HMS Albion has left the UK bound for the Norwegian fjords to take part in the largest NATO military exercise in Norway in more than 30 years.
The Royal Navy say here that HMS Albion is heading for the Arctic as the spearhead of amphibious/commando forces taking part in Exercise Cold Response – a month-long test by land, sea and air of allied forces to operate in one of the most challenging environments on the planet.
“Albion prepared for her Arctic mission with intensive operational training in and around Plymouth which culminated earlier this month in a joint disaster relief/civilian evacuation test, working side-by-side with the Dutch Navy’s HNLMS Karel Doorman.
Alongside landing support ship RFA Mounts Bay, Albion leads the UK’s amphibious input into Cold Response, with “a significant level” of littoral strike operations – traditional-style commando raids – staged in the fjords, with the British force integrating with numerous allies, including the US, Norwegians, French, Germans and Italians.”
Captain Simon Kelly, HMS Albion’s Commanding Officer, was quoted as saying:
“The UK has long had a very specific roll up in the high north in the Arctic. And it’s all part of our routine development of that capability.
Our ability to plug into and integrate into larger task groups is absolutely the core of all our capabilities, and it’s that integration into the bigger piece of NATO, that collective ability which really brings the fighting edge to NATO.”
You can read more from the Royal Navy here.
With a good proportion of 45 Cdo in Poland, Royal will be a bit thin on the ground in Norway. The French, Germans and the Italians have their “Alpine” troops just wondering if it is them that will be embarking in HMS Albian.
Still have 40 and 42 Cdo.
42 does not do “green ops” it is now Maritime Ops Cdo.
Once the LRG concept is complete ( if it even goes ahead ) much of 40 will be in Oman.
So SAR is right, it is 45 Commando Group with supports from 3 Cdo.
The entire review talking of dispersing forces to the Middle East and Pacific is looking out of date already if Russia is the threat it seems to be.
Daniele, as you and many others regularly note we do not even have sufficient defensive capabilities and there is no sign that these such as ASW, BMD or AEW&C are going to be increased indeed they are either old, reduced in number or we have taken a capability holiday! Forget our armoured warfare capabilities we have lost sight of key home defence requirements. A serious defence review would have increased the number of P8’s, Type 26’s, SSN or SSK’s, E7’s and bring forward land and sea based BMD. What we do beyond that is up for debate but the Northern… Read more »
I agree with every word. What will it take to change, as governments of all sides have continued this trend for generations? I still maintain the biggest priority in HMG eyes regards our large defence budget is supporting the MIC and their fat cat friends within it and having a nuclear deterrent that keeps the UK at the top table. That is the cynical side of me. Attempts to suggest, as I do frequently, that maybe a better balance between quality and quantity is needed and more cheaper OTS shelf kit is acquired that is good enough but not world… Read more »
As a small island we are never going to be able to go toe to toe with a larger land power. Even at the height of the British empire we could not do this. We can compete on tech which means home grown tech especially in drones, missiles and SSN’s. I do agree off the shelf purchase of items such as armoured vehicles and even aircraft should be considered more. Uk industry is more than capable of fending for itself without the MOD being a job creation program. The one area we could compete even at scale with the USA.… Read more »
Agreed. Regards OTH certain high tech stuff must be sovereign, sonar, radar, missiles, electronics, ships, sub systems, missiles, SSN, and so on.
To me a helicopter and various aircraft, guns and land vehicles could be OTS.
Yes we are not a land power. I always prioritise RN, RAF first, the army should be around its current size but organised correctly – that is with enough CS/CSS for the formations it has, and armed to the teeth. At the moment it is a total dogs breakfast.
Thanks for your take on kit etc, appreciated!
Hi D “prioritise RN, RAF first, the army should be around its current size but organised correctly” sound logical wisdom for the MOD to heed – things don’t look good.
The massive AMARGfacility in Arizona should be where the u.k should be looking to shop at THOUSANDS OF AIRCRAFT sitting waiting for reactivation if needed I’d urge people to look at the inventory f 16’s? there are 313 of them f 15? 157 f18 b52 bombers loads even a few b1b lancers the size of the RAF could be doubled without breaking the bank as for ships I’ve always believed that an agreement with the American’s to have ‘first dibs’ at buying the retiring kit. They’ve never bought rubbish so the u.k numbers could be maintained easier with stuff that… Read more »
It is the time for training on new types and the new logistic tails if these were in addition to the types we have that are problems for me.
Surely better to increase the types we do have.
Sure enough the Boneyard is an amazing place.
UK does not need to go “toe to toe” with anyone. But it also needs to stop cutting defenses and then cutting them again.
There are 140, 000 total army, RAF. and RN regulars.
