In all the talk of sacrificing the amphibious fleet in order to retain CVF it is a worthwhile exercise to see how defence diplomacy is done by the Royal Navy.
HMS Ocean is a Landing Platform Helicopter and whilst many complain that she was built to commercial standards and therefore not a ‘proper warship’ the reality is, she has been tremendous value for money and will be a tough act to follow when decommissioned towards the end of the decade..
Here recent voyage shows just how versatile this type of vessel is, providing a significant effect for a relatively modest outlay.
The first stop was Exercise Auriga in the USA, a spot of amphibious training with the Brazilian marines then a hop across the Atlantic to take part in the Nigerian fleet review, hosting the odd treaty signing and repairing a school.
Of course, if we do end up with the second CVF acting as an Ocean replacement we will have to settle for not having any embarked landing craft or rear loading ramp (when it works that is!)
Contents
Exercise Auriga and Kearsarge – USA
AURIGA is the major Royal Navy deployment of 2010, exercising on the Eastern Seaboard of North America and in the Western Atlantic. There were many more vessels other than Ocean taking part but these are just about Ocean, I have even excluded the RAF and their deployment aboard HMS Ark Royal.
As if that wasn’t enough, on Saturday 10th July a team of Royal Marines from 9 Assault Squadron, based on board HMS Ocean, helped save an American fisherman whose boat was on the brink of sinking. The eagle-eyed marines spotted the boat while conducting a routine patrol in their Landing Craft.
Caribbean
In August she deployed to the Caribbean to provide contingency support to British dependant territories during the hurricane season and take part in anti drug smuggling operations.
During the deployment the crew also managed to raise several thousand pounds for charity
Brazil
After leaving the Caribbean the next stop was Rio de Janeiro. Activities included hosting a trade agreement signing ceremony and exercising with Brazilian Marines.
The Royal Marines also gave their Griffon TD2400‘s and Offshore Raiding Craft a good run out.
After the exercise HMS Ocean returned to Rio De Janeiro to host a UK Trade and Industry exhibition, a reception for local dignitaries and a bi-lateral security seminar culminating in the signing of a UK/Brazil Defence Cooperation Agreement and a formal dinner for 150 guests onboard.
During the week in Rio sailors and Royal Marines from the ship helped with a number of community projects.
Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea
Timed to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of independence the next visit was to Nigeria where HMS Ocean and her crew took part in a number of training and goodwill missions.
The Presidential Fleet Review was part of activities for the nation’s 50th independent anniversary celebrations.
After Nigeria was a short stay in Sierra Leone and on the way back will be a number of cooperative operations around Cape Verde with their law enforcement teams.
Summary
What a superb example of combining training with defence diplomacy and standing patrols.
This is defence diplomacy done right; let’s not sacrifice this on the stone cold altar of CVF.
Is the aim of the armed forces of the United Kingdom to fight & win or diplomacy?
I’d suggest both, but its primary function must be that it is armed to fight and win. Regarding CVF, a 65,000tn monster is overkill but we are where we are and none of the services saw the financial crisis coming.
However, leaving the Navy without organic air power at sea is akin to sending our soldiers out to ‘show force’ without bullets in their guns or sending RAF planes into service without missiles.
What use other than ‘showing the flag’ is an amphibious capability without having the ability to control the airspace around it?
CVF ( or any Vince replacement) allows us the ability to act as an independent country and the Royal Navy IS the only arm of the British Armed Forces that gives us a world beating capability which only few other countries have ( and which can act as a conventional deterrent, although admin will no doubt disagree with me)
Without it we simply ‘show the flag’ and dance to someone elses drumbeat
Andy
How exactly is CVF a World beating capability?
They are not he worlds most powerful carriers.
Several of the worlds airforces could sink them without breaking into a run.
Their made of steel, which means any sub that knocks a hole in one can sink it.
Its not to much of an exageration to say that any of the worlds armed forces that can put up sufficent airpower, to warrent the deplyoment of the carriers can put up sufficent airpower to sink one.
Which in the current climate of offering to destroy the rest of the RN (Including its amphibious capability) menas the ned of the RN in total. (although thats OK as we will still have abotu 60 admirals – just no ships.
