In a House of Commons exchange, Graeme Downie, Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, pressed the Government to accelerate the UK’s future air defence capabilities following what he described as a “clear escalation” by Russia.
“This attack by Vladimir Putin on a NATO member that has been a leader in resisting Russian aggression and supplying Ukraine is a clear escalation and an attempt, as others have said, to probe NATO defences and intimidate the alliance,” Downie told ministers. “Can the Minister assure me that the UK and NATO will not be intimidated and that the Government are considering robust military options to stand up to this bully in Moscow? Closer to home, can he assure me that the attacks will confirm the urgency to escalate and accelerate our development of the Type 83 destroyer and the future air defence system so that our country is fully protected in the future?”
Responding, Defence Minister Al Carns rejected any suggestion of intimidation, while underscoring the centrality of industry to UK security. “I have never been intimidated in my life. We as a country will not be intimidated, and neither will NATO. I reiterate that our defence industrial strategy is absolutely critical. Giving weapons to Ukraine is one thing, but building industrial capacity to generate mass is how countries win wars should they be caught up in one. That is why the strategic defence review’s first 70 pages are all about industry.”
Earlier in the session, Carns opened with a stark warning following a Russian drone attack that entered Polish airspace. “This is my first UQ in the House, and this is a very serious topic to be discussing. Last night, as we know, Poland shot down multiple Russian drones that had entered its airspace. Poland stated that the drones were part of a co-ordinated Russian attack on targets across the border in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are subject to a barbaric attack every evening, but this is an unprecedented violation of Polish airspace; indeed, it went deep enough for Warsaw airport to be closed. I thank the Polish and NATO air defence forces for responding rapidly and effectively to protect the alliance.”
He continued: “Russia’s actions are absolutely and utterly reckless, unprecedented and dangerous. This serves to remind us of President Putin’s blatant disregard for peace, and of the constant bombardment that innocent Ukrainians face every day. In response, Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has announced that Poland will invoke NATO article 4. The Prime Minister has been in contact with Prime Minister Tusk to make absolutely crystal clear the UK’s support for Poland, and that we will stand firm in our support for Ukraine.”
Carns said the UK condemned Russia’s actions outright: “We say to Russia: ‘Your aggression only strengthens the unity of NATO nations. It only strengthens our solidarity in standing with and beside Ukraine. It reminds us that a secure Europe needs a strong Ukraine.’ With our allies and partners, and through UK leadership of the coalition of the willing, we will continue to ramp up the pressure on Putin until there is a just and lasting peace.”
A good modern long range GAD would be nice, rather than 3 years to build a ship, Just a thought. May be the MOD can have a meeting about it, or a focus group, get some industry experts in and talk about it for few years. Even give it a project name but not order any thing.
Please be successful…
Pull the 83 out of starmers hat… As they say ” in times of peace prepare for war” no no not us we just cut cut cut and talk of being the best .
It’s taken since the invasion of Ukraine to get European nations to wake up, but is too late as always.
Type 45 and then Type 83 destroyers are for the air defence of a deployed naval task force. GBAD assets should be procured to defend certain Key Points in the UK Base (Area defence of towns and cities might have to wait).
If we simply increase the lethality of everything… we will be fine.
I contend the RN order at Type 26 (while the line is hot and per unit prices can drop) air defence variant, using updated systems found on the current Type 45 (Sampson and S1850 radars, replace 125mm gun with 2 57mm, and missile loadout of CAAM-ER and Aster 30 Block 1 NT (72 total as in current Type 45). This will then allow the RN to take their time in developing the Type 83 into a properly thought out anti-Ballistic / anti-air missile with also powerful mature laser units. Also this will allow the new Type 26 variant to first augment and then eventually replace the Type 45 while the later arriving Type 83 can be developed as true anti-Ballistic / anti-air missile cruisers thus also helping to increase the RN’s hull numbers.
As I see it we are a European country with a European internally competitive mindset, or put simply our Defence companies concentrate on our own home market but are also trying to compete with our allies for a dwindling export market. Hence we design something, introduce it for our own forces and try to compete with our neighbours for exports, then win or fail we concentrate on securing our native design capability by designing something bigger better and completely different.
We very seldom just build anything that is capable of generational incremental improvement, in fact the nearest we come to to is the Leopard 2 MBT, which has bucked the trend and just continues to be developed whilst leveraging as much core, tried and tested existing equipment as possible.
And boy has that been successful ?
So I just have to question why we need a huge cruiser like T83 ? The new 1SL is expounding the idea of off boarding missile capacity to Unmanned surface vessels which are controlled from the prime mother ship, so why do you need a very expensive, beautifully crafted purpose designed AAW ship ?
I just find it odd that BAe displayed a T26 AAW variant in Australia a couple of years ago but have never mooted such an idea for the RN, instead we have amazing looking concept designs that will cost an absolute fortune to develop, design and eventually build.
It’s as if they have completely forgotten that with the exception of the Tribal class all the destroyers the RN built from the 1920’s A class to HMS Daring were incremental improvements on the proceeding designs. As such they were relatively easy and cheap to build, gave us mass and completely trounced the more technically advanced Axis vessels as ours were robust, reliable, practical and we had far more of them.
So I would love to see BAe show an RN AAW version of the T26 with 96 Sylver or MK41 VLS, no mission bay, no towed array sonar and possibly a smaller hanger. It could have a developed version of Sampson or even the Leonardo Kronos Radar, but just don’t bugger about with it too much and keep say 80% commonality with the T26 ASW.
That way we may just get some economies of scale into the production cycle and be able to afford to buy more actual ships ! And who knows we could export some to Norway as add ons to their fleet.
As for the idea of Unmanned Large Surface vessels I’m just a little sceptical ! It sounds great and fully get the idea of adding firepower by distributing it out to relatively cheap Arsenal ships. But is it a step too far ? Just how do you match the range of the mothership (RAS is manpower intensive), carry out docking or damage control without even a basic crew ?
If someone just suggested a sea worthy vessel with a minimum crew of say 45, simple but robust diesel power with a high level of automation, nothing more than a navigation radar, a basic Helicopter deck and 100 + VLS then I’d be all for it.
Just remember a 300K tonne VLCC just pootles along on a set course from A to B, so nothing very complicated yet it still has a crew of 25 bods !