The United Kingdom has assumed command of Combined Task Force 150, a crucial naval force responsible for countering terrorism and drug smuggling in the Middle East.
The Royal Navy has taken on the leadership role, directing international warships and aircraft to patrol the Indian Ocean and waters of the Middle East in order to deter terrorism and related illicit activities, such as drug smuggling.
This marks the eleventh time the Royal Navy has assumed command of the Task Force.
The Task Force has been particularly effective in combatting the illegal drug trade. Since July 2022, and under the previous command of the Royal Saudi Naval Force, there have been six successful operations resulting in the capture of over eleven tonnes of hashish, three tonnes of heroin, two tonnes of methamphetamines, and three tonnes of opium, worth over £150 million.
One of these seizures, amounting to nearly £15.5 million in illegal narcotics, was conducted by the Royal Navy frigate HMS Montrose in October. HMS Montrose has since been replaced in the region by her sister ship, HMS Lancaster, which has been on patrol in the Strait of Hormuz alongside the United States Navy.
The Royal Navy’s Captain Jim Bryon took charge from the Royal Saudi Naval Force at the group’s HQ in Bahrain. According to a Royal Navy press release, he said:
“Commanding Combined Task Force 150 is a huge privilege and I am delighted to have been welcomed so warmly to Bahrain to work once again with our Combined Maritime Force partners. The work these 38 nations do – ready and stronger together – is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved when like-minded nations come together for the common good.
Through persistent military presence, we will do all we can to maintain maritime security across the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman, ensuring the legitimate use of the global maritime commons and disrupting the illicit activity of terrorist organisations and narcotics traffickers. My Royal Navy staff, supported by personnel from both the Royal Navy of New Zealand and the Italian Marina Militare, will work tirelessly to keep a watchful eye over the region.”
Perfect timing to reduce the RAF C130s from the area🙄
Spot on MS whomever comes up with these nonsensical ideas will probably state “in Hindsight I thought it was an Economical sound call ” except the c130s Airframe is undoubtedly the tried and tested for 60yrs piece of reliable transport even used as a gun platform I wonder in 60yrs time the A400 will still be flying ?
very well put Tommo!
👍 cheers Klonkie
Looks like you Kiwis will be out doing the Haka on Feb 7th with the departure of Pro Nouns virtue Arden things can only get better fingers crossed 🤞
Ha ha Tommo- good one Mate. Happy times ahead with a general election in October. Goodbye and good riddance wokey Labour party!
Why wouldn’t it be?
Only because the C130 is a basic Aircraft that hasn’t got all the bells and Whistles such as the A400 but if it’s notcbroke no need too fix it it has the proven track record for Basic troop and stores movement and humanities tasks that’s all S.Richard
A400 will pick up this tasking. 👍
This would be a perfect task for a type 32. Or batch 2 type 31. We don’t have enough escort class warships. Getting the fleet upto 26 hulls is a necessary step. I’m hoping if type 32 can be followed by 10 type 83 destroyers the RN will be back where it should be with a fleet of 30 surface escorts.
Well, if history is any guide to the future as 83/84 will be bigger, better, more capable, I put a punt on 4! Should we get 6, God will have had to have been involved.
You can’t have just 4. That offers little to no capability. Similar to the type 45s and just 6 hull forms.
If type 83 is going to provide a fledgling BMD capability we would need 10-12 vessels.
I heard that T31 , possibly 2 of them are pencilled in to take over the tasking when they reach the fleet
Getting 10/12 type 83s would be sound Wolf it’s just getting the Manpower to Join the RN i which is the catch , I’m an old git now but when I was in the mob there was around 100,000 Naval personnel the MOD after the collapse of the Soviet Union swung the Axe ,now there’s around 30,000 personnel , Whist serving at Whale Island there was a large sign in the Drill shed ” Si vis Pacca parabellum” Whitehall should of remembered that saying as Putin is flexing ” if you seek peace prepare for war “
Early stages but reports Turkey is negotiating to buy a big package of second hand weapons from the UK worth £10bn.
This includes;
3 Type 23 frigates
2 Squadrons of Eurofighter (either new, Tranche 1 or combination of the two)
Replacement tank engines for the M60 (possibly the ones being stripped from Challenger 2 during conversion to Challenger 3 as well as spares though new build isnt out the question)
The C130J transport aircraft being retired over the next two years.
