The shrinking Royal Navy

[TomE]

 

[Ozexpatriate]

^ Now that's the proper way to do a carrier strike group. (Absent supply ships.)

How many of those ships sport an RN pennant? It's hard for me to tell in the silhouette - since I don't recognize the outlines. The two vessels in the front of the first picture (starboard of the QNLZ) are clearly RN. I'm guessing that is CVN77 USS George H.W. Bush (picture is unclear).

Are the three much smaller vessels also RN?

Edited August 8, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[whart57]

Could someone explain how this is a railway modelling topic, or are the frigates being repainted GWR chocolate and cream now?

[TomE]

In the first photo, the two nearest the camera are Type 23s, the lead being HMS Westminster followed by what looks like HMS Iron Duke. The middle frigate is HNoMS Helge Insgstad from the Norwegian Navy, and the two far destroyers are USS Philippine Sea (Ticonderoga) and USS Donald Cook (Arleigh Burke).

All except QNLZ have been participating in exercise Saxon Warrior 17.

Tom.

Edited August 8, 2017 by TomE

[TomE]

Could someone explain how this is a railway modelling topic, or are the frigates being repainted GWR chocolate and cream now?

Erm, it's in Wheeltappers, which is for non railway Modelling topics.........

 

Tom.

[whart57]

Sorry, I thought I'd ended up at the Daily Express by mistake

[jjb1970]

Sorry, I thought I'd ended up at the Daily Express by mistake

If it was the daily express there'd be a story about how prince Phillip used the aircraft carrier to go back in time through a rupture in the space time continuum from which he piloted a nuclear powered Fiat Uno to assassinate Saint Princess Di before escaping back to the present before going down to his lodge for a meeting of the illuminati with Elvis and Saddam Hussein.

[4630]

If it was the daily express there'd be a story about how prince Phillip used the aircraft carrier to go back in time through a rupture in the space time continuum from which he piloted a nuclear powered Fiat Uno to assassinate Saint Princess Di before escaping back to the present before going down to his lodge for a meeting of the illuminati with Elvis and Saddam Hussein.

 

 

...and it's all the fault of the EU bureaucrats in Brussels!

[Ohmisterporter]

The technique for landing F-35Bs on QE carriers is described in this article in The Drive. More efficient and cost effective than the vertical landing first mooted.

 

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13233/f-35b-pilots-will-make-rolling-landings-like-this-to-board-royal-navy-carriers

Edited August 8, 2017 by Ohmisterporter

[whart57]

That'll be useful to know when we can finally afford to put planes on the new carriers.

 

Nostalgia for a huge navy is OK but back when the Royal Navy did really rule the waves teachers in inner-city schools drew "nit lines" on the floor of the classrooms and rickets and TB were common ailments. A bit over a hundred years ago the Daily Mail headed up a campaign that demanded the government built an eighth Dreadnought rather than introduce old age pensions. The USA can afford carriers because it is the world's richest country, China because it thinks as second richest country it should be able to afford them and Russia has them because Putin doesn't give a sh*t about the living standards of ordinary Russians. And us? A Danish politician recently said that Europe is made up of small nations and nations that have yet to realise they are small. I think we know who he was talking about. We are not in the same league as the Americans and Chinese, or perhaps we are in the same league in the same way that St Johnstone is in the same league as Celtic. We are screwing this country because too many of us think we are still a major player in the world  but really, is there any maritime threat to this country which isn't equally a threat to the French, Spanish, Dutch or Norwegians? Germans too given how much of their export trade goes through Rotterdam. Why do we think we have to secure the sea lanes to Britain and Europe on our own?

[jjb1970]

is there any maritime threat to this country which isn't equally a threat to the French, Spanish, Dutch or Norwegians? Germans too given how much of their export trade goes through Rotterdam. Why do we think we have to secure the sea lanes to Britain and Europe on our own?

 

True that, why-oh-why can't we all share the burden. Form an alliance, we could call it something like NATO. Maybe one day our aircraft carrier could join joint manoeuvres with warships from other countries. Never gonna happen though, we'll have to keep soldiering on protecting the entire sea lanes of Europe all on our own with no help from anybody else and in splendid isolation.