‘How exactly is CVF a World beating capability?
Several of the worlds airforces could sink them without breaking into a run.’
Oh come on please, that comment’s worthy of uninformed Guardian reading sandal wearers. Outside of China & Russia who I assure you we would never go to war with alone which countries are you thinking of that would throw force at a CVF with 24+ F35, with a screen of T45, T23 & Astutes? A very stupid one i’d suggest which makes it a very good deterrent in the first place.
Better not send any of those soldiers to Afghanistan you know – they’re made of flesh & bone!
List of airforces/navies that could sink CVF, even if it all works. (I remind you we wil be lucky if it exists as a fully functioning, able to take all comers task group by 2020.
US
China
Russia
India
Saudi arabia
Isreal
Japan
There are several Countires that could give one a hard time, some of the conventional / AIP submarines now proliferating are far more dangerous that some bigger navies are letting on.
Even if we could deploy it to what end? We are apparantly giving up any amphibious capability to get them.
You could chop up in firefight and kill an entire batalion or two of troops but would still have an army left not so if we lose the carriers.
Why not replace like for like. Three more ‘through deck carriers’ instead of two goliaths! Still we would retain force projection around the globe, albeit with fewer aircraft.
How aboout 3 or 4 Juan Carlos instead, with F100′s for air defence.
Cost the same if not less.
“Of course, if we do end up with the second CVF acting as an Ocean replacement we will have to settle for not having any embarked landing craft or rear loading ramp (when it works that is!) This is defence diplomacy done right; let’s not sacrifice this on the stone cold altar of CVF.”
Frankly, I am not concerned that CVF does not have a vehicle deck, embarked landing craft, or a rear ramp, because Britain long ago decided against having generic amphibious assets such as the Mistral of Canberra class.
Instead we opted for a larger number of more specialised hulls capable of filling individual roles alone or a cohesive platform of capabilities when arranged as a task group.
If we want massed storage then we have the Bay class LSD’s, if we want massed landing craft then we have the Albion LPD’s, if we want massed helicopter assault then we have Ocean as an LPH.
Other nations have decided they want all three in one platform, and thus they have bought two or three LHD’s, where we have a fleet of eight platforms that can be tasked individually to the many standing naval tasks we undertake.
It was considered the most flexible and most efficient route to have more, smaller, specialised amphibious vessels, which when aggregated would allow us to deploy, insert, command, and sustain a reinforced brigade in theatre.
Can Spain or Australia do this with two Canberra Class?
Can France do this with three Mistral Class?
Even if they could, for the ninety-nine percent of time you are not launching an amphibious war, can they operate several standing tasks at once by splitting up the aggregate capability into their component units?
Now, I want you to consider two stone cold facts:
1. We are buying the CVF’s anyway.
2. Ocean is shagged, and in this climate unlikely to be replaced.
The obvious answer to this ‘conundrum’ is to realise that CVF has the hotel facilities to support a battalion in addition to the crew itself, and that the limited buy of JCA will leave plenty of deck and hangar space from which to operate helicopters.
Buying both CVF and operating them in a swing role means that we technically keep the same capability to deploy, insert, command, and sustain a reinforced brigade in theatre, only now it will have access to CAP and CAS from an organic fighter-bomber squadron deployed with the task-force.
If it proves suboptimal tough, these are suboptimal times, and we can always revert it back to a pure carrier in the 2020′s when there is more money to buy three more squadrons of JCA and a brace of dedicated LPH’s.
But what do we lose really? We lose a helicopter platform that has access to a couple of small landing craft and a small vehicle deck………. when we have another six amphibious units with oodles of landing craft and thousands of meters of vehicle lanes.
To me it seems bloody obvious!
The context in which I aid lets not lose the capability on the altar of CVF was because if you listen to the papers the RN was quite willing to give the amphibs up in order to keep CVF
CVF will as configured, not be an ideal LPH precisely because she wont have adequate small craft capabilities or any provision for vehicles. This reduces flexibility and therefore utility
“The context in which I aid lets not lose the capability on the altar of CVF was because if you listen to the papers the RN was quite willing to give the amphibs up in order to keep CVF”
Granted, but I guess I never really believed it because the utility and advantage of CVF is greatly reduced without an amphibious capability to match it.
