Navy Carriers: We want two or no votes for you, Tories Tomorrow, the new National Security Council meets to decide just what the future armed forces of the United Kingdom will have in terms of people and machines - how many regiments, tanks, guns, jets, choppers, ships and submarines, and of what type. As at most meetings where major issues will be decided in a short space of time …
Let's face it, Britain is no longer a world naval power. Even India is on its way of overtaking it.
So what do "aspiring powers" with no navy do for a navy? They do not build frigates. They do not build carriers. They build (or buy) gunboats. Rocket ones.
These can do "drug patrol" and can do some very heavy duty "power projection" against other 5th world nations and even some "powers". They are also a very good export item in their own right so more than enough work for "local production capacity". The only problem is that Russia is pretty much having a monopoly on both boats and armament here and overtaking it will require some serious investment. I definitely do not see the UK arms industry in its currenf form being able to compete against them.
Whilst I absolutely love his articles and read them from first to last word, and thoroughly respect his knowledge and opinion, I do feel the bootnote at the end of Lewis' document should be modified like this:
Lewis Page is a former Royal Navy officer, who left after 11 years' service in order to avoid wasting his time and the taxpayers' money aboard frigates and destroyers - and to avoid becoming bitter about fuckwits in government
Er, no. Did you have a particular conflict in mind? Since WW2, Britain hasn't been in a conflict where sinking cargo vessels (bound for the UK) was part of the enemy strategy. And if WW3 comes along, it probably won't last long enough for any cargo vessels to care.
Perhaps if you'd read Lewis' article(s) you'd have noted that he tends to base his opinions on realistic 21st century conflict scenarios, rather than replays of the black and white films he grew up with.
The more modern non nuclear subs are pretty capable and they might be equipped with some nasty surprises in their torpedo tubes.
And it is debatable it a merchant can outrun them, at least not their weapons.
Yes, I know, with enough carriers Lewis has his dippers and towed sonars anywhere and can smell a sub through 10 layers of more or less salty water of different temperatures, but some lonesome crew might outwit him and leave his birds with no place to land on.
The reason why we have 23 escorts currently ,
!) BAE and the need to keep scottish shipbuilders in booze , means that we have paid over the odds for the ships we have otherwise the force would be a lot bigger.
2) AND THE MOST IMPORTANT! No one reduces there fleet to 12 COMBAT SHIPS unless they are a comeplete and utter retard.
All it takes is a lucky strike and your achive ethe equiverlent of hitting 3 ships! More ships mean that you can absorb losses, as we found out in the Falklands.
Carriers are not invurable. I can't understand why we dont just build 3 40,000 convetional carriers in say the mid way class of size, that can take 4 squadrons of fighters. Why exactly are we trying to build the absolute best, we just need a ship good enough to transport those planes to the correct area.
Jesus the old Ark Royal of the 70's could have been rebuilt with updated equipment and would probably cheaper and better.
This is what happens when you allow accountants and lawyers and people who have never sereved to be involved in the desicion making
is that there almost certainly would have been considerably fewer losses to absorb in the Falklands in the first place, had there been a carrier with airborne early warning radar and conventional fighters available to engage the Argentinian Skyhawks and Entendards beyond the radar picket lines.
When it comes to carriers the length of the ship dictates the available space for takeoff and landing. If we were to go with the older design we'd end up with ski-jumps and Harrier-alikes again.
What we should have done is built two new nuclear carriers fitted with normal arrestor hook aircraft and then have steam catapults to get them off the ground. Not to mention that the carriers could then function as floating fuel tanks for their escorts.
Next battle will be in the Arctic or Antarctic. That is what the planners plan for. No steam there. Does not work I am afraid.
Otherwise you are right. For the amount of money wasted on the non-conventional fighter wing the navy can buy two nuclear aircraft carriers as well as a couple of armed nuclear icebreakers for good measure.
If the point of the Navy is to keep shipyards busy and their workers voting for you.
Where exactly was a tory government planning to build them /
The Clyde - probably not worth wasting billions trying to buy votes in Scotland !
Ditto Tyneside. You might get a few Ulster unionist votes by building them in Belfast - but they are going to vote for your anyway.
Unless you are planning to fit out Portsmouth to build massive carriers to keep the LibDems happy or you are planning a new shipbuilding industry somewhere in the M25 - you might as well keep the money for tax cuts (or BAe) and forget the carriers.