[Ohmisterporter]

From the Save the Royal Navy blog is this article about why the Queen Elizabeth carriers are not nuclear powered. Hope you find it of interest.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/the-reasons-hms-queen-elizabeth-is-not-nuclear-powered/

[Legend]

That'll be useful to know when we can finally afford to put planes on the new carriers.

 

Nostalgia for a huge navy is OK but back when the Royal Navy did really rule the waves teachers in inner-city schools drew "nit lines" on the floor of the classrooms and rickets and TB were common ailments. A bit over a hundred years ago the Daily Mail headed up a campaign that demanded the government built an eighth Dreadnought rather than introduce old age pensions. The USA can afford carriers because it is the world's richest country, China because it thinks as second richest country it should be able to afford them and Russia has them because Putin doesn't give a sh*t about the living standards of ordinary Russians. And us? A Danish politician recently said that Europe is made up of small nations and nations that have yet to realise they are small. I think we know who he was talking about. We are not in the same league as the Americans and Chinese, or perhaps we are in the same league in the same way that St Johnstone is in the same league as Celtic. We are screwing this country because too many of us think we are still a major player in the world  but really, is there any maritime threat to this country which isn't equally a threat to the French, Spanish, Dutch or Norwegians? Germans too given how much of their export trade goes through Rotterdam. Why do we think we have to secure the sea lanes to Britain and Europe on our own?

We don't and quite frankly given the state of the Navy at the moment we can't. Did you not notice the UScarrier, cruiser and destroyer and Norwegian frigate in the task force pics above.

 

While I agree there are clearly other priorities for spending , the number 1 govt priority is to defend its people both here and abroad. People in the country don't take defence seriously any more .

[Bon Accord]

We don't and quite frankly given the state of the Navy at the moment we can't. Did you not notice the UScarrier, cruiser and destroyer and Norwegian frigate in the task force pics above.

 

While I agree there are clearly other priorities for spending , the number 1 govt priority is to defend its people both here and abroad. People in the country don't take defence seriously any more .

 

The point though, is that even with two new carriers that objective will still not be met and indeed the UK has not been able to meet that objective for near on 70 years.

Of course the other question is just who/what these ships are supposed to be defending us from - carriers are of little use defending homeland (that's what the Crabs are for) and there's very few foreign possessions these days that require defending either.

The above photographs are interesting when you consider that for the RN to simply have enough men to send a carrier (even on trials) and two T23 to sea for a photo op means other ships are short of men and can't do the same due to personnel shortages - something which is rapidly approaching critical mass within the senior service.

[billbedford]

While I agree there are clearly other priorities for spending , the number 1 govt priority is to defend its people both here and abroad. People in the country don't take defence seriously any more .

 

 

Defend people from what exactly? 

[The Stationmaster]

Defend people from what exactly? 

 

This is of course the perennial question.  And the answer tends to be horribly simple - threats are assessed, continuously one hopes, and our armed forces are then equipped to deal with those threats plus our international treaty obligations.  

 

That is the theory but of course the reality is rather different because in a democracy, particularly one which has been involved in a limited number of shooting wars over many years, there is a national tendency to regard expenditure on defence as 'a waste' or unnecessary' especially when it competes with other things paid for with state funds.  Yet the strange thing is that when the threats sometimes turn into reality there occurs a major clamour asking why our armed forces are being sent in to do their job while they're wilfully ill-equipped, oddly that clamour often seems to come from those who moaned the loudest about 'money being wasted on defence'..

 

As we live on an island and depend on sea transport for a substantial part of what we consume (in the important areas such as food and fuel let alone other essentials) it seems to me entirely logical that we should have a navy capable of defending our lines of supply against any potential threats to those lines of supply.  And for many years it has been the case that one of the best force multipliers at sea have been aircraft in their various forms - both for defence and offence.   That of course does not ignore the more important questions of providing convoy escorts to protect merchant ships because it has long been shown that they too need aircraft of some form or another while submarines also have their place in that role.

 

Overall the biggest problem our navy faces - standing aside the manpower situation - is a shortage of properly equipped escort ship hulls, lack of longer range offensive weapons to ensure self-protection (meaning also a shortage of submarines), and a lack of air cover while deep sea, and et's not forget our miniscule mine sweeping force - an area which must be regarded as one of the biggest potential threats.  But as a country, where political imperatives forever crop up, it seems we can't have it all - or indeed very much of it so i suppose we ought at least to count our blessings that we've  got some of it.