Are Admin and me now singing form same hymn sheet?
Ixion, I am sure we are, at least on some things but not others!!
I have had my doubts about CVF from the very beginning and the seeming willingness for the grown ups at the admiralty to dispense with almost every single bit of useful capability they have in order to keep them strikes me as irrational, when something seems irrational it is either because a) it is or b) there is some grand master plan in play
Still not convinced it is B
Those wheelbarrows are they from BAE systems?
DOM: “Why not replace like for like. Three more ‘through deck carriers’ instead of two goliaths! Still we would retain force projection around the globe, albeit with fewer aircraft.”
Aside from having to stare the design afresh (remember the QE design is complete and they are NOW IN BEING BUILT), air costs nothing, and the steel has already been bought. So build a bigger ship, have more room for whatever it is you want to put on them in the future. The size gives them great flexibility and does not in fact cost much. Remember the huge growth in capability between a 1980′s INVINCIBLE class and what LUST or ARKR delivers now. You will see a parallel process with the QE class. A large deck with lots of space has huge utility, don’t be fooled that making it smaller makes any sense or would save any money.
AMPHIB Forces in Hugely USEFUL shocker.
Ok. Lets think about this for a moment. The RN’s amphibious fleet has an average age of about seven years. We have LSDAs, LPDs, OCEAN, and good LCs etc. Why has the debate been allowed to suggest that we dispose of this hugely useful, (and paid for) capability in order to run Carriers? We have it now, it does not (relatively) cost much to run, so take it as a given.
“I have had my doubts about CVF from the very beginning and the seeming willingness for the grown ups at the admiralty to dispense with almost every single bit of useful capability they have in order to keep them strikes me as irrational,”
I think the twelve escorts comment should be seen in the context of high-end, area-defence-escorts, that in other times would be know as “ships of the line”.
There is still C3 and C2 to consider, which would be more than capable of providing most of Royal Navy’s standing tasks.
I don’t really believe that the price of the carriers is the amphib fleet, because one does not make sense without the other, in fact they are explicitly complementary.
It would not surprise me if half the Amphib fleet were immediately mothballed for a number of years with Ocean/CVS never being replaced, but then i would deem that an acceptable compromise, as we would retain the assets necessary to move a brigade, and CVF is capable of acting as a (LPH) in her own right.
MjH
Thats the point. Amphib forces are useful.
2 x CVF with insufficent support/escort are not.
Jedibeeftrix
I am with Admin on this one.
The reported offer (In the papers so it must be true); made;(I am sure in desperation),to keep the carriers was the rest of the fleet. Amphib/MCM?/River class the lot.
No room/doshfor C2/C3
AS Admin says that is irrational. Frighteningly Irrational.
Great post as always.
i believe it is high-stakes poker playing, offering an impossible choice based on the support of fox and his three ministers:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319243/Liam-Foxs-Defense-ministers-threaten-quit-Armed-Forces-cuts.html
my thoughts on the CVF vs amphibs/escorts debate:
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/1374/
It always makes me laugh when people start saying that carriers are vulnerable to other naions airforces and when asked which ones create a list of nations that there is little or no chance the UK will ever fight. Add to that in the very very small chance it did happen we would be operating with the USN and/or other friendly nations.
Yes we will not be able to form a CVBG as powerful as the USN but more akin to the French Navy so a CVF group would have 1x T-45, 2x T-23 or T-26, 1x Astute plus 1x RFA Tanker and 1x RFA Support vessel. With AEW&C, 30+ Fast Jets, 8-12 ASW Helicopters, and TLAM just for starter this is a powerful force in anyones eyes.
The current SDSR is a bit of a aboration, not actually being a review but a battle over the size of cuts. We will have to wait until 2015 to have a proper review and hopefully a a balanced programme for our armed forces
Lord Jim
That’s the whole point!
If we are looking for airpower enough to deal with handful of Cold war era soviet fighters / early model f16, poorly armed flown by poorly trained pilots, the Carriers are overkill several times over.