Several large parts of the carriers are supposed to be built in Portsmouth, then floated up north somewhere to be welded together(quite possibly upside down knowing them northern folks), then once the carriers are finished then they will be sailed back down here and promptly mothballed for 5 years before being flogged off to India/China/Chile/Al-Queda(depending who will pay the most).
The real killer in all defence projects is the MoD and the f**kwits in charge of it (you could say that of virtually any government dept nowadays) who say "We want 2 carriers" and offer a sackful of cash to BAE, then the f**kwits leave/retire/get shifted to another ministry and the new f**kwits say "lets change the spec so we have catapults" and BAE delays the project to design/fit them while charging the MoD another sackful of cash, then the new set of f**kwits leave/retire/get minced and another set of f**kwits take over and change the spec again, and delaying the project while costing even more cash..... then an election happens.... and... well you guessed it.... even more f**kwits appear... this time with consultants to tell them why the project is 4 years late and cost 5 times what the original price was.
Lot of optimistic whatif's here...Journalistic licence I suppose. However, I seriously doubt those with the purse strings will be convinced.
On a personal front - lets see which affects me more...2.5% on VAT, loss of child benefit, or an aircraft carrier. Do I need an aircraft carrier more than I need money in *my* pocket? Nah...
If the tories vote to dump them, and also dump some future tax increases because of it, I'm sorry I have to disagree with the author - they'll get my vote. Thought I won't suprised if they do both anyway.
Normally I find Lewis's articles interesting and informative, and a certain degree of opinion does lend some colour to the discussion. But he's perhaps turning into a parody of Lewis Page - leaving even-handed discussion at the door in favour of banging the same drum about carriers and suchlike.
The problem (from a layman's pov) is that carriers have much more baggage - you can't just buy the carrier and missiles and be done, as it also leads to very tricky questions about catapults, which variant of the F35 to buy, and so on. 2 carriers with no planes would be a bit of a white elephant, really.
In addition, it's perhaps leaving a few leaps of reasoning to overlook the fact that carriers may not be that useful in future conflicts. Are they much help in 'counter-insurgency'/ killing the locals in Iraq, for example? Can 2 carriers really provide sufficient strength for both an Afghanistan and a low-level pirate-watching or Yemen-tracking activity in the Gulf of Aden?
There's an interesting analogy (perhaps) with alternative models of air travel - fewer big planes (a la Airbus) or more smaller planes going to many smaller destinations. While one couldn't picture 1 frigate being sent to each of 12 different conflicts, the idea of having essentially 2 main nodes of the RN - ie carriers plus sundry hangers-on - is perhaps not the best in the modern world in which Britain really is a second-division military power.
In the case of Pirates and the like, it's been pointed out time and again that a boat with marines and helicopters is the very best solution. Pirates normaly get a whiff of a warship and leg it back to safe waters where as by the time they've noticed the high speed intercept vessels it's rather too late. Sure probably not much use against an enemy with sophisticated weapon systems and a large navy, but then you'd use your carrier groups in that situation, but great against unsophisticated enemies and controlling large areas with minimum £ per square mile protected.
The boats would cost a fraction of the cost of most modern ships and for the saving made in scrapping conventional warships you could easily deploy a larger number of these cheap troop deployment vessels. Of course I say cheap, I mean cheap until the UK arms industry start planning the thing with their titanium encased man pods, and platinum encrusted sea dongles, not enough room for normal helicopters (meaning you need to design new useless helecopters) and all the beds are a foot too short, probably with some kind of bespoke rocket powered boarding ships that need special deployment rigs that mean there isn't enough room for troops and fuel.
... is a comparative analysis of the usefulness of our our spanking new Type 45 destroyers and the USN's spanking new Littoral Combat Ships such as LCS-2, USS Independence.
From what Lewis says, an LCS or two is exactly what's needed to deal with pirates and, even after a 300%+ cost inflation they are cheaper than a Type 45 - and equally well armed. On top of that the design allows for modular equipment bays so an LCS can fulfill several roles without having to drag round all the stuff for all the roles all the time. Better yet, if they were fitted with non-functional French missiles, they could just dump that module on the quayside and drop in a replacement fitted with off-the-shelf Russian or US missiles. If nothing else, this mix and match ability should give a much-needed shakeup to Bae, EADS etc. Since the kit would no longer be built into the ship the suppliers would no longer have the Navy by the goolies and able to extort more money when some piece of kit failed to perform. Instead the boot would be on the other foot for a change.
