Spot the spelling, this is from Jeremy M H, one of our many friends from the USA;
Intro
The United Kingdom appears to occupy a unique niche in the defense landscape. As a major player in any military actions for both Europe and the United States the UK has both the benefit and the curse of trying to occupy two often divergent alliance structures while still looking after its own sovereign defensive needs. This is further complicated by the fact that its sovereign defense needs are quite unique given the island nature of the United Kingdom proper and the far flung nature of the various possessions it desires to protect. Meeting all of these needs on an increasingly pressured defense budget will be a challenge that is ongoing and demands a clear sense of purpose for those in position to make major decisions. This piece is intended to explore one set of options that might be available.
Before getting started it is important to note what this collection of articles is not going to address. Specifically the at sea nuclear deterrent question is going to be left unaddressed here. In and of itself it is worthy of a far more lengthy discussion that would be afforded it here. The objective here is to address the key conventional defense objectives of the United Kingdom and a potential way to best meet the objectives laid out at a minimum of cost.
Key Defense Objectives- The Four Pillars
Four key defense objectives are proposed as the broad framework for this organizational document. Essentially any program or capability that does not facilitate these key defense objectives will not be supported. Please keep in mind that these objectives are not necessarily what the author would support as key defense objectives but they are designed as objectives that would seem to best fit with the actions of British political figures and the appetite of the public for both defense spending and military action. These objectives are as follows.
Maritime and Air Defense of the UK and its Possessions
The primary task of the armed forces, and it should go without saying, is to secure the state from external threats. As the UK faces little to no conventional land based threat the focus will be on the maritime and aerial threats.
Extended Maritime Engagement
The UK, having far flung possessions it wishes to continue to hold, must be capable of and willing to defend these territories against reasonable threats. One could almost call this the Falklands rule but it applies much more general than that. It is best explained as saying the UK military will endeavor to retain the ability to act defensively or offensively in the maritime environment against a reasonable threat. What exactly constitutes are reasonable threat is a bit vague but suffice to say we are not proposing a force structure that would allow for the Royal Navy to go duke it out with China in the Yellow Sea. Rather we are looking for a force that could contest someone nosing around the British Indian Ocean Territories in a manner detrimental to British interest and generally prevent anyone from seeing any part of the overseas territory as being ripe for the taking. Additionally such a force would be a major part of a European and/or US effort to keep sea lanes open for trade.
Alliance Partner
The UK is unique in that it, more than any other European power, operates in two major alliance structures. Legally these are generally NATO and the European Union but in a more practical sense it can be said that the UK operates with the United States in many respects and with Europe (mostly France it would seem) in many others. One of the dangers for any defense policy is that in attempting to please both sides everyone ends up unhappy or worse that other core defense issues for the UK get neglected. This document will focus on providing unique and useful alliance capabilities for both of the UK’s primary partners.
Europe- It is proposed here that the UK provide a unique contribution by providing expeditionary warfare capability and a kick in the door capability. No other European power can really provide this type of capability which should help to assure the UK primacy of place in the European defense structure.
United States- Rather than providing ongoing support for sustained operations as it has for years in Iraq and Afghanistan British forces would now provide their US partners a flexible and deployable intervention capability that should facilitate the US pivot towards Asia and in extreme circumstances be able to support it.
Affordability
We have to do these things in a manner that is affordable. There is no apparent appetite either politically or among the majority of the citizens for increased (or even sustained) defense spending. That means there is a minimum amount of funding for new equipment not already in the equipment plan. It also means that overall the force will have to be reduced in size. To protect the military to an extent the hope is to use this organizational paradigm is to enforce discipline on the political leadership. Simply put the military budget cannot afford sustained, deployed operations at this time and one of the things this plan does is deliberately deny the necessary number of troops to facilitate operations of that type.
Those four pillars are the primary concepts this plan will embrace.
The Land Force Paradigm, a Modular Army Organized for Expeditionary Warfare
The Army would see the most changes of any of the major services in order to meet our stated defense objectives. In short this plan would propose a basic reorganization of the army with a focus on expeditionary warfare capabilities rather than sustained presence operations or major armored combat operations. This should fit with our defense pillars. It should be affordable as it necessitates little in the way of new equipment. It will not imperil the defense of the UK proper or its extended maritime defense in anyway. For allied nations the UK will now provide a different but still valuable component of any intervention force. Under this paradigm the Army will have to endure some fairly substantial cuts to its equipment replacement plans. The Royal Marines are also slightly reduced, though the two remaining Commando units will be beefed up substantially. 16th Air Assault Brigade will also be augmented as its role in expeditionary operations is seen as critical.
Organizational Concepts- Currently the Army 2020 structure calls for a split of land forces between a reaction force and an adaptable force with a large portion of the adaptable force being made up of territorial units. The new organizational paradigm will be quite different in that there will be three levels of ground forces organization.
Contingency Groups- These forces will serve as both operational combat formations and as headquarters for any larger deployment. These formations rate a Major General in command even though in their basic form some are quite small. They have supplemented HQ staffs sufficient to manage a significantly supplemented force.
Modular Force Additions- The army will provide modular additions to these forces in a variety of forms from tanks to artillery to protected infantry. These formations are generally of regimental or battalion size though are organized in such a way that small detachments can be sent if necessary as well.
Reserve Force- The territorial forces will, for combat operations, have one primary purpose moving forward and that is to provide replacement and rotation troops within a reasonable timeframe for the above groups.
This organizational framework is designed to do a number of things. Primarily it is designed to emphasize the overall expeditionary nature of the military moving forward. Some of the most senior commanders are going to be regularly deployed with the contingency groups. Some will view that as deploying a senior level general to command little more than a battalion at times. It would be more accurate to think of it as forward deploying a senior level general to manage a situation into which other troops might be sent. In the proposed Army 2020 structure many of those most senior officers were going to be working in brigade and division command structures with very lengthy deployment times. By organizing in this manner some of the best minds in the service are put out at the sharp end. More importantly it ensures that your deployed commanders should be familiar with both the contingency group capabilities and the capabilities of many of the modular forces that may be attached to their command. That broad level of expertise is not possible in lower level commanders that would typical be deployed with contingency group sized forces. This way of thinking and organizing is key in making the UK armed forces an important part of both of its alliance structures as well where the rank of an officer involved in coalition operations is often quite critical. If the UK has to quickly work with another nation its voice in military affairs is taken much more seriously coming from a senior level officer.
Major Cost Reductions- Several major programs for the ground force components will go by the wayside as part of this plan. FRES (Future Rapid Effects System), which effectively is looking to replace a large portion of the army’s armored vehicles, is going to be scrapped. There are a variety of reasons for this but the primary one is rooted in another cost savings cut and that is the elimination of the 3 armored cavalry regiments and the recon squadrons from the armored regiments. This capability will be provided as best as can be by a combination of UAV’s and rebuilt Warriors with their improved weapons and optics. This allows for the elimination of a whole series of vehicles from the army as we essentially standardize with the following major direct combat vehicles; Challenger, Warrior, Mastiff, Foxhound.
In terms of direct force number reductions they are substantial compared to the Army 2020 plan as demonstrated below.
|
Army 2020 |
Proposed |
Reduction |
|
|
Units |
|||
|
Air Assault Battalions |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
Commando Units* |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
Armored Regiments |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
Armored Cavalry Regiments |
3 |
0 |
3 |
|
Armored Infantry Battalions |
6 |
4 |
2 |
|
Protected Infantry |
7 |
3 |
4 |
|
Artillery Brigade |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
Light Cavalry Regiments |
3 |
0 |
3 |
|
Light Infantry Battalions** |
4 |
7 |
-3 |
|
Total |
32 |
21 |
11 Less |
| *Commando units will larger, no cost savings likely | |||
| **Light infantry numbers not stated in Army 2020, 7 battalions of territorial replacements for Armored Infantry and Protected Infantry in Proposed | |||
Estimated combat personnel directly involved in the main force ground components (special forces excluded) is cut by around 30% which should allow a somewhat corresponding cut of the support services as well. This force is intentionally not built for sustained combat operations. It is built to be a rapid reaction force that can be utilized in an adaptable manner when needed. Indeed the primary reason to make all the light infantry battalions into territorial units is to force politicians into a call up the part-time soldiers in any sustained conflict.
Expeditionary Oriented Streamlining- The 105mm light howitzer will be replaced with the M-777 to ensure ammunition compatibility with the AS-90. This should allow the UK to procure some of the more advanced 155mm rounds out there as it will no longer be necessary to procure rounds for the 105mm guns.
Transport Helicopters are being made organic to the Army or Royal Marines as that is who utilizes them. The RAF may or may not still provide support for them.
New Equipment Necessary- Very little other than the M-777 guns which is a fairly minor expenditure. With FRES scrapped the next generation of vehicles is put off some ways into the future and taking a holistic view of the ground element it is quite possible that we look first to replace the BVS 10 with a more combat oriented amphibious vehicle that would allow us to remove the Warrior from the Commando groups and thus reduce the number of major combat vehicles that units support from 3 to 2.
The Contingency Groups- Three units will comprise what will be known as the Contingency Groups of the UK ground component. These are the 16th Air Assault Brigade, 40th Commando and 42nd Commando. 45th Commando will be disbanded for the time being. These units will form the core of the UK’s expeditionary warfare capability. The units will be organized as follow for operations. We are only going to address major combat equipment in this plan. Assume that the necessary trucks and light vehicles will continue to exist.
16th Air Assault Brigade
2 Infantry Battalions (Each with one parachute capable company)
1 Artillery Battalion (M777 Guns)
1 Aviation Brigade
18 Pumas for medium transport and utility (Effectively all of them when replacements and spares are considered)
12 Wildcats for light transport and light attack
24 Chinooks for heavy transport
The 16th Air Assault Brigade is designed to deliver an air-mobile or parachute infantry company in support of UK operations worldwide. The helicopter assets in the aviation brigade are sized to provide an air mobile force of up to a battalion in size. Expense will be saved by reducing the size of the parachute capable force. The formation receives some of the new M777 guns as part of our streamlined logistical approach. It does not get organic attack helicopter elements though these are always available for attachment. This force can be deployed on its own as a standalone contingency for or in support of either of the two commando units to provide it with additional airmobile assets.
40 and 42 Commando
Roughly 1,000 troops total with 500 infantry and 500 support, command and maintenance troops.
1 Tank Platoon (4 Challengers)
8 Warriors
16 BVS 10 Vikings
6 M-777
~30 Land Rovers
~30 Trucks
Shipboard Mixed Aviation Battalion
10 Merlin Transports (HC3’s)
6 AH-1’s
The new commando groups are organized to take maximum advantage of the proposed Naval Action Groups that will form the basis of the UK’s maritime expeditionary capabilities. Most importantly they are designed to be light and logistically simple forces to deploy that can, for a short time punch well above their weight. One of the keys to this is the permanent attachment of the Apache’s to the carrier air group and commando’s. That provides a robust, organic anti-armor capability against reasonably sized threats. As a rapid deployment force to any of the UK’s overseas territory it is not something to be dealt with on the cheap and the force would more than overawe most militia type forces as part of a humanitarian intervention. This force can be accommodated comfortably on a Bay, Albion and Queen Elizabeth that will make up the core of the Naval Action Group giving that group a broad scope of utility.
The Modular Forces- The three contingency groups are supported by what we will call Modular Forces. These straddle the line between the reaction force and the adaptable force in the Army 2020 plan. Depending on the situation these could be deployed in any number of means up to and including placing them on Point-Class ships and sending them out with a commando group. These forces will consist of the following units.
Modular Units
2 Tank Regiments (Challenger)
Artillery (AS-90 and MLRS)
1 MLRS Battalion, w/3 deployable sub-units
3 AS-90 deployable units
4 Armored Infantry Battalions (Warrior, FRES is dumped)
3 Mixed Protected Infantry Battalions (2 Companies Mastiff, 1 of Foxhound)
3 Squadrons of AH1 (12 Units Each, 19 in training and replacement group)
These forces are designed to be bolt-on attachments to existing contingency groups and as such they don’t have any real parent command they report to that is intended to be operational. They are training and force management establishments when they are not paired up with a contingency group. One would also house the major support units within this portion of the ground forces even though those units are not listed here.
The Reserve Force- The reserve force is composed of territorial forces that are designed to provide replacement and follow-on forces to man the infantry components of the modular force. The force structure is very simple in that it is composed of 7 infantry battalions to match the 7 infantry battalions in the main force. There are no replacements for the contingency forces as most of those troops are fairly specialized. Within the UK these forces are equipped with trucks and light transport only.
The Four Pillars
This new force structure should admirably embrace the four pillars that were set at the beginning of this exercise. The size of the ground force component is going to be reduced from the Army 2020 plans by around 30%, which embraces our core need to achieve affordability. Given the absence of a conventional land threat to the UK proper (and really to any of its core allies at the moment) this force structure neither imperils the ability of the UK to defend its home territory nor does it threaten its ability to defend its overseas possessions. Indeed by transitioning to a more expeditionary mindset a more responsive and robust defense of the overseas territories could be seen as an outgrowth of this change. As an alliance partner this force structure would certainly meet the criteria of being a valuable and unmatched asset within Europe. The United States will probably not be in favor of the structure, at least initially, because it would rather have support for enduring operations. But in the end the US should be fairly content with the structure as it will have the effect of freeing up critical rapid reaction forces for a Pacific pivot. Finally, quite by design, this force is unsustainable in a continual deployment without calling up territorial soldiers or increasing the size of the ground element. This will force political debate to the fore on any issue that would necessitate such a commitment. One of the major downfalls of Army 2020 in the view of this author is that it seems to be structured around a long-term deployment of a brigade when such a deployment is not likely to see strong support within the UK and would have ruinous impacts on the broader military budget.
The Naval Paradigm, Force from the Sea
With a focus on expeditionary warfare and maritime defense of the UK and its possessions the Royal Navy was always going to emerge a relative winner under this scheme. The Royal Navy does face significant pressures on its assets given the demands of escorting carriers while still maintaining a presence elsewhere on the globe given the overall low numbers of escorts available now and likely to be available in the future. Similar pressures exist on the maritime helicopter force as well. For the Royal Navy to provide the kind of capability called for in this plan efficient organization is going to be critical. This document will for the time being remain silent on the issue of both the continuous at sea deterrent and the overall size of the SSN force and will focus primarily on the surface navy and associated aircraft. For the sake of this exercise we will leave support units and follow on transport units such as the Point Class to be addressed at some later date. Given the overall expansion it is fair to assume that the support forces for the Royal Navy are not going to be reduced at this time and the new sustainment ship program will need to be completed as scheduled.
Organizational Concepts- The Royal Navy will organize itself for action in two different base formations. The primary expeditionary warfare capability will be provided by Naval Action Groups while a naval presence can be provided by Surface Action Groups. The following general premise of deployments would be followed.
Major Cost Reductions- There are few major cost reductions that can be found in the future structure of the Royal Navy. Providing escorts for a major expeditionary group along with other units for detached deployment will be highly tasking for a force that will features only 19 escorts and has considerable demand for those units beyond simply escorting a carrier or amphibious group around.
The best reduction we can accomplish is really to combine the operations of the Queen Elizabeth, Albion and Bay Classes into groups in an effort to reduce the escort demand. Simply put it will be nearly impossible for the Royal Navy to provide sufficient escorts to independent amphibious and carrier task forces while still being able to maintain standing commitments elsewhere and providing down time for maintenance. This plan accepts that as a reality. Additionally this plan accepts that there will be gaps in the ability of the Royal Navy to put major task forces to sea.
There is an attempt to constrain training cost and downtime by going to a system that would see a crew worked up before making a deployment. They would then have a maintenance and rest period and make another deployment with essentially the same core crew before going in for a heavier maintenance and training period for the ship that would see the crew turned over to a larger degree.
Ocean and Illustrious will be retired without replacement and for the time being the fleet will operate without any flat decked amphibious ships. Active Bay Class ships will be reduced from 3 to 2 to keep cost down.
Expeditionary Oriented Streamlining- The Royal Navy helicopter situation lends itself to a fairly easy organizational change that should streamline maintenance expense and increase spares availability which is important to any distant expeditionary operation. By swapping out Apache for Wildcat on the decks of the carrier we can have a common engine with Merlin. By carrying only Merlins with the other escorts in a carrier group one can dedicate all storage space other than F-35’s spares to the Merlin and Apache combination. Wildcats can then be used by the Surface Action Groups to give them a more multi-role helicopter on their decks while keeping them from cluttering the maintenance and spares situation of the Naval Action Group.
Finally, and probably most controversially, the Fleet Air Arm will get the first 48 F-35’s assigned to it directly to support the planned carrier air groups. The RAF may continue to be the prime maintenance arm for the aircraft when they need major depot work but to support the planned deployed F-35’s the first 48 ordered are going to be assigned directly to the Fleet Air Arm.
New Equipment Necessary- The Royal Navy or Royal Air Force will be getting a squadron of at least eight P-8’s. These will have a dual role of maritime surveillance and providing a long-range strike option by integrating Storm Shadow. In the short term they become a way for the UK to delivery cruise missiles it already has over a very long distance and thus hold just about anyone at some level of risk. The P-8 (or MPA generally) is seen as vital in ensuring that the Royal Navy can cover its other task with the 19 escorts expected to be in the fleet. Simply relieving the escorts of certain task near the home islands by having MPA available will go a long way towards easing demands on an already overtasked fleet.
The Naval Action Group- These are the primary naval contribution to the UK’s expeditionary warfare capability and consist of a large naval task force, the embarked air wing, an embarked commando unit and amphibious landing craft.
Queen Elizabeth Class Carrier
18 F-35B Fighters
4 Merlin ASW Helicopters
10 Merlin Transport Helicopters
6 AH-1 Apache Attack Helicopters
2 AEW Helicopters
~250 Commandos comprising the air mobile component of the Commando Group
Albion Class LPD
4 LCU
4 LVCP
4 Challenger MBT
8 Warrior IFV
8 BVS 10 Vikings
Trucks
400 Commandos
Bay Class LSD
1 LCU
8 BVS 10 Vikings
6 M-777 Howitzers
Trucks
350 Commandos
1 Type 45 Destroyer
1 Merlin ASW Helicopter
2 Type 26 Frigates (2 ASW)
1 Merlin ASW Helicopter each
This force is designed to deliver our redefined Royal Marine Commando unit anywhere necessary while providing a strong force for controlling the seas at the same time. The carriers are necessary to enable the Albion and Bay classes to operate at maximum efficiency and to give the Commando group the air mobility it will need to be successful in many environments. By pairing up the carriers and the amphibious ships the Royal Navy can multiply the effectiveness of both types. This force is logistically coherent as the attached carrier is capable of providing the maintenance for all of the group’s aircraft from a limited spare pool due to engine and airframe commonality.
Operationally the unit is well suited for action in most reasonable threat environments. The 18 F-35’s gives it a potent strike and self-defense capability. The vertical lift more than replaces what is lost by not having Ocean around. In an amphibious scenario the carrier can operate well behind the Albion and Bay class ships using those vessels as bases of operation for the transport helicopters while still being present to provide air support and helicopter maintenance. Trading Apache for Wildcat does represent some loss in the ASW and ASuW realms but is a huge step forward in the ground support role where the Apache can really allow a small and relatively light force to punch well above its weight. The Apache should be more than adequate for whacking fast attack craft as well when necessary. The task force would have two excellent ASW frigates with towed arrays (enabling them to get cross bearings on a lot of contacts which is why two are assigned here) and 7 Merlins at its disposal so in the authors view it can do away with the Wildcat in favor of the Apache.
Ideally one would have more than one area air defense ships and certainly there are more Type 45’s available if the fleet were to deploy into a very high threat area. In such a scenario a Surface Action Group would almost certainly be attached. Having two Type 45’s assigned to run with the carriers at all times would effectively utilize the whole force. In the end it was deemed more prudent for peacetime operations to make the extra Type 45’s available for other duties.
Surface Action Group- The surface action groups provide the Royal Navy with three capabilities. First they can be used as powerful independent forces in their own right. Secondly they can be contributed as part of a coalition force where they would provide a broad range of area air defense and ASW capabilities. Finally they can be used to supplement the screening forces of a Naval Action Group that is entering a high intensity conflict. They are composed of the following units.
1 Type 45 Destroyer
1 Wildcat Naval Helicopter
2 Type 26 Frigates (1 ASW, 1 GP)
1 Wildcat Naval Helicopter each
Pairing Wildcat with the standalone forces gives them a utility helicopter that can accomplish a number of missions as well as one that should presumably be less maintenance intensive than the larger Merlins. By using the same helicopter on all three you can raid the stores of any of the escorts to keep all three in flying condition. It is not ideal that only one ship has a truly world class sonar outfit but there is not much that can be done about it. From a cost perspective this pairing gives you the maximum capability in multiple realms on the smallest footprint. Both the Type 45 and the Type 26 GP variant are enhanced by having a true ASW frigate around. The Type 45 provides area air defense for the whole group. Depending on the strike capabilities finally installed on the Type 26 this provides a reasonably potent force in many scenarios. It is a little light on ASuW options but that is a capability that can be patched over with relatively minor upgrades if it really becomes an issue.
Detached Escorts- The remaining escorts (1 Type 45, 1 Type 26 ASW variant and 2 Type 26 General Purpose variants) will effectively be unassigned. They are available for detached duties, equipment and tactics trials and covering maintenance emergencies in the various major task forces that the Royal Navy will be operating. Presumably ships would swap in and out of this category to facilitate the longest operational life for all deployed units.
The P-8’s- The addition of P-8’s is the biggest expenditure that is not currently planned in some official or semi-official fashion. The capability of having an MPA around, preferably in larger numbers than 8, is too critical for an island nation like the UK to ignore. For the purposes of this plan the author is unwilling to get stuck in procurement hell by considering an option that is not off the shelf. The P-8 offers range, speed and commonality with a major allied power (the US) the potential of commonality with another (Australia) and with India where the UK still retains a great deal of interest as well. As a deployable MPA it has the advantage of drawing on a huge and global spares pool for many parts.
