FDR – Maritime Futures – part 2 the Submarine Fleet

So in the last instalment written for Think Defence as part of the FDR series I concentrated on the surface fleet. By comparison the submarine service is easier to discuss, yet more contentious; because I am going to include discussion of the nuclear deterrent.

SSN fleet

As is well known the the SSN fleet will shrink to 7 with the delivery of the Astute class boats.

I would argue that if we give up the carriers and their expensive F35 JCA air group we should invest in an 8th boat, because the Astute’s with their Tomahawk cruise missiles become our strategic land attack force, which we can stealthily position to ‘reach out and touch’ anyone who annoys us!

This number has dropped drastically from 29 boats in 1990 (including conventional diesel-electric boats) to 12 in 1997 to the current projected force level of 7.

Although BAe ran into issues with the design and build of the Astute class, leading them to be over budget and late, they are apparently very good subs. I would invest a little in making the last 4 of 8 a little longer and incorporating VLS cells (between the pressure and external hull as on USN SSNs). This has apparently already been investigated, and although I can see why they did not progress with this, adding additional cost to the programme, as these now become our primary force projection asset, it might be a good idea.

I don’t think I really need to defend the number of 8 all that much.

SSN’s are the primary ASW platform in wartime, and peace time can be used to clandestinely keep an eye on the prospective enemies submarine movements. They are superlative intelligence gathering asset and a delivery vehicle for special forces (SBS). Of course they are also an Anti-ship platform too, and although the RN no longer ships sub-Harpoon, the SpearFish torpedo, like any modern large calibre torpedo is a fearsome anti-ship weapon – just search for “sinkex” on YouTube!

However, they are rather large and costly, so fitting a small precision weapon such as the German-Norwegian Triton fibre-optic guided missile might be a good idea for ‘operations other than war’.

In truth we could probably do with more boats, but in the current financial climate there is no way we are getting more than 8.

For lots of good info on the Astute programme see the Navy Matters page at:

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/astute.htm

SSBN fleet

Apparently the current SSBN’s were built with a quite finite useful life, as there is no current discussion about life extension, but plenty of discussion about replacement, and whether we could make do with 3 ‘bombers’ instead of 4.

This is where things get contentious because we are talking about the future of the nuclear deterrent. There are many arguments that say what we spend on the independent nuclear deterrent is not all that much in the big picture , and that it is money well spent. Of course counter arguments exist that it is wasted money with no relevance to the global war on terror.

I am going to take a position in the middle, and suggested a much simplified and cheaper deterrent force.

However first, let us examine the threat.

Of course I do not posses the skills of Nostradamus, nor are my balls crystal, but I think its safe to say that neither the USA or France should be considered a nuclear threat. Nor personally do I think China is. If they nuke us, who is going to buy all their stuff ?

See, we can thank globalisation for something !

The same argument applies to Russia, although Putin seems to verge on lunacy at times, again if they nuke us, we can’t pay them all that lovely hard currency for their natural gas can we !

There are many reasons why I don’t think we have to deter India or Israel either. Nor Pakistan at the moment, but how secure are their weapons ?

And so that leads us into the real debate. What good is a SLBM with a reduced payload of ‘tactical’ optimized Nuclear warheads against non-state actors ? Or for that matter even against Iran or North Korea. Do we really think that if the Great Leader, or the ‘Great Lunatic’ (in Tehran) wanted to nuke us, that they would do it be easily identified missile launches from their own countries ?

No, seriously……

They would use / pay proxies, and the simplest way to nuke the UK would be to sail a crude dirty bomb into London, Hull or Liverpool on a merchant ship. Or maybe manage to get the bits into the country via the same route and take out Bradford. You can easily imagine all the global jihad organisations like AQ throwing up their arms in shock at the suggestion that they had blown up a large amount of the UK Muslim population…….

So, the unthinkable has happened, now who do we rain down our devastating SLBM delivered atomic revenge upon ? Mmmm’ thats right, the deterrent has not deterred and we can’t go throwing around ballistic missiles in this scenario.

In fact that defence against this scenario is a decent Coast Guard, an armed Border Police force and a well funded and competent intelligence service.

However, as is often pointed out to those who suggest dismantling the deterrent capability, these are todays threats, and new threats may materialize in the future. Yes thats true, and Britain could have good politicians and once again become the centre of innovation for the whole world, but don’t hold your breath……..

If you followed my link above the Navy Matters page on the Astute programme, at the very bottom of the page you will see that two variants of the Astute have been suggested as replacements for the current ‘bombers’ – one with 16 VLS cells for nuclear cruise missiles, and one with an extended sail structure with silos for 4 SLBM’s.

Despite the fact that you will all shout at me that they are easier to shoot down, etc etc I personally would go with the VLS and nuclear armed cruise missiles – but I expect plenty of discussion on this point ! Of course we could give up the ‘independent’ deterrent all together, but then what about our much vaunted seat on the worthless institution that is the UN Security Council………..

Nuclear and submarine building industry

We have discussed before on Think Defence the link to shrinking of the armed forces below a ‘critical mass’ to the retention of industrial design and manufacturing abilities. The fact that the Astute programme ran into difficulties which resulted in the most U.S. content in a British submarine class since the 1960′s is a direct result of the government not keeping up the ‘drum beat’ of orders, allowing knowledge, experience and expertise to be lost at Vospers at Barrow in Furness.

The state of the budget, the resolve of the politicos and lack of orders in the past, does not bode well for the future. Really it is time to come and clean and admit that we can’t / don’t want to pay to retain this expertise anymore, and in future we will buy our SSN’s from the U.S. or from France, or at least take their designs, add enough UK content to bump up the price (like a different sonar or torpedos) and licence build the boats in Barrow.

If we are going to be really cheap skate in the future, perhaps we should be buying AIP powered conventional patrol submarines instead?

Tags: Defence Reviews Trident