Wow. That’s some package. Maybe we can get some Rolls Royce powered MIUS C drones from them.
23’s no the rest maybe. We’re planning on losing 2 completely worn out GP 23’s so it would mean the remaining 3 as well. That won’t happen at least until 31 starts to enter service.
Gunbuster has stated previously, on another thread, that refitting HMS Montrose would be at least theoretically feasible, provided sufficient time, skilled manpower and especially budget available. Do not believe Gunbuster ventured an opinion re HMS Monmouth, but as a stripped hulk, would presumably be a more problematic proposition.
It’s the law of diminishing returns. An expensive refit could get you 2 or 3 more years life but at too high a cost. You’d be better of financially and every other way buying a new or newer ship. The Turks already have their own domestic frigate progamme on top of that. It makes no sense for them.
I don’t have an informed opinion regarding Turkey’s interest in T-23. My contention is that there will probably be Chilean interest in some portion of T-23 class.
Chile reportedly ( defensenews.com) intending to build frigates domestically with the T31 design being an early contender
Some green water Navy is going to want the residual ASW capability, especially the newer ships equipped w/ tails, after RN usage has ended.
Maybe these are for Ukraine via a Turkish refit? 3 ships for 3 Sea Kings? Turkey is already building 2 corvettes for Ukraine. Might be a way to get around the closure of the Dardanelles to foreign warships. I think someone earlier said these T23 GPS still have some ASW ability and they have CAMM and Harpoon.
On the other hand, I could be totally wrong here.
The GP’s are as quiet as the towed array ships and have a very good bow sonar. They aren’t in the same league as those with tails but still very effective. On Ukraine you could be right but only in the long term. Training an entire crew for them would be a lengthy process.
Interesting perspective. So we give type 23s to Turkey who rapidly sell them onto Ukraine side stepping closure of the black sea routes to warring factions. I’d think Russia will do everything in their power to stop that including attacking the ships the minute they leave Turkey’s EEZ
The closure of the Dardanelles strait doesn’t affect those naval assets home-ported in ports around the Black sea by nations around the Black Sea. Not unless Turkey (Now Turkiye, but a name change isn’t going to change the treaty) itself has cause to declare war. So Russia can launch and commission a new warship, assign it to the Black Sea Fleet and sail it through the Strait to join the war. It would be politically disingenuous and probably denied however if it simply grabbed a bunch of ships from the Northern Fleet, Baltic Fleet and Eastern Fleet from Murmansk, Saint… Read more »
Expediency seems to be the key here, they are looking at equipment to tide them over for the next five years due to delays in their own domestic tank & fighter programs. The C130J they want because they are intensively using their A400M fleet in Syria and planning a new campaign against the Kurds and so require additional capacity immediately (They also already operate C130 so have no integration issues) while they are presently in a naval arms race with Greece.
Everything but the 23’s make sense. I’m not convinced they are the right fit for Turkey even in the short term. But so far it’s reports we’ll know if/when contracts are signed.
Agree Turkish shipbuilding is pretty advanced they are building high quality corvettes and frigates for themselves and export why they would want type 23s makes zero sense to me.
If Montrose, Monmouth and another GP T23 went to Turkey, we could get Albion and Bulwark working at the same time again for a few years to maintain hull numbers, also bulking out LRG(S).
Yes but the RN has been comfortable only having one available at any time. Going down to just 14 45’s and 23’s would be a high price to pay for something the RN doesn’t seem to consider a priority.
We are down to 17 escorts and selling a further three would be absurd. I was assuming Montrose and Monmouth would be two of the three that went to Turkey and contemplating going down one further to 16, which I don’t think would be outrageous. I think you are right, that Turkey is trying to pressure the US with its talk about Eurofighters, but what if the US doesn’t cave? Turkey is looking to do a $20bn deal with the US. That’s enough money for even the Treasury to think laterally. Having only one LPD was never the Navy’s choice,… Read more »
Good points. On advantages and disadvantages of LPD’s versus LPH’s yes LPH’s have the advantage with air movement. But that limits them in terms of vehicles or systems to what can be carried by Merlin. LPD’s are limited by what can be carried by LCU’s which is pretty much everything in RM or Army’s inventory including Challenger. In an jdeal world an LRG would comprise both either in 1 or 2 ships. But that’s not feasible for now on either cost or mabpower grounds. Whether that will change in the future is way above my knowledge level.
Waves are predominantly RFA manned, so no real need for lots of RN people.
