Despite having done so previously, and in the midst of concern over frigate numbers, the Ministry of Defence is citing spurious security reasons for not giving the number of frigates to be operated by the Royal Navy.
This marked departure from their routine transparency efforts in often providing this information was brought to light after a written parliamentary question from John Healey MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
The question comes after the decision to scrap two of the Royal Navy’s frigates, HMS Argyll and HMS Westminster, causing concern over the dwindling size of the UK’s frigate fleet.
John Healey MP (Labour – Wentworth and Dearne) asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many (a) frigates and (b) destroyers the Royal Navy plans to field in (i) 2024, (ii) 2025 and (iii) 2026.”
James Cartlidge, Minister of State (Ministry of Defence), replied:
“While we do not disclose the fine detail of forward availability forecasts to preserve the operational security of the Fleet, the Royal Navy (RN) will continue to have the destroyers and frigates it needs to deliver on its operational commitments until 2026 and beyond.
The coming years will see the Royal Navy carefully managing the transition between the current fleet to its new ships, maintaining operational commitments while ensuring value for money as the Type 26 and Type 31 Frigates begin entering service in the second half of this decade. I am committed to looking at the future of the Surface Fleet in the round and making tough but necessary decisions to ensure this transition is a success.”
You can see here, this information was regularly disclosed. pic.twitter.com/zGKCunr8xM
— George Allison (@geoallison) January 18, 2024
The sudden refusal by the Ministry of Defence to disclose the number of operational vessels in the Royal Navy, particularly in the context of decommissioning significant assets such as HMS Argyll and HMS Westminster, has led to considerable speculation.
Critics argue that the insistence on OPSEC in this context seems disproportionate to the potential risk posed by disclosing fleet numbers, a level of information that is generally understood not to be highly sensitive and is often shared by other nations without apparent detriment to their security. Right now, you can see how many ships and of what type are ins service on the ROyal Navy website.
Therefore, I believe the real impetus may be a reluctance to confront the implications of a shrinking Royal Navy publicly. In this view, withholding information may be seen as a strategy to manage the narrative and avoid igniting public concern or debate about the future direction and readiness of the naval forces, but I could be wrong.
It isn’t that hard to spot a frigate on Rotten Row with no Artisan in top of it?
I’m sure the Chinese and Russians have had a few ‘tourists’ on the way from checking the clock in Salisbury pop round to Guz and take a few holiday snaps?
This is a bit crazy as it is keeping bad news from the public. TBH this is insane as others would be more pressure on government to increase funding.
What he said. I think someones embarrased!
They should be
It’s hard to see staffing shortages from space
Monmouth and Montrose would be great hulks for the over crowded prisons we could tow them to Murmansk and just dump them there
We mostly know what’s going on. Even if a decision to refit Westminster was made it wouldn’t be in service by 2026. Similary HMS Northumberland and Kent will have to be taken off the active list this year either for refit or decommissioning, and again wouldn’t likely be back in service before 2027 (although we may be really fortunate). HMS Lancaster won’t be refitted and will probably be decomissioned next year. So what don’t we know? I haven’t heard about the state of HMS Sutherland and when it’s likely to come out of refit. I don’t know exactly when HMS… Read more »
Not quite.
Whist T31 and T26 are coming into service we are taking these frigates out of service far faster.
Yup, they may not be back in service till 2027 but some of T26 are not due in service to mid 2030’s and that assumes they are rapidly worked up and all accepted.
That is very dangerous as there is gun to head to accept mission critical systems…..due to pressure…..
The Spanish are speeding up building their new F110 Frigates… I read this morning that the the latest is some 4 months ahead of schedule.
T26 is being speeded up.
Whether T31 can be speeded up I’m dubious about…..given the first one’s poor level of pre outfitting.
I’ve not seen anything about the T26’s other than the obvious new build Factory…. What was the report please, It would be interesting to see the new Build dates/Schedule. Will Glasgow be ready much sooner than planned ? I hope so, I would also like to think e could add to the planned numbers.
Hello Frank, the last I heard was 2026 and 2027 for the first Type 31e. I’m not sure if this timeline still stands.
I hope so….. but why do I feel a tad pessimistic ?
Because you’re used to constantly negativity that surrounds the navy we’ve become immune to it.