Many 2nd rate airforces are more powerful than that, and come attached to navies/ shore defences that could be a real threat with a number of freely available anti ship missiles, and half decent subs.
If the argument is that “Oh well we wont be going up against anyone too hard without the yanks”
THEN WHY ARE WE BUILDING THEM??!!!
Lets turn this on its head: – Given the capabilty of existing carriers- Lusty etc to deal with small third rate airforces; against whom would we need to risk deploying in effect our entire available surface fleet,(1 New carrier plus escorts)? without being in league with the US navy?
And if we have given up any menaingful amphib capaicity why would we bother?
They are 2 legged horses.
IXION
“amphibs are useful”. Indeed they are, but without aircover they are merely coffins for thousands of sailors and marines. Without carriers (of one sort or another), there’s no point in having amphibs: the only enemies we would dare fight without air cover are those for whom a commando landed from a frigates/destroyers via small boats would put the flight
Rupert Fiennes
OK I agree with you.
List the countries our current RN air power (or like for like replacement) can’t deal with.
That CVF will be able to be reasonably safely deployed against.
That we won’t be in alliance with the USA against.
I don’t concede the point about carriers AS CURRENTLY PROJECTED being much use, but once again this post has become a pro vs anti 2 CVF argument.
To make it clear, if we could have the rest of our navy and a minimum of 3 with all support and escorts, my position would be that of a supporter.
It does I think make my point that this choice defacto chooses the strategy for UK defence for the next 20 years.
I have decided to bow out of this argument, as both sides are entrenched.
I do so however with the final exortation that 2 Weak CVF Carrier groups which weaken further, in any way our already over stretched RN commitments, will be a disaster as they offer the opportunty no one has had since Jutland.
That is to defacto destroy the RN in one action.
“current RN air power”
The RN currently has bollocks all in the way of fixed wing airpower. If you wish to count JFH then i would point out that they are no use against other Aircraft unless your fine with visual range pop shots with ASRAAM.
Like i said I’m out of the CVF Debate It’s become entrenched on both sides.
Be careful what you wish for you might get it!”
Wow – go off line for a little Thanks Giving weekend break and your all at again…. plus my Dad seemed to suggest on the phone this morning that media is trumpeting the deal is done – RN wrecked at the alter of CVF.
Anyway, to answer some points raised in the comments:
1. Amphibs not useful without CV based air support – not true. Possibly true if you want to re-take the Falklands (again) or to open a new salient in operations against North Korea (again) but strangely enough fixed wing, fast mover air support was not required for Sierra Leone. Amphibs are exactly for wielding “soft power” – disaster relief for example, or perhaps an Albion as fast boat mothership and CTF flagship for CTF 51 (anti-piracy ops), or a Bay class as a mothership for fast boats for anti-drug ops in the Caribbean – there are plenty of non-near peer scenarios where the Amphibs are useful. Finally, even in a conflict against a near peer adversary, the UK RN / RM amphib task group provides a powerful capability to NATO. US, French, Spanish and Italian carriers could provide our air support in such cases.
2. CV ops. If we go CATOBAR, 2 carriers is not enough anyway, so its back to white elephants. You need 3, 1 in refit / maintenance, early work up. 1 working up the air group (all those training sorties to keep carrier qualified) and 1 for operations. Even if we buy F18E Super Hornets or F35C, we are tying ourselves even more to the U.S. Navy apron strings in order to keep aircrew ‘carrier current’.
As I have said before, it does not matter. The level of idiocy at the hightest levels of Government are gob-smacking. The inability to do ‘grand strategy’ and then cascade strategies, aims, goals and objectives downwards from there is so sad, it’s no longer funny. Meanwhile Admirals fall over themselves to wreck the entire Royal Navy, just so they can “stick it” to the Air Marshal’s – can every say together now: “nah nah, nah nah, we go real carriers now…!”
