Ship to Shore Logistics

UK amphibious doctrine has for some time seen a heavily opposed landing as a last resort and the assumption is that because of the proliferation of anti ship and anti tank guided weapons any such approach would be suicidal without the strongest level of battle space preparation. The true value of an amphibious capability is being able to appear in an area that is only lightly defended, secure an area inland using heliborne troops and establish a beach head before johny foreigner realises what has happened. Amphibious operations encompass a wide range of activity but the amount of vehicles, stores and personnel even a light role unit requires means that logistics are key.

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FDR – Maritime (Amphibious and Logistics)

To set the scene for this post, our earlier suggestion of cancelling CVF and JCA was nothing short of a brutal cost saving measure. Some may argue that significant costs have already been sunk and contracts signed, to cancel now would not result in any savings. This is simply not the case, yes, there would be a great deal of waste but to continue means even more cost for both the RN and RAF because you can’t have an aircraft carrier with no aircraft. The pressure on the defence equipment budget as a whole will also inevitably mean reductions in capability elsewhere, across all three services, something has to give. It also fails to recognise the reality of the mono culture in UK military shipbuilding, cancelling would need some compensation and tough negotiating combined with a solid commitment to future business but would not be the disaster many paint it as being.

As an attempt at a more balanced fleet the suggestion on Think Defence was a slight increase in the Astute numbers to 8, keeping Type 45 at 6, a small quantity (6) fully specified C1 and a couple of novel C2/C3 concepts from a number of our contributors. Obviously with the loss of maritime fast jet aviation we would be out of the forced entry amphibious game although the combination of UAV’s, FLAADS/CAMM, Attack Helicopter and Type 45 might mitigate some of the loss of capability.

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FDR – Maritime Futures Part 1

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.

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FDR – Wading into the Maritime Debate

We have probably done the air component to death in the last few months so its time to have a look at the maritime component.

Some of the themes I intend to cast my usual ill informed eye over are

* We are an island you know!
* The great CVF can of worms
* Building a multi tier force
* Forward basing
* Inter service rivalry and its corrosive effect
* Piracy, arrghhh
* Coastguard functions

Anyone got any other themes for discussion, no jokes about seamen or salty old sea dogs please :D