It already has weapons pylons built into it that should be able to accommodate Storm Shadow enabling it to act as a strike platform as well. Most critically in the short term the availability of an MPA should free up the escort fleet to the other task we are assigning. They can help escort SSBN’s (presuming they are retained) to open water. They can respond to sovereignty challenges. In general they can just handle a lot of the task that the navy really can’t spare escort ships to do. Finally it seems likely that the P-8 (or 737 more accurately) will be the basis for any US AWACS, JSTARS or Rivet Joint replacement so this opens up the door to commonality among all those various types going forward. They can also be a critical contribution to European operations moving forward where they provide a capability that many other nations are cutting back on or don’t have at all.
The Four Pillars
This force is primarily designed to push two major pillars of the new defense policy to the fore; extended maritime engagement and the maritime defense of the UK’s home territories. The addition of MPA is helpful to the latter and critical to the former. The Naval Action Groups give the UK instant credibility in realm of extended maritime operations and a major expeditionary presence. This should push the UK to the fore of many European centric operations where no other nation (even France with its one carrier) can project that sort of power. In interactions with the United States there is scope for cooperative work as well as the ability of the Royal Navy to at times replace a carrier battle group or expeditionary strike group in a critical area of joint interest. Again this should help facilitate the Pacific pivot that the United States wants to undertake. From an affordability standpoint the Royal Navy portion of the budget would undoubtedly rise with the addition of some new capabilities. But one could not make the argument that such capabilities were not be productively employed both in pure operational terms and in terms of the amount of influence they would provide amongst the UK’s primary allies. Politically the things that the Royal Navy can do are likely to be acceptable to both politicians and to the public so they ought to enjoy broad support in that regard.
The Air Paradigm, Sustained Airpower
Much like the Army the Royal Air Force will undergo some fairly drastic changes in order to bring its structure into alignment with the four major pillars of the new defense policy. The Royal Air Force obviously has a critical role to play in the Air Defense of the United Kingdom. It could, but is currently not really equipped to, play a role in the maritime defense of the same. The Royal Air Force is a major component of many UK contributions to alliance operations but its role in the extended defense of extended British maritime interest is not entirely clear. The challenge with the Royal Air Force will be creating an affordable force that is also well suited to goals beyond the air defense of the United Kingdom.
Organizational Concepts- The Royal Air Force really has two major tasks that it can directly perform under this defense plan. However it is a critical supporter of any expeditionary conflict with its transport aircraft, tankers and other ISTAR assets. The RAF will have three functional wings.
QRA Wing- Primarily responsible for the defense of UK airspace.
Expeditionary Wing- Primarily responsible for expeditionary air warfare.
Support Wing- Oversees support aircraft of all types (transports, tankers, electronic warfare ect)
The organization piece of the RAF is really fairly simple in that regard and can thus be left behind at this point.
Major Cost Reductions- Major cost reductions for the RAF will have to come from direct force reductions and changes to future projects planned for the air arm. Some very hard choices are going to have to be made in this regard. The plan for this is outlined in general terms below.
These are not choices that are going to be widely popular. But they are reflective of several hard realities that one cannot escape. First, as it stands the UK is forced to operate the F-35 if it wants to operate two very expensive naval assets as they are intended to be operated. There is no other viable alternative available in the short or even long term without incurring substantial addition cost either on the ships themselves or in developing an alternative aircraft. So long as the carriers exist the UK is going to be operating some F-35’s.
Secondly at present time the future path of Typhoon is somewhat unclear. There are certainly development objectives laid out but exactly who will pay for what and when it is going to happen still has a great deal of uncertainty as can be seen in the difficulty in getting the actual contract for an AESA radar signed is still demonstrating. Yes, the same could be said of the F-35 to a degree but again, the UK is effectively forced to operate the F-35 to get value from a very large investment it made in its aircraft carriers. The UK has that risk regardless and can’t really get away from it. A major export order that pumps money into the Typhoon program and brings clarity to the development path might change views on this subject but the first issue will always be present. There are substantial savings that can be realized by going to a single type fighter force and with the amount of pressure the defense budget is under it is reasonable to recognize that savings. Additional money can be saved in the short term by ceasing any non-mission critical upgrades to the Typhoon.
Given the focus of this defense policy moving forward the F-35 makes more sense as well. Expeditionary support structures can largely support both variants of the F-35 equally as well. Supply chains are simplified. Heavy maintenance can be unified for both services. Training facilities can be shared. Given the focus on expeditionary warfare it is of a great benefit if a carrier group operating in support of the Falklands could fly over replacement radar for a broken F-35A on duty there. Indeed UK forces worldwide can draw on what will be a significantly more distributed support network with the F-35. Weapons fits become fully interchangeable as well. For an expeditionary force being able to share the vast majority of spare parts for all combat aircraft, be they RAF or FAA, is invaluable.
New Equipment Necessary- Procurement of the F-35 would be a major ongoing exercise through the 2015-2030 timeframe and may have to be extended beyond that for affordability purposes. An exact timeframe would be determined by the useful life one can get from Typhoons that are not going to be getting mid-life updates or life extensions.
QRA Wing- In the near term this capability will be provided by the Typhoon as it is today. As the Typhoon is a highly capable interceptor and capable multi-role aircraft it should be able to meet this duty largely without major upgrades well into the late 2020’s unless the threat environment changes substantially. In any extended conflict these aircraft can also provide a supplementary ground attack capability.
The functional if not stated structure of the RAF would change substantially when the Typhoon is replaced by the F-35A. As this aircraft will have a great deal of commonality with the F-35B’s already in service with the FAA and the expeditionary wing the lines between the QRA wing and the expeditionary wing will blur.
Expeditionary Wing- The expeditionary wing of the RAF is designed to support combat operations worldwide either in concert with the Royal Navy or on its own. In the short term this capability would be provided by the ground attack capable Typhoons. Eventually this would transition over to the F-35B so that commonality gains with the FAA, low-observable characteristics and austere basing capabilities can be realized.
Support Wing- The support aircraft the RAF will need are largely all already in service or on order. Voyager (even though the PFI contract is…questionable at best) is a capable aircraft. The C-17’s and A400M will provide more than sufficient lift capabilities to support the relatively modest expeditionary warfare capabilities laid out as the centerpiece of this defense plan. The E-3 and Air Seeker will remain relevant for a lengthy period of time. Other support aircraft are important and should be retained if the budget allows but their retention is likely to be driven by finding efficiencies elsewhere in the core capabilities outlined under this defense plan. One benefit of purchasing the P-8’s is that there appears to be a radar development program in the works for the 2016 timeframe that would allow for those aircraft to also handle many of Sentinel’s duties.
The Four Pillars
The plan for the RAF is driven very much by the need for affordability and expeditionary capability. Both the F-35 and the Typhoon are capable of accomplishing the defense of the United Kingdom proper, particularly given the limited nature of today’s aerial threats. Both the Typhoon and the F-35 would prove to be capable aircraft to contribute to either a European or US centric alliance. If one were to really examine the allied operations pillar the F-35 does offer a low observable characteristic that other major European nations lack (particularly depending on what Spain and Italy end up doing with their F-35 purchases) and would be a substantially more compatible aircraft with US operations. Other realities (the carrier program) dictate that if a one aircraft solution is to be adopted the F-35 is really the only logical choice. Retaining the vast majority of the RAF’s major support platforms ensures that it can continue to be a key player in alliances in general and European alliances in particular where the large C-17, A-400M and tanker force will be very valuable.
Conclusion
Cuts are likely looming for the armed forces of the United Kingdom in the next round of budget negotiations. A compelling argument must be put forth by defense advocates that embraces a clear purpose for the armed forces and embraces affordability as one of its key pillars. This plan is not the only reasonable alternative. It simply provides one fairly coherent set of goals and options to consider as the debate begins for real among the government. None of us here can control a national debate on defense posture. Most here would likely argue for a much more robust force than is presented here. But the political reality is that the military is going the other direction. Any plan that does not embrace that would first have to rally a public and political consensus to sustain and/or grow forces from their present size and that seems unlikely.
Certainly a detailed and thought out proposal Jeremy; makes a nice change from the fantasy fleet comments that crop up too often here and elsewhere.
I’m not convinced by the (significant) up armouring of the Royal Marines though. Seems a very heavy force for the majority of operations that such a unit will be involved in, particularly if you have Apache and large numbers of F-35s permanently attached. Perhaps it would be better to replace both the CH2, Warrior and Vikings in your Naval Action Groups with a family of vehicles based on something like the Terrex or one of the contenders from the USMC MPC programme – Amphibious with enough armour for most of the enemies that they are likely to face.
With all these cuts, if you keep defense spending at 2% GDP, it seems like there should be a lot of new stuff you could buy. I thought you were going to up the number of amphibious units with the savings.
@JS
First I think it could head lower than 2% given the surrounding commitments by other EU nations. Secondly I would simply build within this structure if more funding was around. There are some deep cuts in the army but the Navy is actually enlarged and the RAF is effectively sustained at or above the levels many are projecting. If there is extra money at the end I would look to more helicopters or MPA’s frankly. If there is a lot more money you can talk about capability expansion.
@JS123
This might double post, not sure what happened to my first….
A few points. First, I think that under 2% GDP is quite likely given the trend in Europe. The UK might elect to be an outlier but they won’t want to be a huge one. Everyone appears to be heading towards 1.5% at the present. Secondly while the Army is cut back a lot the Navy grows in many ways under this and the RAF is basically sustained at what it is projected to be. Extra money goes first to sustain the forces that are left. If a good amount of extra money is left I still think more helicopters are badly needed and could be put to good use. More MPA’s would be valuable as well. If a lot of extra money is left then one could talk about expanding capabilities.
I did not set out to be anti-army with this. The goal was to create a force that is useful and meets the major criteria set out in the first portion of the document. It just happens that having a bigger ground force opens the military up to sustained deployments that really can’t be sustained. The best way to avoid politicians doing that to you is to not have the force to deploy.
@Tom
I certainly think that is a valid approach. The reason for the tanks was that they are just so damn useful in a variety of environments. Even in a situation short of combat they send a “don’t mess with us” message that little else can. In combat, supported by Apache a platoon of tanks against a lot of the questionably trained forces that you might be running into is enough to scare off any casual action.
Frankly you are 100% right that replacing Viking and Warrior with something a bit more amphibious and a bit more combat capable might make sense. But it comes down to money. That is one of 100 (or 1,000) things you can throw on the “if extra money is around” list though. The ideal situation would be one Amphibious Fighting Vehicle for logistic simplicity though.
A while ago Martin did something similar on his blog, reducing the army and putting more emphasis on the navy, while keeping costs stable. He was able to fund a much enlarged Navy with 3 carriers and 32 Astutes (!). The article is here: http://fantasyfleet.blogspot.com/2010/10/towards-maritime-doctrine-super-power.html#comment-form
What is the difference between your two different outcomes?
@JS123
Well he cut the RAF in half to start but mostly I think the cost projections there are a bit off.
Just to start with for his we would have to purchase 6 more Type 45’s. That is billions in its own right. Not to mention purchasing another 25 Astutes, 2 LHD’s, 2 LPD’s, 4 LSD’s, 24-30 Type 26’s, 20 light frigates and all the associated landing craft for the same. The force has 25% of the USN’s carrier force but has over 50% of the SSN force. It has 25% of the Amphib force in rough terms (possibly more) but has roughly half the USN’s size in terms of escorts.
He states you are getting 40% of the combat power of the USN when the whole of the UK military budget is only 40% of the USN’s budget. I don’t think that that is remotely affordable as there is a lot of other things that have to be funded.
“The UK is unique in that it, more than any other European power, operates in two major alliance structures. ”
Does the Commonwealth count as an alliance structure?
Also, getting rid of light guns and replacing them with M777’s means your artilley can only be shifted by Chinooks, LG can be carried by Puma, with the forthcoming HC.2 providing even greater capability, might be worth keeping a few for flexibilities sake.
@Ace Rimmer
You might count the commonwealth but I am curious how much those nations look to the UK any longer. Australia really does not. Canada I guess but not really. The smaller nations might but I could lump a lot of them into the problem of defending the overseas territory anyway. They should be happy with that I would think. Never much thought about it honestly.
You are right the M777’s create a problem in moving them. But I believe Merlin can lift it. And all the Puma’s are paired up with Chinooks for that reason.
@JMH
Thx, an interesting read.
Your Naval Action Groups are fine for peace time cruising but are at least 2 Frigates and probably a T45 as well short of operating in any sort of realistic multi threat environment. You are trying to protect 3 HVUs and you will need an RFA as well. You simply cannot obtain the sort of screen coverage required with your numbers.
When escorting a TG the ASW profile will be active as you want to keep the submarine away. No real point in a quiet ASW Frigate trying to be passive with a 65K tonne CVF doing flight ops and 2 noisy Amphibs around.
Looks like you can get another “surface action group” out of the remaining ships and use the ones on workup to cover the UK based standing tasks (FRE, TAPS).
Can I assume you’d still use the escorts for the current standing tasks and only build the “surface action group” formation on demand?
I think I completely agree with what you suggest for the RAF fast jets. I also semi-agree with the movement of Chinook to the Army. Interesting you do not put Chinook on QE for heavy lift. I rather like the USMC 4-6 big + 12 medium + 6 small distribution.
I couldn’t quite make out, are you suggesting the creation of two larger Commandos or just ditching one of them?
I don’t disagree with the overall thrust of the force structure, assuming fixed resources and the commitments outlined. I do think there are some fairly serious anomalies though.
Can’t quite see the logic of reducing the number of Cdo manoeuvre units (and indeed removing the Cde Bde as a structure) while retaining 16AAB tbh. At least the Cdo Bde is deployable over distance with current assets. I can’t see how you’d get 2-3000 blokes and 50-odd helos anywhere of interest in a hurry. As others have suggested, swapping M777 for the L117 is not without it’s issues. When FH70 was trialled with 3 Cdo back in the late 80s, they found that shifting the ammo (never mind the gun itself) was a major challenge. Not sure why there’s a battalion of arty with 16AAB and only a battery with the Cdo. The same logistic burden will aslo pertain to attaching chally 2 and Warrior to the Cdos. Particularly as you’ll have pretty much removed the Cdo Logs regt in your new construct.
Just as a point of order, you don’t need to make the support helos organic to the Marines, there’s a reason 845, 846, 847 and 848NAS are organised as the Commando Helicopter Force. You may find one or two adverse responses to 40th, 42nd and 45th commandos as well……Its Forty, Four-two and Four-Five.
On the Naval Groups, you do not have enough Merlin to do sustained ASW or AEW, 6 and four respectively would be a minimum. The statement that the vertical lift more than replaces what Ocean brings is also substantially incorrect. Ocean brings 12 Merlin plus half a dozen Lynx/Wildcat or Apache (as well as some landing craft). You’ve got fewer cabs than that on QE and you’ll probably struggle to get six operating spots consistently if you’ve got 18 F35 running a f/w profile.
Lastly, there is little justification for replacing Typhoon in the QRA role with F35A. For QRA you’re talking about ability to get out quickly and carry some AAM for which there is little difference between F35A & B. If you must drop to a single type, which is the only rationale I can see for ditching a perfectly good multi-role fighter, then what replaces it ought to be able to swap between the QRA pool and Exped pool as required. Which means B only.
I would be very concerned with the lack of logistics and sustainment capability though. That isn’t about nation building, you need good logs to be able to sustain operations beyond a few days. Your exped forces need to be beefier in that regard, manpower, stores, POL, workshops, vehicles to move it all and then FP for them.
I have thought for a while that for practical purposes the Paras and Royals should form a single Rapid Reaction brigade, with 4 principal manoeuvre units, with the option to tweak the Task Org accroding to the mission circumstances, logistics and readiness states.
The third para batallion and 3rd commando unit could remain in being for other detached tasks or for force generation purposes.
But as a fully tooled up fighting formation able to be delivered by a mix of air and sea it is a fiction to pretend we have two full RR brigades available – so lets save one set of HQ staff and have a single organisation jointly staffed by the two cap badges.
@APATS
I agree. The RN has a real imbalance between HVU’s and escorts in my view. Too many things that need watching. That is also why I stated that in a high threat environment one would likely combine a SAG into the naval group. That would give you your two more frigates and another Type 45. They are split in peace time to enable the RN to cover more ground and contribute in more places as an alliance partner but if the RN was in a high-intensity conflict by itself you would need to start combining the groups as you say.
If I put those escorts in there organically I am very limited on what else I can contribute to in the vast majority of operations going on worldwide. It is a compromise to save money essentially. The best solution would be to build more escorts but I don’t see the budget for it.
@Simon
The extra ships are maintenance reserves and are there to be used on those one off deployments that only necessitate a single ship. Forming another action group would really over-stretch an already thinly stretched force.
All standing patrols would end for the most part. Either a SAG or NAG would be present in an area or it would not. This plan focuses on having the ability to operate in the expeditionary role. The units need to be together to train for that and would essentially defend a place like the Falklands by deterrent value. You would not have a frigate sitting around there all the time but every 3 years or so a NAG might roll through and conduct exercises in the area to prove the capability to slap around anyone who thinks about causing trouble.
Chinook is not on the QE to avoid bringing another engine type on board. They could certainly be detached if needed and I agree the lack of a true heavy lift helicopter is somewhat limiting but in an effort to keep cost down one was not purchased or deployed to QE. More than that the majority of the Chinooks are really needed elsewhere most of the time and I did not want to have a penny packet on the carriers that needs supporting. Best to put them all in one place.
@JMH
My bad, missed that line!
On NABs point ref 24/7 cover you would increase the AEW cabs at the expense of the ASW cabs. In an ASW threat you are looking at 4 T26 with 1 Merlin each and maybe only 2 on the Carrier. Enough to allow decent coverage and supplemented by the T45 Wildcat as weapons Carriers.
Nice post Jeremy and it gd you took the time to write it and some interesting strutures are proposed with merit I do think the marine formation has merit.
However as all the major uk overseas territories have rather large airbases. Diego Garcia, ascension, Falklands Cyprus, gib. Perhaps we dispense with naval vessel designed to recapture these islands and instead assign typhoon merlin awac and a future mpa to protect the islands on air and sea and save a fortune on large ships being naval orientated doesn’t necessary mean ships (sorry x I know how much you like them). We did contribute to a coalition operation of some size in the gulf without recourse to either carriers or amphib ships a model for the future perhaps.
Second you may think there’s no development path for typhoon but there is and significant changes are under way with the aircraft and have been for some time it is however not been publicly communicated for whatever reason. As for aesa, test aircraft are being covered to aesa radars as we speak. It also makes little sense to spend somewhere in the region of 15b pounds to buy 200 f35 to replace a more than adequate aircraft with superior performance in order to save money or in some vain hope of forming carrier battle groups.
Jeremy M H,
“All standing patrols would end for the most part…”
I think that might be a bit of a problem, although I understand your rationale.
Seems a bit of a waste to have a Chinook capable carrier and then not use one of our most useful assets on it. Furthermore you’d half the number of spots you’d need to launch an assault of a similar size which on CVF might be necessary whilst operating AEW, ASW, and CAP/CAS.
@NAB
My position on the Commando Units was not as well explained as I thought. There would likely not be an overall loss of bodies. Essentially we are going to fill the amphibious ships we can reasonably expect to deploy and have groups that are of sufficient size to do that. The third group is removed because there is not really anywhere to put it.
I would not argue the exact specifics of Commando organization with most here. I don’t and won’t claim to be an expert. The extent of what I propose here is this. From what I can tell a single commando units is around 690 men and that covers their organic logistics and command. What would be put in place would be a larger commando unit with around 500 combat personnel and 500 logistic/command personnel. The ratio is similar to that ratio of combat to support troops in a US MEU.
One other thing I want to clear up. Nothing in this plan should be implied to suggest that logistics would not be looked after. The commandos would still have a logistics organization behind them. The numbers presented deal only with the combat units. Sufficient logistical support would need to be retained behind this. Cost savings are presuming there where force levels are reduced there are corresponding reductions in support infrastructure. So when looking at the RM in this piece I was only addressing the 40th, 42nd and 45th.
Regarding ASW, the proposed NAG would have 7 ASW helicopters, 3 are deployed on Frigates. Would like to do more but as you point out deck space is already at a premium.
Regarding AEW. Yup, I know. Deck space is at a premium and so are dollars and airframes. How many Merlins can the RN afford to turn into AEW platforms? One might get around this if a sufficiently modular solution to AEW is found and the kits could easily be placed on a stock transport variant though. It is defense on a budget, there are going to be holes.
On overall deck crowding…there is no doubt that the QE is going to be a hellishly busy place in the task force. But that is just reality in a budget cut world. If the RN can retain the Ocean or get a new flat-decked amphibious warfare ship than great. But I think such a thing may only come at the expense of a carrier in regular operation. As I said on other issues, certainly a dedicated amphibious aviation ships would certainly be on a shopping list but I am not holding my breath.
I figured I would get heat on the Typhoon thing and I did hedge my bet by saying that if a major export order comes through that gets all the bells and whistles funded I am open to changing my opinion. It might make more sense as you say to go to the B only. Here is why I did not. I still think that the A model could move between QRA and expeditionary roles. It gives the RAF some more legs for QRA around the UK and opens up more options for maritime strike by being able to take something like JSM internally. You get a bit more weapons options (not a huge deal) and pay a good deal less in purchase price (a big deal when you need a lot of them). On a 100 unit purchase you are talking big time savings. And once you get to that force you can have common training for all your FJ pilots. You can streamline depots ect ect.
@Mark
However as all the major uk overseas territories have rather large airbases. Diego Garcia, ascension, Falklands Cyprus, gib. Perhaps we dispense with naval vessel designed to recapture these islands and instead assign typhoon merlin awac and a future mpa to protect the islands on air and sea and save a fortune on large ships being naval orientated doesn’t necessary mean ships (sorry x I know how much you like them). We did contribute to a coalition operation of some size in the gulf without recourse to either carriers or amphib ships a model for the future perhaps.
Again that does have merit but lacks the flexibility of maritime assets which can project “expeditionary” power elsewhere as well and jeremy does talk about expeditionary power. In 2003 3 Cdo Brigade and 15th MEU took Al Faw from land and ships, with the Geography allowing land based air to contribute when sand storms intervened but that may not be possible outside of the unique geography of that area.
