ROYAL NAVY

OUR AMERICAN ALLY's VIEW OF THE ROYAL NAVY 

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The new HMS Astute, the lead boat of its class

Summary

The British Royal Navy is simultaneously attempting to procure three of the most expensive naval platforms. Previous poor planning and chronic underfunding have now landed it squarely in the middle of a procurement nightmare, however. Just how the Royal Navy will emerge on the other end thus remains to be seen.

Analysis

The British Royal Navy is mired in a procurement nightmare. Neglect of major acquisition programs in the 1990s and the diversion of British military spending to fund current operational obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan have left a military simultaneously stretched thin by the highest operational tempo seen in a generation and trying to acquire several new naval platforms all at once.

 

Though the lasting impact on the Royal Navy’s operational effectiveness remains to be seen, in the short term it will remain difficult for London’s maritime forces to meet their multiple obligations.

 

Conservative British governments began cutting naval funding as far back as 1982, when the Falkland Islands War broke out. That conflict highlighted shortcomings in the Royal Navy’s strategic reach. The Falkland War’s successful outcome and the last phases of the Cold War temporarily halted the planned reductions, but after 1991, the Royal Navy began major reductions again, and has seen a more or less steady quantitative decline across all classes of vessels.

 

The 21st century has seen a meaningful revitalization of the Royal Navy’s amphibious forces with the Ocean, Albion and Bay classes, as well as the navy’s support fleet. But the force’s carriers, surface combatants and attack submarines have begun to atrophy and incremental upgrades have been underfunded. London is now retiring its warships faster than it is replacing them, consequently degrading the navy’s operational effectiveness.

 

Now, the United Kingdom is trying to procure three of the most expensive modern naval platforms, which make amphibious forces and replenishment ships seem comparatively low-tech. These three include:

 

• the Type 45 Daring guided-missile destroyer (DDG). After withdrawing from the joint European Horizon Project, London went it alone to procure this air warfare surface combatant. The lead ship is now projected to cost close to $2 billion. The program is $2 billion over budget and two and a half years behind schedule.
• the Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN). Britain’s next generation SSN, the program is now $2 billion over budget and four years behind schedule.
• the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier (formerly known as the CVF). This is the largest class of ship in terms of both tonnage and displacement ever commissioned by the Royal Navy. The finer points of its pricing are still being negotiated, but each is expected to exceed $3.6 billion — to say nothing of the procurement of the increasingly expensive F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, which are to operate from its decks.

Such an ambitious procurement program would be challenging enough. But with the highest operational tempo in at least a generation, the British military is already stretched thin, and defense funding is as exceptionally tight. (Whitehall’s twenty biggest weapons programs are cumulatively more than $5 billion over budget). The impending reset costs of worn equipment returning from Afghanistan will only further these troubles. These near-term spending pressures are constraining procurement decisions, leaving the Royal Navy in a bind.

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An early computer-generated image of the prospective Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier

With spending pressures so strong, procurement decisions are being constrained. The Royal Navy now looks like it will be lucky to acquire six Daring-class DDGs, only half its projected needs. A decision has not yet been made on the 4th and 5th Astute boats, though the oldest Trafalgar SSNs will begin to be retired in the next few years.

 

The lead ship or boat of a class is almost invariably the most expensive, and the last vessel often is still cheaper than the 2nd to last. As each design and construction process becomes better understood, many costs can be eliminated. Thus, not only is London failing to build the number of ships it needs, its constrained procurement programs are ensuring that those it does obtain are as expensive as possible. Unless London decides to change its policy, the Royal Navy could find itself lacking adequate numbers to carry out any but a limited set of missions in Northern European or Mediterranean waters.

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The HMS Daring, the lead ship of the Type 45 air warfare guided-missile destroyer

The British government appears to intend to hold the line on defense spending. But this hardly will be enough for the military as a whole, much less for the Royal Navy in particular — which has been the hardest hit of the services in terms of budgetary neglect.

 

Naval power is often an underappreciated cornerstone of geopolitical security. This underappreciation is compounded today by the high profile of land operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse still, despite the United Kingdom’s long and proud naval tradition, there seems little political impetus to make the decisive funding choices necessary to sustain the fleet.

 

The Royal Navy’s status as Washington’s most important naval ally is thus eroding. The next five to ten years will prove decisive in the navy’s ultimate future. Nothing short of its retention of the Royal Navy’s distinction as the pre-eminent European naval power is at stake. London’s predicament also should serve as a warning of the long-term consequences of poor planning to U.S. naval planners, who also face chronic cost overruns, expensive impending acquisitions, and mounting operational and reset costs. 

Our Shrinking Royal Navy  - from 1987 to 2007

Provided here Courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

The PROBLEMS facing the Royal Navy

• The Royal Navy in both its numbers of ships and personnel is smaller than it has ever been in the last Century.

