The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[RobWilliams]

An interesting possibility will be if the RN finds the funds and crew to operate both carriers, which leads to the possibility of - should the SHTF severely -to operate the pair in tandem.

I say SHTF severely because there's no way the pair would deploy for the likes of Syria, Libya or even something like Telic/Herrick if efforts of that scale were made again. A tandem deployment would speak to the dire situation the country is in.

I like a bit of fantasy fleet.

But on the flip side, I'd like to know what the RN had to cut back or give up on to run the second carrier if a decision is made.

 

[the concerned]

Like it has been said before it isn't gonna take that much to sort the royal navy out just a bigger fleet of purpose built patrol ships that could do drug patrols/fishery protection/anti piracy. Then the major warships could be used for missions that they where designed for. Again I also think permanent oversea's basing would also help like the US and Kenya or Oman

 

[RobWilliams]

No point basing in Oman considering the extensive facilities in Bahrain, IIRC the UK are paying for a new naval command HQ or some such.

What's the point in having a permanent base in the US too?

 

[153jam]

Although to force has declined, there seems to be a reluctance for many average Britons to accept the new reality as apparent from the post I replied to.

I think that is a slightly unfair stereotyping sentiment. In the context of a modern Falklands-like scenario, one can obviously do little more than speculate to what a possible outcome would look like. I think that most would agree that a war of attrition or control of such vast areas is not on the agenda for the RN anymore, but the technology is very different from that in 1982, and so is the level of experience. A single task group with assets such as AEW, SAMPSON/PAAMS, TLAM, F-35b with stormshadow (should that day come), allows a much greater standoff capability than what we had in 1982, let alone more "deterrence" value. Considering most of which was highlighted in comments before mine, I just think the general consensus is just that the process of a similar operation to the Falklands would look very different, and the assets available to us (albeit less of them) are vastly superior. I do not see anyone posting to dispute that the RN has declined in numbers or it's ability to deploy in multiple areas.

 

[the concerned]

The point behind basing in the US was to have say 2 patrol vessels there that could take turns on drug patrols .They are then in the area of operations rather than coming across the atlantic. Plus when my father was in the RN in the 60's there where regular visits to Kenya which again if they used would be closer to where the pirate patrols are needed.

 

[kev 99]

My turn to nick someone's posting on the Warships board, this time from Dewey101:

The Royal Navy has eight aircraft, which it did not plan to upgrade, left orphaned. But navy officials have requested that at least a handful of those orphaned aircraft get upgraded to the Merlin Mk. 2 standard.

“Whether it is two, four or eight aircraft, that get converted, it is not clear, but we are confident,” said Capt. Ed Trischler, the Merlin Team Leader at the U.K.’s Defense Equipment and Support Agency. A decision is expected later this year.

U.K. Considering Bringing Orphaned Merlins Into Service | Farnborough 2014 content from Aviation Week

Looks like some more of the orphan Merlins might be coverted to MK2 standard, personally I think this is a great bit of news, even if it's only a couple it will certainly help out with availability, especially as they are going to be doing Crowsnest too.

 

[RobWilliams]

Excellent news, it can only be a good thing to get more of those aircraft into service considering the increased demand they're going to be under taking up the ASaC job!

 

[RobWilliams]

Reading the full article, it's interesting how they're planning on dishing the current 30 HM2s about.

Of the 30 cabs, the aim is to have 25 of them operational with 5 in maintenance with 14 of those 25 reserved for our aircraft carrier "when the ship puts to sea with her task group".

That's pretty comprehensive AEW/ASW coverage alone, never mind what frigates will be accompanying. However when you start squeezing F-35B's and the commandos helicopters (never mind Chinooks + Apaches) then things'll be getting pretty cosy on board.

Hopefully the 2015 SDSR allows us to operate and man both carriers, it gives us the hope that in the event of needing to use the Commandos helicopters that we could deploy the pair of them to get the numbers of aircraft we would need. Otherwise, the idea of deploying say a dozen Merlins + 24 F-35B + a cluster of Junglie Merlins would be more than able for the likes of Libya, Syria or other areas where boots-on-the-ground isn't an option.

It's an option which won't be exercised until necessary, people are war weary, after all.

EDIT: Oh, and apparently LockMart aren't offering the F-35 radar in their Crowsnest tender anymore, now it's some Israeli radar i'm not familiar with.

 

[kev 99]

It's an option which won't be exercised until necessary, people are war weary, after all.

Don't know about that; 20120 SDSR was pretty much written from the perspective of us not expecting other military campaigns for a good while, then Libya happened, then of course the Government wanted involvement in Syria as well.....

I tend to think where the military are concerned the Government are war weary, until they decide that there is something else that we must get involved in.

 

[RobWilliams]

But in both of those cases (even supporting the French in Mali) a core message apart from 'We gotta take that bad guy down" was that there would not be any UK troops involved. Deploying air/sea power is a more politically acceptable course of action when possible and is easier to sell to the public, although I do accept that (like the French) situations where the use of troops are required cannot be ignored.

 

[kev 99]

But in both of those cases (even supporting the French in Mali) a core message apart from 'We gotta take that bad guy down" was that there would not be any UK troops involved. Deploying air/sea power is a more politically acceptable course of action when possible and is easier to sell to the public, although I do accept that (like the French) situations where the use of troops are required cannot be ignored.