Is venturer ready for floating out yet?
Hi Andy,
Not to my knowledge.
“It’s official, HMS Venturer is on Twitter. Follow us as the First in the Class of Type 31 Frigates progresses through build, testing and commissioning and acceptance into Service with the Royal Navy.”
“As of 2023, planning envisages Venturer being launched in 2024 and entering service by 2025. The entire class is to be in service by February 2030. First steel was cut for the new ship on 23 September 2021 signalling the start of construction. The keel of the ship was ceremonially laid down in April 2022.”
Not good enough for the navy, or the nation.
Not good enough, I doubt that other nations would accept the rate of production from the British yards.
2030 seems to be the in-service date for many things we might require before then.
What’s the latest on Cardiff getting her feet wet?
Why can’t they just add a few more T31s to the run? Cheap and cheerful and very useful. Hope the UK wins some more export orders for it or its variants as well as for the RN.
Well they don’t have the funding for it.
The goings on in the red sea might change that.
Zero mention from either party of more defense spending, just words
They don’t have the crews…
Yet
🙂
Three more wouldn’t break the bank…or would it? There is always talk of a bigger navy but I would settle for a fully equipped and updated escort fleet being brought into being as quickly as possible, by which I mean 2030.
Where would the crew come from if they can’t crew the ships they currently have, which is less than they plan to currently have?
Press gangs and the prisons those migrants who want to be us should be made to serve us.or as I’ve said before, those Nepalese15,000+ who went for the 400 places in the British army. Should be offered a job in the navy even a small percentage could provide enough bodies to take some of the shortfall off. Name a ship Gurkha. And give it a trained Nepalese crew. Easy, and won’t need a rocket scientist to organise it
We should be ambitious and push for a fleet of 50 ships not including the ‘fanny boat archers which should be transformed to the border force.
Cancel the imaginary type 32. Double the T31 Order.
I mean its not imaginary, there are other roles that need fulfilled and so throwing more t31 at it wont solve the issue. At least some modification is required, before you even take into account the costs of more ships
T32 won’t happen. Full stop.
Then neither will more T31
I think the T31 Will be a big success.
The T23s have been worked hard. 13 frigates have done the job of 26. They are worn out. Refits more like Lifex sound excessively expensive but what other option do we have unless we purchase foreign warships in, although all allied nations have woken from slumber and are rebuilding their fleets for the inevitable war in 2-5 years time. We need type 31 and 26 sped up urgently and 2-3 more type 26 hills squeezed out of the programme and at least another batch of 5 more type 31s. The RN needs a fleet of 26 escort warships as a… Read more »
Well, there’s:-
Shapps’ Aspiration; Hunt’s Possible Tax Cuts; Tata Steel’s retrenchment.
We’re getting there…..
Pie in the sky?
And if we’re still not convinced, there’s always the PM’s ‘deeply committed’ alongside ‘we’re with you for the’.
Not trying to continually down our politicians, but some strategic meat filling, not just bites would be appreciated.
And not eventually
Take the freedom ships off the Americans. A if the class have had the gearing upgrade there are 4 decommissioned. The class are performing well with me 4th and 5th fleets, completing long deployments and could be rapidly filled to the RN needs. A d best of all, they are already the T45 had an awful start, But the RN sorted it out. If anyone can get the best out of the freedom ships it’s the RN. Get two now and another two every year for the next t years, plus the new builds and the picture could be very… Read more »
Its definitely not possible to commission 12 frigates in 2 years.
The Chinese are pretty close to it.ships of the USN don’t take years fitting out they build the most ship and get it into the fleet quickly and so should we.
You cannot even compare our frankly half dead ship building to the US or China. We are only assembling 3 frigates rn and fitting out one.
I drive a foreign car and I watch a foreign television, why shouldn’t we buy second hand ships? If we approached the Americans and bou5 the retiring freedom class ships I’d expect that we could secure 3 or so, chea than a T31.the problems w the gea has been addressed, and over two thirds of the class have received the upgrades and are performing well with the 4th and 5th fleets. The lethality issue can be addressed by. Transfering weapons fr the T23’s.
So apart from the non existent space on a freedom class for more weapons. There is no point in wasting the cost and introducing a vessel we don’t want, just so the situation on paper looks better. Plus both Labour and Conservatives have a policy against buying foreign warships.