@ Jeremy M H
Interesting. :)
Couple of thoughts. I would ditch Puma from your aviation set-up. It takes 18 Chinook lifts to move one light battalion so if you have all or most of the 24 Chinook available you would be all right. Better off with more Wildcat. I would aim for one heliborne battalion and one parachute battalion, rather like your own country’s 101st and 82nd. The saving for us is that the parachute battalion would have very light scales of kit; remember when the British Army say “light role” it means “we can’t afford to give them a proper vehicle”!
As for you mini-Brit-MEUs I would drop Challenger. A US ARG may get away with 4 M1A1s but far to heavy for us; tbh they only just get away with it. (Rather embarrassingly our BARV is base on the Leopard not Chally…) I would put all the light tracked vehicles into the LPD and move Warrior to the Bay. I have long been a fan of the MEU’s light cavalry squadron. Probably again a bit too heavy for the UK but swapping the 4 tanks for 4 Warriors as a screening force, reserve, or the “strike” element for the “raid” once the AOA has been established it is an interesting thought.
Lastly and not wishing to be pedantic it isn’t 40th or 45th Commando. It is forty for 40 Commando, four two for 42 Commando. And so on. Sharing knowledge not scoring points.
@Mark
I agree your approach is very workable. In my defense I didn’t build the carriers. A lot of this formula is designed around the presumption that as a political figure I can’t endorse anything that gets little to no value out of multi-billion pound investments like the carriers. So in response to the question of why Carrier Groups instead of Air Wings I would say because someone decided to build the carriers. Not a great answer but I am assuming that it is politically impossible to kill them at this point. At the same time I am sure one could make an argument that replacing them with more FJ’s and MPA’s would be a better approach. It would certainly be debate worthy.
On the Typhoon, I don’t feel as if it has no future. It is just a future that makes me nervous. The AESA project is moving forward but appears to be tied up waiting on the German elections from what I can tell.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/05/uk-eurofighter-idUKBRE9540AO20130605
The UK’s partners there would make me personally very very nervous. I get the impression their interest in upgrades may hinge on getting an export order of size. Germany just flat does not appear to care about defense at all and Spain and Italy are having other troubles.
One could certainly modify my plan to save money by having MLU’s on the Eurofighter to keep it flying until 2040-45 or so. Personally though I feel that with the UK already being tied into the F-35 program by other decisions that it is really hard to justify two FJ’s in a smallish force structure. Those A’s would be the last models out and would be intended to replace the Eurofighter only in the 2025-2030 timeframe. If actually implemented I would guess that it would stretch more towards 2035 honestly.
@X
I gave ditching Puma some thought but they are already around. A unit like that needs a troop mover for smaller units and that is what we have. Sure, many troops would move in Chinooks. But I want to free as many as possible for logistics duty as well. An air mobile group can’t have too many helos for the most part.
I know the tanks are a pain in the ass. But I like having them around if at all possible. If someone says it can’t be done with the landing craft, amphibs and support vehicles we would have to bring along then so be it but in backwaters tanks will scare the crap out of people and make your life a lot simpler. Even in non-backwaters a modern Western tank platoon backed by Apache’s would give you the ability to not just be flattened by a company or two of Soviet era armor.
Ahh, I am awful with the nomenclature for British units. I like my ground forces neatly numbered. Makes it simpler for my colonial brain (clear joke to anyone getting offended). But honestly I have more trouble figuring out British OOB’s when I am doing historic reading or research on something than I do just about anyone else. Too many names and it is hard for me to figure out which units were doing what kind of work and when.
@APATS
“Again that does have merit but lacks the flexibility of maritime assets which can project “expeditionary” power elsewhere as well and jeremy does talk about expeditionary power. In 2003 3 Cdo Brigade and 15th MEU took Al Faw from land and ships, with the Geography allowing land based air to contribute when sand storms intervened but that may not be possible outside of the unique geography of that area.”
And in the end that is really what this is all about. Having an expeditionary capability really, basically by default, achieves the other non-monetary goals I set out to accomplish. We can defend the UK proper and the UK remains a very valuable alliance partner.
Even the command structures are setup to achieve that. You would effectively have a Major General commanding a deployed Commando unit. Why? Well one because they may get supplemented by a lot of other forces and be substantially larger in some circumstances. But also because stars help when dealing with allies. A 2-star admiral or general working on the expeditionary forces can make much firmer suggestions to their US or European counterparts than a major or colonel can.
@ Jeremy M H
I see what you are saying re Puma. Concentrating them to support one formation makes sense too. It takes 34 Puma lifts to move one light battalion. Shame (?) we don’t have a land border to defend or police they would be ideal. Perhaps Mr Cameron will feel the need to have some ground forces to help the French? Who knows? As NaB says you have to get the helicopters and their support stuff into theatre and that is no small task. Lastly don’t think helicopter warfare (a la We Were Soldiers) against a peer enemy is a goer. But as we don’t tend to do that much no problem. :)
If we were keeping them longer I would suggest something really left field and have them receiving some light navalization, permanently assign them to CVF (12 out of the 18 rebuilds; 6 ashore for training and spares) for trooping and cargo. We could then run them into the ground until Merlin came along or something else. I am constantly reassured here that the RAF chaps would love to be at sea so no probs.
French army Puma on the deck of CdeG……….
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zsx0NHJiARc/TfeFs-en2WI/AAAAAAAAEQU/KJxHq94vA6o/s1600/040326-N-5319A-006.jpg
A civilian Puma vertrepping for the USN………..
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/US_Navy_091013-N-9123L-187_An_AS332_Super_Puma_helicopter_assigned_to_the_Military_Sealift_Command_dry_cargo_ship_USNS_Richard_E._Byrd_(T-AKE_4)_departs_the_guided-missile_destroyer_USS_McCampbell_(DDG_85).jpg
Saying that I still think it is a waste of £600m that could have been spent on other helicopters. £600m is like 10 F35b. 4 or more tankers. A T45. A brigades’ worth of 8×8’s and so on.
As for Warrior trading 4 tanks for 4 Warrior I didn’t mean just 4 Warrior I meant plus the 8 you had already suggested. Still think it is a bit too heavy for us. But I do like the idea of a cavalry squadron for the UK ARG.
You do know that RM Commandos have a different structure to British Army battalions? It might interest you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_21
Good fun.
Perhaps keeping HMS Ocean and the third Bay would provide a less capable Naval Action Group which would allow sustained operations on a Battalion level or allow a intervention Battalion capability AND a non-sustained Brigade?
Apas
I agree the al faw was a classic example of uk amphibious usefulness. But I would also say aircaft are able to project expeditionary power and do so regularly. My comment was more a hypothetical counter to the post that because we have oversea Territories and want to project power the answer is more navy. It does not necessary have to be so.
16 air assault were expeditionary in serria leone, Iraq as much a 3 commando were.
Jeremy yes selex have been pushing for government funding but that hasn’t stopped the project progressing. Typhoon is much freer now to be upgraded nationally than it was in the past and is currently going under such upgrades. Aesa is not the be all and end all there are pros and cons but as time goes on more pros outway the cons in certain missions.
Where are still not sure what capability f35 will deliver and what capability partners will have and in what time timescale but once you get to around 60 f35 the argument for more will be less about carriers and more about what capability they bring and at what cost against what we already have in typhoon. There will be little budget in 2020-2030 timeframe to buy aircraft as the ssbn program will be eating most of it.
@Simon
The problem with that is it just makes the underlying problem worse. Beyond the fact that we likely have to make cuts in the RN somewhere to keep it affordable one really can’t lament reducing standing ship patrols and at the same time want to put more HVU’s out there. And even if the Bay is not HVU it has enough people that letting one get whacked would be a bloody affair at best. You can just get by in peacetime with the escort structure proposed. We have to balance escorts in task groups with the ability to have a naval presence elsewhere in the world and contribute to allied operations.
I will grant that you can’t fully replace Ocean by having helo assets on the QE’s. But part of the problem is you need the helo assets to use all of them. My understanding of the situation is that the RN gets 25 Merlin transports to work with. Assuming we are not basing other transport helos from the Army/RAF on the ships on a full-time basis I am basically using all of those to support my 10 for each carrier plan. I don’t see where I can find the helo’s for Ocean to operate as well unless we start putting Chinooks on board ships all the time. And frankly there are other things for Chinooks to do. When needed they can be sent. Until then they are a hugely important logistical element I don’t want to breakup and send to sea.
@mark
Agree that airpower is very useful to project expeditionary power and that is why I have always supported balanced forces. I also strongly believe that F35B capability will be as useful from a land based concrete strip as it will be from a steel strip in the oggin.
Mark,
Why don’t you do a post explaining how we deliver expeditionary power without the need for CVF, LPDs etc. Not having a go, just saying it would be an interesting discussion especially in the current “cut costs” climate.
We could start by assuming a naval task group can get to the area within a month, deploy a Brigade, unleash 600 strike sorties and then start to worry about sustained ops, so the non-carrier solution will need to get everything in place in a similar time frame (or be ready to back things up).
Jeremy,
4-6 Chinook + 6 Merlin per CVF
8-12 Merlin on Ocean
???
Simon,
I prefer to think how capabilities compliment each other rather than compete. There will be occasions when flying in a battalion is or land based airpower is more appropriate then deploying a CBG. There will be times when the deployment of airborne/air mobile forces as part of a larger op centered around a CBG/ARG is appropriate.
There will be occasions where maritime power projection is the best or only solution but if you are Commander UK JFC then you want as many tools in the box as possible.
APATS,
Agreed. I really wasn’t trying to dismiss the availability of options. I am rather curious that if our airpower and network of available airstrips and fuel supplies is sufficient then why not explore the possibility that a CBG is not strictly necessary? Maybe it is cheaper to invest in airlift than it is to build an assault ship?
Apas I would agree entirely. I sometimes like the devils advocate position in the water based threads.
Simon well very busy at work at present program nearing a first flight so no time for a post anytime soon. I would say we did just that projected power in the gulf war in 91 without deploying a carrier or amphib force.
Simon. Your airpower needs range to achieve that, so unless the RAF gets Vulcans/B-52s/LRS-B or FB-22s , the UK still needs carriers.
I don’t see a need to permanently attach a Challenger and Warrior troop to the Marines. The commandos and paras seem to be appropriate for a light structure, and you can always build a battlegroup around them if a tank or two is ever needed.
Having said that, a protected fire support and recce vehicle might well be suitable for working with light battalions.
It’s often been suggested on here, a new CVR(W) vehicle, light on its feet and able to operate with the likes of Jackal and utility trucks. Something that can chuck a bit of high explosive about, but not be so heavy as to destroy local infrastructure or to require disproportionately heavy logistical support.
The ERC-90 and Scorpion-90 both came in under nine tonnes, so conceptually easy. If a 90mm gun would be too unique for you, how about a 40CTA and 60mm mortar combo?
That Chinook deployment for S-L was epic. S-L shows we need a sensible amount of “strategic” air lift to compliment our maritime capabilities. But I wouldn’t call S-L expeditionary warfare. UNAMSIL though not large (not large enough perhaps) was in country. The Indian Army aren’t some Third World hick force. It was sensible for HMG to despatch the RN. But if this was an example of expeditionary warfare by air then there would have been no need to send the ARG. Especially considering the first act of British forces was to secure the airport. Good example of what British forces can do and sensible use of available forces and capabilities, but expeditionary warfare sorry no.
A350?
Simon
All I’m gonna say is it happening shortly.
@Brian
I don’t see any funds in the budget for developing yet more land vehicles. A big part of this plan is dumping FRES so developing a new recon vehicle or light armored vehicle is probably out.
@Simon
A350 for what exactly? I think anything based on the A350 is a classic case of getting distracted by the latest piece of metal (or in this case plastic) that floats across ones view. There is not a single military role for the A350 to do that an A330 cannot do for a lot cheaper and much much sooner. Military forces are not concerned with a daily operating cost of something. You can make up the substantial difference in purchase cost on something like that fairly quickly when a plane is operating every day for 8-12 hours. That is hard to do with military aircraft most of the time. Why pay the premium?
Lurker here commenting for the first time. With respect to the Navy I fear we are putting a great number of eggs in a limited number of very expensive baskets, which we will in consequence hesitate to use. Conversely, if we do use them for the expeditionary purposes of other countries, we risk assets essential to our own defence that will be very difficult to replace in a timely fashion. Jeremy’s proposals aren’t sufficiently radical to address the first problem; and his political and expeditionary assumptions reinforce the second.
Interesting, very interesting how my “A350?” managed to be applicable to two parties when it was only really directed at one :-)
Good luck to the party it was directed at.
Mark
Granby had the “luxury” of a six month unopposed build up in a friendly staging area, while Saddam tried to fortify his new possession. Those land forces projecting power you speak of arrived by a particular medium as well – via Hamburg & Bremerhaven if memory serves, as did the vast majority of their log support.
It’s also fair to suggest that with six USN carriers, two battleships and a full MEB embarked, with an MEF ashore, any UK carrier or amphib would have just got in the way. As it was our DD/FF, PCRS and MCMV made a very valuable contribution. Ark Royal did deploy to the Med while the Sixth Flt carrier went round to the Gulf of Oman, to keep the colonel honest.
A more demanding timeline and a smarter opponent might have exposed the UK power projection capability at the time for what it actually was.
@Ian
I can see where there might be risk aversion here. But that would apply to just about anything the RN owns. Anyone fancy losing billion pound SSN after all? Really I think risk aversion could apply to almost every unit the RN owns except for the sub Frigate level units. Losing any of them given the numbers around would be a major blow. One could use that to make a decisions to not put much at risk naval wise. But the decision to go ahead and buy those things is largely already made. At the point there are two options. Use the fleet that is building and already cost a lot of money or don’t. Not building it necessitates a time machine.
And I would contest the idea that a loss among the expeditionary forces would expose the UK to a security threat. Absent a change in the EU and NATO the QRA force is still of sufficient potency to defend against the air threat. I don’t honestly see a credible threat to the UK home territory that necessitates holding much back.
@J M H
I have often wondered if the armed forces could be combined into a sort of Marines, some interesting thoughts posed here.
The one that causes the most horror is the scrapping of the perfectly new, effective and largely British Typhoons. It makes no sense to suggest it (as some politicians have, whilst others try and sell them) nor to do it.
Putting all our eggs in one basket is far from sensible, indeed it is a shame GEC Marconi and BAE merged, I fear one design weakness (e.g. T42 aluminium superstructure) in a complete fleet is poor risk management. Plunging for a sole F35 fleet doesn’t get my vote I’m afraid.
The infantry could probably be arranged differently though.
@Opinion 3
Well I would not and did not suggest scrapping the Typhoon. It is going to give by the end 25 years or so of service from introduction to the estimated out of service date of 2030. That is hardly a short employment time frame. The Tornado ADV did basically that amount of service. The F-4 did about the same. Ditto the Lightning. So it is not insulting to an aircraft to predict it with a 25 year lifespan by any means. As I said I can be convinced to do otherwise. I just remain skeptical.
A lot of the reasons why we scrap fleets is down to cost or capability rather than fatigue or lifing issues. For example the F3 would have gone on for many years past it’s (recent) scrapping.
I cannot see you supporting 200 fast jets. A much more likely scenario is a mix tied around 150 Typhoons and 10 F-35B by 2020 with F-35 building up slowly as Typhoons are retired.
I believe the last Tranche 2 is due shortly and the first Tranche 3 Typhoon is not due for delivery until late this year with deliveries continuing into 2017. Even allowing a 20 year life (which is very short) this gives withdrawl dates for Tranche 3 between 2033 and 2037 at best. Much more likely you will be operating Typhoons on things like GRA And the unmentionable Isles into the 2040’s.
I would also say that I am not really hung up on the F-35 for Typhoon shift happening on that timetable. Or really at all. If people really want to keep the Typhoon around and think it will save a lot of money in the end I can live with that. The main motivation was not to miss the high rate phase of F-35 construction when the UK can get them relatively cheaply and be stuck on Typhoons OOS date with no real affordable option to replace it.
OOPS, QRA
I don’t entirely disagree with your thinking about the out of service life of the Typhoon, but I am struggling with the F35 as the sole replacement, as I said previously a single replacement and one designed decades earlier doesn’t quite feel right.
Fundamentally I uneasy with a continually diminishing force, too much is spent on welfare and insufficient revenue is collected from companies.
I don’t entirely disagree with your thinking about the out of service life of the Typhoon, but I am struggling with the F35 as the sole replacement, as I said previously a single replacement and one designed decades earlier doesn’t quite feel right.
Fundamentally I uneasy with a continually diminishing force, too much is spent on welfare and insufficient revenue is collected from companies.
Jeremy, good post and interesting comments so far.
I agree with the position that the RN has too many HVUs versus the number of escorts that can be afforded. This, limited airframes and the lack of man power makes me nervous of investing in additional LHDs to replace the LPDs. Ultimately there resources will never be there for seperate ARGs and CBGs. Hence this is the nub of the discussion on how best to achieve a OTH amphibious assault capability.
I have often thought about a USMC type structure to provide offensive capabilities, but the UK already has a colour for that and it’s called Purple. 3Cdo working alongside British Army armoured battle groups, watched over by RAF UAVs etc is fine by me as long as the approach is balanced and effective.
Given the limited funds, the UK not only needs to be laser focus on the capabilities it wants to provide but also creative as we have been in the past. Rather than being a mini USMC, being inventive and dare Isay quirky actually makes us more useful in my view.
For example, why not base a RM Cdo solely around a CVF, LPD and a SSS auxiliary? Never gonna get 36 F35Bs on the CVF by doing this, but does it really matter when combined with other assets?
Also, why not structure Army armoured battle groups on what can fit in a modern LST? Regardless of if its a amphibious assault or land invasion, it needs to get to the threatre most likely by sea.
I do wonder why there is a rush to get RAF Tornado GR4 out of service when the Luftwaffe is going to keep theirs going beyond 2025?
They’ll be flying them for longer than that. I’d be more looking at 2040 before the GAF stops flying them.
Hi Repulse, RE your
“I agree with the position that the RN has too many HVUs versus the number of escorts that can be afforded… the nub of the discussion on how best to achieve a OTH amphibious assault capability.”
I am glad you brought that underlying question into focus
– whereas ‘too many HVUs relative to escorts’ ignores the fact that most navies in Europe are rich in frigates
– so the point of view depends on how unilateral, or with the USN only, we want to go (in the latter case there are plenty of escorts, again)
Any Typhoon jet fighter replacement would have to be significantly British in order to maintain our domestic expertise and jobs. F35 may make sense from an American and economies of scale side but it does not benefit Britain becoming an optional cog in the American Military Industrial Complex. As I understand it we only opted into the program for a relatively cheap and capable STOVL aircraft we otherwise may not have got.
The Taranis based UCAVs are estimated to be in service in the 2030s and they could probably be relatively easily modified into being manned as well, so that will likely be the preferred option.
@Radwulf
I think people are vastly over-optimistic about the Taranis timetable and mission. If things go well the UK could have a long-ranged flying wing that is in service and dropping bombs in the 2030′s. It won’t be close to (and really is not designed to) replace an all purpose fighter by that stage. My guess is it will be the 2050′s before we see a UCAV that can do much air to air at all.
@ACC
That is really the interesting question from the naval side. That is why I think you can get by with a pretty small escort group assigned much of the time. When you are just playing around training in the North Sea or the Med you can likely pair up with the local European navies and bolster yourself just a bit. That is why I like the Naval structure I proposed. It does not lock in too many escorts to the HVU’s but it gives the RN the option to bolster those groups itself if it needs to operate unilaterally in the Gulf or Indian Ocean or Southern Atlantic.
@Repulse
I agree with you 100%. The airframes and manning is just not going to be there absent a major budget change to put another flat deck or two into the fleet. You are right that this prevents you from running a full 36 plane F-35 group. Which I think is also fine because I don’t think you will have enough F-35′s anytime soon for that anyway. I am with you on the structure for the RN.
The Naval Action Group that I put out in this post is designed around that. Basically the Commando would be distributed across the CVF (call it the air-mobile company(s) of around 250ish guys) and then the remaining combat power and logistical tail split across the Albion and Bay Class ships. The concept of operations being that you can start the assault from the CVF and probably would position the other two ships closer to shore. You land some troops by helicopter then shuttle back and forth from the Albion and Bay with supplies and more men. You can even keep some stores for the attack helicopters on the amphibious ships to decrease turn around time. When a helo needs to go back for more major work it flies back to CVF and gets it done.
It is making the best of a less than ideal situation really. As others pointed out ideally you don’t want your helos and your FJ’s trying to use the same deck all the time. I think what makes it workable is that we can clear the majority of the helos off the deck and operate them from the amphibs during any ship to shore movement which leaves CVF free to focus on providing air support and ASW for the most part.
Regarding “purple” my worry is really how well things like that tend to work out in declining budget environments. You need very strong direction from the top in my view to make things like that work in a competitive budget environment. Otherwise they always seem to be the first thing services look to cut or pay a smaller share of. It just seems to be human nature.
I agree with that premise of the assault but still think you’re better off launching a wave of Chinook from CVF in the first instance. You’d then launch a wave of Merlin again, from CVF.
The Merlin would then continue to operate from CVF as two “service flights”. The Chinook would work from the spots on Albion/Bay with a couple in the hangar of CVF.
6 Merlin + 6 Chinook can then service about 1800 troops (3Cdo) in the field, which means that you’d need to bring the other Bay along to host the extras (400 on CVF, 600 on LPD, 400 on each LSD).
Each of the ships take on their “overload” of troops in transit from a more comfortable distribution over the other RFA support vessels ready for the assault.
Unfortunatly this “third Bay” breaks your tidy mould of pre-defined task groups, but would only really be needed for a full scale operation. This is why I like the idea of HMS Ocean (or new one) flitting around with the third Bay providing three task groups on cylce with the ability to surge two together (usually CVF+LPH) for a full scale op.
1 Active, 1 Ready, 1 Unavailable of:
CVF + LPD + LSD + T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(ASW) + 40Cdo + 2Para
CVF + LPD + LSD + T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(ASW) + 42Cdo + 3Para
LPH + LSD + T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(GP) + 45Cdo (+ 1Para when needed?)
1 Active, 1 Ready, 1 Unavailable of:
T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(GP)
T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(GP)
T45 + T26(ASW) + T26(GP)
Plus one spare T26(GP)
@Simon
That is great but I don’t think it is affordable.
