually deployed at the moment, nor do they carriers have as many embarked aircraft as they used to. The US navy has financial issues of it's own. 

 

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2016/06/06/navy-aircraft-carrier-strike-groups-deployed-china-russia-operations/85526820/

There are ten active US carriers.  You can see where they are (not precisely of course) here.

 

Four are presently at sea: Persian Gulf, North Atlantic, and Pacific (2). Two are being refitted. The other four are in port: Norfolk (2), San Diego and Yokosuka.

 

There was a time last year where there was no carrier strike group on station in the Persian Gulf. This was the first time that had happened in many years.

 

Each carrier strike group has about 7,500 personnel. The four strike groups at sea probably represent about the same number of people as the entire Royal Navy.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[Kelly]

There is the aspect that these days we live in a world where 'warfare' is more likely to be cyber in nature than ships or tanks facing each other and more and more drones will be used rather than manned planes for a lot of missions.

 

That and the threats faced by most of the big powers would not be stopped by having more ships/carriers/planes etc due to the very nature of how the terror attacks work. So perhaps the thinking behind the scenes has been one of putting more money towards fighting cyber warfare and terrorism than surface/air conflicts like we've been used to over the past 60 years.

[Legend]

Surely the role of RN can be split in three

1. The nuclear deterrent

2. Home defence.

3. Power projection to protect interests abroad .

 

The Vanguards currently perform the first

Our frigates should be doing the second along with our other subs

The new carriers, amphib ships and destroyers for the third

 

Unfortunately , apart from the deterrent the others are mixed up, so frigates are all over the place , destroyers parked up in home waters ( despite what people say it's extremely suspicious they are all in port at same time)

 

Just as we send up Typhoons and Tornadoes to intercept bear bombers , we should have frigates to intercept Russian cruisers. There was the famous incident from few years back where one sheltered in Scottish waters and we had to send a destroyer up from Portsmouth as being the nearest ship available. Could you please hang around until we can find a ship that can get to you. Hardly an effective defence of our territorial waters.

 

With Brexit won't we need more coastal forces, fishery and oil protection ships?

 

I also don't hold with the fact that our ships are very effective and the best. The Sampson radar and missiles on the T45 are obviously very good but it's not an overall package . It's surface and sub warfare abilities are limited. So it's a £1 billion asset that can do part of a job but not everything. If you look at American destroyers ( Arleigh Burke class) or indeed any other navy it's a much more comprehensive package' air ,surface and sub defences and offensive armament.

 

The carriers the best? 60000 tonnes of warship that carries 12 F35s normally and maybe up to 30 . How does it defend itself? Any anti aircraft or missile defences? Again a cut price( although prices seen to be high) compromise to avoid cats and traps

Edited August 16, 2016 by Legend

[Wheatley]

The Sampson radar and missiles on the T45 are obviously very good but it's not an overall package . It's surface and sub warfare abilities are limited. So it's a £1 billion asset that can do part of a job but not everything.

It's an air defence destroyer, it's designed to pick off Backfires and ICBMs, not stooge around the North Atlantic on convoy protection. Nevertheless it does have an ASW and anti-ship capability. Edited August 16, 2016 by Wheatley