The fitting out of the internal pipework should be done during the actual hull build. Especially the firemai and cabling ductings, prewet systemse.t.c.
It is very hard to fit the major pipework once the hull is closed up.
These sections of pipework need to be inserted before the hull is closed up at the block stage.
The comment that I and others keep making is that we cannot see the ends of any pipes or ducts emerging from the blocks.
.ajor pipework CAn be installed earlier,, it’s just not part of the thought process to d IT galls me that other nations have a ‘can dobatitude, but we think we can’t think that way it’s about matching ambition with deeds
The fitting out of the whole order schedul newds looking at. In nwartime would we accept that much needed equipment was not available because of the lightbulbs no5 been fitted? no.and even because we’re not actually at war with the Russians, the whole issue needs to be sorted out. The country needs those ships now, not eventually.
Seems you are smarter than the defence secretary 😀
A particularly low bar..
Who isn’t?
And we’ll STILL be WAITING FOR THE GLASGOW
Glasgow will be out of date before the last of the class is commissioned.
Richmond came out of LIFEX in 2020 rejoined fleet 2021. The question is, will she continue in service post 2030?
I doubt it…. we will lose at least one more this year, or so it seems, Who knows what will happen in the next 6 years ? …. 6 Years was the total length of time that the entire WW2 lasted…. We are in a pretty desperate state either way you look at it……
In the sea power site ,t’s being reported that the USN will lose 48 vessels by 2026! The American navy is being pinched by the treasury and numbers cut, several yards have gone and the spiral of decline, the RN suffered is begging, while our potential foes getting stronger.
If she can, she shou
She might have to.
Westminster was a fully functional ship before the refit started where possible all ships should be kept operational. If only to take the load off the rest of the fleet. Monmouth and Montrose DID NOT HAVE TO BE RETIRED. as long as a ship can operate without becoming a risk to the crew and their safe, they should be kept in service. When I was on the Blake, she’d been laid down during WW2 she was ancient, but still did a hell of a good job and was kept in service until she and her 600+ crew were needed to… Read more »
Chinese and Russian spy services will have lots of people in their pockets reporting back on classified information. They will know full details of availability of not only the vessels but also the crews and ammo. The only people that don’t are the general public.
Because they don’t know how bad it is or the implications of the situation.but with all this red sea business going on that could change. Especially we lost a ship
Sink the archers and claim on t insurance 😁
As here mentioned, this is utilising OSA to cover political embarrassment. They think that somehow alludes the public? Both here and among allies? Shapps ridiculously trying to tell a knowledgeable audience at Lancaster House that the Peace Dividend was over – you don’t say? There is thus an aspiration to extend GDP by 0.5% above the current 2% level, that has itself proven insufficient to maintain peacetime &/or insurrection security requirements actually Demanded by these Politicians. The fruits of this ‘Strategy’ appear clear:- reduced essential infrastructure required to build and equally important maintain what are otherwise highly competent, post-Falklands refined… Read more »
“ Yet all of the Flight 1 are still in existence – and would view our remaining T23s as somewhat young-in-the-tooth”
T23 was designed with every expense spared.
It was designed for a very short hull life to save £££…..and I’m afraid that welds and plates are EoL it gets to a point where you start cutting back and keep going trying to find something sound to connect to.
I’ll bow to your knowledge over hull life, which I presume references type & quality of matetials, since these vessels came on line after I left RN, but that I’ve have struggled to fully take ‘onboard’🤔. Understood that was the original, pre-Falklands brief, but knew T23 grew significantly in cost, complexity & capabilty – and presumably quality steel, after lessons drawn i.e. as did Arleigh Burkes (difference between them and the now more troublesome part-aluminium Ticonderogas, I believe). So, seemed to me, that main difference would come down to degree to which vessels were ‘flogged’ between, and the frequency of,… Read more »
I saw on the sea power site, that the am5 expect to retire 48 vessels before 2026 unbelievable.so much for the planned300+ could be a few bargains to be had there.
The budget could go up to 5 percent and nothing would change. Without the capacity to produce at a high rate, we’ll stand still.
The artisans .main guns and Ds30′ from Montrose and Monmouth are in storage in the buildings around fountain lake jetty in Portsmouth.
