So, the Royal Navy, stretched thin by budget cuts that have left it temporarily without carrier-borne strike fighters — the hallmark of a serious naval power — can’t even field a Frigate or Destroyer to patrol its home waters on a full time basis.
Yup, the seas surrounding the British isles have been left without a so called Fleet Ready Escort ship since October. The FRE acts as a kind of seaborne combat air patrol for the UK’s territorial waters — ready to respond to any type of maritime incident that would warrant the need for a warship. However, since scaling back its surface combat fleet to 19 frigates and destroyers, the UK is having a hard time keeping up with this requirement while conducting military operations off the coast of Libya, reports the Telegraph newspaper.
Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord Alan West said: “I would hardly say it is a luxury. If there was a terrorism incident in UK waters, this would historically be the ship sent in to deal with it.
“It’s a big problem. If we haven’t got a ship ready to do this role then it’s worrying. It’s a very unsatisfactory position to be in.”
The last time this happened was nearly 30 years ago when the Royal Navy’s entire combat fleet was sent almost a world away to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina.
A Royal Navy spokesman said: “Due to the successful deployment of Royal Navy units to the Libya campaign, it has been necessary to reprofile the commitments of some ships.
“Should a Fleet Ready Escort activation be required, a Royal Navy ship would be allocated.”
Asked why there has not been a FRE since HMS Portland, the Navy spokesman said: “We do not need one currently. We’ve got ships off Libya and they are returning now. That’s the situation. We’ve had to look after our priorities and be flexible. We are doing the best with what we have got.”
Now, it’s fairly unlikely that Britain is going to be attacked from the sea. Still, this is perhaps symbolic of what many hope will be a temporary, “do more with less” era for militaries wracked by serious budget cuts.
{ 68 comments… read them below or add one }
The British still do have far off islands to protect. Its quite sad when you think of what a power the Royal Navy used to be. I almost wonder if the PLAN would be a match for them on paper at this point. While nations such as South Korea, China, and India are developing a robust blue water navy, the old vanguard of the oceans is in a rapid decline.
What Ed! said.
Stands to reason though, most of Europe is in shambles right now and ships are very expensive – British industry went away, and then so does its wealth and power.
"We shall fight them on the beaches…"
Because we have no Navy left.
too true!!!! it's rather shambolic that a island nation, has such a small navy, 30 years ago, we had 25 nuclear attack subs, 38 frigates, 12 destroyers & tons of other high end hardware!! now we have 7 attack submarines, 13 frigates, 7 destroyers. what a shame, this is!!!!
admittedly, everything is top of the line, second too none hardware, but I'd say, quantity has a quality of it's own!.
Wanna buy your Upholder's back from Canada? For cheap.
Not really. They caught fire on the way over.
You forget 3 carriers 30 years ago vs 1 today, and without air wing :-)
Not much of a RAF either. Another sign Great Britain is not "Great" any more. Next they will make 007 trade in his Aston Martin for a Prius.
What exactly is a warship going to do if it is sent to a "terrorism incident?" I don't know of many terrorism incidents that actually drag out long enough to still be actively going on by the time a ship arrived.
It could provide logistic support or medical facilities in the aftermath, but it seems to be a "nice to have" at best. Sounds like more of the "we need X to combat terrorism (wink..wink)" or "if we don't have Y, the terrorists win"
Terrorism on the high seas could also be something that seems to be a piracy incident. The ships are also useful to get an SAS or SBS team into the area if it turns into a hostage situation. They can also be used in areas where terrorists have safe haven, like Somalia, and beused to take out their training or base camps or even hit high value targets. When 2/3rds of the world is covered by water, you can bet that a ship can be quite useful in many situations.
There are certainly scenarios where the ship could be useful, but they are too rare to warrant the cost of keeping a warship ready.
A true/traditional terrorist action is going to be done by the time a ship arrives. Piracy and hijacking is basically unheard of in any area near the UK. A general protection of shipping by a surface fleet would require more ships than the UK currently has. To get some sort of special forces unit into the area would not require anything near the size of a frigate/destroyer or other surface ship.