Fit the friggin’ CV’s with Samson and Aster, boat davits for LCVP / Combat Boat 90, buy some AH1W Super Cobra’s instead of wasting money on the obscenely expensive WildCat, and admit that with ex-RAF troop carrying Merlins, plus Merlin HM2 and some Merlin AEW&C will be the only air group we can ever afford – et voila, two big shiny replacement for HMS Ocean (if you really must, fly Harrier GR9 from them as ‘close air support’ until the airframes fall to bits…’) BUT recapitalize the work-horse surface fleet to around 30 units, and keep ALL the amphibs…….
Really, it’s frakkin depressing
“Amphibs not useful without CV based air support – not true. Possibly true if you want to re-take the Falklands (again) or to open a new salient in operations against North Korea (again) but strangely enough fixed wing, fast mover air support was not required for Sierra Leone.”
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amphibs are perfectly useful, but they aren’t a strategic asset without:
1. fast air
2. the ability to shift a brigade.
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if we did ditch the carriers then it would be hard to justify eight amphib platforms in the RN/RFA, might as well cut it back to two mistral class or equivalent.
Your comment would be fair enough if we were always operating alone
But we will rarely do so, the much trumpeted SSFI.
In fact this has been the accepted position for decades and confirmed in the 1998 SDR so as long as we retain a balanced force for operations on a small scale then everything else is discretionary and this includes the CVF and amphib force.
Operating in a coalition for medium scale and upwards the reality is the Amphibs are arguably a better strategic asset than our version of maritime fast air so in this respect I think the amphib capability is actually worth more than CVF
maybe because i start with the poltics and work back to the military i cannot see the value of a rapid-reaction expeditionary capability [limited] to a battle-group.
oddly enough, an article on amphibious forces from defence viewpoints:
http://www.defenceviewpoints.co.uk/articles-analysis/how-much-might-be-done-with-a-hundred-thousand-such-as-these
Air craft carriers are enablers.
If the Falklands taught “us” anything is that most things that float can be used as “amphibians” as long as the battle space is protected in depth.
Is as about spreading the investment in ships.
Better to invest in a carrier than a high end amphibian(s) on its own. An expensive carrier allows “you” to buy amphibians built to (supposedly) lower commercial standards.
Of course once again it all about HMG’s willingness to procure defence systems. A class of 8 Johan de Witt would keep British ship yards in work for a decade. Saying that British ship building struggle to build the Bays on time and on budget. Why can we buy C17s from Boeing, but can’t buy ships from Korea.
“We” should be looking at restructuring the Army towards “amphibiousity.”
Instead of looking at how the Yanks do stuff we should perhaps study how the Australians and Kiwi’s do stuff.
No fast air at sea is signalling strategic retreat, again what is the primary job of the Royal Navy? Is it diplomacy or is it enabling exteme violence on any foe?
CVF (or any carrier air, I’m not one of these ‘size’ junkies) allows the Navy to do both.
Without carrier air power, you can only do diplomacy and act against nations without an airforce. In those situations surely even our current amphibs are overkill.
I think the CVF discussion is a wider question. Just what are our armed forces for?
the perils of host nation access:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/uae-threatens-to-kick-canada-out-of-covert-military-base-camp-mirage/article1748917/
I have to agree that one of the main purposes of the CVFs is to support and protect the Amphibs, so if we lose the Amphibs, there goes much of the point of having the CVFs. I do disagree with the argument about the type of amphibs we should have; LHDs are so much more versatile individually than any other type, having it’s own helicopters and landing craft. The Juan Carlos/Canberra can be configured to do disaster relief, or with anti-submarine helos, or as mother-ships to an influence squadron. Amphibs are hard to justify otherwise if you perform an amphibious operation only once a generation. They have to be versatile.
All this is moot however, the amphibious squadron is already built, the CVFs on their way to being built. Question is: where/when was the decision-making process that brought us to where we are now? So much gets decided behind closed doors where informed criticism cannot be brought to bear.
It is not enough to say we should have done this or that, we need to look at the process that brought us to this disastrous state and change that process.
ThinkDefence said “Operating in a coalition for medium scale and upwards the reality is the Amphibs are arguably a better strategic asset than our version of maritime fast air so in this respect I think the amphib capability is actually worth more than CVF”
No because we would only be co-operating on somebody else’s terms. Imagine working with the French. “Nous” provide the airpower; “vous” can said the troops ashore to get killed.