So, I'd really like somebody who knows naval stuff to make a comparison of what a Type 45 can do that an LCS couldn't and vice versa.
Besides, if our shipyards can make Type 45s and carriers, surely they could make LCS knock-offs too - just more of them for the same price.
One of the reasons we can worry about piddly little pirate skiffs (or more accurately, worry about our energy supply) rather than bigger ships is because we've got our own big, big ships.
"Britain really is a second-division military power." There are (in my opinion) three nations in the world capable of serious sustained power-projection anywhere in the world. The USA, France, and the UK. If we're second division, it's a division of two with a first-division of one, and the rest of the world making up third division and beyond.
"but france/uk or europe don't could not do it in bosnia which is close"
That power we've projected in Afghanistan for the last several years doesn't count as power projection, then? Likewise Iraq. We are able to send and resupply a standing force with suitable air-cover, proper grown-up ship and submarines as necessary and all the other bits anywhere in the world for essentially an indefinite period. Obviously if the local are rougher and tougher that capability will be broken down, but you can list on the fingers of one hand the nations able to do so. Russia isn't one of them. Neither is China.
Isn't a real problem that we don't have enough forces to do anything far away from home? It's not much good having our carrier troll around the globe and sit there 'dominating' when we've got nothing to send ashore to do the actual fighting.
IIRC our amphibious landing ships are antiques and there's been discussion of cutting back on the Marines to pay for more high tech toys. Wouldn't a fleet of HMS Ocean-alikes be a better use of money and give us some real clout?
As for the shipyards, they're in their current mess because they're only kept alive by government contracts rather than competing in a genuine market. Our commercial shipbuilding industry has vanished because it was too short-sighted to see the market for bulk carriers, roll-on roll-off ferries and liners. The Finnish, Korean and Italian yards don't need constant propping up with government money, they produce a product customers actually want and their ships actually work. I don't see why the taxpayer should keep BAE slipways occupied any more than it should have kept Rover building crappy cars.
If we're happy to buy our telephone networks from the Chinese and our power plants from the French I don't see why we can't go shopping abroad for warships. Let other countries take the risk of developing new deathtech, we're no bloody good at it.
Remember the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse".
Suppose you need to deal with some two-bit dictator. Unfortunately, he does have a handful of relatively modern fighter-bombers and short range missiles (100-200km range). The threat of land-based attack means that whatever fleet you send has to stand so far off the coast that they are essentially useless. You can get close enough only if protected by air cover, and if you somehow manage to neutralize the opposing air / missile attacks (Asters?).
Same reason we need a radar station in North Yorkshire to protect us from the North Koreans.
Of course if you believe the BBC we might need a radar base in North Korea to protect us from N. Yorks (http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/4404520.Radio_listeners_shocked_to_learn_of_North_Yorkshire_s_nuclear_testing/)
With only 10 escorts and looking at historic availability of surface units that would mean we would have perhaps 4 ships available at one time for deployment, so with this model the RN would be confined to deploying only 1 task group with 4 escorts and 1 carrier (though we are being some what optimistic in thinking that only 2 carriers will provide us with one ship always available), perhaps an SSN and associated support vessels at any one time.
This would be far too small a force to deploy into any contested area, 2 Destroyers and 2 Frigates would simply be unable to screen the carrier. Whilst the SSN would give pause for thought it might not be enough of a deterrent, especially if the opfor had SSNs also. If the organic air from the carrier was tasked to principally defending the component then there would be few aircraft for which to conduct strikes against land, which is the prime purpose of the carriers? The carriers are only designed to generate a limited number of sorties per day.
The aircraft for the carrier is also vastly expensive, the JSF is going to end up costing £100 million a piece all in and we will end up with 75 if we are lucky. 75 JSF will mean perhaps only 30 available at any one time - and will the RAF task all of them to the RN? The JSF also has a very short range, something like 1000km radius on internal fuel (to maintain stealth like features) and we will have no refueling at sea. They also have a very limited load, in stealth they will carry 2 AMRAAMS and 2 JDAMS, i.e. only 2 offensive weapons.
Besides that there would then be no other vessels for any other taskings, including defence of the home waters as all the escorts would be tied up with carrier.