It would be stupid to keep a ship ready to react to any of those scenarios. They're insanely unlikely to happen or the ship would be near useless for it relative to the cost of keeping the ship ready. When budgets are tight, it's not a financially viable option.
perhaps they could rent one from the chinese.
Does this mean the Brits will surrender the Fauklands?
I think they would be more worried about Gibraltar, Diego Garcia, and Bermuda. I know the Argentinians want the Falklands still but they won't think of doing it again militarily. The Brits were downsizing their fleet when that happened too.
no, but the white flag might fly longer next time round, with a heck of allot more casualties, retaking the Falkland islands.
ofc there is a much larger garrison and base on the falklands these days, including eurofighters and a dedicated patrol ship (enhanced river class) in the area, plus i think a t23 frigate is currently in the south atlantic for 6ish months. also, diego garcia is a de-facto US base isn't it?
it's more a sign of how small the RN is – the ships are good, but as others have said you can only be in one place at a time. we def. need to rebuild the numbers – but the fleet never seems to get bigger. it's a shambles.
"it’s fairly unlikely that Britain is going to be attacked from the sea."
An understatement.
Also, if Britain were attacked by sea, with surface ships, it could defend itself perfectly well with military aircraft. Apart from aggression from a Russian submarine, there is nothing it can't handle perfect well to defend itself at home without a blue sea navy at all.
In the 21st century, the utility of a surface warship is that it provides a mobile base of operations to mount expeditionary offensives, not that it contributes materially to the defense of the homeland for which a coast guard style force aimed at smuggling, search and rescue, and low stakes piracy is more appropriate.
What about shipping to and from Britain? Once a ship is out of effective aircraft range it becomes vulnerable and being an island nation Britain relies heavily on shipping in food and other materials in order to feed, clothe, and supply itself.
Twice in the last century, U boats made Britain starve.
Just let the merchant ships arm themselves; that should take care of any immediate threats…..
True. But then you're moving naval weaponry out of govt. hands. Defence ministries are, as a whole, not fanst of this concept.
They at least should have kept there Sea Harriers in service now they have carriers with no planes for them. Sad state of the Royal navy, sad.
technically we have no aircraft carriers – the last remaining invincible class has been refitted as a helicopter carrier and until the qe carrier(s) come online in the mid / late decade we are buggered. even after then, we don't know if we will have 1 or 2 in service, or exactly what aircraft will fly from them – f35c is the plan at the mo, but who knows … !
Heresy time: why can’t the Brits substitute air power, radars, satellites etc for a ship, at least for monitoring, with small ships for interdiction as needed? The UK has a LOT of coastline, lots of islands, and some nasty weather, so I can’t see much utility in a few frigates being actually at sea over the alternatives.
I wonder what ships are 'missing' from the fleet, like how the USN has enough CGs and DDGs, but no modern frigates/corvettes (save the LCS), and precious few minesweepers and patrol craft. Is this a case of the expensive and sexy (CVs and subs) getting funded, while the cheap workhorses get neglected? What capabilities are being neglected? ASW? Does the RN have something like the AEGIS ships of the US, Japan, and S Korea to handle theater ballistic defense?
basically our escort (frigate and destroyer) fleet cut to the bone, so that whenever a crisis occurs, like libya, that's all the ships available gone, which impacts security commitments (uk and overseas territories) as well as training. we should really have at least 30 escorts in total. we have a superb mine-hunting fleet, doing sterling work in the Mediterranean and Gulf seas. Our assault (marines etc.) fleet is pretty modern and probably adequate for now. our patrol fleet should be much bigger, as we have frigates doing patrol ship jobs most of the time.
no aircraft carriers. 2 helicopter carriers around 20k tonnes (one was a harrier carrier re-roled). most of the money is being spent on the over-budget type 45 aaw destroyers, astute nuclear subs and the 2 new 55k-ish aircraft carriers, all hideously over-budget. unfortunately unlike the US, we don't have the money to absorb these costs over-runs in the same way – we cut numbers ordered instead.
