Royal Navy warships and helicopters maintained an unbroken watch on a Russian frigate and its accompanying vessels in UK waters throughout April, the Royal Navy has confirmed, with around 250 sailors and aircrew involved in the month-long operation.
Patrol ships HMS Tyne, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn, tanker RFA Tideforce and Wildcat helicopters from 815 Naval Air Squadron tracked the Russian Navy’s Admiral Grigorovich throughout the month as she moved between the North Sea and Western Approaches, escorting Russian-flagged vessels heading to and from the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Baltic. The Grigorovich accompanied one submarine and around six merchant and support vessels during the month, and also paused to take on fuel and supplies near key national infrastructure including the Galloper wind farm off the Suffolk coast.
Minister for the Armed Forces Al Carns said that as Russian warships continued to operate near UK shores, the armed forces were there every day, “watching, tracking and ready,” adding that the operation sent “a clear message: UK waters are protected, our sailors and aircrew are alert, and we will always defend our nation and its vital infrastructure.”
Portsmouth-based HMS Tyne spent more time shadowing the Grigorovich than any other vessel. Her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Sam Fields, said he was extremely proud of the ship’s company, adding that their “professionalism underpins our continuous presence in the North Atlantic, supporting our allies and delivering operational effect.”
Lieutenant Commander Dan Wardle, Commanding Officer of HMS Mersey, said his team continued to rise to the challenges presented, describing monitoring the Grigorovich and “ensuring the integrity of our waters” as remaining at the forefront of their priorities.
Wildcat helicopters from 815 Naval Air Squadron were airborne daily throughout April, including multiple times over the Easter weekend. Commander Douglas Keenan, 815’s Commanding Officer, said “valuable intelligence collection has taken place alongside monitoring of Russian activity” and described the operation as a demonstration of Royal Navy presence and resolve, adding that 815 remained on task to carry out the mission 365 days a year.
Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Steve Moorhouse said the Royal Navy throughout last month “demonstrated professionalism, resilience and operational readiness” and that Royal Navy units had deployed swiftly to ensure “continuous and seamless monitoring of Russian warships, with multiple assets operating in close coordination to maintain an unbroken posture.”
Was It a Wind Up ?
(I don’t expect many will get that at all)
Anyone ?
Watch, Wind up ?
Anyone know the time ?
Why are the RN maintaining Russian Watches ?
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
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all hail the mighty,mighty trent. nothing will get past her, or can it???
all hail the mighty,mighty trent. nothing will get past her, or can it???
So Tyne, Severn, and Mersey, are all due for “retirement” in 2027.
What will you use, Mr Carns, a RIB?
This is getting farcial. Stop robbing Peter to pay Paul, by bringing back River B2s from their vital work overseas, which I suspect HMG will do, and get some replacements sorted!!!!
The whole Coastal Forces Sqn needs recapitalising and expanding, with the MROS task thrown in too, given our long highlighted vulnerabilities regards cables.
It’s bad that the batch 1 rivers are going soon, I also recently read that HMS Iron Duke has been withdrawn and stripped.
That will leave the B2s and 5 frigates. It’d be a shame to have to bring the B2s back from overseas because of their work, but it’s going to be necessary.
For replacements to come in time, they would have to already have started building by now.
Meanwhile the government seems to be having endless internal arguments between defence and treasury.
could the decomissioned type 23’s been put towards a reserve status? we don’ have a reserve of anything now that bristol has bee towed away for tomorrows razor blade.
From what I’ve read about the other T23s that have been decommissioned, the corrosion has been so significant that they wouldn’t last too long at sea.
I also remember reading that when HMS Westminster was decommissioned she was so knackered that she had to be towed home from her final deployment.
The ships have been great workhorses but sadly their shelf-life is up or nearly up.
What’s really sad is that Iron Duke just underwent a LIFEX refit which completed in 2023
Totally agree. However tricky the budget situation is, RN leaders seem to be utterly clueless.
get the japanese defence force or chile run the navy. couldn’t be worse. or better still let us do iit.