• The 1998 Strategic Defence Review, conducted before the current Iraq and Afghanistan operations began, stated a requirement for two large aircraft carriers (the order was finally placed in 2007), 32 escorts (including 12 Type 45 large Destroyers) and 10 SSNs (Submarines, nuclear powered, hunter killers). Today the carriers are still 7 years away; the number of escorts is 25 and declining further while the number of SSNs is dropping to 8.

• Current shipbuilding plans include only 6 Type 45s and no follow on class until 2017. As a result the escort Fleet will decline to about 15-17 ships and its average age will rise substantially.

• The Royal Navy – because of shortage of money – in 2006 withdrew from service its extremely effective Sea Harrier FA2 aircraft.  These aircraft were designed specifically to provide air cover for the Fleet.  There is now, and will be for at least another nine years, an “air gap” over the Fleet, unless the RN has a large US Navy carrier battle-group present to provide overhead protection. 

• Destroyers and Frigates with much operational life left in them have been sold. The modern Type 23 Frigate, HMS GRAFTON, when she was nine years old (less than half her planned operational life), was sold to the Chilean Navy for a fraction of her build price.  Patrol vessels, no longer required in Hong Kong, but highly suitable to patrol the waters in the Persian Gulf and other maritime security duties, have been sold.

• All this is happening at a time when the maritime security problem is rapidly increasing. Maritime trade is increasing as Far Eastern economies grow. Fossil Fuel transportation is growing exponentially and 80% of it travels by sea. For the West this includes the trade in LPG (liquid petroleum gas) which is increasing at a rate of 8% p.a.  All this traffic passes through a handful of choke points, several of them in very unstable areas.  Trafficking of immigrants, narcotics and arms is growing. Piracy and terrorism at sea are on the increase as are disputes over seabed resources, including now in the Arctic and probably soon the Antarctic where the UK has traditional interests.  In response to this situation many nations are increasing their defence budgets and, especially east of Suez, building up their navies.  We cannot be sure that our vital interests are secure in a world that is becoming daily more dangerous.

• On the personnel front, numbers in the Navy – about 50,000 in 1982 – are now down to 32,000 – and still shrinking.  Opportunities for promotion and thus for improved pay and living standards for Officers and Ratings alike are being reduced with damaging effects on morale. As in other Services the rate of deployment of the declining numbers of people has put a strain on them unsurpassed since WWII.  The disparity between the quality of life of naval personnel, particularly married personnel, and the rest of the UK community is now so great as to adversely affect recruiting.

• All of these, and more, so called “efficiency measures” are simply cuts to save money. There are fewer submarines, minesweepers and patrol vessels than ever before.  There are insufficient training opportunities for younger officers and ratings with the result that operational and command experience is lacking and consequently standards are dropping.

• To save money, and again for no other reason – save shortage of trained personnel - ships are being secured alongside in a state of  “extended readiness” which, experience has shown, all too often results in such ships never again going to sea.

• Ship replacements are not being planned or ordered in sufficient numbers to sustain the Fleet at even its existing low numbers.  At worst, by 2020, on present trends the Fleet could be half of its current size.  Incredibly, but unfortunately true – as shown by our long promised two new large aircraft carriers - ships can take fifteen years, or more, to plan, obtain resources for, build and become operational.  In any present day conflict we are operating ships built five, ten, or even twenty years ago.  We must look, plan and allocate adequate resources that far ahead.

• The security, prosperity and well being of our country and of future generations are being threatened by what amounts to neglect.  We live in a dangerous world situation and we are repeating the mistakes of the 1930s. Ours is a maritime country and our Navy, Army and Air Force, are being weakened constantly.  This country is not paying its Defence Insurance Premium.  It will be too late, when our house is burning, to bemoan the fact that we didn’t have adequate insurance.

Over 90% of all our international trade comes and goes by sea.

Our very existence depends upon our being able to defend our shores and our “sea lines of communication” around our island and throughout the world.  We are under threat now and for the foreseeable future and we do not have the forces effectively to defend our shores and other vital interests from the growing terrorist threat or other hostile action.

JLM 2 Nov 07

POSTSCRIPT: 

MORE NAVAL WEB-SITES OF INTEREST

For photographs and detailed information about the Royal Navy, I recommend three web-sites to you.  The "Royal Navy's OFFICIAL website" - and, with more photos and ship information and, in particular, for an independent and somewhat different view and objective comment - "Navy Matters".  Finally - and our most latest addition - if you are interested in Naval history and 'dits' do visit "Axford's Abode"; don't be fooled by that rather anonymous title - the site is absolutely fascinating. All sites are listed on our LINKS page.

PAPERS AND ARTICLES OF NAVAL INTEREST

More Papers for you to download

Britain must have new aircraft carriers.

Download Rear Admiral Joe Callo's article.