I agree that the Type 45 is vastly expensive, we would have been much better building Arleigh Burke copies. The Type 26 is also likely to be more expensive than needs be.
Complete one of the carriers as a commando carrier to replace Ocean and build 20 new escorts (5,000 tonnes, 1 57mm gun, MK41 VLS for Tomohawk and CAAM and a single helicopter) to replace the Type 23 and Type 22 and return some flexibility to the RN. Or are we going to relegate the defence of the UK to OPVs?
Here's some basic mathematics. If you wish to have an escort always available, you need three vessels (one on station, one being refitted/repaired and one in transit to and from a patrrol area). If you wish to guarantee one vessel's permanent availability - you actually need four.
While I agree the front line escorts can be reduced, the anti-drug, anti-piracy patrols are essential and let me put it this way, have you ever been to the Carribean? While it may sound exotic, it's actually pretty grim.
I also noted that he missed the best submarine-killers of all - another submarine.
I firmly beleive the UK needs two carriers, 6 type 45 anti-air destroyers (the aster 15/30 missile system has been successfully tested this week), 8-10 anti-submarine frigates, 8 hunter-killer submarines but around 24 corvettes so the Royal Navy can have global reach (built at a much lower cost to augment the other surface escorts). It is a role the old Leander class provided, although the corvettes would be 'general pupose'.
This would add up to a carrier strike force of one carrier, at least one to two type-45 destroyers, two frigates, one submarine and six corvettes. The balance of the fleet would be engaged for other deployments.
That is what is called a balanced fleet and is something the Royal Navy needs.
I think the new carriers should be made and with catapults. Navalise the RAF's Eurofighters* (I remember some talk about EF2000 having a navalised version). By the time the carriers have arrived most, if no all, could have been converted; heck they are already converting them to be more modern and useful. So no loss of short term capacity.
Restock the RAF with F35Cs and some F35Bs. No F35As because for the little extra performance it would require us to have a "local" friendly airfield and; being able to launch from a carrier would be no bad thing for the RAF.
Keep the old carriers and fit them with MH-6 Little Bird helicopters and some quick launch speedboats like RNLI Mersey or FCB2: militarised of course. Reclassify them as "Pirate-Sweepers" and send them to patrol the namesake hotspots, alone.
In their spare time they can do all the flag flying and "send-a-gunboat" duties. If gun is the operable word; strap some artillery pieces to the deck.
Cut the escorts (frigates and destroyers) to a sensible number; for the sole use for escorting the new carriers. Their resale value would be very helpful to the treasury.
No Idea about the ships, subs and boats. They are probably well balanced and organised.
I presume the F35s and carriers have been already financed. So we COULD buy them; the question is SHOULD we buy them.
*I can't see stealth technology being of much use when launched from a 65ktons Radar blip. Also the interceptor aspect of Eurofighter would be a great pro.
I have to side with Mr Page, an aircraft carrier is much more than just another boat, even with his cut down escort units around it and if they build them with a catapult, steam or mag, better still. The Harrier did a sterling job, the STOVL F35 might be better, but for something with decent range and warload plus be able to launch a proper AEW bird and heavy COD, you need catapults. Plus its a good bet the Labour govt signed such a watertight contract, it would cost more to cancel than it would to build, even if we flog them to the Indians.
Those who suggested closing the German bases have to be right. There's little point in housing thousands of troops, expensive to maintain tanks and other AFVs in Central Europe, whilst paying out LOA (or has that already been axed?) just to have them primed to flood the Fulda Gap in one last heroic charge (before they got fried with a couple of TAC nukes). when the enemy they were set to fight headed East 20 years ago. They've already lost permanently based RAF air support and the Harrier squadrons stopped playing in the woods years ago.
Nimrod MR4 hasn't been mentioned? Come on, why are we still trying to extend the life of a hand built 1950s civvie jet? Apart from to prop up BAe. Is it too late to save anything by stopping this particular gravy train?
Axe the Tornado squadrons? I hope BA and the rest need some pilots, because this has been on the cards for a while. Buy ground launched Tomahawks for the long range work and some decent drones for the shorter range precision stuff, no huge bases to man or protect, stop recruitment of techies for a while (another money saver) and re-assign the GR4 ground crews to whatever jobs they've not already outsourced to the civvies. They won't get much for real estate that houses the tonka toys though, Lossie is miles from, err, anything and Marham isn't much better, just not as cold and wet.