I am not sure that more T26 would be particularly useful as we never had more than 8 T23 AWS even at the peak of things. But we did have the T22 which did have decent ASW capabilities. More P8 is one of the most easily achievable and budget friendly upgrades to capability that could be done to increase ASW capabilities. Land based Ceptor or Aster is now something of a priority as I commented to DaveyB on another thread as I really see nutty regimes taking a pop via proxies. It is more than a drone threat. I disagree… Read more »
The Royal as in the RM? It should, that is part of the naval service when included in my comment and should certainly be expanded back to brigade level with supports to match. that expansion would be modest as it is still a corps of over 5,000 men. And many supports are in fact from the army. I agreed with the ASW comment of Sjb given the increased threat of Russian submarines. That especially means more SSN ourselves if they are now as suggested following the doctrine of hanging back more and launching missiles rather than interdicting the Atlantic sea… Read more »
My top 3 do now equipment items are:
1) Order 8th Astute and increase all build speeds in Barrow. Use any future production gaps to recycle old subs.
2) T45 engine fixes and addition of CAMMs.
3) Integrate Meteor onto Typhon and return to service many older ones that can still do UK/Falklands QRA.
Meteor is already on Typhoon Tim. It is the F35 where it still lacks.
I know the treasury assure that T26 builds are like snails but would it even be possible to increase speed with the SSNs? I know Deep mentioned recently we used to knock them out I think one every two and a half to three years. That would be with a bigger work force I assume.
Hi Tim, if I can add to the shopping list from my couch here in Sydney. I’d like to see two more Batch 2 ABM T45s in the RN. God knows where they’re at with T83, probably late by 5 years. Italian and US DDX/DGX seem to be more of a reality already. UK could even buy 2 of either. If not I reckon two T45 B2 could likely be built before the Pip/Aster/CAMM upgrade is completed on all current T45s. Plus additional CAMM, side silos on T45s, 24 still seems too little, why not try for 36-48? And bring… Read more »
I hope we have in store nuclear warheads to put onto the Nations tomahawks I hope to god they won’t be needed
No andy, we don’t have any tactical nukes. Only the Trident warheads, of variable yields.
If we do, it is so highly classified no one has ever so much as squeaked that any tactical were retained. And they were free fall bombs and depth charges, not TLAM warheads.
I would reconstitute The Royal Armaments factories. Army is where we are weakest. The Army is in a shocking state of disarmament. We could easily produce our own artillery and armoured vehicles etc. We need that for any sustained warfare and to regain exports. Air and Naval are different and too high tech for a Government Company to run.
Your comment on the Nuclear deterrent is not cynical -it’s the absolute truth. Fiscal discipline in MOD acquisitions is poor.
I understand the need to balance value with local industry. However, local industry needs to step up and stop feeding on the trough of the British tax payer. Like any business , this should be a partnership , with mutual beneficial return for both parties.
These times are good for the armed forces as it exposes the folly of the last 20 years of savage cuts to the nations defensive force’s
I understand the sentiment but having a son serving in the RM and a couple of other close relatives also in the armed forces my perspective given the current state of our forces is rather different.
Can the army not do some of this if 45 commando are busy. They are the largest land force in the U.K. and surely should have some cold weather specialists. It’s a great opportunity for training also.
I thought half 45 commando were in Poland and the other 300+ were doing training around Norway. Perhaps they are already on the ships.
The army needs to be seen to be active and practice deploying on multiple types of ops.
The Army already support 3 Commando Brigade via 29RA, 24RE, and parts of the CLR. They will all have some arctic training.
Otherwise, beyond smaller RA batteries like 4/73, elements of the RAF SHF, RN CHF, TSW, JHSS and of course the SF there are no cold weather/arctic trained elements as far as I recall. I might have missed others.
It’s always been the RM area, although in the Cold War the AMF (L) had the army 1 Infantry Bde assigned.
One of the drivers of poor return on defence investment is the perpetual deferment of capital programmes – the deferred pace of the Type 26 as an example. The cost of building a ship tomorrow is higher than it is today. It’s also a double dip cost as additional opex funds need to allocated to keep old kit functioning, like the upkeep of the Type 23- so loose/loose. Western governments excel at kicking the capex can down the road for someone else to deal with in 10 years time. Not to sound ideological, but when labour governments pick up the… Read more »
Bravo. There should be agreement in Parliament by all sides ring fencing defence. Sod all chance of that.
Last grasps of a dying Russian empire. Russia does not have the money, people, production or technology to pose a serious threat in the way that China could. 190k troops it can deploy on its boarder is a serious threat to its neighbours but it’s not getting to Berlin or Bergen. Best defence for Europe is to keep US engaged and best way to do that is support them in China.