The RN already keeps on of the LPD’s in extended readiness. The proposal I laid out would take the RN from operating 1 Invincible, 1 Ocean, 1 Albion and 3 Bays to operating 2 CVF, 2 Albion and 2 Bay. My crew needs are already going up with those switches. Keeping the third Bay and the Ocean around makes things even worse from an added cost perspective. The plan I laid out grows the fleet already in terms of people. Yours would add another two ships worth of cost into the equation. Yes, it would be more capable. But with money added to the pot there are lots of ways to boost capability.
I don’t like Chinook on CVF full-time from a logistics and footprint perspective. It is another unique beast that just complicates something we are trying to keep simple. You have to support another engine. Another set of avionics. Another set of spares. If you need to conduct a heavy assault you can always just reshuffle but for a standing deployment I just don’t see it. More than that I think that Chinook has plenty of demands on its hands already serving the roles assigned to it. Merlin is not perfect but it is good enough.
It also horribly over tasking the escorts in my view. There is just no give in that schedule at all. No provision to keep a group operating if a Type 45 were to blow out a generator or something that necessitates heavy work. More flex has to be built into it than that.
With the naval program I see two priorities really.
1. Finding a way to keep both CVF’s in service with useful air wings.
2. Getting MPA’s into service to gain a lot of flexibility.
What you propose has merit but I don’t see the funding there to do it.
I apologize for this intrusion, I’m just an observer of the military debate.
I was for the FRES SV project, but when I see the weight of your future vehicles and I compare them with the weight of future french vehicles, I look capacity aircraft and helicopters of transport, all your ground forces are not deployable by aircraft.
The french armoured vehicles that will replace our current vehicles weighing less than twenty tons, except VBCI that weighs 29 tons, which corresponds to your warrior will weigh about 40 tons.
You have a big problem. But maybe I’m wrong.
@JMH / Simon, re Simon’s proposal. For me keeping Ocean (and ultimately a replacement) makes a lot of sense. In the worst case we would ever face (need to put troops ashore from OTH into hostile space) then CVF with Ocean allows CVF to operate F35 heavy and Ocean to provide Helo facilities for the assault. I understand the intended flexibility of CVF but its not without limits and there may be some times when it would be too compromised to do everything. Ocean gives us dare I say a quasi 3rd carrier capability, and in peacetime / low intensity stuff would be able to deploy as part of a ‘surface action group’ perhaps. You are right about cost though. I would mitigate the cost by keeping one of the Albions in extended readiness. One Bay would go or be ‘sold’ to the DFID (see below). I would ultimately replace the remaining 4 Bays and Albions with 4 large LSDs / LPDs, perhaps with one RN manned and the other 3 RFA – or even all 4 RFA manned. Argus would go without direct replacement. The SSS would come on stream solely to replace existing ships. All would have some degree of hospital / helo facility. Any PCRS / Argus replacement would ultimately come out of the DFID budget operating in peacetime for disaster relief etc (and replacing the Bay already assigned). I’m not proposing making Ocean II F35 capable other than perhaps for emergency landing but could be flexible for assault, ASW, attack and AEW helos. I appreciate the need for well decks to meet strategy but the reality is its a far less frequent need than that for helos. I’d rule the cost of an LHD out – going for an LPH supported by the common class of large LPDs, largely in RFA hands.
Frenchie, I don’t think the British goes for air deployed units as much as the French do. In fact, I believe France may be the foremost or among the foremost experienced air deployed practitioners in the world, it is just not too publicly demonstrated.
This means that the Armee de Terra tends to favour light units that can go by air, backed with heavy MBTs, the “high-low” approach.
The British army prefers to go by ship or train which allowed them to go medium-heavy. Slower, but more protected.
Different ways to do things, can’t say it is wrong, different situations need different solutions.
I don’t see anything wrong with the F35A being brought into service,,,,,but only after we have got our money’s worth out of Typhoon first, the later tranches will after all be good until the early 2030’s and if Tornado and other contemporary aircraft are anything to go by it will be relatively easy and inexpensive to keep them running well into the 2040’s.
I think a two type fast jet fleet would be a headache for the UK to try and set up now, but we are in a position where Typhoon has been largely paid for and is well on it’s way through production and the F35 will be bought in small numbers at a time to first provide a basic carrier capability and then to in part replace Tornado.
Hopefully as others have said the rumours of more than 107 Typhoon being retained into the 2020’s are true. A sizeable fleet coupled with an advancement in weapons integration/software updates (if we wait for the other partner nations it will never get done!) 48 F35B now, more to follow and then a straight choice between the A and B variants to replace Typhoon way into the 2030’s or 2040’s (with either type offering good overall commonality and hpefully a decreasing price-tag) sounds like a solid plan to me.
Just thought I add this
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/picture-aesa-radar-clears-trial-fit-with-eurofighter-387060/
Couple of additional questions/musings for you…..
Firstly does anyone know whether the Oman Typhoon order is still slated to come out of the RAF purchase or will it be a batch of new builds?
Secondly after reading all of the debate over the future amphibious force how do people feel about hedging our bets by first and foremost trying to secure both CVF and all 5 LPD’s/LSD’s in service but then theoretically if the money and manpower where there after that trying to keep Ocean in service until 2025?
If she were replaced by another cheap LPH built to commercial standards then the build time would only be 5 or so years, factor in a bit of time for design and it could potentially allow us to defer the decision on replacement out to 2018 at the earliest, possibly later.
May sound a bit mad under current limitations but a ship of her type only requires around 200 (not including flight personnel) people to crew her, would provide a much needed degree of flexibility and cover the bases whilst (again theoretically) PoW is brought into service.
The rumoured OSD for Ocean of 2018 just seems too soon to me.
Challenger
The original idea was sell uk tranche 1 jets to Oman. They reject that and wanted tranche 3 jets which is what they ordered they are not from the uk order of 160.
Thanks Observer for your explanation :)
@challenger – I agree on Ocean. Fundamentally I think it will be more useful, more often than the other amphibs. It creates much more options and makes even more remote the nightmare scenario of ever having to crew up both CVFs at once. It gives a dedicated large helo support capability for a variety of tasks that otherwise would have to be squeezed on CVF or spread across RFAs. It would remove my ‘Karel Doorman’ type requirement.
I hope this isn’t going to sound really very stupid… Naval force groupings are certainly not my area of expertise.
What about thinking of force projection of land forces in terms of paired capabilities. Ocean makes a pretty good helicopter carrier, the CVF will be even better. But you can’t get that many people onboard: probably not even a full light role BG by the time you’ve got the boat’s crew and air wing embarked.
Something like this, as a companion troop carrying ship might be one answer. http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/fleet/cruise-ferries/pont-aven . Militarise it by having the forward roof bit flattened off and able to act as an HLS for 2-3 Chinooks (it already has an HLS behind the funnel, big enough for one Chinook), and you’ve got a ro-ro capacity big enough for 650 cars.
Ocean + Pont Aven deploys a light wheeled Brigade easily. The airlanding handled by the BG(-) on Ocean, and second waves can be landed by shuttle running helicopters to Pont Aven or docking in a port and offloading by ro-ro.
Pont Aven cost £100 million, quite a lot of that on fripperies such as cinemas and bars. An austere build to the same design would be less. It does normal sea speeds, and is built to handle rough conditions that often occur in the Bay of Biscay.
Buy a military Pont Aven, or possibly have some enabling contract for Pont Aven itself to be on call for STUFT at one week of notice, £5 million a year. It’s never more than 2 days sailing from Portsmouth or Plymouth.
(Disclaimer – no connection to Brittany ferries, but we have as a family sailed in Pont Aven a few times to Spain. Excellent ship. No doubt “other ferries are available”, so I use it merely as an example.)
Now, it’s just a thought.
Peacetime operation with HMS Ocean and a Bay is more utilitarian than offensive. You can’t say that about tipping up with a CVF. “Hi, how many bombs do you have aboard?”, “well over 1000”, “could you please leave”.
The LPH one works a little more like: “Hi, what offensive capability is embarked”, “well, we can take out subs, enemy ships and a few tanks, but generally we move people and equipment around”, “great, welcome in”.
Together however, in an offensive scenario we can embark Commando lift on Ocean and the amphibs (CVF for Chinook maintenance) and leave CVF as a potent strike and sea-control carrier with 30-32 jets and a dozen Merlin. Not to be messed with ;-)
@Simon
I agree it is great. But where does the money come from for it? The budget is coming down. I don’t see the Royal Navy expanding its seagoing billets by enough to retain all of those things.
You want to do without MPA to have Ocean around?
All depends for how long you’re going to need that second deck at sea. Personally I can’t see it happening more than for 4 months and only in a screaming once-every-30-year emergency. Why’s that? becuase its only needed in a UK Sovereign operation against a peer enemy. In any serious coalition op we can make the assumption that there will be at least one other flat top around: CVN, LPH, LHD. Against a non peer enemy one QEC will do just fine.
For such a rare UK only emergency I would imagine that by cancelling all leave and shore training and raiding the desk wallahs a suitably experienced crew for the second QEC crew could be cobbled together for the single tour required.
And in exchange for that you save both the build cost of your replacement LPH and the cost of crewing it for the other 29.8 years.
So for me no nightmare. FWIW I agree that Ocean may well limp on for a few more years, mostly in reserve or filling in for Argus with a skeleton crew. But that will then be it.
“nightmare scenario of ever having to crew up both CVFs at once.”
I will ask a question of the group on an aspect of this I thought would generate more discussion and about which I am curious.
What do you think of the P-8 plan generally and the plan to integrate Storm Shadow with it?
“1. Finding a way to keep both CVF’s in service with useful air wings.
2. Getting MPA’s into service to gain a lot of flexibility.
What you propose has merit but I don’t see the funding there to do it.”
The first is easy: take the F35B’s away from the RAF and give them all to the Navy, adjusting staffing levels between the two forces to take into account the necessary fitters etc.. The Crabs will kick up a stink, but into every life some rain must fall, and they will still have their Typhoons and UAVs to play with. From the capability point of view nothing will be lost (the RN can go land-based mud-moving if required – they did in Afghanistan), and much could be gained.
As for restoring MPA, the only way I see that happening, short of a war that forces the politicians to accept the need (as per AEW and the Falklands), is a miracle. It is traditionally a RAF responsibility but “Coastal Command” has always been their red-headed step-child, even at the height of the U-Boat menace, when the very existence of the Country was threatened, they starved it of resources.
My take on the MPA capability is that it’s a nice to have, but we’ve just scrapped Nimrod and the MPA capability that provided, so why would we suddenly rekindle that capability?
The idea was that MPA tasks can be covered by other assets. What these truly are and if they are more efficient at the job I really don’t know.
Is there really any threat to our waters that justifies a change of tack?
What is the benefit of P8 being able to deliver Storm Shadow? We will be able to do that (theoretically) with Typhoon and F35… With Astute and (possibly) T45 delivering a similar capability in the form of TLAM.
@JMH
I am a fan of your proposal to fund a fleet of modern airliner based ISTAR planes. But I think you undersell the idea by branding it mostly as P8-MPA .
The context for me very much includes: E3, Airseeker, Sentinel as well as the ASW MPA role. Our future airliner ISTAR platfrom needs to combine capabilities in these fields with a single set of modular workstations and a variety of podded sensors that can be tailored to the mission. Cost savings must be there from fleet commonality, and a modern worldwide logistic chain, even if the individual aircraft remain in one role or another for months and years at a time.
This is a contestable market too and Airbus really should be pushing its mission systems from C235/C295 into a jet airframe such as Voyager. But I agree that at the moment 737 / P8 is in the lead.
Don’t really see it as a strike platform though. You may as well send Tranche 3 Typhoon with Conformals and a Voyager if you want a long range Storm Shadow strike. At least then the Tiffies can also escort the airliner. Remember we have the option of sub launched TLAM too.
And Storm Shadow isn’t an Anti Ship Missile (yet). If you were talking about NSM or one day Perseus you might have more of a point.
@Simon
The main justification for changing that MPA situation is that there are going to be much higher demands on escorts than there currently are once you get carriers up and running. In the P-8 you can get a Nimrod replacement and a Sentinel replacement (the USN is buying radars for some of the P-8’s that will do the JSTARS mission). You get to kill two birds with one stone here to a degree. Operationally it makes me far more comfortable sending the fleet and SSN’s off elsewhere because I retain an ASW capability and an ASuW capability with the P-8 that makes a casual one or two ship group meandering around my territory think twice.
As a bonus you can get a poor mans strategic strike platform with a straight out and back combat radius of something around 3,500KM’s. Yes, Typhoon will eventually carry Storm Shadow. But lets just re-fight Libya a bit. I can fly P-8’s within SS range of the coast from the UK proper. Ditto for Syria. Really it gives the UK a quick strike response anywhere in the European/Med area that a tactical fighter does not. The tanker support to move employ and equal number of Storm Shadows from Eurofighters at an equal range would be pretty substantial.
I don’t consider them to be a delivery system that competes with TLAM or anything else really. If the UK or Europe ever has a go at higher end IADS system I think getting as many stand-off weapons into the air in a short time as possible is key. The more TLAM’s and SS’s you can deliver in a given time the better.
HurstLlama said “The first is easy: take the F35B’s away from the RAF and give them all to the Navy, adjusting staffing levels between the two forces to take into account the necessary fitters etc.. The Crabs will kick up a stink, but into every life some rain must fall, and they will still have their Typhoons and UAVs to play with. From the capability point of view nothing will be lost (the RN can go land-based mud-moving if required – they did in Afghanistan), and much could be gained.”
Young man you can’t say that sort of stuff here. Rule 4 of the Think Defence Posters’ Handbook clearly states,
4) When a capability has to be surrendered, shared, or provided by an alternative platform owned by another service it is fair if it is the RN that is losing the capability and even fairer if the joint capability is to be run by the RAF. Posters are encouraged to use the word purple over and over again and say uniform colour doesn’t matter, infer that the commenter is a dumb civilian who doesn’t really know how the military work, accuse any pro-RN poster of living in the past or sentimentalism or tribal or all three, infer that the commenter has no understanding of airpower if there is reasonable argument for not using airpower (VL or artillery launched PGM), or a combination of any of the former.
In the past I have suggested all those recruited as maintainers for F35b go through Raleigh. I see the FJ pilot pool as a shared resource, but not the rest of the operational personnel associated with the platform. The trouble is the more dark blue F35 technicians there are the less RAF personnel are needed. But if you argue the reverse say the that youngsters don’t join the RAF to go to sea or if uniforms don’t matter why not have them wearing dark blue it all goes a bit squiffy. Sad but true. Saying that I did recognise that carrier FJ will have to rely some RAF expertise. But yes what not transfer those too? Uniform don’t matter. Being at sea doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take joke etc. etc. and so on.
“The idea was that MPA tasks can be covered by other assets.”
That was the story that was fed to Parliament by the then SoS – he was lying.
“Is there really any threat to our waters that justifies a change of tack?”
Currently, or within the life span of defence planning assumptions now being made (i.e. out to the mid-2030s)? The only non-nuclear existential military threat that I can see in that time frame is one to out trade – the UK depends on just in time arrival of imports of food and energy. Shut down the main ports for just a week and there would be rioting in the streets and the collapse of civil order, the government would have to give in to whoever was causing the shut down.
Given six months prep and a few submarines,and, I think it could be done with as few as three reasonably modern subs, the UK would be stuffed – unless it had the ability to find and destroy those few subs. As the UK stands at the moment with the state of the RN and the lack of MPA, I suggest it, it couldn’t.
I think the relative difference between the UK and the Japanese is instructive. Despite all the wittering of Cameron (our Prime Minister for any overseas readers) about the UK having the 4th largest defence budget, I note that Japan manages to maintain a fleet of of 50 MPA.
Allow me to de-lurk and suggest that your proposal doesn’t take itself sufficiently seriously. If you want a powerful expeditionary capability, good. But what good is an army of just 21 brigades? If you cut the army down to just what can be delivered in an assault by sea or air, you could use the savings to create a much more powerful navy, perhaps even a third carrier group. This plays to the UKs strengths, which is its technology, and not to its weakness, which is its size.
@De-Lurked
Sure you might be able to do that if the budget was held at present levels. Anyone care to take bets on that happening?
Ref the P8 proposal. Yes would like to see MPA back but storm shadow does not deliver an ASuW capability, for me integration of JSM would be a much higher priority.
“The main justification for changing that MPA situation is that there are going to be much higher demands on escorts than there currently are once you get carriers up and running”
Please don’t say that too loudly. ;-)
Given that we are an island nation we need to defend our shores, but how many P8 would be required to police the air sufficiently to disuade an argressor? I’m of the opinion that E3 is quite capable of detecting any air or surface threat better than almost any other platform (with Typhoon dispatched to intercept). It’s then just the submarine threat that needs to be addressed, which could be provided by a network of static sonars, frigates, SSN, Merlin, etc.
In addition if it is port closure that would hit us the worst then we can concentrate our surface assets in those locations.
Not 100% convinced that P8 is necessary.
As for the “poor mans strike” I really don’t think that’s a selling point, in fact I think it’s quite the opposite (in diplomatic circles) :-(
RT,
I hope you’d paint your Pont Aven grey?
To be honest that’s how I see Bay working… hardly a military ship… just happens to deliver ground force (not the gardeners) to a port seized by a light Commando battalion.
Lose the LPDs, their capabilty can be regenerated with relative ease.
Landing material into a port is why we have the point class.
Somebody once told me that the problem with using ferries to move troops is that they do not have the logistic capacity to house the number of pax that they can carry for more than a short period.
As they are used to being able to embark provisions and offload waste, take on water etc on a regular basis. Makes sense I suppose.
@PE
Notwithstanding the (remoteness of a) nightmare scenario I would contend a LPH has more utility in general than an LPD for the tasks we are most likely to face; I might even consider going to just 3 large RFA LPDs to fund it. Whilst a mixed air group will be ok most of the time, if push comes to shove even in coalition ops, I think there will be more demands on CVF to operate in a more conventional strike carrier role. The other option is to let Ocean soldier on and defer any decision until replacing the Albions with a compromise LHD design and the 3 Bays with two large LSDs. Much as it pains me to say, I think Amphib is one area that could be cut in the next round and re-size our aims of what we expect to be able to deploy from the sea.
Hi, HurstLlama.
What do you mean by “shut down the main ports”?
@Mick P
Port facilities can be denied by asymetric action, hostile populations, or just the weight of supplies needing to flow through them. The ability to land and sustain a ground force across the beach is a vital piece of strategic flexibility.
Lose that and you might as well wind up the regular army altogether…
Peter
APATS, interesting loggie bean counting exercise. How many cubic metres of water / rations are needed per 100 embarked troops / day. I suspect it’s not the long pole in the tent.
Civvy ferry, optimised for 2,500 passengers per 24 hours, complete with cinemas, spas, casinos, pussers’ office, etc. And cabins that for military use you could probably treble up on occupation if you don’t mind squeezing up.
Al of those cubic metres for ration packs, and water.
Now, I’m not claiming that it’s an easy swap, but come on, soldiers on board a ferry don’t need several cubic metres each per day. We can squeeze more out, once we ditch the cinemas.
It’s just a loose idea. Pair up ships, rather than try to have one ship that does it all.
How much does a RAS fit cost for a ferry? A few million? Still cheap as chips.
I’m not pessimistic about getting P8s, there are currently numerous programs going to keep the skillsets warm. Unfortunately the Nimrod programs (in all guises) had some healthy capabilities but whether the MPA program had a bit of ‘gangreen’ or ‘necrotizing fasciitis’ has always been a worry for the MOD & Government, chopping the limb off seemed drastic but entirely understandable.
We can cope without MPA but medium to long term this doesn’t make sense. It would be the most obvious contender for the ‘unallocated’ fund after UOR to Core funding and Sentinel. Would I add to the P8 capabilities? Yes
1. AGS if possible
2. JSM
3. I’d consider Brimstone (modified) too
4. SS
5. BAMS
probably in that order, you could even add crowsnest too, lots of potential
@RT
My comment was not a criticism merely an observation. It was an answer to a question I asked many years ago and even if true would only be applicable to standard commercial designs.
If you are building a hybrid then easy to put in big freezers and some desalination kit.
Here’s a precedent for using ferries as troop transports, RT.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205195112
In the space of a few months in 1939, over 150,000 troops deployed, utilizing requisitioned civilian ships and ferries. No need for fancy amphibians, simply pull into a friendly port and offload your army. What on earth could go wrong?
Mind you, a few landing ships with amphibious craft would have been handy the following spring.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205022146
Moving troops by sea to a friendly port isn’t amphibious warfare. Just as flying a battalion into a safe airport isn’t air assault (or indeed expeditionary.)
I’m not sure why some seem to have a downer on ferries. The Falklands would not have been re-taken without civilian ships ferrying soldiers down south.
Brian Black, that’s a bit irrelevant, because I’m not making an argument against having amphibians. Unless you think that the Navy should have enough amphibians to transport an entire expeditionary Division of 30,000 troops and 10,000 vehicles.
A single Chinook could cross-deck troops faster than the limited amount of landing craft could make a return trip from an LPD to shore and back. If the conditions are suitable, the Chinooks could take the troops direct to shore. A ferry like the Pont Aven could provide enough HLS space for 3-4 Chinooks.
I’ve got no problem at all with the pros / cons of the various LHPD / CVFs arguments, it’s just that to me there’s a very large piece often unaddressed in the to’ing and fro’ing. How do you transport the soldiers? It seems to me that a specialist ship dedicated to carrying people is a better place to start from than a ship that is not.
A troop carrier ship, particularly as they are not very expensive to build, seems like a reasonable investment, and if sensibly paired up with another ship that is optimised for helicopters or whatever, getting the best of both worlds.
Then there are the peacetime uses. Transport to very large scale exercises in Europe or further, British citizen evacuations, whether because of civil war, or volcanoes shutting down the air lanes. Hospital ship, disaster relief….
The clever decision would be whether to buy such a ship, or have a clever enabling contract with a ferry company, or even a PFI arrangement (but not one as stupid as Air Tanker).
