This short article focuses on the ‘teeth’ arms and specifically armour and infantry units, because everything else, capability wise hinges on these two main elements.
This a response to the Think Defence article offering an alternative view of how the Formation Recce Regiment might be organized in my ‘fantasy world’ or a reorganized British Army.
I would essentially keep the Regiments structure as it is today:
Possibly less contentious than previous articles on the surface fleet and submarine fleet, this article aims to highlight the parlous state of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The RFA supports not just the navy in its global roles and deployments, but also in various indirect fashions it supports the army and the RAF, by transporting various stores and munitions. Although the Army is currently engaged in a land locked area of operations, a lot of its kit was supplied to Iraq by sea, and they really should remember that both Lord Wellington and Field Marshall Montgomery relied upon, and were indeed big fans of sea borne logistics.
The RFA carries out these important logistical tasks with a very old and dwindling fleet. The 4 Bay Class landing ships and the two Knight class ‘Fast Fleet Tankers’ are the only ‘new’ ships in the flotilla.
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.
There is no doubt to anyone who has read my comments or my guest articles on Think Defence that I am an unabashed ‘fan boy’ of the Royal Danish Navy’s Absalon Class “flexible support ship”.
What I will attempt to do in this article is explain why I think it would make an excellent basis as an “off the shelf” design for the UK Royal Navy’s Future Surface Combatant’s “mid tier” C2 requirement.
Under the UK’s Surface Combatant Sustainability programme (later the Future Surface Combatant or FSC) the surface combatant fleet’s capabilities is seen as being provided by no less than 3 separate classes of ship in the future, the ‘lower end’ C3 variant being described as an multirole vessel replacing the current Ocean Patrol Vessels (OPV), Mine Counter Measures Vessels (MCMV’s) and even the survey vessels of the Hydrographic squadron.
I wrote the majority of this piece early last year, before the current Think Defence articles, however as FSC seems to be still on the go, I think this article fits well with what ‘Admin’ has said so far about the C3.
I have to dive in and write this piece for ThinkDefence being ex-Navy, there you go, how was that for up front disclosure and transparency !
However I am also been a soldier, and as a life long plane spotter I am also a proponent of air power, so hopefully I can provide a balanced, although maritime centered viewpoint.
THINK DEFENCE: As you know we operate an open door policy, this is another post from one of our regular contributors, Jed…
In the previous articles written by myself and the ThinkDefence teams we both independently came to the conclusion that the future of the RAF lay in the cost effective management of a single aircraft type as the ‘fast jet fleet’ and that the single type should be the Typhoon. We both advocated the early retirement of the Harrier GR9 and the cancellation of the UK’s commitment to, and interest in the Lockheed Martin F35 (Joint Combat Aircraft).
However this leads to an immediate problem. The UK Govt. finally ordered the two large deck carriers first promulgated in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, and open source information seems to suggest the CVF (Future Carrier) programme is now progressed to the point where it will be cheaper to build the two carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_class_aircraft_carrier).
So, if we are not going to cancel them because of contractual penalities, and we are not going to sell them (India being the latest rumour) because of pride and because the rest of the Royal Navy’s capabilities have been mortgaged to get them in the first place, then we better have something to fly from them !
THINK DEFENCE: As you know we operate an open door policy, this is a post from one of our regular contributors, Jed…
I started writing this article during my lunch hours after the ThinkDefence guys posted their article “FDR – the RAF and Airpower, Introduction”.
However they beat me to and posted their uncannily similar artilce, “FDR – Air (Fast Jets)” , so as our articles are not entirely identical, I provide this as a supporting article if the team decide to post it.
My possibly controversial hypothesis in this piece is based on an attempted balance between future capability and the reality of the defence budget. Anyone who works in the corporate world will probably be sick of hearing “do more with less” – but this is a real concept as far the British armed forces are concerned. The focus of the piece is the fast jet force, but as this does not exist in isolation, it does touch on other capabilities.
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