[jjb1970]

Defend people from what exactly?

Who knows? Defence is like most other insurance policies, until you need it in anger you don’t know all the reasons why you might need it and often the reasons you’ll need it are unanticipated. In the 1920’s few anticipated a rematch of the Great War with Germany within a decade or so (there seemed to be more credibility given to potential conflicts between Britain and the USA or between Britain and France than with Germany). And you can’t rebuild defence capability at the drop of a hat overnight. Once you let capabilities slip it is hugely expensive and time consuming to re-build them. We’ve already let our defence capabilities slip precipitously in some areas (a good example being the retirement of the Nimrod fleet without replacement, a heinous error belatedly being put right by acquiring P8’s) and the defence budget is hardly big. We’ve already been using some creative accounting to meet our 2% of GDP target as a member of NATO.

[whart57]

This is of course the perennial question.  And the answer tends to be horribly simple - threats are assessed, continuously one hopes, and our armed forces are then equipped to deal with those threats plus our international treaty obligations.  

 

That is the theory but of course the reality is rather different because in a democracy, particularly one which has been involved in a limited number of shooting wars over many years, there is a national tendency to regard expenditure on defence as 'a waste' or unnecessary' especially when it competes with other things paid for with state funds.  Yet the strange thing is that when the threats sometimes turn into reality there occurs a major clamour asking why our armed forces are being sent in to do their job while they're wilfully ill-equipped, oddly that clamour often seems to come from those who moaned the loudest about 'money being wasted on defence'..

 

As we live on an island and depend on sea transport for a substantial part of what we consume (in the important areas such as food and fuel let alone other essentials) it seems to me entirely logical that we should have a navy capable of defending our lines of supply against any potential threats to those lines of supply.  And for many years it has been the case that one of the best force multipliers at sea have been aircraft in their various forms - both for defence and offence.   That of course does not ignore the more important questions of providing convoy escorts to protect merchant ships because it has long been shown that they too need aircraft of some form or another while submarines also have their place in that role.

 

Overall the biggest problem our navy faces - standing aside the manpower situation - is a shortage of properly equipped escort ship hulls, lack of longer range offensive weapons to ensure self-protection (meaning also a shortage of submarines), and a lack of air cover while deep sea, and et's not forget our miniscule mine sweeping force - an area which must be regarded as one of the biggest potential threats.  But as a country, where political imperatives forever crop up, it seems we can't have it all - or indeed very much of it so i suppose we ought at least to count our blessings that we've  got some of it.

 

Generals and admirals are however always preparing for the previous war, and this is an example of that. No-one in the MoD or Admiralty was prepared for the asymmetric wars that resulted from the airplane "bombs" used on the World Trade Centre. Nor come to that was the Pentagon. Or the Kremlin. The result was that America - with Britain in tow - launched two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where easy victories were racked up against conventional enemies but then the wars were eventually lost - yes lost - because the Western forces couldn't handle unconventional enemies. It should be noted as well that those who decry defence spending as waste were unanimous in saying that Britain should not have joined the Americans in their Afghan and Iraq adventures.

 

A hundred years ago Britain had a War Ministry, government was honest enough to admit their military planning was to equip for aggression overseas. Now we have a war ministry but we pretend it is just for defence. Yet our "defence" includes a nuclear first strike capability and our politicians justify spending a huge chunk of money on the QE carriers because we need to be able to "project power". That is not defence. And is it appropriate when the biggest threat to our seaborne trade today comes from guys in inflatables armed with rocket launchers and handguns?

 

On land too the serious enemies go into battle in Toyota Landcruisers, and the West try to deal with them using planes. We can shoot them up, but then the survivors end up attacking our shopping centres with small arms and knives.

 

Threats should be assessed and the armed forces prepared for them. But we are in the 21st century and our military experts are still thinking in 20th century terms.

