British warship ‘opens fire’ with gun

Ha.
George, you did this deliberately !!!

“Warship” “Opens fire with gun”.

The Daily Mirror would have said “Battleship” lol.

Quiet news day!I was hoping for something regarding the Trump/Putin summit to really get everyone going!

I do wonder if it’s time to review both what the rivers 2s are doing, what they should be doing and what capabilities they need to do the role decided of them.

The RN has always had a sensible policy in regards to the demarcation of major surface combatants and constabulary/patrol vessels. But this was essentially workable because it also had a policy of high low in its major surface combatant fleet, allowing it to have the numbers of major surface combatants it needed 65ish in the Cold War and 30-35 in a peaceful stable world. But it now finds itself due to over 35 years of a mix of RN,MOD and treasury incompetence and poor planning by 2028 it’s likely to have only 11 escorts in service if the type 23s keep up their present rate of decommissioning/decomposition, in 2028 that would be 4 type 23s, a type 31 and 6 type 45s. By 2030 that may have improved a bit with 3 type 26s, 2 type 31s and the last 23 operational.. but if you average out the escort numbers for the last half of the 2020s you are looking at around 11/12 escorts.

This has forced the RN to use its OPVs in a way it has never done before and would not do, and that is essentially sending them on world wide tasking away from UK EEZs. Now this is lovely and cost effective, after all a rivers two costs 130million in capital and ( 2015 costs) is only around 3.5million a year to run vs a major surface combatant which is generally north of 500million to buy and 10-15 million a year to run and everyone is going around raving how great it is we have 2 ships in the pacific for essentially 7 million quid and don’t have to use 2 of our probably only 3-5 available escorts. I will give that in a generally peaceful and stable world of the late 1990s and 2000s that would have been a clear cost effective idea…

BUT ( and I’m purposefully using capitalisation here) we are not in that world..we are not even in a locked in Cold War were we would get significant warning of escalation, we are in a time period when our enemies would use any and all means to attack with little to no warning and have in a case of china even stated its intention to go to war. Therefore sending constabulary vessels across the worlds oceans instead of major surface combatants is counter productive in a number of ways.. 1) it signals weakness to our enemies and does not provide deterrent 2) they lack capability to even defend themselves against moderate asymmetrical attacks.

In the modern threat environment I would suggest even a patrol ship for your own EEZ needs the ability to defend itself against moderate asymmetrical attacks. To send a ship out into the wider threat ridden world with only a 30mm cannon, no appropriate air and surface surface search radar, no fire control radar, no modern fused or guided munitions, no appropriate capabilities to maintain a small ship flight is quite frankly a bit lame, risk laden and counter productive.

At the same time our home waters and EEZ undersea infrastructure are at constant threat from sub kinetic attack and i. The case of war kinetic attack. Personally I think the 5 rivers 2 need a bit of a rethink in purpose and function.

1) HMS FORT as the Falklands guard ship, in reality this ship is functioning as a stand alone patrol frigate for the south Atlantic as the APT(S) has not sent a major surface combatant to the south Atlantic in a decade. In reality outside of the British isles the south Atlantic territory is the UKs single most geostrategically important territory to the UK ( not the west or NATO but to the UK specifically) and needs to have the capability to manage that. So what does HMS FORT need capabilities wise to be a credible stand alone south Atlantic patrol ship..It’s can have its range and endurance reduced to around 4000 nautical miles as it has a very specific patrol area not a long distance from its home base and only needs to be able to cruise between territories. It needs to be able to manage air threats and general surface threats in a credible way that means it needs a proper sensor package with a 3D surface and air search radar and passive sensors as well as an appropriate self defence package, 76mm or 57mm with fire control radar and guided rounds as well as CIWS ( 30mm with air burst fused rounds) and offence based around a small ships fight.. so hanger for a wildcat as well as a set of sub surface and airborne drones that can be managed from the flight/work deck and crane and if you could manage it CAMM in ExLS ( if the Swiss can fit 32 of them on a sub 1000 ton combatant the RN can stick a few on HMS FORT)… essentially you turn HMS fort into short range patrol frigate for the Falklands and south Atlantic..that is a credible match to the navies operating in that region… funding wise you get the Falklands itself to help out and crew wise you develop a local RN reserve formation to support the extra crew needed after all even with its profoundly low tax’s the Falklands runs a budget surplus of 14-15 million a year.. essentially they could pay for the running of a patrol frigate, the Falkland are far wealthier per capita than the rest of the UK .. GDP per head of 75,000, and yet the Uk tax payer spends 110 million a year on defence of the Falklands.

2) four rivers 2 for local EEZ monitoring and protection of underwater infrastructure. They would not need the same sensor or self defence fit as the Falklands fit and could be optimised for under sea and surface monitoring of infrastructure using autonomous systems as well as operating mine warfare systems in the EEZ.. these are 2200 ton ships with good cranes, flight decks, work decks and space for shipping containers. You can easily run plenty of autonomous Systems from them, with very little modifications. Self defence just add a 57mm and a 30mm and they can then manage any asymmetric threats that may pop up in the EEZ.

As for the wider world the RN and HMG need to simply bite the bullet and get more frigates somehow.. letting the major surface combatant fleet decline to 11-12 vessels in the late 2020s when we face a realistic risk of general war across the globe with china, Russia, Iran, North Korea etc is essentially a dereliction of duty. Realistically the RN needs 30 escorts as soon as it can get them, we can bitch about money or crew.. but yes we can find the money and yes you can train crews quicker than the UK can build warships..but infact you need the ships to train the crews..l it’s not a chicken and egg debate..you can get the number of crews you have warships.. you cannot get the crews if you don’t have warships. but you can get warships if you don’t have a crews..so the warships have to come first… one US admiral was very clear.. without a mass of warships you cannot train crews and you loss your crews and quality of your crews.. hulls must come first as part of any workforce plan.

What ever that plan needs to be waiting for British shipbuilding to provided a force of only 19 by 2035 is essentially bonkers.. essentially we are 10+ major surface combatants down on plans that the shipbuilding industry cannot supply within a generation.. so it’s buy secondhand or buy new off someone who is quick at building ships and will sell them… it’s a sad sad place to be but 35 years of fuckery cannot be cured in less than 20-30 years and we don’t have that time… because war may be on us in 3 years.

I’ve always believed constabulary vessels should be constabulary vessels.. and RN warships should alway be new builds in the UK.. but we are moving into a world where even peace is essentially wartime and and world wide kinetic war can come at any moment..in this place and time those two rules simply don’t work.

Still too expensive to fit them to the carriers though.

It’s click bait . Could easily say ‘RN vessel undertakes live fire exercidr’…but hey !@

The Rivers came about due to incompetence in ship building plans and a constantly never learnt lesson that delay builds saves money, it never does. However the platform itself is an ideal one, capable of a multitude of taskings and jobs. A few more of the same could easily be built to complement the bigger and more capable assets by becoming a type of outstation platform. This could have an effective radar/sea ceptor capability, or an ASuW, ASM fit! Automated, either fully or partially crewed, they would be a very useful addition to a deployed fleet operating at or over the horizon. And a little bit expendable if needed.👍

It’s considered news worthy that an OPV has test fired a few shells from a 30mm cannon. Hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Jon, A very good point.

The rivers: if it can be done, a way of jamming unfriendly drones would be welcome as well as making more use of our own drones. Think there’s general agreement that the rivers are meant for police role, basic and very cost effective.