The Type-45 seems like a half-sized DDG-1000, with about half the problems. I feel like the US was supposed to design a cheap multipurpose frigate/corvette to replace the Perry's as the Burkes finished production, and then sell them in bulk to our allies (Like the Sa'ar 5, but with SM-1's and a mini AEGIS system). Instead we got the deeply flawed DDG-1000 and the LCS. The big irony now is that with UAVs finally becoming small and useful (i.e., not DASH), we don't really need to design ships around helos, we can build them small, cheap, and numerous.
Indeed. I wonder if our future is a FFG-less future, and instead we need smaller corvettes and a Burke-sized vessel. However, LCS is still stuck, and we don't even have those "mission modules" ready to go yet. I'm hoping that gets rectified soon, because without them LCS' capabilities are lacking.
You're probably referring to the NFR-90 program, it was a joint project which in fact felt apart because the various partners had different needs.
Thanks, that sounds like he missing program (I wasn't aware it was actually attempted). I wonder now why certain missions/capabilities have been neglected in surface combatants. In particular, there's so much potential for ballistic missile defense from Mk41 VLS-equipped ships, that you'd think they try to put those things on everything that floats. Then the general escort mission seems to be gone, imagine trying to do 80's style Persian Gulf missions nowadays, much less what would happen if Somali or Indonesian pirates were paid for every ship they sank, and not just the crews they ransomed. What if Iran decided they were going to deploy their Kilos to the Arabian Sea, and start sinking supertankers in retaliation for Israel airstrikes?
American taxpayers have been shouldering the main load of British Defense for two generations, as well as the basic defense costs of the rest of Europe and the free world.
Certainly a VERY smart move by the British government– why spend good money on fancy navy ships and all else military… when America will defend you at its own cost, forever, with the latest military technology (?)
i would suggest that's hardly fair – in terms of europe / nato, the british, french and dutch are probably the few nations doing anything like a fair share. look at the afghanistan contributions for a start (and iraq, if you must). a lot of people here in the uk think we shouldn't be engaging in these overseas military adventures when our military is in such a state, yet we keep doing it (libya being a prime example, and god forbid iran …). we need probably 10 years to fully recover and get back on track, military wise.
Make no mistake. The UK public know and appreciate their US allies. However, to portray the relationship in the way you have done is both wrong and disrespectful.
The British have one of the few Countries to stand with us in Both Iraq and Afghanistan. They also contributed a large portion of their force to the fighting in Libya, along with their commitments in other areas around the world. Make no mistake about our British Allies, they do more for us than many other allies have and they have for a great long time. You name an Operation or Conflict since World War 2 that we have been in and you can almost bet the British were there by our sides to help.
With tightening budgets, the Navies of the world will need to take a page from Star Trek where computers and robotics will control the operation of a large vessel which would require only a handful of human personnel; imagine a super-carrier with a crew of only 500-750.
my last post for now :-) … the design spec. for the under-construction QE aircraft carrier aims for around 1200 crew, including the 600 air-crew (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/cvf/ ) due to higher levels of automation etc. as you state. this ship will be 2/3 the size of a nimitz and is non-nuclear.
Ships in Star Trek did not employ "only a handful of human personnel". The Galaxy-class starship weighed in at 4.5 mtons, ~600m long and ~1000 crew, in contrast to the Nim at 0.1mtons, ~350m and a 3200 ship's company.
Then again, one had no basis in reality and was probably numbers pulled out of someone's head in a arbitrary and capricious fashion, and the other presumably optimized after carrier experience in World War two and experience with successively increasing-in-size carrier designs.
I think you meant to say that the ships in Star Trek will not employ… tho' it would be nice to have a couple available before the 23rd century.
Automation is great but on a warship it only can carry you so far. You need a certain minimum number of personnel on the ship so that you have enough people to run the ship 24/7, to make up for any casualties in case of an accident of combat, and last but not least you need extra bodies for damage contro
What about damage control…If all those computers are knocked out because missile/torpedo attack, then what? Small crew like that cannot do all things.