As for the last time the RAF shot down any sort of plane air to air, I suspect that would be May 1982 when a 92 Sqn Phantom splashed a 14 Sqn Jaguar. Jag pilot got his MB tie and ended up with a second one some months later when he banged out over Scotland.
If we must have killy things, we might as well share a smaller (and cheaper) number with the Frogs, which would also constrain both nations from taking part in megalomaniacal military operations somewhat.
While they're at it, they can scrap Trident and its replacement and make swingeing cuts to the NHS (has there ever been a more wasteful unfit-for-purpose public service?) and the ridiculous IT contracts signed by the previous government.
Don't be a Luddite, Lewis. Times are changing.
Lewis has previously commented on the value of nuclear propulsion. He now says EMALS looks promising, so I guess steam's not essential for the launcher. What about the carrier's range? Top speed? And power for other weapon systems? If we still have to fuel the planes, crew and weapons, how big is the additional burden of fuelling conventional propulsion? How much would nuclear propulsion cost now? How much if in the original design?
What would be the penalties of nuclear propulsion? Is there anywhere militarily important we could not go? Any important commercial/"show the flag" visits we'd be denied? Any additional risks that would keep them out of combat? Was it really dropped "just" to save money?
It would be nice to see some rough analysis of the pros and cons of the nuclear option.
And finally, are we really planning to bring methane here in nuclear ships (27 Sept) so we can burn it for electricity? I guess it saves having to get a land-based nuclear power station through the planning process.
Conventional propulsion means being able to deliver many many tons of fuel to the ship. If we have nuclear propulsion for the ship then we only need to deliver fuel, ammunition and food - these are small enough to be dropped on landed on deck by aircraft. This is a LOT less risky than sending a small, potentially undefended 'supply ship' around the world.
Does nuclear propulsion stop you going anywhere - what with 20 or 30 top range aircraft, missile systems, escort ships etc.? No of course it doesn't. If we are at war we will go there, if we are at peace and they don't want us then we don't bother, its no big deal.
ALL RN ships should be nuclear powered by now, if we are stupid enough to produce anything else we all deserve what we ultimately get - defeat.
The thing is that "escorts" fulfill the majority of the roles that tehroyal navy needs to provide: they project force (third world countries have little or no naval capacity), they protect UK shipping (Somali pirates have literally fuck all that could match the smallest RN escort vessel even if they all banded together and took lessons in naval tactics from the RN itself), they do good coastal shenanigans (radrand the RAF make coastal navy support rather outmoded) and they are pretty good at hunting down smugglers of all colours - most of which do not have access to modern ship-of-the-line class vesselage.
So on to aircraft carriers. These things are really good force projectors. Like really, really fucking good force projectors. But the problem is we don't live in the United Kingdom of 1890 so we have no real business in trying to project force in such a way.
OK, the USSR did, but that was all about a philosophy that was crushed on the anvil of modern not-being-a-bunch-of-twatiness and is now nothing more than a plaything for Vladimir Putin (as are we all, really) - and equally the USA does, but the USA is obsessed with becoming the next Victorian Empire - and the rest of us have movedon by a century or so - any conflict (extremely unlikely as it is) between the US and Uk would go thusly:
US: We play the US Marinses. GO MARINES!!
UK: We play the SAS. Fuck you.
US: OK, we play superior numbers.
UK: We play superior training, morale and not being rednecks. Fuck you.
US: we play overwhelming industrial might. ha, whose the little bitch now?
UK: eat trident. Ooops, a bit "glowy" are we now?
so it is all fucking pointless - aircraft carriers are a symbol of something we no longer should be and they are far less useful than the escort clas vessels that Lewis is so patronising about.
Look, we are no longer a world power and we should not be trying to regain the old glory days. The world has moved on and we should move with it - The UK has not won a war independently since about 1750* and the US has never won a war independently**, which speaks volumes about our position in the world order - we need to be a mover and shaker I agree but we need to be acting as part of coalitions rather than independantly - cos independant action these days is a recipe for failure.
* The Falklands was hardly a war - impressive as the acheivements of the taskforce were teh opposition were simply not credible.
**Ok the US won in Grenade but that is about it and Grenada is not much of an opposition in real terms. Remember also that Viet Nam was a coalition affair and still the US had their arses*** handed to themselves on a silver platter with a purple velvet cushion.