I’d be surprised if they were left on the hulls. They are a valuable source of spares!
the chinese and russians don’t fear us enough to bother looking montrose and monmouth won’t be there long, the bottoms will drop off and the ships will be gone as well
I think the Russians are quite afraid of Harpoonski……it did increase their surface to submarine conversion rate. We are getting rid of that and getting something newer and better.
So I think the Russians know that their rusting junk is a lot worse than ours.
They have nothing even vaguely like T45 or as sensitive as T23 sonar or P8….their electronics tech has proved to be proper rubbish.
I never rated them that highly but I’ve been amazed at how incompetent they have turned out to be.
Well, That’s one way of viewing it…. There is another way though. It involves the decline in numbers of Ships and Crew. as is all too clear to see…. F35 might eventually get to @80 but not for many years, don’t forget Tornado was withdrawn not so long ago, leaving @130 Fighters ( if t1 goes) I’m not being that person who views it in a negative way though, just one who has concerns.
Yes but our defence spending and capabilities don’t take place in a vaccum, look at the absolute state of our main adversary. Our fighters are dropping in number but they are an order of magnitude better than what our adversaries have. The constant narrative of how s**t we are compared to everyone else (which is not true) damages our reputation and influence on the world stage. Every single country including the USA, Russia, India, China and Japan are experiencing the same problems as us right now or worse, personnel shortages, maintenance backlogs and government funding being squeezed by massive deficits… Read more »
Well I see what you are saying…. just hope you are right. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Keep your head down mate…… the next few years could get nasty.
I don’t mind repeated headlines on Defence. The Armed forces are too often out of the public eye and either maligned or ignored in favour of the more visible public services. Very little explains the impact the forces have on public life and how little we actually spend relative to the NHS and education.
Good morning Jim, I tend to disagree. Apart from the spiraling maintenance costs, how much will it cost us to purchase the new engines to run TR3/BLK4 X48 and when can we expect to see them installed on all of the aircraft? U.S. Naval Institute News reported earlier today that negotiations to buy the aircraft have stalled due to the growing price tag for the fourth-generation fighters. Previous Navy estimates put the unit cost of the last 20 aeroplanes at $55.7 million per Super Hornet. Congress previously appropriated and authorized approximately $1.15 billion for the F/A-18s, a total which would… Read more »
I’m not sure what your disagreeing with the article says the price of a new F18 is approaching the price of an F35C much less and F35A.
And the F35 comes with all he EW and targeting pods inbuilt rather than and additional cost.
All aircraft being accepted now are TR3.
Good evening Jim, “Look at the F35, reading the press you would think it’s a lame duck that cost 5 times more than any other aircraft. Despite its issues it’s cheaper than an F18 to buy and it’s the most capable combat aircraft ever devised by mankind.” This doesn’t include the required engine upgrade or Block 4 software upgrade. “The F-35’s price per unit including ancillary costs like depot maintenance, ground support equipment, and spare parts is $110.3 million per F-35A, $135.8 million per F-35B, and $117.3 million per F-35C. Those totals do not include the nearly $1.3 trillion in… Read more »
And yet the 1000th F35 is near build completion and the orders keep rolling in.
I watched a very good and well-researched piece on YouTube yesterday. It showed the known locations of US warships and their placing to ensure there’s sufficient coverage in the Pacific and Gulf to dissuade China from acting on an invasion of Taiwan and putting sufficient military hardware to give Iran two thoughts before starting anything with her neighbours. When analysing the current issue with the Houthis in Yemen and the lopping of missiles at shipping in the Red Sea the end. The analyst pointed out that the US was now way overstretched and needed at least a dozen warships to… Read more »
My Thoughts ? Yes….. We need to build more Ships, we need to recruit more Crews, We need to get real about the World and all it’s threats.
Build more ships? Where though? We can’t do it. All of the infrastructure cash went to the Clyde, it could have been put into the yard at Sunderland. Then we’d have had another yard.
If it’s that bad then the UK’s politicians, MoD and decision makers need to get seriously more serious about RN fleet numbers and if what they’re producing and upgrading at the moment is going far and fast enough.