[brack]

I agree somewhat with the idea that much of our thinking lies along the "last war" lines, but we assume that a 'proper' war won't start again because of the UN and half a century or more of relative peace between powers of the first few ranks. I sincerely hope that wars will not become as commonplace as they once were, but we can't really guarantee that - as others have pointed out it didn't take germany long to rearm in the 30s and we were very glad that resources had been invested in the development of new military hardware since the end of WW1, even if we were in some respects less prepared than we could've been.

 

Our nuclear capabilities are not really for a first strike situation - we don't have enough missiles to back that up unless we attacked a small or non-nuclear power and the rest of the world would be ranged against us if we did, its only use is as a deterrent to make others think twice about attacking us with similar.

 

I'd suggest that the most likely role for our defence forces is either defending remote territories (falklands or similar) against an invasion or supporting joint operations overseas eg. Iraq, Sierra Leone, Libya etc. In either case our new carriers would be very useful. Whether you feel such an engagement is necessary is a different kettle of fish.

[peach james]

From the Save the Royal Navy blog is this article about why the Queen Elizabeth carriers are not nuclear powered. Hope you find it of interest.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/the-reasons-hms-queen-elizabeth-is-not-nuclear-powered/

A small correction to the above- it's millions of pounds to fill a ship up.  We took 18 000 000 L of F-76 to take from bunker-operational in 2008.  That's about 9 million quid...

 

There has been at least one paper in Proceedings about this topic- it might even have been in Canadian Marine Engineering Journal as well.  The economics of nuke depend on sea days- if the ship is going to spend >180 days/year at sea for its entire life, then it is probably more economical to be nuclear than conventional.  (at least, that was the USN's calculation).  The external factors (lack of a reactor big enough, which could be managed via purchase agreement from USN, probably...), and shipbuilding capability are really political not navy factors.  If the navy has enough $ to throw at the problem, the solution is easy...but that $ is a political decision.

 

We've been through a lot of this, with the ideas of expanding the RCN in the 1998-2002 timeframe including small deck carriers- as in LHD or similar.  I don't think there was ever any intent to try and get fixed wing a/c for operation off a LHD, but it would have been a remote (non 0) chance of Harriers being operated off them.  Navy ship building is a very thorny subject, especially here where a lot is driven around giving the various regions some chunk of meat to gnaw on.  The west coast Navy's opinion of the east coast shipyards was...not very high.

 

James

[whart57]

we assume that a 'proper' war won't start again because of the UN and half a century or more of relative peace between powers of the first few ranks

I'm more inclined to believe another war like the two 20th century world wars won't start again for two reasons. One is that it would rapidly go nuclear and second that even if it didn't the conventional fire power that modern weapons have would wipe out armies in days. Remember the retreating Iraqis on the road from Basra in Gulf War 1? That was nearly thirty years ago. What are the capabilities now?

[jjb1970]

Nuclear power was never under consideration for the QEC other than at the most superficial level to confirm why it was a non-starter. The costs would have been unaffordable, the French cut price approach to a nuclear carrier of modifying a submarine power package has been a bit of a disaster and designing a new reactor for two carriers would not be viable. Most of the time the QEC will run on her Wartsila diesels which are reliable and economical engines and pretty simple to maintain.

 

On Canada, when I was involved in the RCN building program the domestic politics of balancing between Seaspan and Irvine seemed to dominate other considerations.

[The Stationmaster]

I'm more inclined to believe another war like the two 20th century world wars won't start again for two reasons. One is that it would rapidly go nuclear and second that even if it didn't the conventional fire power that modern weapons have would wipe out armies in days. Remember the retreating Iraqis on the road from Basra in Gulf War 1? That was nearly thirty years ago. What are the capabilities now?

 

And yet oddly, and very fortunately, notwithstanding large stocks of nuclear weapons around the world all of the shooting wars since 1945 have not gone nuclear.  we could no doubt have saved a large pile of money and many British lives by attacking the Argentine mainland with a variety of weaponry at the time of their invasion of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia but we didn't - we fought a conventional war to deal with the location of their agression.  Equally such things as Putin's aggression in, say, the Ukraine where Russia annexed territory it had undertaken by formal treaty not to annex could lead to a big shooting war - but it didn't, from either side.

 

In reality nuclear weapons still remain weapons of last resort for most nations and in the meanwhile conflict is generally contained to limited areas - albeit with very nasty results for many, e.g. Syria - because nobody is really prepared to march towards armageddon.  Thus 'conventional' weapons remain important, notwithstanding their greater cost.  