I have a controvertial suggestion, let’s not offload the River B1s until their direct replacement is in service ….. and not allow that decision to impact another parts of the armed forces because of budget limits!
The sale of the B1s seems such a crazy idea given the current frigate gap, I do wonder if there is another issue that we don’t know about.
Could it be that we just don’t have enough sailors to man the ships?
Well reading here, Navy Lookout and other sources suggest that is part of the problem. It’s amazing when we think of the number of ships we had, even 40 years ago, and the corresponding number of crews that would mean, what are we doing that is so different in recruitment and retention now? Outside pay and relative employment levels compared to the late 70s and early 80s may be part of it.
some decent short vids on youtube about a batch 3 river type replacement design
So 3 River Batch 1 patrol boats used but we plan to sell them all without replacement by 2028?
France is building 10 new OPVs, slightly bigger than R2s but better armed, with CTA 40 gun, air defence missiles and a sonar.
Meanwhile our senior leaders prattle on about autonomous platforms whilst the real navy shrinks to near irrelevance.
They will replace them by bringing back three (or four) of the Batch IIs. It’s all smoke and mirrors now.
its time there was a naval act passed by parliament setting minimal levels that the forces can shrink to. the u.s navy has to get the nod from congress to retire a ship. the u.k should adopt a similar process
Starmer and his government’s task is to completely disarm the United Kingdom, and they are well advanced in this, but there are still some loose ends.
starmer is the lame duck leader of the worst circus of a government since 1945.
What a cluster! CDS, 1SL should resign – service before self! Remember that?
rmj, did we read the same article: “Royal Navy warships and helicopters maintained an unbroken watch on a Russian frigate and its accompanying vessels in UK waters throughout April, the Royal Navy has confirmed, with around 250 sailors and aircrew involved in the month-long operation”.
“Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Steve Moorhouse said the Royal Navy throughout last month “demonstrated professionalism, resilience and operational readiness” and that Royal Navy units had deployed swiftly to ensure “continuous and seamless monitoring of Russian warships, with multiple assets operating in close coordination to maintain an unbroken posture.”
The cluster requiring CDS and 1SL to resign, is what exactly? This looked like one naval operation that worked just fine….although I am a little surprised at the resources required to track one Russian frigate with an accompanyong submarine and merchantmen.
Fair point Graham though broader picture 3xOPVs due to be sold (according to reports) in the context of RN down to just 5 frigates (less than Singapore!) – in the context of 100 years ago we had the largest navy on the planet. Basically a dogs dinner.
So three OPVs and a Petrol Station was up against a fucking Corvette… Oh Christ. Royal Navy best not be saying this is how wonderful they are, cos looking at it is embarrassing.
I mean, we aren’t actually at war you know. Are you really expecting some kind of sea battle? They just need to keep it in eyesight.
LOL. River-class OPVs totally incapable of responding if the Russkies turned ugly.
Even my copium of the Russians being smacked by the RAF Typhoons using Paveways doesn’t make it any better.
I wouldn’t be too dismissive, I’m pretty sure that a few hundred 20/30 mm rounds slamming into the hull and superstructure of any Russian warship will render it combat ineffective .
There’s a chance some rounds might cause some damage. But I’m sure the russian frigate would respond pretty sharpish and a river class wouldn’t last long in a peer-level firefight
It’s only really designed for fisheries protection and anti-narcotics. They’re great at what they do, but they’re not a serious weapon to be used against a resonably well armed corvette or frigate
Given what we’ve seen about Russian quality and training, it’s likely that those rounds would have the Russian ship ablaze and incapable of fighting back. But I agree with your premise that they’re not the ideal vessel for escorting Russian warships.
TBH, the world that the River class was originally designed to operate in no longer exists , not with non state actors and militias having access to ballistic and cruise missiles and drones .
I’m pretty site a single round from the Frigates main gun would demolish the OPV.
Put down that crack pipe – The OPV hasn’t a hope in hell if it gets in a firefight with a real warship.