@ Jeremy MH and JS123
My original post was based on a significantly higher MOD budget than the current one at least 8% higher. Total Land forces budget at present is £8 billion and thats not including kit, pensions (£3 billion) etc. Jeremy seems to be holding the RN at future levels i.e.19 escorts etc and reducing the RAF while decimating the Army with only 8 P8’s being bought and a handful of M777. Our £33 billion could go a fair bit further than that.
The Navy’s operation budget is only £2 billion per year. Obviously kit takes up a fair bit in total £16 billion per year spread amongst all three service’s. Even 32 Astute SSN’s which I agree would be unaffordable on current budgets and unnecessary would only cost less than 1 year out of 30 of the total defence budget to acquire.
In relation to T45 again when I wrote the previous article the T45 was still in build and the marginal cost for an extra one was around £550 million which we could not get now as the build has finished. Just as with the CVF where the marginal cost for an extra ship is only around £1 billion.
Your comparison with the USN is fair however the USN wastes vast amounts of money on certain things that we could avoid. For Instance Nuclear Powered Aircraft carriers which will cost at least double what our’s will. USN ships also tend to have significantly higher crew numbers than ours not to mention the sheer number of aircraft the USN operates. Frigates and even SSN’s are relatively cheap to operate and acquire compared to Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carriers with massif Air Group’s. On our current budget if we put everything into the Navy as we once did then we could operate a pretty substantial force.
Before anyone says anything I should mention after years of reading think defence I have changed my point of view and I don’t think we should butcher one service to raise up another. I think the Army’s force 2020 seems pretty sensible and affordable.
@ John Hartley
“I do wonder why there is a rush to get RAF Tornado GR4 out of service when the Luftwaffe is going to keep theirs going beyond 2025?”
It’s a good point. Many nations are now buying F35’s to replace F4’s. In some ways we are buying F35’s to replace the aircraft that replaced the F4’s. I think our forces need to get out of the mindset of always buying new kit. Just like our Tranche 1 Typhoons that we are planning to scrap at the end of the decade.
@ Peter Elliott
“For such a rare UK only emergency I would imagine that by cancelling all leave and shore training and raiding the desk wallahs a suitably experienced crew for the second QEC crew could be cobbled together for the single tour required.”
I agree, Just look what was done in a few days in 1982. Hermes sailed in four days and she was pretty much on her way to the scrap yard. I think we could look at having vessels like LPH and LPD on extended readiness and possibly even look at using naval reserves to make up at least part of the crew for these very rare situations. If we have the ships we are always going to be able to find some way to crew them but no ship equals no capability. The Indians are still sailing round in Hermes and the USN operates 50 year old aircraft carriers with little issue and even keeps 70 year old battle ships in reserve yet we have to turn a ship into razor blades the minute the paintwork gets chipped.
@ Jeremy MH
I think the P8 is the logical choice especially if it can replace Sentinel with its new radar. I would like to see it equipped with up to 4 Storm shadow on the wing as I think it would give us a pretty decent intercontinental strike capability but I agree with APATS that an Anti ship missile would be the priority given that we now basically don’t have a fixed wing naval strike option.
Book me a stateroom on the Red Trousers Line by all means…I’m assuming a decent cellar and a variety of malts come as standard…
GNB
How about Condor Rapide, aka HMAS Jervis Bay, currently registered at Dover and operating to the Channel Islands?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSC_Condor_Rapide
I take it the RT Line runs from Dunkirk to Dover? :)
Hey, it worked then, don’t see why it can’t work now, if they don’t have to travel too far.
The big problem with “ferries” (even those as big as Pont Aven) is their ability to support life for extended periods. As others have noted, they’re designed to shuttle between ports where they get “serviced” every 48 hours or so. That servicing includes resupplying food stocks, drinking water, fuel and removing gash and emptying the poo tanks.
A troopship application would need to allow the ship to operate for several weeks – so certain elements of the ships “life support” would have to be drastically increased. Sewage treatment, cold and frozen food stowage etc would all add major demands. These ships are not easily reconfigured to overcome these, particularly with the new maritime regulations that are in force now compared to 30 years ago.
On Corporate, the only “ferry” that embarked significant numbers of troops was Norland. the rest of lift was aboard either naval ships or the liners (Canberra and QE2) which are set up for supporting lots of people for long periods. Even so, you only have to look at recent failures on cruise ships to understand that if some systems fail, it can get grim fairly quickly.
The RT Line ain’t going to get too many users if the catering plan is basically hexe stoves and compo rats in the cinema for weeks on end and the facilities are as Edmund might put it “the very latest in front-wall,
fresh-air orifices, combined with a wide-capacity gutter installation below” – ie cr@pping over the side.
It is actually very difficult supporting thousands of troops afloat, which is why all those navies with expeditionary aspirations tend to have a relatively small force to secure an APOD and SPOD, which lets ships do what tehy do best (carry large amounts of cargo) and aircraft do their thing (large amounts of Pax). It does mean that you end up with a very obvious objective, the APOD (which is a weakness in itself), but then so is a port. GIven that it’s extremely unlikely you’d deploy that scale of force (division) without some sort of permissive environment, it’s hard to justify, even on a PFI-type basis.
Another possibility for RT line:
Condor Rapide High Speed Cat, ex HMAS Jervis bay, registered in Dover and operating to the Channel Islands?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Jervis_Bay_(AKR_45)
NaB:
Very pertinent comments. Does the above still have the ability to revert to its original troop carrying capability, and would that be sufficiently useful?
I think the ‘RT Line’ is one of your poorer ideas. The Bays are a good example that troop transport can be done cheaply – accommodation, endurance, vehicle deck & ro-ro, helicopter deck, plus a wet dock. That’s great utility at modest cost, and the idea was sold to us on Bay’s ability to fulfill various less-than-war missions.
That we used liners to transport troops to war thirty years ago does not mean that it is a great idea and something we should adopt as standard today. That was done because there was no other options available; a cobbled together solution because we had no ships fit for that purpose.
As folks have pointed out, ferries are short-legged. As for modern liners, unlike ships of the QE2 era, they are built very top-heavy to maximize capacity; but the lack of regulatory control over the bloating of designs into floating tower blocks, single hulls and a sparseness of effective bulkheads means that modern liners are prone to throwing themselves onto their sides and drowning everyone onboard the moment they take on a bit of water.
The idea of using a ferry as a peacetime transport for regular troop movements is incredible. We’re in the jet age! This isn’t the 1940s. Can you really imagine loading a brigade onto ships to go off and exercise in BATUS? Aside from the fact that we don’t have a thousand troops to spare sitting on their arses for weeks at a time, think of what it would be like for poor seasick Tommy, particularly after you’ve ripped the casino and pool out of the ship.
What is the increase in annual idle passenger manhours if you replace Voyager with RT Lines? All the thousands of troop movements between the UK and North America, South Atlantic, Middle East, Med, East Africa and elsewhere. We’ll only have 80,000 troops; we’ll need another couple of divisions to replace all the unavailable manpower we’ll have at sea.
Observer said “Hey, it worked then, don’t see why it can’t work now, if they don’t have to travel too far.”
Many a true word spoken in jest. That’s the problem in one line. The majority of those running defence got their training when Ivan sat across the Inner German Border. Structurally even though the campaigns happened in the Middle East Iraq and Afghanistan were business as usual as the US did, are doing, all the heavy lifting and under pinning the whole. There appears to be no real comprehension of distances or logistics required to operate globally within the green or light blue tribes. Perhaps because the majority fly everywhere and the world has become Westernised it dulls recognition of the hard facts? Look at all the spin the RAF put out over support for Operation Ellamy. What was it 8,500 tons they moved? Just over a million miles driven? 800 or so C130 loads or something; if only we had a tenth of that number of lifters. What is 8500 tons? Less than 450 container loads. Though “stores” can’t always be conveniently packed in to containers in weight term 8,500 tons isn’t much. I know a few lorry drivers who used to drive all over Continent week in week out and never got a medal for it All that to operate just from the other side of Europe to support 26 FJ. One assumes there are plans to move similar amounts of freight world wide to support RAF expeditionary adventures? That is assuming there is a CAIT available with all the necessary supporting supplies of AVCAT, water, etc. and so on. And that is without mentioning other needs like FP all of which need supporting. Look at all that I can see why some regard shoving it all into ships that can go everywhere with everything they need as sheer madness, not. Moving to green things it take 17,500 tons of stores to support a light re-enforced brigade (such as UKNL Landing Force) for 30 days. It takes a lot, lot more to support an armoured brigade once it gets into theatre……
Brian Black said “As for modern liners, unlike ships of the QE2 era, they are built very top-heavy to maximize capacity; but the lack of regulatory control over the bloating of designs into floating tower blocks, single hulls and a sparseness of effective bulkheads means that modern liners are prone to throwing themselves onto their sides and drowning everyone onboard the moment they take on a bit of water.”
If you look at the Cunard fleet you will it is composed of 1 liner QM2 and two cruise ships, the QV and QE. The former is built to meet schedules, as liners in the past were built to meet schedules, and so are constructed from heavier steels with powerful engines all poured into a hull shape designed to take a beating from nature. Your description is nearly perfect for cruise ships. A cruise ship isn’t designed for heavy seas. It is about volume and cheaper build. I think NaB will have something to say about safety. SOLAS is quite stringent.
” It takes a lot, lot more to support an armoured brigade once it gets into theatre……”
Isn’t the figure about 1000t per day?
30,000t per month?
That’s one MARS tanker and one MARS SSS… probably plus a Bay for “bits”.
And Simon remember we will only have 4 of one and 3 of the other. And they have to bring supplies for the task group(s) at sea as well as the soldiers ashore. As well as hosting various bonus rotary and landing craft. As well as going to and fro over a sustained period to fetch all this stuff from its point of origin. Which is why the whole process is called sustainment. Its a big ask for 7 ships. So I would imagine that even in a nominally ‘sovereign’ operation we would in fact be begging and borrowing tankers and store ships off our allies left right and centre.
(which is much easier politically for them to send than fighting forces)
‘There appears to be no real comprehension of distances or logistics required to operate globally within the green or light blue tribes.’
You might well want to double check those assumtions. I know you like to think only the navy singularly has a grasp of various areas, whereas the rest of us mere mortals blunder along, but thankfully in the real world it’s some what different.
As to the comment about truck drivers and medals, I know you are online fan of the navy, and so the chip on the shoulder comes naturally, but really?
@Topman
Interesting point though. We talk a lot about maritime logisitics but very little about air logisitics.
For instance if the RAF needed to send 100 FJ plus ISTAR flight plus Helos to an friendly but austere airbase in Africa for 3 months how many tonnes of supplies and kit would be needed? How would it get there? Would our C17+Voyager+Atlas be enough? Would civvi freight aircraft be suitable and could the appropriate number be easily chartered? Could it all be done by air or would some heavy supplies have to come overland. By road? By rail? How many RAF Regt to secure the perimeter. How would they be supplied?
We don’t talk so much about this stuff and its really quite interesting to know more.
“they are built very top-heavy to maximize capacity; but the lack of regulatory control over the bloating of designs into floating tower blocks, single hulls and a sparseness of effective bulkheads means that modern liners are prone to throwing themselves onto their sides and drowning everyone onboard the moment they take on a bit of water.”
You’ve obviously been listening to the bloke from NUMAST who was everywhere on the media when Costa Concordia had her little accident. What he didn’t say was that the ship was damaged way beyond what she was designed (or required) to survive and hence rolled on her beam ends. It had nothing to do with double hulls (asymmetric flooding doesn’t help), bulkhead disposition, or being “top heavy” (whatever that is supposed to mean). She was damaged to that extent because the skipper was (allegedly) showing off to an (alleged) Moldovan
hooker (allegedly) to get a gobble.
SOLAS is very stringent when it comes to regulatory requirements and damage and it is going to get moreso in future. However, there comes a point where the design implications of being able to survive every conceivable level of damage become uneconomic. Even our warship damage requirements only stipulate that the ship survives a certain % of the hull length or number of main compartments flooded.
More significant (and certainly more relevant to this debate) were the significant number of other cruise ship accients over the last 2-3 years where power has been lost and propulsion and life support functions disabled, leading to serious risk of loss of life / disease through thirst, sanitation, heat exhaustion. There are regulations for this aspect (Safe return to port), but demonstrating compliance with them is non-trivial and needs more quantitative methods.
“they are built very top-heavy to maximize capacity; but the lack of regulatory control over the bloating of designs into floating tower blocks, single hulls and a sparseness of effective bulkheads means that modern liners are prone to throwing themselves onto their sides and drowning everyone onboard the moment they take on a bit of water.”
Makes you wonder how passenger liners pass safety inspections then. I’m sure the hundreds of thousands, in not millions of people who travel by ship annually would be really interested to know they were sailing on death traps.
“You’ve obviously been listening to the bloke from NUMAST”
IMO Maritime Safety Committee, 92nd session, 12 to 21 June.
“The MSC will have for its consideration the Costa Concordia casualty investigation conducted by the Italian authorities with an extensive range of recommendations addressing stability issues” …and other equipment and procedural issues. Power supply and essential systems redundancy seems also to be on the cards.
There has been more emphasis on survivability and safe return to port for new build passenger ships over the past few years, and there’ll be further regulation as you say, NaB. But the authorities are as much responding to events, accidents and new designs as they are setting the safety agenda.
AFAIC ferries, liners or cruise ships are not the right solution for the Navy. The Army should travel in tubes instead. A global network of tubes; climb in at your departure point and, a moment later, pop out the other end.
I’ve not yet thought through all the details :(
““The MSC will have for its consideration the Costa Concordia casualty investigation conducted by the Italian authorities with an extensive range of recommendations addressing stability issues””
The vast majority of which refer to procedural measures, training and use of on-board stability computers to be able to rapidly assess the likelihood of swift capsize. It’s worth remembering that CC was required to survive two compartments being flooded, when the actual number experienced was five.
Don’t disagree with the conclusion that liners are the answer to a question no-one is asking though…..
“I’m sure the hundreds of thousands, in not millions of people who travel by ship annually would be really interested to know they were sailing on death traps.”
There isn’t the same compulsory reporting of accidents or fatalities that you find with aviation, Observer. And so no compiled list of all the casualties.
But you have overboards, disease – norovirus, legionnaires etc, capsizing, sinking, lifeboat accidents, piracy, collisions, groundings, onboard violence.
Passengers probably would be interested in the figures for accident and incident rates, and in the number of casualties, if those figures existed. They’d probably be quite shocked, particularly if all the various tin-pot operators around the world were included in those figures.
I have no doubt though that RT would fulfill, to the best of his ability, his duty of care to the unfortunate passengers of RT Lines.
@ Brian Black
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beneath_the_Earth
It may or may not be available on the YouTube…..
NaB said “Don’t disagree with the conclusion that liners are the answer to a question no-one is asking though….”
Say again station.
“But you have overboards, disease – norovirus, legionnaires etc, …… lifeboat accidents, piracy, collisions, groundings, onboard violence.”
And this is the fault of the ship?
And Legionnella Pneumophila on board ship? That would be an interesting case. Most of the cases I see involving sea men are usually dengue, malaria or microfillaria. I worked in a hospital where all the MV (Marine Vessel?) cases are funnelled through, the public hospitals tend to be earmarked for citizens so the government, insurance and private hospital have a sort of/ kind of deal where they get treated at a designated private run hospital and the insurance company pays. Saves insurance the trouble of running all over to check claims, and poor sailors don’t have to up front the medical bills. At least this way, it is a one stop shop.
Troopships are the answer to a question no-one is asking……..
@Martin
“My original post was based on a significantly higher MOD budget than the current one at least 8% higher. Total Land forces budget at present is £8 billion and thats not including kit, pensions (£3 billion) etc. Jeremy seems to be holding the RN at future levels i.e.19 escorts etc and reducing the RAF while decimating the Army with only 8 P8′s being bought and a handful of M777. Our £33 billion could go a fair bit further than that. ”
I would agree. I take no real issue with you original post. I would say this in regard to this comment.
1. The Army: The decimating of the Army so to speak is not being done as part of service rivalry. It is rather a deliberate policy decision designed to enforce discipline on the political leaders of the UK. It is a deliberate policy decision to make it unusable for any long-term intervention. The idea is to force political debate and budget expansion if such an operation is desired.
2. Additional Forces: I would take issue with saying that is all I am allocating from the funds freed up from the Army. The RN is getting to operate two carriers which is not at all certain right now. They are operating on a rotation that would make 2 carrier groups useable with reasonable notice 18 of 36 months. This is a significant cost. The second Albion is put back into active service. The plan as written also includes at least 100 F-35’s as well. The overall air component goes from 220 fast jets to 200 so that is not much of a cut either. There are no cuts to the helicopter force. There are no cuts to the supporting air assets except possible for sentinel being replaced by a P-8 with the AGS radar. The P-8 buy is not capped at 8 either. If there turns out to be additional budget room more could be useful and had. Lord knows that the helicopter force in many ways could use a revamping and/or expansion.
3. There are still a lot of unknown cost that I want to make sure are covered and a ton of wish list items I would hit before adding much back to the ground component. No Type 26 has even had its steel cut yet. The QE is entering a phase of construction where cost could rise (hopefully not as it appears well run). But there has to be substantial prudence in any plan to ensure that funds are there for the major projects that are keys to the defense policy. Astute and Type 45 are good examples of the risk with Type 26. I want to have room in the budget to absorb those without a loss of numbers that could derail everything.
There is a huge shopping list of things that would have to really wait until one sees how core programs are going. The idea here is to establish what the core defense package is and then one can upgrade and build around that.
I agree that Army 202 seems fairly reasonable when taken by itself. But I don’t think its overall goal is beneficial to the UK. I see what it is intended to do and I think that going down that path does not benefit the UK in the end.
I still think there’s value in splitting the forces in a defensive/ofensive split to isolate and protect what is required to secure this nation.
So:
RAF = Sentry and 80 Typhoon (4 QRA, 3 UK, 1 split over Ascension/Falklands) – defend the air.
RN = OPV, SSK, MPA, Merlin – defend the sea.
BA = I struggle here but mainly reserves, AS90/Chally2, Apache and Chinook – defend the land.
What seems to then happen is that we say “hey, we can get a pretty good offensive capability if we strap bombs to Typhoon, upscale the OPVs to frigates/destroyers and build a couple of ships to carry the Chinook/Apache and troops of the British Army into battle… and then increase numbers accordingly to cover the “expeditionary capability”.
I would do it slightly differently and simply buy the offensive assets separately. This means:
No conformal tanks on Typhoon. Procure long-range strike jets (or jets and tankers).
No strike capability on Typhoon. Procure strike jets.
No “upgrade” of an OPV to a frigate or destroyer. Procure less frigates/destroyers.
No “upgrade” of an SSK to an SSN. Procure SSNs necessary for expeditionary strike only.
No Apache navalisation. Buy Viper.
No Chinook capable carrier/hangar. Select pre-navalised heavy lift that is not so huge and has folding rotors.
No LCU that can carry only a single AS90/MBT. Use L118 or other lighter/smaller gun or procure proper AAV.
When the crunch comes we can then ditch the strike aircraft, air tankers, frigates, destroyers, SSNs, Vipers, Stallions, L118, AAVs, etc.
As I said I struggle with the land forces and my example isn’t great because I think an air-mobile gun is needed to defend our land anyway.
@PE
The numbers you suggest would be too high for us to deploy, 100 FJ plus SH and AT. I’m not sure about the amount of ISO loads it would take for a large op. To an austere base (rather than bare?) In your scenario I assume you mean large war fighting ops. A lot of it would go by sea generally speaking. For normal exercises we use civvy shipping for example on N. America detachements in addition to AT. If we did some sort of all out effort in an austere/bare base would take a large amount of kit, beyond 2 group to move it all.
AT would brings in the stuff we need as a priority, people, classified/secret stores, high priority replens etc. As to the exact plan it would depend on the exact location, we’d use whatever is appropriate at the time.
Simon, surely under that plan the equipment budget would increase. You’re buying twice the equipment one for defense and offensive ops. It’s cheaper to modify than buy more, for example Typhoon upgrades vs a strike a/c. I can’t seeing it saving any money or give us better flexibility, to me it looks worse.
Topman,
I am suggesting a core Typhoon fleet of 80 aircraft. We would not be spending money on “upgrades”. We would buy strike airframes designed for the purpose they are used for and defined by a cohesive “expeditionary” vision rather than bastardising existing assets until they fail to do their primary task efficiently.
NAB: “Don’t disagree with the conclusion that liners are the answer to a question no-one is asking though…..
OK, well let me ask it without solutionising to a liner / ferry type of ship. How does the Navy currently plan to project 10,000 troops to the Falklands?
(I will certainly be out of date, but back in 2003 there was a candidate SAG scenario, not specifically about the FI, of a need to project a significant land force to a place where we had no airport access)
I imagine the answer will certainly involve STUFT, and it may well still be a good answer. The ownership of the ship itself is not so much the point. My wider point is that I can see some good utility to such a capability – perhaps scaled down to the ability to have a Brigade afloat and sea-deployable – as a permanent asset. Whether it is a single large troopship, or the Brigade spread over a number of assets, is certainly not something I’m qualified to have anything other than an uninformed opinion. All sorts of factors, including asset cost, to balance.
I’m grateful to the experts for increasing my knowledge though. I wouldn’t have thought of ferries typically only doing short hops, so configured accordingly.
“Very pertinent comments. Does the above still have the ability to revert to its original troop carrying capability, and would that be sufficiently useful?”
Think of it as a large fast landing craft, but one that can’t actually interface with ships or beaches. In essence it’s just a ferry shuttling between two ports over a distance – say 500nm. The troop carrying capability is the existing passenger accommdation. All they did was put some RAN comms on it and allow it to carry mil vehicles rather than cars. The strengthening elements should still be there, possibly even the self supporting ramp which allows you to theoretically offload onto a pontoon – easier said than done though.
Simon,
Why would you advocate the removal of strike capability from Typhoon and where would you get these strike jets?
Why would you de-navalise the Apaches?
Which Naval Heavy lift would you be after?
How would you size your LCUs? Or do you just not want them at all?
We would buy strike airframes designed for the purpose they are used for and defined by a cohesive “expeditionary” vision rather than bastardising existing assets until they fail to do their primary task efficiently.
Which would be more expensive. What bastardising do you mean and failure of primary task do you mean Typhoon or equipmment in general?