***asses
the danes faced the problem of not having the cash for all the missions their navy needed to be capable of.
they invented stanflex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StanFlex
won't help with the carriers. but would help with the current destroyers which don't have functional weapons yet. the british are an inventive creative people and could make this a very profitable exportable system.
These days we have such a pathetically small and badly supplied military that we wouldn't last long enough to beg anything from anyone.
Neither Labour nor Tory actually learnt anything from WW1, WW2, Falklands or the Gulf. We still haven't learnt from the latest bloody nose in Afghanistan.
STOP FAIL :(
You just don't have enough tags for this post! What has any of this to do with IT? Yes, modern ships contain complex integrated IT systems (I know some people who integrated them (and others who complicated them)) but so do buildings. I wouldn't expect El Reg to discuss whether office blocks should be built or the relative merits of different types of these. Why spend so much time talking about floating barracks?
I'll tag with Paris: She gives me a 'happy'
There are 2 rather interesting inconsitencies in Lewis' analysis here. The first is that whilst he talks about the escort role of frigates and destroyers, he neatly avoids the fact that they are used to escort both carriers and supply shipping. In real warfighting situations, you would probably have your carrier supporting warfighting, and would then need escort ships to escort convoys in to the resupply points on land. Just so everyone is clear, it is virtually impossible for most modern armed forces to fight a war without resupply from the sea. This is one of the reasons for the crazy standoffs in Pakistan at the moment since that is our only resupply route from the sea. Even the Americans have problems resupplying only from the air.
The second inconsistency I find more funny. Having spent many column inches telling us how pointless the Eurofighter is, he goes on to explain how important fighter cover has been when we have needed it: "It hasn't been often that British troops have needed fighter cover since World War II, but when they've needed it they've really, really needed it. Just ask the Welsh Guards, chopped to pieces by Argentine jets at Bluff Cove."
Lewis knee-caps his own arguments about the Eurofighter there. Try replaying the first Gulf War without fighters and watch Saddam fly his aircraft and talk out our bombers in spades. Or look forward to other potential conflicts that could well occur out of the range of carrier aircraft. Or even conflicts where you need more aircraft than a single carrier can supply. In the same way that you would be a fool to send a carrier into a war zone without fleet escorts; you would be an equally big fool sending bombers into a war zone without fighter cover.
You always say about how we should avoid focussing on the wars we're fighting today and look to potential threats in the future no?
So that would suggest we should not hamstring our conventional naval capability in favour of fighting pirates and an afghan war we're supposedly going to be out of in a few years time...
After all the last defence review in 98 looked at X as the likely threats, then some rather unpleasant types took exception to the WTC and decided to do a bit of remodelling, and all of a sudden we're fighting a completely different type of war we weren't prepared for - we should probably make at least a token effort to ensure that doesn't happen again, should we not?
If something has to go the escorts are probably the least valuable part of the navy, designed to fight the last war or the one before that. We certainly don't need 22 to escort a maximum of 2 carriers. Pity the RN, which pioneered carriers, never really embraced them, and that the FAA is the poor relation of the RN & the RAF.
But we know that this government will be no less pork barrel driven than the last, whether it's directorships for ministers, profits for BAe or jobs in marginal constiuencies it's never getting the forces the right kit, let alone the right kit when they need it.
The problem with the current strategy is that the gas-turbine powered carriers have such a restricted range that they cannot really go anywhere without Replenishment At Sea (RAS or whatever it is called now). And if you reduce the escort fleet to enough to cover the operational carrier plus some in refit, what the hell is going to protect the tankers that are necessary to provide the fuel? How to cripple the British Navy? Sink all the RFAs.
And Lewis is assuming that all of the Navy is operating in the same place at the same time. What is needed to protect HMS Ocean, which has helicopters but no fixed wing aircraft? It's speed is only about 20 knots IIRC, so could be subject to attack by a conventional sub with some dash capability. It is possible that this ship may be deployed separately from the carrier.
We need a capable and relatively sizeable escort fleet, although possibly with slightly different capabilities, to provide some degree of flexibility. If all we can do is deploy the fleet in a fixed configuration as Lewis is suggesting, then it fixes the way it operates for the next 30 years or so. Not exactly the forward looking attitude Lewis says he is suggesting.