Wed all know that the MOD IS not fit for purpose and that all the expensive old crusty admirals cluttering the place, should have been off-loaded years ago. The curtains should be closed, the lights turned off, the doors bolted and a fresh organisation put in place
Old Trump may not be everyone’s cup of tea so to speak(certainly not mine, but then, nor is sleepy Joe), but one issue he is most correct on, is the European part of NATO(not all) getting a free ride on the coat tails of the US military. The USA doesn’t need to defend the RedSea/Suez as it doesn’t get most of its trade via this route. But there it is with a large task force deployed. Where is the European response, those natio s that actually do rely on trade via this route? I think that Europe has to take… Read more »
Hi Deep32, Unfortunately and fairly I don’t agree with you part of your reply “The USA doesn’t need to defend the Red Sea / Suez as it doesn’t get most of its Trade via this Route”. The USA relies on Globalised Free Trade, these days a Recession in Europe causes a Recession in the US and that could lead to China going into recession. At present the Panama Canal is hamstrung due to the worst drought they have ever had (you need a very large reservoir at the highest point to feed the locks. That and the issues in the… Read more »
👍Yes, certainly Europe should be spending 2.5%!
We, the UK needs to be spending 3%. Why? The rolling in of the nuclear deterrent and pensions into the MOD budget just e\ate too much of the budget when it was outside the MOD annual spend and it should return back to the Treasury along with the pensions black hole. There was an interesting article in the Times asking whether the UK is to get serious with defence or climate change. My response would be that if we don’t get serious with defence, the Russians could force the harshest sort of climate change upon us all. Some 3,000c of… Read more »
Evening mate, totally get ur point about Globalised free trade et al, but trade with the US wise this area is a backwater. US trade with the EU goes straight across the NA, US trade with the Far East etc goes across the Pacific, which is where the majority of the US off shore trade is. Understand the issue with the Panama canal, but, the US has big West coast ports that can handle the flow of goods. What the US are doing in the Red sea/Suez is assisting Israell/averting the spread of an escalation throughout the middle east and… Read more »
DITTO
Amazing how we hear of all the multinational exercises happening here and another there, but we baulk at the idea of a. Single European forces.
Likewise we depend on the airfield that is Cyprus even though we now have two state of the art carriers We’re not using them to do exactly what they were designed for.why, perhaps we don’t need a navy after all, have maybe ask the south Africans why they don’t do more of the policing around the cape? Give us basing rights at simonstown, and keep assets there?
The UK would not have the capacity to build more T26’s than one more. The present number of T23’s is only just half of that were ordered in the mid 80’s, for the ASW role. The Russian sub threat is only a fraction of what is was in 85.
It is AAW/AAD vessels the UK is in need of, shown by the recent Gulf Crisis.
I agree we need more slightly better specced GP frigates with some AAW / AAD capability.
With Mk41 T31 can actually launch a range of missiles so that bit is done. All it needs is a radar to go with it.
Cue T31B2 or T32 with a slightly better outfitting level and I think that is more than adequate.
Type 32 won’t happen, I’m sure of it. We’re already suffering overstretch because we can’t deliver what we need quickly enough. Congress in America and the navy itself are concerned that the production capacity has fallen too far.
I don’t think T31 is a green water vessel. Yes, they have capable small boat defence, but that also applies to missile defence. They have capacity for a decent crop of CAMM alongside a bunch of ASMs. In addition, it has been decided that they should have the speed and range to deploy quickly to cross oceans.
I think the aim with T31 is as a general purpose escort in the most likely new types of warfare; both the green water asymmetric fight and the Great Ocean Battle where the threat of subs is low and missiles high.
Can you link that video please mate?
https://youtu.be/XXn8yBknK40?si=a04rfNGYRNjtxVvX If the link doesn’t work, Real Life Lore (Yemen and Iran analysis) YouTube.
Real Life Lore Yemen and Iran analysis on YouTube hopefully the mods don’t delete my post.
The UK has very much dropped the ball in terms of military force commeasurate with a permanent member of the UNSC & main naval power within Europe/NATO. It will be a very long time before we return to what we need to be even if HMG woke up tomorrow & begun a crash building program. All our enemies know that very well 7 have little to worry about. It’s as though our leaders have been doing our enemies job for them!
Sleepwalking into the next world war.
You can’t have a crash building project if you’re unable to do it. The whole national infrastructure as regards to defence appears to be none. Existant.