Take a chill pill tough guy, that literally wasn’t what I was saying.
That said, there’s plenty of footage of the Bradley APC’s operated by Ukraine successfully engaging and destroying much heavily armoured and armed Russian tanks. So it’s not as clear as you think.
Jesus! Stick to world of warships cowboy! 🤣🤣🤣
How the f@#$ does a 30mm popgun – 200rpm, with a range of 5km tops overmatch a 100mm gun spitting 80 rounds a minute to 20km
Oh, and we’ll just ignore the two 30mm Gatling guns the Russian ships packing too, each spitting out 5,000 rounds per minute.
You really are a special sort of stupid 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hard to argue with the monumentally stupid but here goes. I literally wasn’t suggesting that an OPV gets into a fight with a Russian warship, I actually agreed that an OPV escorting a warship wasn’t ideal. I was making the point that at the range that the OPV is shadowing the Russian vessel, a few hundred rounds of 30 mm could, and note the use of the word ‘could’ do significant damage to the other vessel. We’ve seen that damage control isn’t a strong point of the Russian military.
Absolutely nowhere did I suggest that a long range engagement, or indeed any kinetic engagement would be a good idea, I’m well aware that the Russian vessel is more heavily armed and I’ve long argued that the Rivers are underarmed for the world that now exists..
A world that includes thick , ignorant morons who don’t understand nuance or comprehension.
Now fuck off.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I know the only surface units involved were the OPV’s but the Wildcats could have delivered 4x Sea Venom missiles which I guess would have counted has a bad day at the office for the Russian corvette, accepting that the Wildcats would not have been on station 24/7..!
Nevertheless, it says a lot that the Russians may have had a more powerful surface unit in the southern North Sea and English Channel than the Royal Navy did.
Starmer needs to pull is finger out and get a grip. We are in a war situation all be it a virtual and gray area war i.e. hacking, sabotage and assassinations. The trouble with virtual and gray warfare is that should the Russians get lucky and break something our economy could be shattered or worse it could go full whoosh bank kinetic with virtually no warning. In essence, the gray area war is the warning and we have ignored it..!
Talk about dumb..! Our politicians and Starmer in particular are guilty of sleep walking the country into a major disaster.
Any wildcat entering the engagement envelope of a BUK armed Frigate would have a short but very exciting war long before it presented any threat to the Frigate
You do not need a large number of RN ships / boats to monitor the Russian fleet just use military satellites or the RAF’s numerous surveillance aircraft like the Poseidon P8, TC-135 Rivet Joint, Shadow R1 or Protector RG MK1. Keep the RN ships in port to reduce the maintenance required and save them use with the aircraft carriers.
So all three River Class B1’s – Tyne, Mersey and Severn – are still hard at work, doing what until recently was a frigate tasking. These ships are all now in the last 19-22 months of their RN service life. The DSA produced a nice video extolling their capabilities to potential buyers, and a formal offer of sale was apparently made to Uruguay in March. Yet another cut to RN given that they must have another 5-10 years of hull life left, or no navy would be interested.
The MOD is supposedly studying “options” for their replacement, but with no money (and now no time) to build the long speculated Batch 3’s, the only contender seems to be the withdraw late this year of Tamar and Spey from Indo-Pacific region. They will then probably undergo a year long refit before starting duties protecting UK waters. It’s likely (because it’s been done before) that a trawler or similar will be leased to replace Severn in the navigation and OOW training ship role – simulators still can’t match a week or two on the bridge of an actual ship in the crowded English Channel.
Do we even have any Trawlers left nowadays ? 🤔😁😁😁😁
Maybe It’s time we had some Privateers again………. is that Drake’s Drum I hear ?
(for those who have no Idea what I’m (again) banging on about(pun intended) go look up Drake (privateer) and the legend of his Drum…. It Is said that should England find Itself In trouble, you will hear the sound of Drake’s drum. )
(explained as the “Watch/Wind up comment failed dismally to connect).
Perhaps there’s a cunning plan to replace 2 of the B1 Rivers with the Irish Roisín class?