Hello Daniele, as a bit of a sad sack I watched the PMQ’s yesterday and he let slip in one of his replies from both sides of the house asking for an increase in defence expenditure that “he thought that money being invested on cyber warfare should compensate on the fact that we have let our armed forces diminish in number” It is obvious that Admiral Radikin’s advice has been falling on deaf ears. The only thing I heard that was in a positive vain was the fact that both sides of the house are now talking of a 3%… Read more »
The 3% would be gold dust. And if both sides are talking of this that is a breath of fresh air as I trust Labour on defence about as much as I trust Putin given the MPs in their party and what the membership of the LP and their union, SWP and communist friends wish for.
I think it will come to pass that we do get 3% as the 1922 committee is pushing this and old BJ needs their vote to keep his back benchers in line. I just hope he dose not tie into the Foriegn affairs and Home office as they did last time so that on paper we got up to 2.4% of GPD spend on defence but in reality only approximatly 1.5% gets spent on front line defence expenditure.
3% won’t make any difference really. Look at what the last big increase got. When u figure out what it was let me know as I’ve not seen any increase only reductions.
I would ask for several 100 tracked ifv to replace warrior first off. Then keep tank numbers at current. Make sure they all have support needed to operate effectively.
After that there is lots of items needed but also the man power to operate it
I agree with what you are saying , just throwing money at the problem is not the answer, we have to remedy the underlying problems with procurement and accountability before we put more money into the system. But we have to fix the problem or we might as well give over the running of the MoD to Mr Corbin, Putin s sunray-minor.
Very apt i thought – https://twitter.com/Mr_Andrew_Fox/status/1492462925495349249/photo/1
I am not sure that anything the current government says means anything at all. The Government takes the current threat so seriously that both Wave-class tankers were just put in uncrewed reserve.
You are right they are still pushing ahead with the the agenda that was put on the table some time ago but I believe that world advents will force the government to change their thinking and may-be just may-be rethink the UK’s defence program.
Perhaps with Radakin now CDS we will get a focus on the UK’s core defence requirements alongside another increase in funding. Sadly it seems to have escaped Boris and our other recent leaders that even if we can defeat a Cyber attack our adversary might just cut the undersea cable(s) upon which 99% of data is carried. Indeed whilst it is good to see HMS Scott temporarily reprieved our forces capable of protecting our oil, gas and wind energy resources are near non existent given our total dependence on these supplies. The re rolling of 42Cdo is a good idea… Read more »
Again I could not agree more, 42 lost its support company so that the Navy could then recruit more bods for the carriers at the time it was thought a prudent move, we gave our SSK’s to Canada so we could have more money to invest in SSN’s. There seems to be an element in the MoD who cannot see further that the end of their noses, We need at least 3 complete Cdo units so that at lest 2 can be M&AW trained leaving the 3rd for out of area operations or have the option of a complete brigade… Read more »
It’d be great to be a fly on the wall to see the headless chickens running around the MOD,looking for non existent forces to be involved in the future event of need.
Italians have the carrier(no Harriers) Garibaldi as the command of amphibious forces.
Steven wrote:
“” The French, Germans and the Italians have their “Alpine” troops””
Spent 6 weeks in Italy training with the Alpini, good bunch of lads, they all presumed i was a Gurkha
Hello Farouk, They are very oftern underrated by a lot of people but all troops who have to learn to fight in extreme conditions tend to be better than the mainstream troops. Having said that I would still rather see more M&AW British units as at the moment we only have 45 Cdo which is a bit thin on the ground at the moment.
Might need to push the speed that bullwark could be back to service sooner than planned for,
Well we are supposedly operating 2 carriers simultaneously at the moment so why not 2 LPD’s, the main reason why is the lack of escorts we have in the RN. Having said that if they are to operate under a Nato flag then may-be we could have all 4 ships active with Nato escorts, but then there is the problem of aircraft to put on them again we would have to turn to Nato for fixed wing and rotary winged airframes to help argument the UKs lack of aircraft. this is not ideal but at least it is a temporary… Read more »
Unfortunately, despite reducing escort numbers still further we still do not have the manpower to crew Bulwark and anyway she requires a major refit before rejoining the fleet. By, which time Albion will also be in need of one,
In addition the reduction in the RM’s means we would struggle to provide the crews for the LCVPs and LCU’s. Indeed the latter all require replacement with more modern craft.
That is what happens when you run your forces down; it is not easy, quick or cheap to overcome 20 plus years of neglect.
I could not agree more, but if the Ukraine kicks off like it looks as though it is going too then we are going to have all hands on deck so we will have to do the job with what we have now not what we might have in 10 or so years.
Your are right to point out the positives but It could and should be a lot more positive if we had the ability to procure equipment properly and there was accountability in the system.
45 cdo will embark in Norway before the excersise begins.