Originally Posted by spsun100001:
Obviously there's a fair split between pessimists and optimists on this board. Someone made a point in a recent posts about predictions that have been up on the thread since it started.
That got me to thinking about inviting everyone to post their assumptions about the Royal Navy in one post and to make a mental note to come back and take a look at them every 12 months to see whether optimism or pessimism seems to be well founded!
Here's mine
1) The future carriers will be built but will be delayed. To keep the costs down they will have minimal self defence capabilities (such as Phalanx fitted from the retiring Invincible's).
2) The AEW platform will be the Sea King with Searchwater initially with the service lives for these machines extended as long as possible. It will be replaced with ASW Merlins refitted with Searchwater thus reducing the overall number of helicopters in the fleet.
3) The buy for the F35 will be cut to around 60 aircraft replacing the Harrier GR9's roughly 1:1. This will provide enough to deploy around 18 on each of the CV's in normal deployment configuration or a full air wing of 36 for one carrier in combat conditions unless the aircraft are deployed on land based CAS missions.
4) The number of Astute's will be reduced from 8 to 7.
5) The Type 22 Batch 3 frigates will be retired and the 7th and 8th Type 45's will not be ordered. This will reduce the escort force to 19 ships.
6) The Type 45's will remain without a land attack missile, an anti-ship missile and anti-submarine torpedoes. They will not be fitted with the Phalanx CIWS to save costs.
7) The design for the C3 will be fixed with no embarked helicopter (which IMHO means we might as well not even bother to build them as they will be bog all use for nearly all the roles that are required)
8) The number of MARS ships will be reduced to 3 or 4 to reflect the smaller surface fleet that needs to be supported.
9) There will be no dockyard closures. Closed dockyards = jobs lost and safeguarding industrial jobs is a more important priority for the government when it comes to defence spending than anything else.
10) HMS Ocean will be retired when the CV's come into service on the grounds that they can act as LPH platforms.
11) We will firm up the replacement for Trident based on 3 SSBN's. As last time 50% of the funding for these boats will come from the existing procurement budget.
I'd ask you to put your own predictions up rather than just having a pop at mine. You can't prove mine wrong and I can't prove them right. Just put your own views and let's let time show who got it right.
Cheers
Steve
Ok, put me down as a member of the optimists camp...!
1) Ordered and under-armed. Too many jobs depend upon these ships in
sensitive constituencies. As QE is unlikely to see service until 2016, we can always hope for additional defence sponsons.
2) If the SeaKings are servicable use them. Would prefer a UAV (Sea[Global]Hawk type aircraft, assuming AESA could be supported within a C4I environment. If not sentry-post the Type-45s.
3) I am assuming that your sixty F-35B will be the Harrier/Jaguar replacements. What about the impending Tornado GR4 retirement? Number could be maintained at ~150 (as the procurement contract is quite long). Who knows, maybe the FAA will test out the Lightning II-B, give up, hand them back to the RAF, and order the C-version in line with the QE's first refit?
4) Reports of long-lead items for 5-7. Would not mind if 7 is scrapped if-and-only-if:
- Vanguard replacement ordered to replace shipyard work,
- Revivial of SSK fleet (Type 214 UK version) with funds saved from no. 7, and
- Design work on sans SSBN SSN begun for 2025 delivery gateway.
5) Type 22 Batch III should be replaced with the C1. Cannot see this happening until PoW delivered in 2016. Would prefer to see multi-role, 9500-tonne Type-45, but will depend on BAe.
6) Type-45 should be pure CVF-AAW escorts. If lead-item Sylver launchers available, then refit class for 64-silos. Torpedo tubes are superfluous. Land-attack to delegate to CVF and SSN within fleet. Phalanx should be fitted though.
7) C3 class should be fitted with helos (Future Lynx's ideal platform). Highly modularised, with basic land-attack and air-defence. Bow-sonar, but able to support towed-array. Should replace fleet escorts in Caribbean, Gulf, Far-East courtesy calls and, eventually, the South Atlantic. Should be able to maintain sea-state commitments for harsh-weather, so a 3,000-tonne vessel, albeit lightly armed (57-mm cannon and Joint-Services SAMs) should suffice as basic platforms. This project is urgent, as the Type-23 are more then adequate to fulfill C2 role for next decade.
8) Proposed six MARS are quite cheap. Would they be cheaper if built in Holland, Poland or S. Korea? Could see a case for 4 16K and 3 10K designs though, the latter supporting the C3 fleet.
9) Dockyard closure will not occur this side of the [2010] General Election. After that, fear for Scotland's bases, regardless of an independence vote.
10) Ocean will be replaced, probably by two, commercially designed units. The RN will need the flexibility to allow littoral assault without risking primary air-assets. Maybe the Indians can build as a few of their Italian-designed Indigenous [sic] Aircraft Carrier.
:
11) If we are cheap, we will build an enlarged Astute SSBN. Hopefully we will drop the cruise-missle nuclear option, as we don't want to start World-War III. The large BAe design (which is
supposed to be cheap to build) is a good option. [More nukes, less ships, but a better balance.]
As most open-source documentation suggests a naval-vessel has a 35% fleet-availability, then - major capital and RFA vessels aside - a tranche of three vessel orders appears to reflect one available unit under normal circumstances. As such I'd like to see:
- 6 C1 vessels (but expect only 3 ordered initially)
- 12 C2 vessels (as near one-for-one substitutes for Type-23), and
- 18 C3 vessels (assuming low-manned, under-armed, but FFNW as light-frigates)
If we are limited to 19 escorts then this would mean 6 Type-45s, 3 C1, 6 C2 and 4 :shudder C3s. If that's the case, we might as well give up the ghost and surrender....