 

And still at the end of the day,  and getting back to the title and spirit of this thread, we live on an island with lives and an economy which is sustained to a very great extent by free access to the seas and the ability to trade by sea.  Which takes us right back to the whole purpose of having a navy and deciding, treaty obligations apart, how it should be equipped.

[whart57]

Except of course that even more important to our trade than free access to the seas is free access to the internet, that cyber piracy and cyber attacks are now more damaging to our economic wellbeing than physical ones. The shots that showed computers on this new carrier still running Windows XP were a tad concerning.

 

This thread demonstrates very well that we have a problem in this country adjusting to the gap between what we are as a country and what some would like us still to be. Decisions on some very expensive hardware for the Navy are being taken on the assumption that Britain is still the global power it once was and not the reality that Britain's global power now comes from being part of a European economic union. The decision to break with that union was also taken out of the false belief that Britain was still capable of holding a top position on its own. Well we will find out, but let's not be surprised if, like indeed most divorcees, we find ourselves poorer and life is not as bright as we thought it would be. And that our forces have a lot of white elephants and not enough of the equipment they really need.

[Bon Accord]

And still at the end of the day,  and getting back to the title and spirit of this thread, we live on an island with lives and an economy which is sustained to a very great extent by free access to the seas and the ability to trade by sea.  Which takes us right back to the whole purpose of having a navy and deciding, treaty obligations apart, how it should be equipped.

 

It's something that is oft mentioned, but oddly enough protection of our sea lanes and trade routes is not a priority for the RN and hasn't formed a core part of strategic RN thinking since the 1960s, principally because we don't have the resources to even contemplate undertaking much more than a toothless window dressing exercise in that regard AND be able to fight a war at the same time. It's also the generally accepted case that the scenario of trade routes requiring protection would inevitably occur within the context of a large scale/global war - as it did during the previous two occasions, something we're incapable of fighting conventionally. During the Cold War period the RN was geared up to dealing with very specific threats both from the Iron Curtain and beyond, and ships/manpower were focussed on those threats - much the same applied pre war but within a wider context  - e.g. building certain classes of ship specifically to counter specific enemy vessels or specific anticipated tactics.

Since 1990 that has of course changed and coupled with the varied but similar small scale conflicts we've been involved in since Gulf War 1 I still don't think the MOD in general has really been able to decide just what it should look like, what it wants to be and importantly how it wants to achieve these things. On of the main problems with that has been a total inability of those within Westminster to realistically appreciate our place in the world and where it will be in years to come and so provide militaristic context to the MOD - the "glory" of Empire still casts a long psychological shadow. Continual cutbacks in defence spending have only made things worse. Hence there have been countless cases where essential equipment of low or modest cost is being denied to servicemen because of budget problems, yet at the very same time effective blank cheques are being written for "big ticket" high profile projects (e.g. carriers and Trident) which make those of flag rank and politicos collapse over each other in jingoistic euphoria, but which don't actually help to deal with the threats and responsibilities we're facing now and which we know we shall continue to face in the medium to long term.

The RN regularly run a 5 day course for MN Senior Officers which is spent mostly in Portsmouth but includes a visit to the SBS (and a night spent at their HQ) but also a day at sea with FOST, as well as various briefings etc. At the last one I attended about 5 years ago a question was asked during a threat briefing about trade route/merchant vessel protection, specifically because Gulf of Aden piracy was very much still a hot topic. It was noted by many that the warships of many other nations were present and were actively escorting their own merchant ships in pre-organised convoys, yet the RN was almost permanently absent which seemed somewhat unfathomable considering how much UK trade flows through that area. The response from the senior RN officers conducting the briefing was that merchant vessel protection doesn't really figure on the RN priority list, but even if it did a suitable vessel simply couldn't be spared to do so, indeed the point was made that one of the few times that a  vessel was detached there specifically for anti piracy work, they had to divert the Falklands Guardship (a Type 23 frigate) from the South Atlantic to the Gulf of Aden, thereby leaving the Falklands guardship/patrol duties in the hands of a Bay class RFA! Now that's the kind of thing that falls into the "you couldn't make it up" category, but which is sadly typical.