Freighters of the same tonnage run with crews of a few dozen. The personnel needs are mostly driven by the aircraft crews (about twenty per plane) and military weapon and sensor operation.
Corbin
Unless you've been avoiding the news you'll know the American taxpayer does not pay enough to cover US defence costs. Currently the Chinese are doing it. Remember that next time you are chortling at the Chinese second hand carrier – they will be paying for all your carriers as well for the foreseeable future.
Maybe if your top 1% of "job creators" could start paying tax and stop building factories in China you could afford your own ridiculous defence budget?
The UK defence budget was recently comparable to China's, which is itself ridiculous. We've all chased the US defence lobbies ridiculous spending right down the road to economic capitulation to China. Personally it's heartbreaking to see what's happening to the RN but I'm slightly reassured that someone has worked out that the threat might be coming from another direction and is trying to adjust, probably too late.
China doesn't pay for our carriers. China only holds about 8% of us federal debt. Total US federal debt is about 100% of GDP right now and defense is about 4% of GDP. — a historically low number (post cold war). That means that all of China's us debt holding would only finance the US military for two years. That's it.
Most US debt is owned by private and corporate bond holders from the USA. We've borrowed our country from ourselves.
http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2… http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_… http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2…
When you say that the Chinese are paying for our next carriers, I recall a line by Nikita Khruschev who said about Capitalism "The capitalists will hang themselves with the rope they buy from us." By that token, the Chinese would be buying the very instrument that would be crucial in a war and buying for their enemy. However, since that is not even close to true, we still have 11 Carriers and they have a second-hand, rebuilt Carrier. They bought Carriers like they were planning to flip them like a house.
If push came to shove, the United States would just simply refuse to play the PRC. It would be hell on the world financial markets for sure, but it is a weapon in the arsenal of the United States.
That said, our problems are also domestic in nature. China gets ahead by ignoring the western rural areas.
I find it hilarious to think that the Napoleonic Wars era Royal Navy could be in so many places at once compared to this much smaller Royal Navy. Granted a cruise missile evens the odds better than a line of battle today, but still…
Then again, what kills a military is the economy. It happened to the Romans, happening to the British and will happen to the US soon, if it hasn't already.
A strong military often correlates with a healthy economy, but is a causative agent? Probably not.
It should be more surprising that the British Royal Navy during Napoleon's era was smaller than the French Navy and the French had the better ships. Lord Nelson knew this at the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar. Both were stunning defeats of the French. Trafalgar was such a debacle for the French Navy that to this day their officers are not addressed as Sir in their service. This was a decree put out by Napoleon himself after hearing of the defeat.
Here is a positive thought : apparently the price the Chinese will ask to pay for rescuing the Eurozone will be a lifting of the euro arms embargo and access to euro defense technology..
In which case..
It's a good job the French and Germans have been under resourcing that sector for years!
"apparently the price the Chinese will ask to pay for rescuing the Eurozone will be a lifting of the euro arms embargo and access to euro defense technology"
And where did that come from?
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Well this is sign of things to come, fear the Chicoms.
Golly, budget cuts reduce readiness? 2022 = Argentina ascendent, UK descendent. While the world and the UK's allies might have supported them during the Falkland Wars in 1982, but any future war will be called the Malvinas War of 2022 because the UK will not be able to do anything besides send a sub or two.
There are two kinds of ships. Submarines and… ?
The only ship sunk by a Nuclear submarine was the Brooklyn Class Cruiser General Belgrano and it was sunk by the HMS Conquerer in 1982. The action frightened the Argentinean Navy so much that they sent their Carrier force back to port for fear it would be sunk in the same way. One submarine can change everything.
That's if you don't have a good ASW capability, or don't trust it.
The Belgrano had 2 Destroyers as escorts and they both failed to notice the sub and also failed to notice until too late that the Belgrano was hit and sinking.
I'd take a nuclear sub armed with land attack missiles and anti-ship capability over a carrier battle group any day. So long as the UK has this capability, Argentina can't invade.