This is one of the big problems the west faces in regards to the challenge from china and why china (in the minds of a number of people who know china ) thinks it can win a prolonged world war against the west…when china has 250 times the ship building capacity of the USA ( 100,000 tons a year vs 24million tons a year)..that’s not an industrial gap you can overcome…..china can put the equivalent of a large European navy in the water every year ( and does) just with its peacetime building program…if it turned its entire ship building… Read more »
The simple fact is the PLAN can now go toe to toe with the entire USN and the US would be unlikely to get much of its navy back..the PLAN is also not the Green water navy everyone thinks it is…it’s now got a permanent squadron of around 6 major surface vessels in the western Indian Ocean…a navel base in Cambodia ( covering the major choke point between the pacific and Indian Ocean, a base building in the Gulf and a very large base off the gulf of Aden ( able to dock and service a 100,000 ton carrier and… Read more »
Need a dozen more, retire twice that amount are we running their navy as well?
We should strive for the number of around 59 ships no including the ‘fanny boat archers.
Typical of a minister always bluff there way through questions 😏
Always have always Will.
It’s just as effective as the new French ‘strategy’ of not officially saying which ship is at sea…
Clearly this is simply a way to hide the problem from the electorate….china is going to know how many operational frigates we have but the population of this open liberal democracy will not know how well the UK government is protecting the UK….just at the point the public are starting to wake up and realise the world is becoming deadly and we may not be safe….
I want to see the real plan that the definite in coming government will beenacting and how they will stick to it. I’d hope that the already ordered T26 to stand. Ditto the T31. The T32, frankly I don’t think Will actually happen. It’s too much for the yards we have to engage in producing another type of ship the T83 brothers me a lot if a souped up type 26 to operate as a destroyer, for me is the best way to go about it. The infrastructure and building experience in building the 26 is already in place. Just… Read more »
Hi folks hope all is well. Very strange as I thought we are now global Britain! Where are the ships and numbers then? Although it could be there’s details that are not made public for a serious issue that we are not aware of? After all one of the best forms of defence is an element of surprise, your enemy thinking you are lacking in all areas. However, do agree that it’s a bit strange and not in keeping with the tradition of publicly publishing numbers. On a broader note, it’s disturbing that the UK military is low in numbers… Read more »
One of the reasons I suspect is not telling Iran / Houthis how long we can sustain the red sea presence. Hiding the fact that it’s not very long before we run out of ships, the hiding it from the electorate is a secondary bonus.
I am afraid that I agree.
Iran will know as China will know as anyone with a pair of binos and a digital camera will know…..
Iran will almost certainly come to the same conclusion as we have, but it’s very different to announce it as Iran will then have confidence in there knowledge. We all have an idea that there no type 45s available but for all we know one might roll out of refit next month
The third one is due out very soon so that could well be true.
Hms Darling would need to conduct sea trials and work-up of a new crew, first before a real deployment. The RN could recall Hms Defender’s crew, which went into refit last year, to crew newly refitted Hms Dauntless. Ideally, some T45’s need to be double crewed, I mean with a relief crew so they can be redeployed again quickly. With the relief crew taking over after return of vessel from a long deployment.
But we know that it would never happen
Recall to go back out on another boat? You might get a real life mutiny. The staffing situation has no excuse. Needs to be handled yesterday.
Or get sunk
It’s all there in open sources, so the Minister is just being needlessly obstructive.
Time to deal with Iran once and for all they’re the reason many of today’s issues exist.
So where’s the deployment of other European vessels to replace ours while they recover? French, German, Spanish, Italian etc. If the US would get a rocket under LM we might get more F35b’s quicker & be able to deploy a CSG, or the Charles de Gaule CSG.
The British CSG is a joke 12 F 35 and a few tomahawks lobbed from a submarine, wouldn’t bother the Belgians
Seeing as the UK is the only tier 1 participant in the F 35 project, we don’t appear be getting the preferential treatment perhaps we should have.
Uh yeah, not even the biggest customer in Europe. Hard to take it serious when “Tier 1” isn’t even 50 airplanes.
For th government not us. The one’s that they are answerable to.
Global Britain? Just yuppie media speak utter b******s. Words for words sake.