Symbolism goes a long way in IR. Turning up to the game with a nice carrier will carry more weight than turning up with an LPD.
Can anybody imagine a scenario where Europe (the EU) would actually commit to fight? I can’t. Unless the US were there first. The politicians have enough trouble selling an American war, how well do you think they would do selling a Brussels lead war?
X said: “Can anybody imagine a scenario where Europe (the EU) would actually commit to fight? I can’t.”
If your replying in response to my comment on the amphib capability, and the mention of carriers provide by other allied nations I did not say “Europe” I said NATO – just want to make that distinction clear.
No Jed.
Actually I have stopped reading the comments too deeply or paying attention to who actually has commented. I was commenting in the broadest way possible way with the first thoughts that came into my head. So sorry no I was responding to you in particular.
Oh! And I have just notice I did say EU. I thought I had just said Europe.
Perhaps I should have said WEU, um, don’t know.
Despite being an ex-Army man, I think anything the boys in khaki need should come a poor third relative to Fast Air and Navy Ships. The Carriers and aircraft that operate from them represent an essential capability.
The number one reason for having carriers is to be able to conduct offensive air operations quickly a long way away. In that sense they are highly flexible fully self-contained mobile airfields that pack a big punch.
As so many people have rightly pointed out, we couldn’t have retaken the Falklands without HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes. The Atlantic Conveyor was a kind of helicopter carrier and when it was lost, it made the task much more difficult.
I wonder whether we’ll ever conduct a seaborne invasion again using landing craft? I wonder whether the helicopter has replaced the rigid raider as it has the silk canopy?
Jed,
“Fit the friggin’ CV’s with Samson and Aster, boat davits for LCVP / Combat Boat 90,…”
One question on a technical point. Would it be possible to fit davits onto sponsons on the new CVFs? It would seem to me that the deck on the new carriers would be much higher out of the water than on “Ocean” and therefore would mean a much greater distance through which to lower landing craft (I am not Navy and do not know the first thing about these matters!). Sponsons would presumably be much lower. The loss of a vehicle deck and ramp (as on “Ocean” would also be a serious one.
One point about the new carriers that people seem to forget is that they are designed to last 50 years, as opposed to carriers in the past, which have had to be replaced every 20-25 years. That will mean that there should be a benefit some time in years to come. They will have been paid for and there will not be the cost for replacements in 20-25 years time. Perhaps we might even be able to afford a lot more escorts then – not much consolation now of course!
Paradoxically, I am in favour of not procuring more than one CVF!
Like other supporters of a “blue water strategy’ I will confess to have been very despondent in recent weeks at some of the more alarmist headlines, I am now coming round to support the view that both Admiral Sir Mark and the cunning Dr Fox (appropriately named – we hope!) have been pursuing a high stakes but deliberate strategy in all of this? If the latest reported leaks from Tuesdays (final?) meeting of the NSC, are true, they have had some success. It was never credible that a Tory government would be seen to delete at a stroke our entire amphibious capability, particularly one which has been built up at great cost over recent years and even in defence terms is almost new. Nor was it credible that they could be seen to oversea the reduction of the surface fleet to some half dozen frigates. Actually I believe that even if this were the price that we had to pay to secure the second CVF, it would be a price worth paying. Detractors of CVF often site the fact that the real cost of the programme lies in the numbers of escorts and submarines required to escort a carrier task group. This in a high intensity conflict with a major power is true, but it belies the fact that even the United States would never enter into such a conflict without the support of allies, and that we have many allies that operate modern and high end escorts that would be there to assist. Spain, Holland, Norway, Italy,Canada, Australia, to name but a few? On any go it alone mission 2 T45 and 2 T23 would probably suffice. What most of our allies however cannot provide is CAP/CAS or AEW and surface surveillance with any thing like the capability of CVF. This capability will be almost unique, and should be the major contribution that, as our US cousins would say, we ‘ bring to the fight’ . If the latest reports are true, the NSC would appear to have acknowledged this, and the simple maths that to guarantee one, we must have two. I confess however I await Tuesday with churning stomach and baited breath??
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/12/navy-aircraft-carriers-defence-cuts