Mr Fred,
Can Typhoon deliver all of our expeditionary strike needs? No! Therefore we have to buy other aircraft to fill the gap. Just buy the “other” aircraft and don’t waste money on Typhoon for strike.
I wouldn’t “de-navalise” I just wouldn’t have bothered to navalise them in the first place.
Naval heavy lift is certainly touchy. I simply have a problem with going through the process of making Chinook deal with highly corrosive environments, push the height of a hanger up (which it might not actually do), make the size of a carrier lift utterly huge, and not have folding rotors – or at least cost us to have them upgraded.
THe LCU point was not a problem with the LCU, rather a problem using a 62.5 tonne Challenger or AS90 for expeditionary warfare. Warrior might be better. AAVs get rid of the need for large numbers of LCUs, dedicated LPDs, and they give troop protection and mobility.
This post is starting to go right up fantasy alley, but as usual its an amusing and interesting read.
Re the use of liners for bulk troop movements, it would be interesting to see what arrangements we have with the liners, cargo and ferry companies… I feel that today more so than in ’82, if the call came, we would find it more difficult. Like port-rights, this is overlooked some.
Cant say I agree with Simon’s ideas… should have been put forward during the ‘peace dividend’ era! But interesting none-the-less.
@ Jeremy M H – The cost of running an extra QE is only around £70 million, I’m guessing an Albion is around 1/3 of that. if you saving a coupl eof billion a year through army cuts then you could certainly boost the naval or air forces by more. I agree we need head room in the budget but I think you will have way too much. Yes I see you are increasing the number of F35 to 100 by cutting the Typhoons down to 100 however this may we be accommodated in the existing budget around 2025 anyway. I think your force is reasonable if we are going for a defence budget of sub 2% of GDP.
I also think if you want to focus on door kicking then your air forces in particular will need more SEAD and Electronic warfare capability as well as more stand off cruise missile capability in the naval forces.
anyway good post and some good ideas.
“How does the Navy currently plan to project 10,000 troops to the Falklands?”
I doubt the Navy has a plan to project 10000 troops to the Falklands, because of course the defences (MPA, RIC and FIGS) are sufficient to protect MPA to allow deployment of Spearhead etc, etc.
For anywhere else, it will depend on whether the JFC or the Army has a requirement to get 10000 troops in there. I suspect the expectation is to STUFT in extremis or more likely use 3Cdo to secure an APOD.
We have a brigade that is sea deployable and permanently afloat. They mainly live in Devon!
@Simon
There are reasons that aircraft types have evolved in the manner that they have. Your theoretical strike only aircraft would have to be escorted so do we buy a 3rd type long range escort? Or do we use typhoon or F35? How much more capable is the strike aircraft of striking than it’s escorts? Is it worth the extra costs of training schools, conversion squadrons, simulators, supply chains etc etc. As we would have fewer of each we would also lose out on economies of scale.
Same goes for submarines, all of a sudden we are running tiny nuclear and tiny conventional flotillas. It would be nice to have the exact tool to do every job but sometimes it is simply neither feasible or cost effective.
Indeed “They mainly live in Devon!”
– has the “Arctic Commando” already moved, to join their brethren? It was announced, but I did not pay any attention to the year (may be not even mentioned at the time)
Simon
Not sure what strike plane your thinking off or why you think we’re making typhoon inefficient by hanging bombs of it I mean its exactly what the happened to f15,16 and even f22. As for typhoon and our expeditionary needs that’s all relative but I’m not sure it’s a categorical no when you say it can’t meet all our fast jet needs.
There is a reason why some planes are designated F/A you know.
Having a multi-role plane allows balancing of the “defence/offence” roles that was mentioned by simply changing the loadout and cuts the risk of having the “wrong plane at the wrong time” situations. After all, if you lost a fair chunk of your specialised escorts, what are you going to do? Send bombers to do air defence? Or once enemy aircraft are cleared out, what are the air superiority aircraft supposed to do? Go home for tea? At least with a multi-role platform, an aircraft doing patrol one day can be dropping bombs the next, and it helps a lot to be able to flood the area with the specific role aircraft you need.
For example if you have 100 air superiority aircraft and 100 strike bombers while the enemy has 200 multi-role combatants, you would be looking at a 2:1 odds ratio on Day 1 in trying to gain air superiority, which does not bode well for the lifespan of your bombers on Day 2 after the enemy has had his way with your escorts. At 2 to 1 odds, each of your pilots had better be worth 2 of theirs.
” I’m not sure it’s a categorical no when you say it can’t meet ALL our fast jet needs.” (My emphasis added) – Well it can’t land on a carrier. Currently :-)
@Jeremy MH – Sorry but I’ve come very late to this. “UK faces little to no conventional land based threat the focus will be on the maritime and aerial threats.” – I think that’s fair comment and in the wake of Iraq/Afghanistan I for one have little appetite for any more persistent “boots on the ground” adventures. In and out quickly or we don’t go at all. I suspect many of Joe public would agree with me. So what should be the force strength of the army – I don’t know. I don’t pretend to understand army organisation. I blame the Romans – why call it a century if it’s only got 80 men in it?
Rather than picking a number like 10000 and asking “How would we deploy/sustain them?” shouldn’t we instead be asking “How many can we deploy/sustain” and go from there?
I like the look of your RAF/FAA force, but hopefully the 200 FJ force will be supplemented by a UCAV strike platform. Using the P8 as a long range stand off strike platform is interesting but I suspect we will be looking at a much cheaper platform for MPA, but hopefully in greater numbers.
As for the RN: “Simply relieving the escorts of certain task near the home islands by having MPA available will go a long way towards easing demands on an already overtasked fleet” – Will it really go a long way? Unlike some I have never supported slashing the army/airforce budgets to favour the navy, but you have proposed a 30% cut in army numbers without adding a single destroyer/frigate or even a few OPVs. (Did Martin really manage to rustle up 32 Astutes?!)
BTW – Essex 20 all out – I laughed so hard a little wee came out!
@ NAB,
we may very well have a Brigade ready to be deployed by sea by the Navy, and jolly fine soldiers they are too for matelots.
What we don’t have is a Navy ready to deploy a Brigade, which is arguably more useful in today’s world than a series of one trick ponies such as T45 or CVF. Once the Sea Lords realise that after CASD they are merely a subordinate enabling service for proper power projection, we should get more bang for the buck from the Navy.
Whether that’s a real requirement or not is a moot point. I personally would argue that it’s more important than a huge amount of other stuff, such as a reverse BOGOF where we pay for two spastic carriers and we get to use one only, and that with jets and airborne surveillance that are not available for years.
WiseApe
You are indeed correct. But and I will pick up slightly on RTs point here. I do understand when people say we need jets to provide aircover to deploy the amphib capability and fleet air defence needs the outer layer so having a aviation capable ship is a gd idea.
However I will ask this, unless the second cvf is in service and unless the second Lpd is activated or the decisions of sdsr changed our amphibious capability is the ability to deploy a battle group? Now unless things change that’s the capability going fwd so against what level of threat would the uk deploy independently on a solely naval operation with just the ability to land a battle group. I would guess something akin to what the us marine expeditionary groups are scaled against so not really requiring signifcant jet capacity. Sure we could try to establish a no fly somewhere but doing that solely from the sea will mean its really time limited. In the interests of a grown up discussion on defence with smallers budgets is buying jets at all or large numbers of jets to land on ships the best use on the money?
@WiseApe
“Will it really go a long way? Unlike some I have never supported slashing the army/airforce budgets to favour the navy, but you have proposed a 30% cut in army numbers without adding a single destroyer/frigate or even a few OPVs. (Did Martin really manage to rustle up 32 Astutes?!)”
My assumption is that defense sees an 8-10% budget cut during the next round of planning and that this, along with operating 2 carriers instead of 1 with 1 in extended readiness, eats up the budget. Operational tempos would increase with more deployments being the norm. You would have those increased operations cost (the extra carrier and more deployments) plus increased F-35 purchase cost as well as P-8 purchase cost(est 500ish million pounds per year for 10 years). My guess is that you lose about 3 billion pounds off the budget in cuts. Whatever you are saving by cutting the army gets used up pretty quick in that environment. If the cuts are less than we could do more obviously.
I think that budget cuts of a substantial number will happen. It is just a question of if the MOD will be allowed/forced to reassess its overall mission or if they will salami slice the force to protect the equipment budget (read defense contractors).
@RT The CVF and T45 allow any “brigade” to be deployed in the face of threats they would otherwise not be able to. Referring to Royal as a matelot is never a cunning plan unless a and e is your choice of overnight accom :)
Subordinate, try senior lofty!
@Mark
The point of currently planned versus potential capability is interesting. If you have 2 Carriers then you have 2 Carriers, the number used and the means that they can be used are flexible but your top end potential remains.
On your point of a BG only, no we can land more but what is restricted is an initial simultaneous vertical envelopment.
APATS,
I worked G3 Ops in a deployed Division (non-Maritime context) where we had a regular RM Cdo as part of a Brigade. They were not very special at all, in fact caused problems with a lack of comms kit, and more pertinently, a battle rhythm that was pretty piss poor. They just took so long to adjust to new situations, to pass Divisional orders down to section level, and had no ability to plan sensibly on the fly, the concept of Mission Command having at that stage (96/97) been officially rejected by CGRM (his successor I heard enthusiastically accepted it). Good individually, a problem organically. So I don’t look up to the RM as an organisation. They have to realise they are not God’s gift to anything much at all once they are on land and being required to look to a battle horizon of 500 kilometres (or even 20 kilometres), although it might be hard for them. As for the A&E remark, well that’s pretty petty.
Services are what they are. The fact is, decisive operations and conflict-concluding results occur most frequently on land or in the air. In the 21st century, the Andrew need to learn to live with that. Enablers, at best. If they are lucky, they’ll end up being armed escorts in a Tory-hell privatised future in 30 years from now.
I’ll refer to a RM as a matelot if I want to, if only to see how he reacts. Reaction tells you a lot.
When was the last time the Andrew concluded a war as the decisive service? Ummm……
@RT. The comment ref a matelot was a joke and not at your expense. Who do you think suffers most?
I hate all the inter service one eyed bs on here and if you read my post again you will see I make a perfectly valid point you choose to ignore. It is about balance in order to be able to deploy a ground force and equipment you have to spend money on how you transport it, protect it and enable its theatre entry! This uses money that could otherwise have been spent on the afore mentioned ground force. It is not rocket science it is about balance.
To address your last point much as it pains me to lower myself. Well the RN and RAF prevented the country being conquered in 1940/1941 evacuated the army from Dunkirk.
Prevented Napoleon invading in the 1800s and provided the vital enabler during the Falklands.
So were totally necessary every time we were actually threatened as a country.
We also took you kit to places you could go on tour and fight those heroic struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, thank God you saved us from those threats the blitz was becoming tiresome :)
Reel him in he’s bitten!
APATS said ” Well the RN and RAF prevented the country being conquered in 1940/1941 evacuated the army from Dunkirk.
Prevented Napoleon invading in the 1800s………”
That in bold is a bit of a stretch even for the RAF’s PR department. :)
@X
Damm my bad England :)
APATS,
the Andrew. Enablers, nothing more. They don’t conclude things.
Enabling is a vital function, and should be funded as such. But the enablers should not be over-funded when times are very tight. But when the bosses of a subordinate enabling functions get ahead of themselves, and get it so disastrously wrong, as with the CVF/ F35 / T45 round up pissing money up against the wall, the rest of the country is entitled to say “Oii! Stop wasting it!”
And given that enabling things is pretty much the only function of the Andrew, then the rest of us are also entitled to observe if they are spending enabling money on the wrong things.
@RT
You obviously missed my point that the RN has actually defended the UK and prevented it being conquered on several occasions. Unlike the army. Also you seem incapable of discussing threats and balance.
NaB @ 4.10pm
Thank you.
So very limited use unless we go down the sea-basing route, and probably not even then?
I am full of a long -standing admiration for HM armed forces in actions pre dating me, and those like the Falklands that occurred in my lifetime. As the Falklands showed, in some cases by failure, the key to an effective operation is the right force size, kit and support capability to do the job properly. As well as clear objectives and leadership both military and political.
As some have noted in this thread there is an increasing divergence between capability and ambition and that has to stop. Fantasy fleet aside, which I enjoy, there are more important things to spend money on than brigade lifting expeditionary capability and nation building. Proper border security, security of energy supplies, crime prevention, transport infrastructure, bringing more manufacturing back to the UK, etc etc. I’d trade those for military ambition.
Rather than slicing down the military across the board and creating capability gaps when ambition doesn’t change, we really should start with a bottom up review of what capabilities we absolutely need to defend our direct interests and ensure those are properly fulfilled before we start with world ambition. The talk of military support to Syrian rebels has just tipped me over to harsh reality and fear of scope creep on an Afghanistan / iraq scale. We just don’t need to go near it. We’ve sold Saudi Arabia a decent military capability, why can’t they and their local allies take a lead?
APATS, OK, i’ll bite.
When has the RN actually ever defended Britain, and the other services (or preceding 1914, the Army) not been able to do so?
Clearly, there’s no case to be made throughout the entire Cold War, as there was a large Army element as part of a huge NATO force in Germany deterring the Soviets from doing anything, and the Sovs hardly had the capability to bypass north west Europe in their desire to sail 4th Shock Army up the Thames unopposed and ruin the Henley Eights. So the absence of an invasion is not something the Andrew can claim in their credit and claim the Army contributed nothing towards.
Then, during the Second War, remind me when the Andrew defeated in pitched battle the might of the German fleet, intent on invading the UK? The RN were very busy indeed doing good stuff all around Britain – a great uncle among them, commanding his MTB – but it’s not quite the same as “defending” the UK when there was only ever a credible invasion threat for about 3 weeks, and that defeated by the Kevins. Particularly as there were over 200,000 soldiers around the south coast, and the Germans could muster possibly 50,000 sea-borne troops in their first and only wave.
Even the Atlantic Convoys were not quite all that they seem. 65% unescorted, 88% of tonnage getting through.
A case in the Great War? It does not really seem so.
Nothing looked like invading Britain for about 300 years prior to that. Even the Spanish Armada were defeated by the weather, and not the Navy.
What the Navy does is to take Britain abroad. That’s it’s value.
The only real threat to knock the UK out of the Second World War was the U boat blockade which was defeated not just by the RN but all allied navies. The question we should ask is not necessarily when the RN was a decisive service but when the RN USN combo was decisive. Ops like GW1 and GW2 rely on a permissive naval environment which only exists due to the vast superiority of western naval forces.
an enemy is always going to attack you were you are most vulnerable and the most vulnerable place for an armoured division is on a car ferry on its way to theatre. Even a relatively unadvanced enemy is capable of building weapons systems capable of sticking a ferry if its UN protected. a well aimed RPG might be enough to do the job.
The army are just enablers as are the rest of the armed forces only together do they become more than the sum of there parts look thourgh every conflict in histroy each part of our armed services have played a part in weather it big or small d day is a classic example both navy, airforce, army and the secert service all played there role and not one was more imporant or efctive than the other fauklands again all combined to bring a force that was stronger than the one they faced
Each service has it’s own value and expertise – the balance of the capability of each of the 3 organizations has and will vary over time as the UK faces different threats – a different shade of purple so to say.
Since the start of the Second World War until Afghanistan ends the shade of purple has needed more green and light blue than dark blue.
The next twenty years in my view will need a different shade to meet the expected threats / needs:
– Domestic: low scale terrorism, cyber attacks, small scales EEZ / airspace incursions.
– International: small scale independent interventions (primarily in Africa and Mediterranean), national evacuation, training, one-off larger scale interventions with NATO / French / Commonwealth / US partners.
So what shade of purple do we need? I my view one with less green and more dark blue.
Saturday morning fantasy fleet. Its not that long ago Britain had roughly 450 fast jets (400 RAF, 50 RN FAA). Turkey can manage 300 (200 F-16, 100 F4/F-35), so I think the UK should have 300 fast jets. Still a big peace dividend cut from 450. So mid 2020s fantasy fleet , 160 upgraded Typhoon + 140 F-35 ( 44 F-35B+ 26 F-35C Stobar for FAA, 70 F-35E for RAF).
As for Scorpion family replacement, I think an updated/uparmoured Stormer could be a good bet.
Can we afford this? Well the UK gov spends £700 billion + a year.
The Thatcher gov spent 0.35% GDP on foreign aid, not the 0.7% the coalition is obsessed with. Blair gave away part of MrsTs rebate for a promise the French would reduce the agricultural budget. The French never kept their word.
So cutting aid back to 0.35% frees up £ 5.5 billion pa, while taking back Mrs T’s rebate gives us another £2 billion pa. So £7.5 billion pa in total.
Say £1.5 billion off the deficit, £3 billion for Transport & Energy infrastructure+ soft loans to industry, leaves £ 3 billion pa for defence.
A interesting interview by mr Hammond http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10121925/Philip-Hammond-Afghanistan-is-like-our-Vietnam.html
“We ourselves have learned the lesson that earlier, smaller scale intervention may often avoid the need for more massive intervention later, and if we are in a mood for beating ourselves up, perhaps we should have foreseen the consequences of what was happening in Afghanistan before 9/11,” he said. “Perhaps we should have been more forward leaning in the west collectively in intervening to try and head off what was happening here before it happened.”
Instead of planning deployments of thousands of troops to combat zones, Britain should now focus on smaller, earlier missions to “snuff out” terrorist groups and other threats, he said.”
Interesting article on Hammond, Interesting concept of going in early to prevent terrorists settingup in a country yet now we are preparing to arm those very same terrorists to topple a regime (one that never caused us much if a problem and even fraught on our side in 1991) so they can set up in a bit of land that not only boarders a NATO nation but has the world larget stock of chemical weapons in it.
Fricking genius
some how its the british people’s fault for not invading afghanistan before 911 and now being fed up of invading s**t holes to stop them de stabilising other s**t holes. Even the USA has given up yet We along with the French still seem hell bent on trying to turn the third world into Surrey with a tiny military and massive aid budget.
Given the absolute reluctance of any other nations to get involved and the vast amount of countries with terrorist basing potential I really hope Hammond has a plan for more troops or soemthing more than the DFID.
It’s interesting but I don’t agree. Intervening doesn’t always mean needing smaller forces, events can overtake you leading you to use more troops than you planned for. To use Herrick as an example, I can’t see that the level of fighting being noticably less if we interviened earlier on than we did. It may in some circumstances, but not many I’d bet.
@Jeremy MH – “My assumption is that defense sees an 8-10% budget cut during the next round of planning and that this, along with operating 2 carriers instead of 1 with 1 in extended readiness, eats up the budget.” – Thanks for clarifying that.
” It is just a question of if the MOD will be allowed/forced to reassess its overall mission or if they will salami slice…” – Yes I agree this is crucial in the next SDSR or two; it also provides the backdrop for my response to Mark’s question:
“…is buying jets at all or large numbers of jets to land on ships the best use on the money?” – Well the last two SDSRs say that it is. The defence chiefs persuaded Labour in ’98 and the ConLibs in ’10 to back UK carrier strike as a central part of our ability to conduct expeditionary operations (ExOps). Now, had I been Tony Blair back in ’98 (sorry but I’ve just gone a bit queesy) I would have asked something like: “Well in that case why aren’t we in the Rafale program with the French instead of Typhoon with the Germans, or why aren’t we proposing a navalised Typhoon, or why Typhoon/F35B instead of F35C?” What I mean is, our two major aviation programs were mutually exclusive, which is just plain bonkers, even back then in less budget restricted times.
So, what direction (if any!) will SDSR2015 give us – will ExOps still be paramount and even if so, will carrier strike still be central to it? How much of that decision will actually be economy led – preserving our slice of the F35 work and the B being worth more to us than the A?
Went on cricinfo again this morning to make sure I hadn’t dreamt it – no there it is, 20 all out :-D
Edit: “When has the RN actually ever defended Britain…” – “What have the Romans ever done for us?”
Further edit: @mickp: ” We’ve sold Saudi Arabia a decent military capability, why can’t they and their local allies take a lead?” – Well said.
This is getting embarrassing edit: “The French never kept their word.” – I’m shocked!
Topman
You raise herrick had there been a more intense focus on afghan on building there capbility in 2001-2003 would we have had to go back in the same way in 2007-present is an interesting question I think.
WiseApe
Though did it. In 1998 when the carriers were ordered we planned 150 f35 as a harrier replacement 230 typhoon for tornado f3 and jaguar replacement and we looking at FOAS for the tornado gr replacement. In that context carrier strike ect makes perfect sense as you have significant capability from land and sea. Fast forward 12 years and in 2010 had the contracts been anything other than water tight the carriers would have been scrapped in the slipway and with a fast jet fleet of less than 200 aircraft and getting smaller with all current major taskings being land based and likely to be for sometime where should the money for the next decade be spent. Build the ships yes but leave the jet aircraft option for a decade or so down the line. As it is one will be mothballed and one operational with a decision on the seconds fate in 2015. And the jets to be operational on the deck is hoped to be about 12 a decade from now and our scale and duration of response significantly reduced.
I do however agree that had we been serious about heading down the naval carrier group that signifcant consideration should have been given in the 90s to firming the BAE/McDonnell Douglas alliance on the superhornet program as our sole fastjet aircraft.(I would have walked away from jsf when the bae/McDonnell Douglas bid was rejected) But while that was a choice for then its not sensible now considering were typhoon is and our declining budget and likely future threats.
One final point the idea of the f35b being more benefit to uk than f35a from a work share point of view is a myth our work share is fixed regardless of the variant bought.
Apas would it be of benefit to get the vertical bit back prior to more jets?
I agree with what Hammond is saying, after all its not rocket science that the UK public will not support another long term occupation again without a lot of persuasion.
Therefore swift reaction to potential threats is the only alternative – not saying it’s gonna be easy.
To get force to an area swifty requires enablers: transport a/c, carriers, amphibs, UAVs and all the supporting supply and escorts.
Re: Small scale interventions.
I wonder how PMC’s like Executive Outcomes and Sandline could achieve so much with so little?
@ mark
You raise herrick had there been a more intense focus on afghan on building there capbility in 2001-2003 would we have had to go back in the same way in 2007-present is an interesting question I think.
