Sir Philip Jones told the Defence Committee that the Royal Navy is, along with the US and France, one of the few navies that is “globally deployable and effective at all the tasks they are given”.
Notwithstanding the important role of allies in CSG21, he confirmed, “Very few nations
are capable of deploying a genuinely credible carrier strike group, not just to that region
but anywhere”. The fact that the Navy was able to deliver CSG21 while simultaneously exercising a second aircraft carrier and deploying the Littoral Response Group (North) task force for the first time is additionally impressive, note the Committee.
The Secretary of State told the Defence Committee that the goals of CSG21 included establishing and reinforcing international partnerships and networks and promoting UK industry and exports. He said that the group would take a “confident but non-confrontational” approach.
“The evidence we took, along with media reporting suggest these goals have
been largely met. Mr Pyne and Professor Kotani told us that CSG21 was welcomed by
Australia and Japan. The group conducted at least one passing exercise with a naval vessel from almost all of the countries it passed en route.
As part of HMS Defender’s visit to Odessa, the UK, Ukraine and Babcock signed an agreement for the sale of two refurbished Sandown minehunters and eight small missile warships, and UK involvement in Ukraine’s development of a frigate capability. It may also have contributed to the admission of the UK as a dialogue partner to ASEAN, one of the Government’s major aims for the region.”
However, it isn’t all roses.
“The deployment also demonstrated some of the ways in which adversaries might
respond in the grey zone to a more active and present Royal Navy. While HMS Defender
and HNLMS Evertsen50 transited the Black Sea, Russian aircraft and coastguard vessels
shadowed them, and the Russian government attempted to spread disinformation that
Russian forces had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in HMS Defender’s path.
These encounters followed an incident on 18 June in which the locations of HMS Defender
and HNLMS Evertsen were falsified by unknown actors. The Chinese navy reportedly
dispatched submarines to shadow the task group for part of the trip, which Mr Pyne and
Professor Kotani told us is ‘common practice for China whenever a foreign nation sends
naval forces into the South China Sea’.”
The Royal Navy should be proud of its position as one of the leading global navies and its ability to deliver and operate two aircraft carriers, say the Defence Committee.
The carrier strike group deployment has shown that, when working with allies, ‘the Navy can deliver a task group able to meet the goals of establishing presence, building relationships with partners and supporting trade’.
“The servicemen and women and civilian staff who worked hard to deliver the deployment should be proud of their achievement. We note that the loss of the F-35 plane, which is still being managed as we write this report, is a significant incident, and we are thankful for the safe recovery of the pilot.”
The Defence Committee recently published its report ‘We’re going to need a bigger Navy’ following the Committee’s inquiry ‘The Navy: purpose and procurement’. You can read the report here.
The European Patrol Corvette is picking up-speed, perhaps we could use this as a low-end combatant to fufill low-end tasks??
Nope
T31 and T31 is the direction of travel. Probably with enlarged autonomous capability on T31. We need more T31 and T32 with a full load out and probably a VLS as the former 1SL clearly stated himself.
At least T26 has VLS and T31 has space for a VLS.
Rivers are fine for the low end stuff.
Anything in between looks fighty but comes into the T21 category of “looks like a warship but is a death trap if it is deployed in a hot environment.”
Agreed
Isn’t that what the Type 31 is intended to do? Plus being better armed. I don’t think a ship in-between the T31 frigates and River OPVs is really necessary. We’d be better sticking a 40mm and a handful of LMM/HMG on the Rivers/uparming the T31 and building a few than add another class of low end warship.
Don’t like the term low end I’d expect the navy to be more creative in its design process what the Thais have done with their batch2 river is the way to go with the design a 76mm to melara gun and an additional 30mm aft of the bridge wings with a Lmm system fitted to them makes them an ideal littoral platform
Why should we join the program when arguably the Royal Navy has no reason to buy as we have the River Class OPVs
Frankly, the Europeans should look at what the UK’s ships go through as they get put up against the worst weather in the world as the Falklands fleet was made up of old ships and ships not designed for the weather conditions of the South Atlantic
Whilst many would like to see a larger Royal Navy it can’t be denied and shouldn’t be overlooked that it is a very active organisation that consistently has a high proportion of it’s vessels deployed. In the last few months alone we’ve had in addition to the CSG OPV’s in The West Indies, South Atlantic, West Africa and Pacific, a frigate in The Arctic, a frigate, LSD and 4 mine-hunters in The Gulf, a survey ship in The Mediterranean / North Atlantic as well as SSN’s and other RFA’s in various spots and plenty of activity around The UK! Not… Read more »
Yup, lots of very good, skilled and hard working people.
Well done to all of them…
Cheers CR
Bravo.
What did some troll say to me once here….”third world navy”
Right!
The term Third world was a term used post 1945 and the beginning of the Cold War First World countries were those of Nato aligned Second World those of Warsaw Pact Countries Third World Countries were Neither .So we are a Neutral Navy Daniele
How come we always blame the MOOD and the government or treasury when a lot of the reasons I could be laid at the door to the admiralty and it’s plethora of deadwood retired admiral’s who appear to be invisible in matters naval?
That troll needs educating. RN is one of only two Rank 2 bluewater navies in the world, on the Todd & Lindberg classification system.
I wish there was sufficient funds for to build another carrier which in my opinion would be a advantage.Others would argue agaist such a move, but Commander Rasputin is incensed on building up the Russian Navy plus other services.We must take into account his revenue from gas and play poker on countries economies.He is a very clever maniplutive person and when i see him make the sign of the cross attending a ship sub launch makes it a mockery.
We could have another carrier. And quickly at that. Look how fast the Atlantic conveyer was converted to operate the harriers
No doubt, we can be a force to be reckoned with, but not quite yet…….we need to get the Type 45s fixed and uparmed….Dauntless has still not put to sea, the PIP upgrade is proving troublesome, poor planning or poor execution? At one point in 2021 only 1 of the 6 was operational…..not good enough! We really need to plan well and ensure the assets in use at anyone time are on maximum availability…..not forgetting the fact we need to actually build RFA Victoria’s replacement ……
Covid 19 has messed everything up
Messed up my golf handicap 😭
Yet another weak soundbite we’re all Sick if