The problem is utter miss management and money saving has lead to the fact we are heading to a set of deadly conflicts ( possibly even a world war) with a completely inadequate and shrinking escort and suppport fleet and it cannot be rectified because it takes years to commission new ships and build up the workforce you have lost…that’s before you even consider regenerating industrial capability loss…the simple and very concerning truth is that 2030 and beyond is now utterly irrelevant to the geopolitical situation and geostrategic decisions around war that will be made by our enemies over the… Read more »
Very well summarized Jonathan, I could not agree more. And when you add in the dates for FOC across the board the dilemma we face becomes even more apparent.
The short-term solution with additional orders for JSM, MATRE ER, and Additional Typhoons. Japan signed a deal with the United States on Thursday to purchase up to 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of its ongoing military build-up in response to increased regional threats. In November, the US approved a £1.85 billion sale of two types of Tomahawks: 200 Block IV missiles and 200 upgraded Block V versions. They can be launched from warships and hit targets 1,000 miles away, officials said. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has pledged to double its annual defence spending to about 10 trillion yen… Read more »
£53bn on defence, is only a little ahead of us on about £51bn! Japan could even afford more than that figure!
True, but the Japanese defence budget is not distorted by the CASD and global infrastructure…it’s a highly focused regional defence budget..so they get a lot more kinetic bang for their buck than we do.
So, that extra £2Bn was well spent on Tomahawk with the V able to hit moving targets at sea! Typhon would give both them and us a very useful and flexible land-based mobile launcher. “The US Army plans to deploy its new Mid-Range Capability (MRC) long-range launcher in the Indo-Pacific next year, according to a four-star general. Also known as Typhon the service designed the land-based system to launch Raytheon’s existing SM-6 missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit targets between the Precision Strike Missile’s (PrSM’s) planned 500-kilometer range and the 2,776-kilometer reach of the future Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW)… Read more »
Would anyone know if a ship-based version of this is possible as a soft kill countermeasure? Leonardo upgrades BriteCloud EAD with ‘smart’ features 18 January 2024 “The UK-based electronic warfare (EW) business of Leonardo has upgraded the large aircraft variant of its BriteCloud expendable active decoy (EAD) to meet the latest NATO STANAG-4871 self-protection standard and offer compatibility with new ‘smart’ countermeasure dispenser systems. Announcing the development on 18 January the company revealed that the latest BriteCloud 55-T variant will also be able to exchange data with the host aircraft’s onboard self-protection system to maximise performance of the expendable in… Read more »
I call 2024”The Chickens came home to roost”.
25 straight years of cuts, Reviews(bigger cute), projects delayed or reduced, strategic Industries allowed to due off, recruitment and retention ignored.
“Our leaders wilfully misread…” incompetence..no excuses. They knew the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world 21st Dec 2012 🙂
So that was the problem they decided the world was going to end so there was no point in investing in defence……just spend the money on on parties…
It is more the crewing that is the pressing issue. RN have 13 new frigates on order right now – fact. We cannot crew the 9 (or whatever the number is now) – fact. We are allegedly mothballing two big grey war canoes due to lack of crew Sad fact but…… I’d love to see T32 ordered pronto and if T26 is being accelerated then something needs to fill that gap before T83 so that will be another small bath of T26. But then how do you crew them? My solution would be to revert to the old BP link… Read more »
Hi supportive, as I said I don’t really think their is any real way to dig ourselves out properly…this is about a decade of refusing to see the geopolitical nightmare we were heading for..because to admit it would have required government to have admitted it needed to be working up to a 5% defence budget… But I actually think the manpower issue may be easier to manage…industrial capacity and putting more hulls in the water is not something we can do much about in the medium term…But manpower…that’s as much about the application of money in a creative way as… Read more »
Agree with the manpower view, it’s as old as the hills. So where does cutting assets to fit the number of people currently wanting to sign on become priority. Peacetime, possibly – the Irish solution; but not with what’s waiting around the corner for European Nato. We have not in the past, and do not now, lack the ability to resume defence manufacture and logistic infrastructure capacity. But we need to see Government open the debate, not close it down under OSA or any other excuse. Want to save some public money, i.e. to show willing? Stop the Hogfest that… Read more »
And over that period Russia & China made lots of donations to our political parties.