Good point.
They could do with some additional up-armed T31s for the LRGs, before the T32s.
Or we just have an updated type 31 batch 2 as the type 32 hull form. Job done. Nothing to see here. No crazy additional expenses trying to design a gold plated super warship when good enough will be good enough.
This is a ploy by Turkey to try and frighten the US into approving the sale of F-16s and F-16 modernization kits to it. There is substantial opposition to this in the US Congress because of Turkey’s machinations in the Middle East, its rapprochement with Russia, and its ongoing veto of NATO membership for Sweden and Finland. Any move by the UK to allow itself to be used by Turkey would have serious repercussions in Washington.
The days when Whitehall gave a damn are long gone. Trump and especially Biden have seen to that. The only relationship between the UK and US these days is Intell to intell and military to military.
Bang goes any strategic reserve capability. Selling our crown Jewels for pennies.
The C2s should be held onto . I’d go further and try to buy back some C2s from Oman and C1s from Jordan to give to Ukraine.
They could probably have the C130Js if the RAF is allowed to purchase more A400Ms?
Eurofighter tranche 1. Yeah ok as long as RAF is allowed to purchase more F35Bs or a tranche 3 Eurofighter (24) to see us through to Tempest.
Just been reported on the BBC that France is going to add an extra €100b in the next defence budget, increasing it to €413 for 2024-30.
Sounds like the French want to take some if the limelight away from the Germans. I don’t think they have to worry too much as they don’t have the will power or leadership to fight their way out of a paper bag.
The Germans are making themselves a laughing stock over their dithering about giving the green-light for Leopard 2 to go to Ukraine.
Large increase in intelligence and drone surveillance spending as well as the recapitalization of their artillery and ammunition reserves.
Well there intelligence community was fully humiliated in not predicting the invasion.
It wasn’t that they didn’t predict it. They actively refuted UK and US claims of intelligence stating an invasion was imminent.
Macron is a weasel and so are the plotting unreliable French. Trust them as an ally as much as I will run up the white flag and retreat…so zero.
What a crazy time. The world thought the UK and US were lunatic crazy. A few weeks later, dead on.
Wowzers. That’ll be more than 1 nuclear powered replacement strike carrier they are getting then. The 2030s timeframe is interesting as lots of NATO countries are up-arming and getting match fit for that time period, except the UK that is, we seem to be in almost terminal national decline. Sad situation, we’ve bankrupt the country with Tory ineptitude and pissing billions down the drain. £14 billion defunct and useless track and trace app, South Korean app which was proven and working offered to UK for £26 million was declined. Dominic Cummings sister’s company then won the track and trace contract… Read more »
Gilts cost approx 18 Bil and the BOE just sold them.on for a 3.5bil profit on the expenditure.
It’s been public knowledge for over a year that ‘Dominic Cummings sister’ is no relation to him she simply has the same surname. How you’ve managed to avoid that knowledge suggests you need to widen your sources of information. On the rest Gunbuster has made a start maybe the rest of us could educate on the rest point by point.
We did not spend 14Bn on an app. And it was never all ‘Track & Trace ‘ it was called Test & Trace. And the money spent covered every from setting up tests sites nation wide, recruiting thounds of people. Identifying local outbreaks and supporting local responses to the pandemic and tracing. Furlough was a necessary evil. Without it, unemployment would be seriously sky high, and the economy in a far worse state than it is, which would mean even less money for defence.
Presumably this is also the principal naval force that would engage the Iranians during a blockade of the Hormuz Strait?
It’s probable US carrier/amphibious groups would descend on the area if that happened. Around the time that the USS Ford was being designed, the USN ran a large wargaming exercise over a year on just that scenario to see what was the best spec for the new carrier class. It was a post Desert Storm model called Thunder for a hostile power taking control of the Persian Gulf. I think they used 4 carrier groups arriving over the ensuing month reducing the enemy’s ability to control the region. If that was the scenario mandated by the DOD to test the… Read more »
Thanks appreciate the information. 👍
Surprised it took 4 carrier groups I would have thought just 2 or 3 could probably splatter Iranian military capability to wage war. Especially if supported from USAF based in Saudi and the carriers are carrying F35Cs and some amphibs “lightning carriers” with F35Bs.
The pentagon has admitted that the entire Iraq/Afghan war could have been supported by the Air Force alone, but the navy needs to justify its existence.
This is great news
🏴🇬🇧