"Fear the Chicoms"? I would be more afraid of your own government, parliament and general lack of competitiveness of the US economy.
"general lack of competitiveness" aka because our workers cost too much in cost-benefit analysis? Or because we have a huge share of foreign-born STEM workers coming here and creating value for American companies because we have too much going on that we can't use our own (that and foreign engineers are also cheaper and work harder).
The "Parliament" on capital hill definitely sucks, bitterly divided between two parties with as much bickering and backstabbing as you would find in a multi-party system where ruling parties are made up of coalitions.
And as for the executive, the exec's hands are tied because he can say what he wants to say, but when Congress doesn't hand you anything to sign, it's apparently your fault. There's a reason Bush cracked out signing statements and issued executive orders.
Let's face it, the UK and its former dominions Australia, New Zealand and Canada have been American client states for the last 70 years. Their armies are mere auxiliaries. It's high time this anachronism is abolished and they are admitted to the Union. I propose to call this superstate Anglia (seeing how America, Australia, Alaska all begin and end with an 'a'). Nay, seeing how they all depend on the sea, and derive (or used to) their power from it, I think we should call it Oceania. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? To get the empty suit's approval, we'll tell him that he is the O in USO.
Corbin stated that "American taxpayers have been shouldering the main load of British Defense for two generations, as well as the basic defense costs of the rest of Europe and the free world."
I was going to say 'Smart move: the UK can finally get some payback from all the American military bases over there, and the USA continually strong-arming their foreign policy. Most Brits have long wanted out of Afghanistan and Iraq but their government is leaned-on buy Washington'.
But – at the same time, I can't resist explaining how Corbin's statement is pretty inaccurate.
Why? The USA abitrarily decided that its defense spending required 10 times the military budget of Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria combined. And it did so because it perceived that this was in the interests of the USA. The USA has every right to do so – but *not* to think that nations without such exceptional spending are somehow irresponsible.
Why *would* Europe sign up to that kind of spending? Without the USA, Europe still has something like three to five times the tanks, fighters, bombers, warships and submarines of all of the nations around it, including Russia, Turkey and all nations around the meditrranean. It has two nuclear armed nations with Security Council membership. It doesn't need to spend more right now. It's a military superpower with aggregate capabilities far beyond China or Russia. It's just that compared to Europe, the USA spends *a fortune* on defence.
And here's another thing: when the USA complains about NATO and the 'Free world' not pulling its weight, I tend to notice that Afghanistan, Iraq and China appear in the same sentence. (Not in Corbin's case, but that's an exception!) Or in other words: 'Hey Euro pussies!/Foreigner Pussies! Get with the programme and help us with our wars! C'mon, bitchez! Our oil companies expect you to help!'
Yeah. I can see that going down well in Europe. They must be dying to spend more money on such successful ventures.
Good points. A couple thoughts:
1) Somebody has to secure world commerce, the world’s energy supplies, and international order. Europeans aren’t much help at this point.
2) Turkey is in NATO, so you can count their armed forces too!
As an Englishman it is sad that we have to cut
the forces but unlike Europe and the US we have actually made attempts to cut spending !
Also if you consider defence if the UK alone we are probably the best protected nation in the world in terms of sq miles of ocean and land and number of ships , subs and fighters available . I mean Russia can’t defend it’s borders at all !
With that few ships they could probably do with a third or fourth sea lord and save some pounds.
Its a safe bet they WILL NOT help us go against the Chicoms when the time comes.
I think for the first time in history the Irish Navy could take on the Brits navy and win. Ha Ha!
In the economic climate of the last few years it’s unfeasable for a nation to be able to spend large amounts of money on everything. This is why each nation has its advantages that it brings to the table. As a serving member of the RN I can say that we rely the air power and anti surface capabilities that the the US provides and they rely on the ASW and mine warfare capability that the RN provides. Yes it is true that our navy has dramatically shrunk over the past few years and we have had to say goodbye to very capable platforms, but if you look at the capability increase we have seen in platforms and the interoperability between nations has it really had as much effect on force capability as it could have?