Government refuse to confirm fate of assault ships

Amid speculation that the Defence Secretary aims to retire both HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark from active service, the Government has claimed “no final decision” has been made on the ship’s futures.

The following exchange occurred today in the House of Commons.

Richard Drax MP (South Dorset, Conservative)

“One decision my Right Honourable friend could make to support the defence of jobs will be to retain HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. Could he reassure the house and the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy or the armed forces, that these two vital ships will be kept in operation and not mothballed?”

James Cartlidge MP, The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (South Suffolk, Conservative)

“Well, I’m grateful to my Right Honourable friend who speaks with great authority with all his time on the defence select committee. What I would say is no final decision has been made on these platforms. I know there’s been a lot of coverage in the press, a lot of chatter, inevitably I know how important they are to our service personnel. But I want to reassure him that we are looking at this in the round. But in terms of jobs, We’re absolutely committed to supporting defence jobs across the piece. Obviously, we have recruitment challenges in terms of our personnel, but we also have to support British industry.”

In the words of her operators, the Royal Navy, the role of the HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion, is to ‘deliver the punch of the Royal Marines ashore by air and by sea, with boats from the landing dock in the belly of the ship and by assault helicopter from the two-spot flight deck’.

The LPDs can carry 256 troops, with their vehicles and combat supplies, and this can be swollen up to 405 troops. The ships act as the afloat command platform for the Royal Navy’s Amphibious Task Force and Landing Force Commanders when embarked.

A former Defence Secretary had warned that withdrawing the Albion class would ‘end British amphibious capability’. Lord Hutton was speaking during a debate on British defence forces in the House of Lords where he said:

“I am absolutely opposed to the United Kingdom acting unilaterally—for example, by announcing the end of our effective amphibious capability. I do not believe that the QE2 class carriers—they are brilliant ships and I am proud to see them serving in the Royal Navy—have the equivalent capability. Neither do the Bay class ships. They are incapable of supporting and mounting large-scale amphibious operations with the fighting vehicles that the Army now has.

Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan led us, rightly, to conclude that they needed to be better protected: they needed to be stronger, heavier vehicles. We need “Bulwark” and “Albion” to retain that capability. So we must tread pretty carefully. I am all in favour of the defence industry co-operating with government in the efficiency review: I think they should. I am certainly in favour of our thinking carefully about how we use the overseas aid and defence budgets together to secure greater security results.

But it is hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that we will need to spend more now to preserve UK effective capabilities. The painful lesson from history is that spending less on defence does not make us more secure; it does not make those threats go away, it just makes us less able to deal with them.”

Lord West of Spithead, a Former First Sea Lord, has argued that Britain’s security and prosperity requires amphibious capability. Writing in Politics Home, the former naval chief argues for the retention of the vessels that rumours say may be axed. He stated:

“Under fire particularly, it seems, is our invaluable amphibious capability. So what exactly is this amphibious capability? Britain’s security and prosperity requires unimpeded maritime access and transit. As an island nation, the country needs a broadly maritime strategy – one that has sea control at its core, but which enables power and influence to be projected inland.

Indeed, being an island, all operations beyond our shores are expeditionary and demand theatre entry. Strike carriers and amphibious forces are the enablers for this theatre entry capability. The true fighting power of a navy is its ability to ensure entry around the world using carrier air and amphibious forces and to cause sea denial using carrier air and SSNs.

Since 1945 this entry capability has been used over 10 times including Korea, Suez, Kuwait (1962) pre-empting Iraqi planned invasion, Brunei, Falkland Islands, Sierra Leone and the Al Faw. And the Royal Marines have been in almost continuous operations consisting of 30 different campaigns.”

American General Ben Hodges, then commander of the US Army in Europe, had said that he was worried that British forces were already stretched too far. The General was quoted in the Financial Times as saying:

“British forces have global commitments right now. Any reduction in capability means you cannot sustain those commitments. That creates a gap. I don’t know what the magic number is, but I do know that we need the capability that the British army provides, and any reduction in that causes a problem for the alliance as well as for the United States.”

Hodges served as a battalion executive officer with the 101st Airborne before becoming Aide-de-camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in August 1995. He became a battalion commander in the 101st Airborne in 1997. He was Congressional Liaison Officer at the Office of the Chief of Legislative Liaison between 1999 and 2000.

After graduating from the National War College in 2001, Hodges served at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk. Taking command of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne in 2002, Hodges led the brigade in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Not long ago, American Colonel Dan Sullivan said cuts to the Royal Marines and the loss of two amphibious assault ships would change the military relationship between the US and UK.

“My message is to articulate how important having that capability in our partner is. And how damaging I think it would be if our most important coalition partner potentially takes the hits that are projected right now. If you want to be decisive you have to be able to project power ashore at some point.

From a military standpoint as the UK continues to diminish and as the Royal Marines in particular take a hit, I think that our view of what we will be able to do together in the future changes.”