I agree that the Type 45's are about as relevant as the Type 81 40 years ago, of which all but one was cancelled. But the batch 3 Type 22 frigates proved themselves to be immensely flexible vessels, so a combination of these (with something like Aster), plus some ocean going gunboat sized anti-pirate and fishery protection vessels, possibly large enough to operate a single simple helicopter like the old Wasp, are necessary. Equip them with some relatively heavy, rapid reaction 30-60mm weapons to dissuade fast-boat pirates, some towed array sonar, and put a capable containerized AA weapon. Something not dissimilar to the Swedish upgraded Stockholm class.
And the radar picket vessels that Lewis talks about must be able to defend itself, so must be a multi-purpose vessel. As they operate many miles from the fleet, they must have some AS detection capability, even if their main purpose is as a radar early warning. This assumes that they are necessary at all. The only real reason we had type 42's (like Sheffield) for this was because the through-deck-cruisers (that we now call the current generation of [harrier] carriers) were not large enough to operate any AWACS aircraft.
... to be able to actually support operations rather than make single strikes, or you want to feed your escorts, RAS is pretty much a done deal.
What I think most people here howling about the need for escorts are trying not to see is that the biggest problem is that Britain does not have money for both. In such cases, the solution is that one must recognize that the carrier is the Main Combat Force, and ultimately the escorts are Supporting. In the real scenario where both cannot be had, the correct solution is to emphasize the Main Combat Force.
If it were up to me, I'll personally argue for a force of Russian-concept aviation cruisers, CATOBAR or STOBAR. Since cost of ships is predominantly electronics these days, by reducing the total number of hulls, you reduce overall costs. The concept is often criticized for reducing hangar space, but the Kuznetsov is a 65000 ton thing similar to the Queen Elizabeth and it can carry over 50 aircraft (the puny air group it actually carries is more because the money to buy planes and heloes ran out), just like the QE is supposed to do, and further there are many ways to further minimize the loss of hangar (for example, using Mk41 VLS w/ Tomahawk instead of 45 degree angle launch SS-N-19s).
If we figure that 3 Type 45s = 1 such aviation cruiser, we can change our 2 carrier, 6 Type 45 fleet into say a 4 aviation-cruiser fleet (armed with say PAAMS & Tomahawk). Overall, the aviation cruisers should have a higher strike potential from greater total numbers of planes & more flightdecks to launch them from, as well as a higher air-defence potential. Redundancy is reduced, but the extra potential arguably makes it safer, not just more powerful.
What about both? Instead of building hospitals in dockside cities just deploy PCRF ships like the Argus. Hundred bed hospital with two operating theatres, own paramedic helicopters Perfect.
The NHS keeps the crew busy and in training and the Navy cuts it's budget by leasing facilities to the NHS.
In times of war they double as helicopter carriers and places like Portsmouth loose half their population when the fleets out so they don't need so many hospital beds. (and the number of alcohol related injuries is greatly reduced).
Win - Win for sure!
The only thing which makes sense is to hook up the whole shebang with the EDF. Why would we want a navy which isn't integrated into Europe?
Alternatively, if you're an anti-European we should just get rid of the navy and rely on the Americans.
Either way, there's no more point going it alone. Hasn't been for years.
People keep claiming all sorts of savings cancelling ships or carriers.
Frankly what savings do you make?
If the ship exists then scrapping it loses 300 sailors jobs, suppliers jobs, painters jobs, refitters jobs and gathers you 2.5p in scrap metal
If the ship doesn't exist then you lose several thousand jobs in the shipyards, steel mills etc.
These jobs knock onto other jobs in shops, pubs, building trade etc.
The whole benefits bill soars (again).
Currently only 70% of the working age population are employed at all. 20% of those employed are parttime, 20% by the government, this leaves 30% in any form of private employment, by the time you discount the leaching banks, solicitors, accountants, double glazing salesmen, estate agents and there ilk you end up with only about 5% of the working age population PRODUCING anything. As the producers are the ONLY people to actually make (rather than recycle) money and these support the WHOLE economy - not just the working age - then you see that the ENTIRE BRITISH ECONOMY is currently teetering on the shoulders of about 3% of the population. That is the REAL problem, and that is the problem that needs fixing. Buy a few more ships and sell them to Jonny foreigner, buy a load more British goods (planes for the ships, uniforms for the sailors, some lorries, tanks, uniforms for the army, some airplanes and uniforms for the airforce, some cars for the police....) and then, as long as what you buy is BRITSIH, and only then, might you start bolstering the BRITISH economy
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