I’m not sure it would, if anything that proves my point. Admitting that we needed more troops earlier is what I was getting at. We did the small scale it didn’t work hence needing more troops 5 years down the line. All that is changing is the timeframe the numbers needed would still be broadly the same. If anything such an idea should be termed early intervention rather than small.
Topman
Not sure I agree. Had we deployed 2-3000 personnel in country sooner would we have needed 10000 later. In much the same way as the US has deployed smaller scale in the Horn of Africa hasn’t required 100k troops to sent at a later. Like wise deploying a small force to serria leone quickly meant we didn’t have to send much larger forces later to nation build.
It’s all well and good banging on about what should have happened and how it will happen in the future. But the reality is big ideas are always vulnerable to the granular and nitty gritty of every day operational matters and personalities and juxtaposed agenda’s. If you look at both Iraq and Afghan there was no shortage of people in the right places with the right ideas – there was no magic formula that nobody was unaware of. What actually happens and what will always happen unless you have the right context and personalities is other agenda’s and personalities skewing the effort and warping it. It all boils down to “events dear boy”.
Planning and implementation must go hand in hand. And implementation is far harder than planning.
@RT
“When has the RN actually ever defended Britain, and the other services (or preceding 1914, the Army) not been able to do so?”
You miss the point. Basing on the same intelligence sources, all services always had the same time to be ready.
The strategic truth is, that having an army being an island has always been secondary. While having a fleet in being in the narrow seas at least saved Britain from defeat in practically every 18th century war (with the only omission of the American war, where a single spot of lost sea control sufficed to nail the coffin at Yorktown).
The army in 1914 was a colonial policing arm. Each and every inch of Britain’s credibility as a great power was delivered by the navy. Germany had simply no intent and plans to fight us. At Gallipoli the army commander failed to grasp the strategic surprise the RN has enabled him to use by tactical indecision, a common scheme over a good part of the 300 years leading to 1945.
The RAF was created in 1918 from the RFC (an engineers invention!) and the RNAS, both providing roughly the same number of aircraft. Up to this point, zeppelin-interceptors in England where RNAS, while the field squadron where mainly but not only RFC. Once again, strategic depth = RN, tactical battle = Army.
“Clearly, there’s no case to be made throughout the entire Cold War, as there was a large Army element as part of a huge NATO force in Germany deterring the Soviets from doing anything, and the Sovs hardly had the capability to bypass north west Europe in their desire to sail 4th Shock Army up the Thames unopposed and ruin the Henley Eights. So the absence of an invasion is not something the Andrew can claim in their credit and claim the Army contributed nothing towards.”
There was a submarine-based deterrence and RAF bombers. I guess, ultimately the Soviets were deterred by mutually assured destruction, not a couple of thousand soldiers melting away in nuclear artillery barrages.
“Then, during the Second War, remind me when the Andrew defeated in pitched battle the might of the German fleet, intent on invading the UK? The RN were very busy indeed doing good stuff all around Britain – a great uncle among them, commanding his MTB – but it’s not quite the same as “defending” the UK when there was only ever a credible invasion threat for about 3 weeks, and that defeated by the Kevins. Particularly as there were over 200,000 soldiers around the south coast, and the Germans could muster possibly 50,000 sea-borne troops in their first and only wave.”
200k soldiers with no tanks and artillery. Which reminds us, that the 200k soldiers in question where first saved during Op Dynamo, by the RN. In Greece and Crete, same play. North Africa was won because axis reinforcements were interrupted, while RN protected supplies arrived in Egypt. The whole country was dependent on incoming fuel protected by RN vessels. And ultimately, the army was brought back to the continent and supplied by the RN.
I’m not against the army. Actually any war in history was won through having a good team of services, and we should be pleased that this was generally be the case for Britain. But different services serve different purposes. The sentence about “pitch battle” is clearly showing, that you have to read Julian Stafford Corbett to understand naval strategy. Then you would see clear differences of how things work.
I’m not sure how easy it would be to integrate Storm Shadow on the P-8A. Would it not be more versatile (at the expense of some range and stealth) to simply adopt the US SLAM-ER ATA? As far as I know the current Storm Shadow is neither anti ship (at sea) capable, not data-linked. A weapon that would (IMHO) make more sense for integration is SPEAR Capability 3, or failing that NSM. I believe the USN will also be integrating the Raytheon SDB II which is a very versatile, if unpowered weapon. The Australians were meant to be looking at JASSM for P-8A integration and JASSM-ER is another option. That would be the top of the range solution for long range use against hardened targets. The USN will be testing an anti ship version of JASSM in July – it’s not clear if the weapon retains an anti land target capability or whether this weapon has the two-way datalink of the previously mooted JASSM ASuW variant which did retain land target capability.
@ Mark
Possibly it might work in some cases, the question is could it work politically? Are those making the choices able to make the case for going in early, when on the face of it, there doesn’t look to be a compelling reason at that moment in time? Overall more troops gives us more options, which is always a good thing.
Topman
Politically I don’t see any action being acceptable without both UN approval and agreement with neighbouring countries of which ever area we are operating. More specialist forces operating away from public view (uavs, sf, Istar assets) is more the mode of operation I see as uk independent action.
I don’t see cutting more personnel jobs but operating in a different way.
@ Repulse – “I agree with what Hammond is saying, after all its not rocket science that the UK public will not support another long term occupation again without a lot of persuasion.”
I have been saying that for a very long time now, and yet the idea has always been fiercely resisted in these parts.
I believe the resistors make the elementary mistake of presuming that in the old maxim of power being; “the combination of capability and will”, both those elements apply to HMG.
That might well have been the case in the times up to the era of industrial war, but in the absence of existential threats the ‘will’ part of the equation now rests with the electorate, rather than doughty warriors bestriding the battlefield like implacable titans.
To the various nautical supporters,
I must apologise for being a bit grumpy earlier, but the interpretation I place on “defend” is quite narrow. Other tasks, such as escorting convoys and so on, I class as protective of free trade or movement in international waters, which is not the same to me at least. They enable activities to go ahead, hence are enabling tasks.
To probably be equally controversial, I think that the Navy has its’ priorities wrong, or at least does not attach enough importance to amphibious transport of of a significant force that can be landed across an unfriendly shore. That to me is a higher requirement than buying 2 carriers that are way beyond our needs. We should instead, for probably the same amount of money or less, have purchased Juan Carlos class ships (or equivalent, not to be too specific) which can operate F35B, and run on the Harriers until F35B is in service (and only buy 36 of them). And a rolling programme to replace Ocean with two high capacity troop carriers. 2 JCs plus two Ocean replacements plus Albion / Bulwark would be a lot more usable than what we are currently getting with one CVF and either Albion or Bulwark, depending on which is available.
On a separate note, and given that one of the CVFs will never enter service, the sole one in service is going to be unavailable on average one year in every three. So for our vast expenditure on two of the silly things, we’re getting 2/3 of a CVF, which by definition implies that we’ve got 2/3rds of the capability as an average across years. Of course, thats 100:100:0% at any given time. Better hope that Johnny OPFOR doesn’t twig and time his naughtiness accordingly.
@Mark – I agree with a great deal of your last comment (pesky relatives prevented my responding earlier). But to deal with your last point first if I may; you know more about the F35 arrangements than I; we make the lift fans for the Bs, obviously the As and Cs don’t have one, so I assumed more B orders would be better for us. Are you saying that is not the case? Is it the case that “workshare” relates to the value of the work done rather than the actual amount of work done – we do less work on A/C than on B so that we would have to make more bits of A/C to earn the same amount as we would for producing less bits of B? Am I making sense?
As to your main points: ” In 1998 when the carriers were ordered we planned 150 f35 as a harrier replacement 230 typhoon for tornado f3 and jaguar replacement and we looking at FOAS for the tornado gr replacement.” – Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall – and people accuse me of fantasy fleeting when I suggest that a third carrier or a couple of LHDs would be handy to support HMG’s stated intention of being able to “project power!”
I don’t want to put words into your mouth so correct me if I’m wrong; what you appear to be saying is that we could once afford separate land and sea based aviation forces but now that money is tighter we should be prioritising on land based, with sea based pushed to the right? Well that’s a valid argument; it has the benefit of a wait and see approach to the F35 (both in terms of performance and price) and at worst maintains the status quo – when did we last have genuine carrier strike at our disposal anyway, let alone Fleet Air Defence?
An alternative view would be to say that we should have one aviation force and it ought to be able to operate from land or sea; back in 1998 that meant cats n traps carriers but now it’s STOVL or nothing (I won’t bore everyone and annoy TD with that argument again) for the carriers so HMG should prioritise not on Typhoon/tankers but on F35B. This I think needs deciding in the 2015 SDSR but as Jeremy MH implies, it’s more likely we’ll just see more salami slicing.
@RT – It may surprise you to hear that, before the carrier design was set in stone, I would have agreed with your fantasy fleet composition. I would however have had at least three LHx so one could operate as a carrier to provide Fleet Air Defence; your couple of LHDs are going to struggle to land troops, provide CAS and defend the Task Group all at the same time (I doubt if even the much bigger CVFs will be able to do so). What will you cut to pay for all the crews for your ships? The USMC get away with it because they envisage operating under the USN supplied air umbrella. Also, the navy did not scrap Harrier years before F35 is ready, that was the other blue lot.
Sorry, been travelling.
Just quickly catching up I wanted to say that many of you really don’t see what I’m doing with the defence/offense split.
Using Typhoon as an example, I am not splitting it as “air-defence” and “strike”. I am splitting it as home-island defence and EVERYTHING needed for expeditionary warfare (bombs, missiles other than A2A, STOBAR, STOVL, austere airstrips, ISTAR, etc).
For home-island defence the RAF need to defend the AIR from incoming air threats. That’s all. They do not need to bombs land targets. They do not need to interdict enemy movements (well, unless things have got really bad). Similarly the Navy defends the SEA from incoming sea/sub threats. In expeditionary warfare there is no value of controlling the air and sea other than to use them to support the land force, without which nothing of value would ever be achived. The exception to this rule is if they are transit corridors.
I’m going to stop now as I have this feeling I’m going to have to make both a strategic and financial case for what I’m suggesting. Which I might do in due course ;-)
It’s very much the same concept as layered air-defence. You simply layer your strategic effect for defence, yielding layers as you can no longer afford them.
Must dash.
@ mark
‘I don’t see cutting more personnel jobs but operating in a different way.’
I see that it could work in some cases like I said, but when politicians start talking about change it’s always a cover for cuts.
@ Jedi
‘I have been saying that for a very long time now, and yet the idea has always been fiercely resisted in these parts.’
I’d include myself in that, although I wouldn’t say ‘fiercely resisted’. Mainly because I don’t believe people will remember that much for that long. I know it’s a simple example, however post Telic 1 TB was voted back in as PM. Although there was opposition it never amounted to much in comparison to European countries such as spain IIRC they had a change of Government who came to office based on removal of troops. We never had that. It wasn’t popular but broadly speaking we left on a timetable based on the events on the ground. There was no snap withdrawl based on election results. That’s not to say that the voting population don’t have a sway on things of course they do to suggest otherwise would be stupid. However I don’t see the idea as a ‘shallowly’ broadly unpopular war as totally unthinkable. Not in the near future but in the medium term I see it as a possibility, I wouldn’t dismiss the chances of one happening.
@ simon
‘In expeditionary warfare there is no value of controlling the air and sea other than to use them to support the land force, without which nothing of value would ever be achived.’
This isn’t a inter service dig, but you can have ops such as no fly zones, Op southern watch and the navy patrols in the gulf. These aren’t herrick type campaigns, never the less they aren’t in defence of the UK and are single service in nature and the Ops completed what they were tasked with.
@ Topman – “Although there was opposition it never amounted to much in comparison to European countries such as spain IIRC they had a change of Government who came to office based on removal of troops.”
I take the point, but would profer two more in turn:
1. I believe the thrust of my beloved chatham house poll is that we are [becoming] less tolerant of the price of our great power status, and thus more resistant to elective warfare.
2. Warmaking is becoming democratised, with plans in place to put the authority to initiate war in the hands of parliament, and no longer the prime minister, and thus public opinion.
Even with our ‘delightfully’ less european attitude to the evils of offensive warfare, the length of time where there was a majority opinion in favour of GW2 could be measured in weeks, from the weeks before to the weeks after.
Try comparing that to the Falklands, or even Sierra Leone!
@RT – I think you are mistaken about the CVF. Since the decision was taken to revert back to the original STOVL plan both carriers will enter service. Current funding will only be for one to be active and one of extended readiness but this means we will have capability 365 days of the year as one will cover well the other is in refit.
I agree that probably the most important part of the RN capability is the ability to land troops over a hostile shore but I see carriers in sme form as important for this and a fair bit of the RN is already devoted to the task.
@ Chris Webb
I agree that if we bought P8 and JASSM ER was integrated on it it would make sense for us to acquire it. One of the short comings of the P8 storm shadow combination is its limited range and the near 1000km range of JASSM ER would make for a pretty effective strike platform that could not only give us an MPA capable of replacing Sentinel but also a replacement for part of the Tornado deep strike mission.
machine what we could have done with the £ 3 billion MRA4 budget put into P8 :-(
@ jedi
In the term as above I’d agree I just don’t see it as along term trend, soon all the desert ops will be forgotten or at least hold less of an emotional flag to rally against overseas ops.
Your point about parliment is one more of power, the MPs want more it. It’s not really about demcratising it, it’s about MPs wanting to have some power over the PM. If anything it’s going to make things harder for those opposed, at the moment there is only one person to influence, one person to focus on. Soon MP’s votes will be lost in the noise, what if we have a secret vote. Who in the HoP should we point the finger at then?
As to the opinion polls, yes lots of people against, disatisfied and so on. But it counted for not a great deal in terms of influencing and changing our actions during Telic/Herrick. The polls would have counted if something if there was such feeling that there was space for a ‘withdraw now party’ there wasn’t. That tells a great deal about the weight of such polls.
Topman,
You’re correct and one of my basic rationales for sustained carrier air power was for enforcing no-fly zones in places that didn’t have local aifields. It’s a good example of a non-offensive capability. However, it is still expeditionary and is a capability “layer” that can be yielded as has no bearing on the direct security of the UK. Besides, the Typhoon I speak of can do the job you are suggesting – policing the air.
I appreciate here that our “interests” also need defending but there are other ways to do that. There is no way other than QRA/interceptors to stop a squadron of bombers en-route to London.
@ simon
You mentioned earlier about Typhoons being in a home air defence role. What happens you need them to do that overseas for whatever reason?
Topman,
Not sure what you mean. They’d obviously be capable of doing that job. However, it would be a numbers game where more airframes would be needed if you wanted to allocate some to overseas reasons. I’m assuming here you mean overseas in a Libya sense?
In the “numbers” case you’d probably just have been a little mad to use single-role jets for something that would benefit multi-role. In other words, the “overseas” air defence would be undertaken by F35 using current assumptions.
This is why I try and use the word “expeditionary” as that is the “layer” that is not strictly necessary. Obviously there are a few grey areas but none that detract from a “core” UK defence capability that I can see.
With the government focusing on early (and small scale) interventions I am wondering if the army / RMs would be better structured into permanent standalone battlegroups (like Norway) rather than brigade sized structures. Obviously these could be joined to form larger units, but in principle a battlegroup could undertake a tasking independently.
Nothing revolutionary here, but each would be in the order of 800 men including support elements, and optimized for either airborne assault (Paras), amphibious assault (RM), heavy land assault and light land assault / stability.
– 3 x Air Assault (1 on-standby, 1 training and 1 reserve in rotation) – each formed around a mixed force of 2 Para companies and 2 light infantry companies
– 3 x RM Cdos (1 on-standby, 1 training and 1 reserve in rotation) – as per current Cdo structure
– 4 x Heavy Land Assault (1 on-standby, 1/2 training, and 1/2 in reserve) – each formed around a force of 2 armoured squadrons (14 MBTs each) and 2 armoured infantry companies.
– 12 x Light Land Assault (2 on-standby, 5 garrison / training and 5 in reserve) – each formed around an infantry battalion.
Each battlegroup would have assigned engineers, air defence and artillery.
So what needs to be figured out is how each would be deploy each group given certain scenarios and what RAF / RN enablers / support assets are required (geared around being able to deploy the a minimum of the on-standby units at any point of time with 100% availability).
Simon
So by your reckoning a rn with 2 carriers could sustain a contribution to a no fly operation in the gulf 365 days a year for 10 years? Or in the med for say 4 years?
Mark,
No. And to be honest (unusually) I am not doing the RAF/FAA thing at all.
I have no real problem with all jets being owned and operated by the RAF from any airbase… even one that happens to move around and floats ;-)
However, it does change the requirement of the aircraft and generally changes the characteristics of the engagement.
I put “no-fly zone policing” into the expeditionary “layer” which means it should not be provided by assets devoted to the core requirements of UK air defence… of course, if it is cheaper to have 160 multi-role Typhoon than 80 air-defence Typhoon and 80 multi-role expeditionary fighter/bombers then so-be-it. However, I don’t think this is the case and also don’t think it is a good idea in terms of economies of scale when it comes to own nation production. In addition, unless Typhoon had been STOBAR-ed it simply doesn’t deliver the expeditionary requirements when there are no local airfields.
Mark,
I think you slightly miss a point that in the Med or the Gulf there’s no need at all for carriers, as there are land-airbases all around.
your argument needs to make sense when there are not airbases all around, which currently, for Britain’s strategic need is “well, errrr…. errrr…. errrr…. the Falklands!”
And so bollocks to buying carrier air and double bollocks to buying carriers, I say, and paying double the cost for jets that can take off from carriers as opposed to normal jets on tarmac. Yes, we need fast air, but let’s not go bankrupt over it for the 1% of the time it might ever be used.
@ Simon
‘In other words, the “overseas” air defence would be undertaken by F35 using current assumptions.’
I mean what if it’s before Lightening II is up and running or unavailable? How would you home defence Typhoons move into an expeditionary role if you have them scaled for only ‘home defence’? why hobble a multi role aircraft with just one role when it can do much more?
RT
Mark was making a point that carriers could not and indeed should not be used for a multi year no fly zone.
What a Carrier brings to the party is the ability to not worry about restrictions imposed by host nations and or distance.
When no “flat top” was available for phases of Libya ops then CSAR response times were doubled. The lack of a carrier borne AEW/control saw destroyers having to stand in and control a large air campaign on the frequent occasions the E3 went TU.
It allows presence, poise and balance without putting any boots on foreign soil.
It enhances our abilities in many areas as part of a balanced force mix.
RT
There is a great big airbase on the Falklands as you know but I know what your getting at.
I was going for the reason apas put fwd sustaining a no fly for any length of time can only be done from a land base hence why I don’t like Simons idea of home an expidetionary. Also to be able to do qra tasking and a deployed task sufficient mass needs to be avaiable with in the FJ fleet hence why typhoon should be primary for that.
A carrier offers an initial entry capability not a sustained one so a much smaller FJ fleet could support that task hence the 48 f35s. It’s how much we need that capability and if the cost is worth it for tomorrow’s world balanced against other capabilities
Apas I would say you Libya aew case is problably one of the best reasons I’ve heard for having type 45 as no carrier based aew aircraft could replace an e3 like for like IMO.
Mark
The problem we had was we only had a 42 and the Spanish would not direct offensive action.
A T45 and even a 42 could do the job within the limitations imposed by their radars but a carrier ops room with their radar and feed from airborne AEW would be much better.
@ APATS
‘ but a carrier ops room with their radar and feed from airborne AEW would be much better.’
Than an E-3?
@topman
Negative, than an air defence destroyer.
Ahh right, message understood :)
I am still unclear how we intend to move 8,500 tons of stores to support land based FJ outside of Europe.
x
The same way we supported afghan and Iraq operations the past 20 years.
@ x
‘ I am still unclear how we intend to move 8,500 tons of stores to support land based FJ outside of Europe.’
I’m not sure on the exact amounts needed but quite often we use civi shipping to move stuff from A to B. High priority comes via air. The bulk stuff comes via sea.
@ Mark
Right. Wait for the USN carrier air wings to knock the door down and US escorts and submarines to TLAM the local air defences and infrastructure. Then for the the US to secure all the airfields. Then for the allied air forces and commercial air freighters to start lifting stuff. At the same time the US secures ports, road routes of a thousand miles or so in length, so cargo that have travelled many thousands of miles by sea can be landed, and finally the cargo can be moved in convoys that would take many many aircraft to move. Ok. Got it.
If Typhoon isn’t getting AESA, Meteor and Paveway IV until 2017/2018 and Brimstone + Storm-Shadow even around the same time or possibly even later (it flies in the face of sanity to not have them in place before Tornado goes) I can’t see why a number of people are so eager to ditch them in the later 2020’s or early 2030’s. Such a short length of service doesn’t represent value for money.
I think most people would agree that the future RAF fast-jet fleet will be all Lightning, either all B or a mix of A and B, but that’s a long way off (almost too far off to bother seriously thinking about) and surely it’s better to make the most of what we have right now instead of wanting to scrap very expensive and high-end kit early for the sake of commonality.
I’m a big believer in commonality where and when it’s appropriate and makes sense. However it seems to me that the biggest expense of having a 2 type fast-jet fleet is in the initial development, procurement and maintenance infrastructure put in place, and seen as we have no choice but to purchase the F35B for carrier ops a 2 type fleet is going to be a reality for a while yet. What I’m saying is how much of a difference in day to day running costs are their between say 100 Typhoon and 100 Lightning or 200 Lightning? I of course know their is some cost in having 2 types with 2 support structures, but is it enough to make it worth ditching a large fleet of perfectly good airframes and spending another whole chunk of cash in getting the all Lightning fleet that quite a few people seem to impatiently want to see sooner rather than later?
I say squeeze every last drop of utility out of Typhoon for as long as possible and until they are replaced keep F35 numbers somewhere between 70 and 90 airframes, plenty for the carriers and to retain a residual strike capability post Tornado (with Typhoon of course also taking up some of the slack left by Tornado’s departure).
P.S
I would be very wary about pinning too many hopes on UCAV’s that are effective replacements for manned fast-jets making any kind of impact in the near-distant future. Nobody really know’s how quickly and cost effectively they are going to develop.