As an Avid follower and frequent visitor of HMS Warriors Live Web Cam, I’m always amazed just how easy it is to view this Military port live….. same with many other places….. ( Plymouth Sound Webcam is great for Ship movements ) It’s not that difficult for anyone to see just what Ships and other Equipment is where in the UK….. Also, Site’s like this one provide all the Info of movements and developments in detail almost 24/7……. quite why an MP needs to be a bit Vague in this day and age is beyond me….. does he not know… Read more »
Last one out of the RN canteen… don’t forget to switch off the lights.
Is it not time to remove defence spending from… well I’m not sure to be honest (help someone please) and just go for 2.95 of GDP every year for the next 5 years or so?
In 5 Years review the ‘situation’, then go from there?
‘Day to day party politics’ perhaps? In Australia they have managed to build a cross party consensus on defence spending levels and priorities. This may seem impossible for the UK but we have a shared political history/culture so worth a try. While I think we took too big a peace dividend in the 90’s a further problem has been the stop/start nature of spending since then and changing priorities. A more public debate about these things and long term public commitments from the main parties would combine making long term planning easier with sending a strong international message to friends… Read more »
The UK has a cross party consensus on defence spending which is the same target as Australia’s. 2% of GDP.
Agree. Parliamentary games. The opposition’s job is to attack government weak points; to embarrass them and harry them out of office. We shouldn’t be in this situation but we are where we are. The T23 Lifex lifeboat is sinking. Head for the batch 2 River life rafts.
Why avoid a narrative on the effectiveness gap and a dwindling Navy, surely it’s an opportunity to get the message out that the Navy is in a mess, to put pressure on politicians especially with an imminent election. Don’t need to be political just the truth. It’s not in the MOD interest to become more insignificant and less effective, so why be so worried about saying this. Why not confirm 2 frigates are now gone due to a succession gap… this is a rhetorical ‘why’, no answer needed.
I think that it is no secret that open war with Russia is not that far off, Maybe the T26 build has been speeded up. As for decommissioning two frigates, a bad idea.
As well as china and Iran…I bet you would see North Korea take advantage as well..one will snowball the next…if a conflict with Russia kicked off china would pretty much immediately launch an attack in the western pacific, Iran would use the opportunity to seek regional supremacy and why the hell would North Korea not kick off the war again when the rest of the world was completely distracted by other wars….the axis of WW2 was not some grand alliance like the Warsaw pact but instead a group of nations that gradually joined in to take advantage..of the power shift… Read more »
How quickly could Poland build us a T31?
Total. Utter. Cobblers. MoD.
If they’re really concerned about security, don’t cut escorts to just 19 vessels & then let them wither further to 13 or 14 before any replacements start being delivered.
They’ve been rushing headlong to diminish all our forces for so long I don’t think they can see the irony.
Bluffing and deflecting because we have not enough and not enough crew to man them if we did get more. What a shambles. And no working Fleet resupply ship. You could not make this farce up, its embarrassing. More Admirals than ships.
“In this view, withholding information may be seen as a strategy to manage the narrative and avoid igniting public concern or debate about the future direction and readiness of the naval forces, but I could be wrong.”
There’s also an election looming and the government’s position is looking somewhat bleak if the opinion polls are anything to go by. Hence they’re likely to be over sensitive to bad news at the moment.
These T23’s, as old and worn as they are can still do a job bett than many I. The seas if they can float move and fight, then everything that that can be done, must be done the T23′ may be oldl’, they may be worn
, but they are still the back bone in the fleet
Russ is spot on. Typical government trick using security to cover up embarrassment. Back in 2009, financial crisis etc all depts had to reduce spending. Fair enough. The MOD had 500 million unspent after it over cut. Hindsight it maybe, but that money could have bought an extra frigate, which would now be coming into service. Well done the Treasury. The most anti- British institution on the planet. The UK needs to learn minimum deterrent strategic or not is not something we can afford. Maximum deterrent strategic and conventional is what we can afford only !
its easier, when theres none to talk about.
The MOD never gets it right we pay off a ship but have to wait 2/3 years before a replacement comes into service ,and we our short now for escorts for our carriers , deployments . many of the escorts are looking worse for wear worn out before their time.because of cuts to numbers which was started y cameron in 2010 , Still good new the Bulwark and Albion will now remain in service untill 2030,s as given out inthe news today