I'm fairly sure the SDSR didn't mention anything about 'Boots on the Ground' though, using air and sea power may be more politically acceptable but it's still going against what was said in the review. A military intervention-lite is still a military intervention.

I just tend to feel that Governments (particularly ours) are more than happy enough to say they won't get involved in wars until they decided that they will.

But I realise we're going massively off-piste here. :dunce

 

[StobieWan]

I'm hoping that the sensible decision on the Merlins is that the cost of working out an upgrade path will be such that doing additional cabs will be incidental and all the existing helicopters will be re-worked - that'd be a significant boost to rotary wing assets for the UK.

It's a good nuts and bolts result to hear that they're now looking at it, that much is sure.

 

[RobWilliams]

I'm fairly sure the SDSR didn't mention anything about 'Boots on the Ground' though, using air and sea power may be more politically acceptable but it's still going against what was said in the review. A military intervention-lite is still a military intervention.

I just tend to feel that Governments (particularly ours) are more than happy enough to say they won't get involved in wars until they decided that they will.

But I realise we're going massively off-piste here. :dunce

True, but I'm not holding the SDSR to the 'Dont worry, we won't have any fights' pledge because that went out the window within a year and isn't really something which should be considered. It was a flawed assumption.

But that's what I mean. The UK public is war weary, it will be very hard to convince the UK public to condone any military intervention where it's not clear why we are doing it and should we be doing it. However a 'no fly zone' to prevent the bad guy from bombing civilians seems - to the public - as something which makes us not *directly* involved! just making it a more level playing field (us Brits like it when others play fair) and we're not deploying troops.

But specifically about my original comment about it (deploying two hypothetical carriers) only being used when absolutely necessary is still - IMO - true. When we need two, we need serious airlift. That means deploying Commandos ashore, something more recent campaigns have been explicitly advertised as something we won't be doing. Not to mention the financial cost of an endeavour and the strategic impacts (a with respect to availability after).

 

[Systems Adict]

https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/10885

Hurrah, she floats !

 

[Nick underscore]

https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/10885

Hurrah, she floats !

She is one of the most beautiful ships.

By removing the forward island, I can't help but think from some of those photos she visually reminds my of Kuznetsov class.. Who I also thought had beautiful lines.

 

[StobieWan]

She's in the water, the build has went quite smoothly, discarding government interference, she's on time, and floats. And yes, her lines are far more graceful than I'd imagined, particularly from the starboard side.

I'm going to go out tomorrow and punch bleeding heart Guardian readers in the throat all day long, just to make sure I get *some* of the clueless cardigan wearing socialist scumbags who will be anxiously filling the comments pages of whatever column the Guardian runs criticising the carrier build.

 

[H-D]

I didn't expect her to look this good. When I saw the original concept sketches, I thought she looked unwieldy and awkward.

Now I'm pleased to see that the ugly ducking has grown into a beautiful swan. As my dad used to say, "beauty is, as beauty does".

Now that HMS Queen Elizabeth is officially afloat, we have increased our influence in world affairs by an amount that cannot be measured in the expenditure of mere coinage. It can only be hoped that comonsense prevails and the government :hitwall retains both carriers.

Perhaps the government may also consider increasing our new frigate order to 15 hulls instead of the just barely adequate 13 hulls...

Stobiewan, as a person who normally despises violence of any kind (unless it's in the defence of the realm), I feel I'm meant to say we should be kind to our misguided socialist brethren. But honestly, after the last couple of years of c*ap relating to the castration of our defence forces, I say 'kick 'em in the shins too"

 

[ngatimozart]

I didn't expect her to look this good. When I saw the original concept sketches, I thought she looked unwieldy and awkward.

Now I'm please to see that the ugly ducking has grown into a beautiful swan. As my dad used to say, "beauty is, as beauty does".

Now that HMS Queen Elizabeth is officially afloat, we have increased our influencee in world affairs by an amount that cannot be measured in the expenditure of mere coinage. It can only be hoped that comonsense prevails and the government :hitwall retains both carriers.

Perhaps the government may also consider increasing our new frigate order to 15 hulls instead of the just barely adequate 13 hulls...

Stobiewan, as a person who normally despises violence of any kind (unless it's in the defence of the realm), I feel I'm meant to say we should be kind to our misguided socialist brethren. But honestly, after the last couple of years of c*ap relating to the castration of our defence forces, I say 'kick 'em in the shins too"

Well said sir.

 

[RobWilliams]

It definitely is a possibility, the idea of getting more frigates, but that's only because towards the tail end of the 13 it's so far in the future the predictions can't be based on anything concrete. However if the costs escalate badly then it'll be a VERY uncomfortable time period as it won't be long after 2020 we start construction of the replacement for our SSBNs.

She's certainly looking better than I expected, much better than the CGIs that were produced.

As an aside, HMS Ocean will be fit for operations for Cougar 14 meaning that HMS Illustrious will be decommissioned on schedule.

https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/10895

Now we've entered the period where the RN is just Ocean for two years until HMS Queen Elizabeth is commissioned.

 

[Riga]

But on the flip side, I'd like to know what the RN had to cut back or give up on to run the second carrier if a decision is made.

Would you take a bet on not getting 13 T26? 8 seems to be a number bandied around.

A question I have is what is de-manning doing to the RN? Realistically, what can the RN man now and put to sea? How long can it continue and, I don't expect an answer, what is this doing to the deterrence fleet!?