Also….in my view the minimum fast-jet requirement is to have somewhere between 180 and 220 airframes and id much rather see 130-160 Typhoon kept with upgrades, software drops and so on so that as previously mentioned only 70-90 F35B are needed over the next 15 years and we can both save some money and have a more flexible and capable broader fleet in the process.
x
I think you forgot about the USAF bomber fleet there air mobility command and Istar assets the us army and much more besides. However yep we’re not a super power and will continue to provide a capability to a coalition we cannot replace the us capability, spending the entire defence budget on the navy wouldnt change that 1 little bit.
@ challenger
I agree about Typhoons. I don’t see the cost savings of operating a single jet fleet to be worth scrapping 160 airframes that we have just paid some £16 billion for. I also think that as the 5th generation stealth myth starts to dissipate and we start to rely again on stand off weapons and electronics that the Typhoon in the bomber role will be increasingly effective.
One thing that gets me is not putting ALARM on Typhoon. This missile is atleast a generation ahead of the American HARM missile and I think it could serve for some time to come. Sure maybe its not going to be so effective against the latest generation of Russian SAMs but most of what we are ever likley to come up against is the older style systems anyway. SPEAR 3 should provide a good capability but its a very different system. Think the combo may serve us better but it seems that there is no budget for integration so better to chuck it away.
Quick question to anyone that knows: Could an armoured battlegroup be transported using one Bay RFA and one Point class?
@Martin: I think we’d all like to have continued development of ALARM, but the missiles produced are probably end of life with regard to their motors by now :-(
Our choices are either HARM or developing Meteor. Much as I would prefer the latter, I suspect we still wouldn’t have the capability a decade from now, so we’re probably better off buying HARM
“Could an armoured battlegroup be transported using one Bay RFA and one Point class?”
Depends on your definition of an ABG. The one I am most familiar with consists of 3 MBTs and 5 IFVs to make up an ABG, so yes, it definately can go aboard 2 ships with lots of space to spare. How useful 8 armoured vehicles are going to be is another story. Good for single tasks, but in a strategic sense, you would want 3-4 ABGs to form a “regiment” for more area control.
Topman,
“I mean what if it’s before Lightening II is up and running or unavailable? How would you home defence Typhoons move into an expeditionary role if you have them scaled for only ‘home defence’? why hobble a multi role aircraft with just one role when it can do much more?”
1. They wouldn’t move into an expeditionary role. That’s what we can’t afford.
2. It’s already “hobbled” and it doesn’t provide all our fast jet requirements.
If you fit Typhoon out to provide all our needs then we DO NOT need to buy F35 other than for an airframe-airframe replacement if we’re stupid enough to not keep the Typhoon production line open. Furthermore, once you’ve upgraded Typhoon to “multi-role” status what would you cut when the time comes to reduce costs? You can’t realistically cut the “strike” out of your multi-role Typhoon, so you’ll simply have to cut numbers but still maintain all the “strike” tagetting systems and software because you’ve integrated that into the ones you’re left with.
We should do it the way we’ve always done it and split fighter and bomber command assets. We can then completely drop “bomber command” when times are lean or there simply isn’t an enemy to bomb.
Observer: “Depends on your definition of an ABG.”
My definition comes from http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0014.html.
“The Battlegroup organisation is very flexible and the units assigned can be quickly regrouped to cope with a change in the threat. A typical Battlegroup fighting a defensive battle on the FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Area), and based upon an organisation of one armoured squadron and two mechanised companies, could contain about 600 men, 16 tanks and about 80 armoured personnel carriers.”
Though I understand that there can be different combinations – I do think that the battlegroup should be the building block of the army – not only how it can fit together with others to scale, but also how it deployed into theatre.
Is there not a benefit in terms of training, camaraderie and cohesion if the “unit” is a battlegroup?
You would hope so or all the working up the West’s armed forces do is a waste. :)
Must admit, I quite like the idea of permanent mixed “purple” battlegroup structures that are designed for one of four different primary activities; say airbourne assault, amphibious assault, heavy and light. Perhaps the modern equivalent of the Roman Legion… Think I might try and do a post…
Repulse,
Good idea. We don’t tend to go into battle without a balanced force. Isn’t the USMC MEU a pre-defined battlegroup type structure?
Permanent battlegroups seem to rather destroy the underlying purpose of a battlegroup.
@Simon: Yep, a MEU is a type of battlegroup, and I do like the MEU structure, but it does not translate directly the way the UK does things.
I agree with Phil & Repulse,
“Composing” battle groups on an ad hoc basis makes them exactly suited for the purpose.
Even though they are not new, we just hear so much about them as in so many contexts the BG is now the standard measurement for the initial strength to be fielded (not a bde or a Div. anymore).
If you start to have all of these, below, attached in fixed proportions, the number is bound to go up “Headquarters Theatre Troops was formed on 31st August 2001 and provides the essential specialist ‘capabilities’ – such as Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR), deep strike, specialist engineers, communications, medical support, air defence and logistic re-supply – without which no UK military operation can be successfully mounted.
Theatre Troops consists of eleven subordinate formations dispersed throughout the United Kingdom and Germany, amounting in total to some 35,000 troops”
– even though the number the Army website quotes may have already gone down, or is headed down anyway
As long as Cavalry, AI, MI, and LI are kept in some sort of reasonable proportion (not just training, but kit-wise) then things will work out and be worked out). So we are just building more with Lego than Duplo, these days
@ Jeremy and Aussie Johnno
It is refreshing to hear about what we can do with what budget the defence establishment has and how it can meet our strategic need instead of fantasy fleets (although they are fun!).
Have you looked at Australia’s ‘adaptive army’ restructure that has a separate command structure for high-intensity operations and the normal day to day operations? Also if Aussie Johnno provides his thoughts on if this new restructure works well for Australia and if it would be applicable for the United Kingdom?
Thanks,
Ali
I would hope we would be building with Mindstorms and not just dumb blocks. :)
Phil basically hit the nail on the head with the pointlessness(?) of permanent battle groups.
By definition the BG is ad hoc, formed in theatre from the assets available, based on the needs of the situation. If you have BG in peace time dispersed all across the country then you make maintenance and training ten times more problematic than it needs to be.
How does a BG with armoured elements train if it is deployed to say Catterick, or in Scotland? Does it haul all that kit down to Salisbury for a fortnight? Or is it not easier to just base all the armoured units near decent training grounds, in their own little groups, where they can organise their maintenance and training in a more productive manner.
Then when the call goes out, if you need a BG that is biased towards armour you can bodge one together. If you need a BG based more around mech infantry, you can do that. Need to attach an infantry company from one battalion to another full battalion? Go ahead.
Flexibility when deployed is the principle behind the BG. In peacetime you’re better off with centralised admin and organisation.
The trouble with bodging together BG’s on an ad hoc basis is that readiness of such organisations will be low: they won’t have trained together. Since an armoured BG will effectively have only one organisation of one tank squadron and two armoured infantry companies due to the proportions of the units within a brigade, why postpone the inevitable?
An interesting article, and one for which I mostly agree with. ‘Cold War mindset’ is bandied about quite a lot in defence circles, even for modern and essential technologies such as ASW and Typhoon, but I think a significant example of it is the current UK focus on land forces.
After our land interventions in the First and Second World Wars, and the preparation for the Third in the Cold War, the Army is now the principal service – perhaps out of proportion to the actual needs of the UK. In an era of decreasing land threats and decreasing budgets it is no longer possible to fund ideals, and necessities are sometimes sacrificed as a result. This might best be seen by the current lack of MPA.
While it is understandable that over the last decade there has been a priority to invest in the Army, of necessity given Iraq and Afghanistan, it did seem that Future Force 2020 was a bit of a half-arsed attempt to revolutionise defence. Invariably the UK will be required in the future to engage in some sort of sustained land combat operation abroad, even if there is little political or public appetite to do so at present. However, given that in such an eventuality there would hopefully be general support for such an operation, it is likely that reserve forces would be more utilised. Despite having both an Active and a Reserve doctrinal review, neither has resulted in anything particularly of note aside from the Reaction/Adaptable split.
The opportunity therefore appears to have been missed to introduce significant change to the system, given the unlikelihood of the active forces alone being called to effect a sustained combat operation like Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite Jeremy decrying his ‘unpopular’ changes, to me they would make perfect sense. In the case of Armoured Regiments for example, it would make a lot of sense for the active Army (keeping the TA designation was at least more prosaic with Army/TA than Active/Reserve) to have only one or perhaps two armoured regiments (as he suggests) and to give the others to the TA. The removal of other formations required for sustained operations would streamline the active Army into the expeditionary force intended and would have the side effect of giving the Reserve forces much more of a purpose, with more cool toys and hopefully higher levels of recruitment & retention.
Whether it would be politically possible to decrease the active army by a few more tens of thousands (despite increasing the reserve forces by a similar amount) is another question entirely. As salaries now occupy a significant part of the MoD budget, these savings could be plowed into other capabilities such as the MPA which Jeremy talks about, or perhaps allowing the funding of a more certain future for Typhoon, or increasing the numbers of Type 26 which he illustrates as a restriction on our expeditionary capabilities. In terms of the expeditionary approach which is proposed above, it would make the best use of the UK’s strengths – which have never really been in sustained land operations.
The main contention I have with Jeremy’s proposals is with the contingency groups. While it makes sense to restrict the numbers of parachute trained personnel in 16 AA (given that we don’t have enough parachute-capable aircraft to drop them), the transformation of the Royal Marines from light infantry to mini-battlegroups wouldn’t be ideal. Although it would be perhaps be useful to have heavy armour available at short notice, the general structure and ethos of the RM doesn’t really support making them a US Marine style formation complete with tanks. It would remove perhaps the best specialised light infantry capability which the UK possesses, with a capability which could be supplied by one of the expeditionary Army armoured units.
Perhaps I misunderstood and Jeremy was not proposing the RM having organic armour capabilities, if so – my apologies. Were the army to supply the armoured units as well as the follow up formations then this would help bridge the divide between the assault units (16 AA, 3 Commando) and the follow up units – hopefully leading to better cohesion. Finally, is there a reason for reducing the number of Commandos from 3 to 2 units, given that there would be little cost reductions (as the 2 remaining would be larger)?
Also N.B. – it’s not 40th, 42nd or 45th Commando, it’s 40, 42 or 45 (pronounced Forty, Four-Two and Four-Five Commando)…confusing I know.
Also, I’m aware that Jeremy has decided not to look at fleet support for the expeditionary force – but the support ships would also be able to host helicopters. Perhaps this would allow more firepower to be carried on board QE with the Wildcats, with ASW Merlins moved to the support ships.
In terms of the RAF, is it a necessity to have 200 fast jets? Assuming we take Jeremy’s plan to have F-35As (although I would prefer a longer Typhoon period), would the RAF really need F-35 Bs or could we simply have the FAA operating its 50. In the event of a full-scale war, it would be possible to bring out the Typhoons from the warehouses. Given that 62 FJs were used for the Op Telic (sic: wiki), surely around 150 would be more than sufficient for general needs including Falklands and home defence. The saved ££ billion would be more useful in other areas I’m sure.
Sorry if this post did not make sense, was far too long or was infantile – my first post on TD, although I think I’ve been following it from pretty much the beginning!
I guess a “battlegroup” is akin to a TAG (Tailored Air Group).
Built off the cuff as needs dictate and completely incapable of operating in a cohesive manner ;-)
In fact I think the “battlegroup” represents another example of the RAF/FAA issue. The assets should be organised by type for economies of scale for servicing, and possibly basic training, but should be brought together to operate and train with the assets and personnel that may one day be deployed together.
It’s only when you build these formations that you learn how many of each type are truly needed. And yes, there are definately numerous formations for different tasks, but there are only really ever half-a-dozen permutations that one would ever consider deploying in reality. Surely?
Hi Salty, I agree with much of the thinking.
Just that in “it did seem that Future Force 2020 was a bit of a half-arsed attempt to revolutionise defence” the attempt was hardly to revolutionise, but to rearrange the force structure to utilise the existing kit in the best possible way, in the best possible proportions (ie. not having to buy anything new, except what was already on order)
@Martin
“One thing that gets me is not putting ALARM on Typhoon. This missile is atleast a generation ahead of the American HARM missile”
This is one general area where I think the UK has to take a real critical look at what it is doing. Is Alarm a nice weapon? Yes. Does it solve some problems that the HARM didn’t? Sure does. Was it worth the extra time and development? I don’t know. I guess it might have been. But it really is illustrative of a strange phenomenon I see with UK procurement. The RAF, when this decision was made, was planning in the same threat environment as the German and Italian Air Forces. It was equipped with the same aircraft. Yet the UK made a decision that had it build its own weapon system that in its own way was undoubtedly clever and has a lot of positive points about it.
But that puts all the responsibility for integration and upgrades and development on the UK. Alarm was better than HARM as delivered certainly. But HARM was likely significantly cheaper. And HARM was there to be had 5 years earlier. And HARM has been upgraded as targets evolved. Now you can buy HARM with a MMW radar imaging seeker that has the ability to home in on GPS disrupting devices as well as radar emitters and actually sees its target physically on the ground with its own MMW radar if it shuts down its emitter.
That is really the question in the end. What exactly constitutes a unique operational requirement for the UK? As Think Defense pointed out when talking about the Apache program the extra money spent on these sort of things starts to add up. There is probably a reason that ALARM and Brimstone, while being quality weapons, have not sold widely in the rest of the world.
Again this is not a shot at the technical merits of Brimstone (it is a very cool weapon) but at the decision making that has one end up with it. The UK designed at pretty great expense a fire and forget weapon that is optimized to rain death fairly indiscriminately on an advancing armored force that has no man in the loop. This was done in 1996 (6 to 7 years after the Cold War was basically done) and the program ran significantly behind schedule. Then someone opened their eyes and realized that the target set likely no longer included a free fire zone over the North German Plain and said we better put a man in the loop so we can use it for something else. So in the end what do you end up with? For the cost of about three Hellfire missiles you can lash what is pretty much being used as a Hellfire and has roughly the same characteristics to the bottom of a fast jet. A wonderful technical achievement but in a budget limited environment was much really gained?
Sorry to rant but this is what worries me most as an outside observer when I look at the UK budget cut process is this. I hear talks of ring-fences around the equipment budget. And on the surface that sounds great. Everyone likes shiny objects after all. But when I think more about it I wonder if it is not really a sop to industry more than the best defense policy. If the budget gets cut like I suspect it is going to then some of the equipment program has to be on the block or you have a hollow force. If it is not then, in my opinion, industry protection is driving the bus rather than an assessment of actual defense needs.
On some level someone within the MOD is going to have to recognize that the UK Defense Budget, particularly if it takes a 7-10% haircut in this next round, looks a lot more like Saudi Arabia, Japan and India than it does the US, China or Russia. Saudi Arabia is all bought in equipment. Japan does build many of its own weapons but is pretty judicious about buying in outside equipment or designs as well. I would argue they are getting better bang for their buck in many respects than the UK is by being much more judicious about what kind of domestic developments they are willing to engage in.
@Rupert
“Perhaps I misunderstood and Jeremy was not proposing the RM having organic armour capabilities, if so – my apologies. Were the army to supply the armoured units as well as the follow up formations then this would help bridge the divide between the assault units (16 AA, 3 Commando) and the follow up units – hopefully leading to better cohesion. Finally, is there a reason for reducing the number of Commandos from 3 to 2 units, given that there would be little cost reductions (as the 2 remaining would be larger)?
Also N.B. – it’s not 40th, 42nd or 45th Commando, it’s 40, 42 or 45 (pronounced Forty, Four-Two and Four-Five Commando)…confusing I know. ”
The reduction is made because there are only two naval groups capable of supporting commando groups. There seems little point in having a third amphibious unit around if it has no ships to ride on in my view. The armor is organic to the deployed group but I am agnostic as to who would “own” such equipment. I am not really all that hung up on if the groups deployed at sea are Royal Marines or Army troops. I believe that Armor is important even in humanitarian operations as it sends a clear “don’t mess with us” message to any locals who might be looking to cause trouble.
My goal is to get the most flexible force possible at sea on a regular basis. I want them at sea with a commander with enough experience to lead the force on hand and to manage a larger force if it is deemed necessary to follow them up with a tank regiment or a few armored infantry battalions rolling off of Pointe Class ships.
Essentially your most senior field commanders are with the relatively small commando and air mobile forces. When they are not deployed/on alert I would have them training with the modular forces on a regular basis. Everyone should take the time to get comfortable with the idea of folding the modular forces into the expeditionary ones in any number of combinations.
“…industry protection is driving the bus rather than an assessment of actual defense needs…”
Interestingly I think we’ve identified (in another thread) that protecting our industry is a rather important aspect of defence. My slant was for the possibility of regeneration (which has been discounted), but it could equally be in order to simply “ramp up” production when the need arises.
@Simon
And I have no problem with that. But I would say if you want to identify a primary reason why the Japanese military in many ways looks more robust I would say that making industry protection a major goal is a big part of it. That is fine as a goal but everyone needs to go into it eyes open and recognize that it has a cost.
I mean just compare the helicopter forces between the two.
CH-47
Japan: 73
UK: 60
Utility Helos (Japan UH-1, UH-60, AH-101’s of various types; UK Puma, Merlin Transports)
Japan: 215ish
UK: 60ish
Once Sea Kings are retired for those numbers. Bump the UK by 30ish if you want to count them today rather than where they will be shortly.
ASW Helos
Japan: 97 (UH’s 60’s)
UK: 58 (Merlin and Naval Wildcat)
Attack/Battlefield Helicopters
Japan: 140ish (Cobra, Apache, OH-1 and does not count nearly 200 OH-6’s being phased out)
UK: 100 (Apache and Army Wildcats)
Japan is doing this while having a larger army (with significantly higher numbers of tanks and artillery) and a larger fast jet force and is operating around 90 MPA’s and it has a fleet ABM capability and it has a theater ABM capability and it has a long-range land based SAM system. Now part of this is that Japan is not operating nukes. That is a big part of it. But that is not all of the story by a long shot. Supporting a military-industrial complex is very expensive. The cost will not go down as the budget declines. It will just eat an ever larger percentage of the budget.
Oh yes, it certainly has a cost.
I must say it seems a little odd that Japan of all nations do not value home production. It seems they are gearing up their military for a localised threat rather than global influence and long-term self-reliance.
Perhaps the UK can no longer afford to “build our own”.
However, if that is the case then who do we become reliant on? The USA? Europe? Russia? China? Maybe there is merit in offloading the non-essential production/design. MPA, AEW, maybe our anti-tank capability falls into this area, maybe not. In fact I think the UK is a little hypocritical with the whole Trident concept. Oh well it’s only money, politics and my long-term future that’s at stake ;-)
“The trouble with bodging together BG’s on an ad hoc basis is that readiness of such organisations will be low: they won’t have trained together”
— They train together quite a lot. What do you think all those fellas at BATUS, Sailsbury, Germany etc get up to? These are professionals, who train in various BG formations throughout the course of their training year.
Think about what you’re saying. By this measure of “they don’t train with the exact same people every day” then no naval task groups would ever work either, because they don’t spend their entire career working alongside the same ships. No air task force would ever work, because the squadrons don’t spend all year working with precisely the same people.
This is one of the reasons for having a very structured, uniform system up to the battalion level, because now you have (relatively) uniform blocks (sub-units) that are all trained the same way, in the same skills, with the same terminology, so they can be switched in and out when needed.
This is a system that has worked well, under fire, for many, many years now. You know the old phrase; “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
I think there’s a myth about how military units work in actuality.
The most important part is the leadership – if they know each other well then things will work most smoothly. Even if they don’t the Army has spent a long time devising a way of working that means everyone does things in the same way and so can slot right in.
In reality Army units change composition all the time – they are like Triggers broom. Even during a tour people will come and go. As long as the framework stays stable it doesn’t actually matter that much. There is no such thing as a tight, cohesive, band of brothers type unit. People move around on career courses, get down-graded, get plucked for other jobs, join from training, come back from rehab or posting even during PDT.
The Army simply does not need to calcify its units for months at a time to function well.
I have come late to this and with over 220 comments I may be guilty of duplication.
But “What , no Sappers !!”
Without a few Engineers I fear that the carefully balanced formations will be going precisely nowhere (who is going to run the port of entry) or rather not very far before the road runs out or the bridges are blown ( doesn’t matter because they wont have any maps) And who does the author think runs the power stations at HM naval bases to keep the coolant flowing in a berthed atomic submarine and if they can’t berth at HMNB Gibratar say they can’t range very far. Without the Engineer Regiments (Airfields) would the RAF would do much in the way of expeditionary warfare ( I mean if even if there is a runway I bet there won’t be sufficient air-conditioned sleeping quarters for the aircrew).
So no Sappers, no expeditionary warfare.
Might as well stick with a few mounted regiments with the Mark 1 horse (in lieu of FRES) and increase the numbers of 13 pounder guns (probably cheaper than M777) because that will be the most effective force we shall be able to transport. deploy and supply. Still it would be nice to see a squadron of galloping gas fitters in support.
So with such a glaring omission from the land orbat I think we can have little confidence that the air or marine proposals are any better thought out.
@Nick
This is only dealing with the major combat formations.
“Estimated combat personnel directly involved in the main force ground components (special forces excluded) is cut by around 30% which should allow a somewhat corresponding cut of the support services as well. ”
I explained it further in a few comments somewhere as well. There would be engineers sufficient to support the forces retained so there would be less overall since the force numbers are coming down. It seemed quite a waste of time to go through detailing the number of engineers. There would also be fewer recruiters. Fewer accountants, clerks, doctors and cooks. All of that is a side issue to the major issues in my view.
But yes, there would still be engineers and support services. There was no attempt to create a comprehensive order of battle in this document. Only to outline the general combat force structures. Your engineers will still be around, albeit in reduced numbers.
I realize everyone who was ever involved with a supporting combat arm sees their role as incredibly important. And they all are. But the fact of the matter is that their size is directly tied to the size and ability of the force as the pointy end of the stick. The proper way to size a force is to decide what you need on the pointy end and then figure out the most efficient and effective way to provide those supporting roles. Omitting engineers from being explicitly mentioned as an organization here was not intended as a slight by any means. It is simply something done for the sake of brevity. It is more than sufficient in a general planning sense to say that since there are less troops we will need some correspondingly lower number of engineering troops.