It is clear that the budget priorities of successive governments have delivered a fleet of porcupines (well-defended herbivores), say the Defence Committee.
The report finds that the next decade is one of significant risk for the Royal Navy’s fleet, and one in which the UK and the Navy will face an increasingly complex international security environment. The Committee finds that Royal Navy remains one of the most capable forces in the world however, successive governments “failure to fund the ha’porth of tar the Royal Navy needs has literally spoiled the ships”.
The fleet will continue to suffer from well-documented problems with several key assets for at least the next few years:
- Delays to crucial procurement programmes mean that old ships are becoming increasingly challenging to maintain and spend too long unavailable for operations.
- Even for newer ships maintenance projects take too long. At one point in July 2021 only one of six Type 45 destroyers was not undergoing maintenance: three vessels were in refit; one was in planned maintenance; and one was “experiencing technical issues” (in layman’s English, it broke down).
- The budget for operations and maintenance is tight and will likely lead to yet more ships sitting in port, failing to deter our increasingly emboldened adversaries.
- “When ships do get to sea they act like porcupines – well-defended herbivores with limited offensive capabilities”. What offensive capabilities these ships do have will be reduced even further in three years’ time when the Government retires the Harpoon anti-ship missile without a planned replacement.
- Three important vessels – RFA Argus, RFA Fort Victoria and HMS Scott – will also retire without replacements: the Navy will likely lose its current ability to provide medical care, replenish vessels at sea, and monitor the sea bed.
- The fleet is increasingly reliant on allies for many capabilities, with a limited scope to act independently, and the Government needs to do more at the political level to ensure this support will be provided when needed.
Professor Till was among several witnesses who told the Defence Committee that Royal Navy vessels are often “decidedly under-armed and with worryingly limited magazines” when compared with peers and adversaries.
He noted that the Australian variant of the Type 26 frigate will be fitted with a torpedo launch system. The UK’s version will instead have to rely on the helicopters on board to deliver torpedoes.
Admiral Radakin confirmed to the Committee that much of this criticism “was very fair”.
In the summary, the report states:
“When ships do get to sea they act like porcupines – well defended herbivores with limited offensive capabilities. This is a result of decisions by successive Governments to limit budgets and prioritise defensive capabilities. What offensive capabilities these ships do have will be reduced even further in three years’ time when the Government retires the Harpoon anti-ship missile without a planned replacement. More money must be found to upgrade the Navy’s lethality and allow our ships to take the fight to the enemy.”
The report goes on to say:
“We welcome the promises from the Department that future vessels will carry the offensive missiles they need and in particular that this will restore a land attack capability to the fleet. The Department must deliver the funding to swiftly end the spectacle of space on highly capable vessels being used to carry nothing but air.
This should include consideration of both the threats and the opportunities posed by hypersonic missiles as well as the potential to use common missile silos across classes and to deliver compatibility with different international partners.
The Department should confirm in its response that it still intends the FC/ASW to be compatible with the Mark 41 vertical launch system. The Department should also be mindful of previous warnings that procuring a ‘bridging’ system with long post-2030 life expectancy could damage the relationship with France.”
I do quite like the well defended herbivore phrase. Though I might remind everyone that a Stegosaurus often had little trouble fending off large predator dinosaurs. Regardless, FC/ASW will solve these problems, but we need it more urgently than 2028. Id rather not take the avenue of hoping that the Russian Zircon doesn’t work.
If the MOD was tasked with designing the UK heavyweight boxing entrant for the Olympics they would provide the legs and endurance of a long distance cyclist, the torso of a heavyweight judo champion, the brain and fwd thinking processing power of a chess grandmaster and the arms…the arms of a Malaysian badminton player…but only 1. In all seriousness, given the delays to F35 block 4 and the lack of any stand off weapon for UK f35s it is borderline Gross Negligence not to provide an interim ship based solution….the world is the most unstable amongst those at the top table it has been for 30 years.
Totally agree, and if we are lucky RN won’t have to go toe to toe with a peer. If we’re unlucky then duty of care for sailors has gone out of the window and we’ll have ships and sailors at the bottom of the ocean. Without an interim solution the RN is in serious peril.
Indeed. For good or ill Britain makes itself a serious and preferred target for both Russia and China (plus junior irritants) when as is the norm they prefer to avoid direct conflict with the US. As such it’s the Govts responsibility to give these ships and sailors the best chance of survival possible rather than just visibly impressive ships for the pr and economic flag wavers but somewhat superficial in terms of actual fighting. There’s cheaper ways of doing the former but absolutely not the latter so the Govt needs to decide what it wants rather than hope there isn’t a conflict any time soon.
Navalnews had an interesting article (26 Sep,21) on the IAI Sea Serpent missile, a collaboration with Thales, aimed at the RN interim missile contract. If that could be brought into service quickly, it could bridge the gap nicely. Also, export T26 & T31 will have in built ASW torpedo launchers but RN ones will not. This is crazy. The helicopter cannot be in the air 24/7, so an onboard ASW capability is needed.
Ship borne lightweight torpedoes are of limited use against a boat armed with heavyweight torpedoes.
Unless you are in tight conjested waterways such as inner and outer Hebrides etc…approaches to faslane, Norwegian fjords or for blue water environments you utilise japanese ASROC
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_07_Vertical_Launch_Anti-submarine_rocket
All the global shipping routes are now tightly conjested, where subs would lurk. ASW helo’s are quite reliable.
They generally are but I’ve worked long enough with helos in remote areas to know that there comes a point where best will in the world you have to ground them for 12 to 18 hours to strip down an engine..a gear box a tail rotor etc. As the merlin fleet gets older and the numbers in the fleet remain tight, that will become an issue more and more.
Precisely!
I would look at the latest generation Japanese ASROC
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_07_Vertical_Launch_Anti-submarine_rocket
Hi John, with you on this or they get a hurry up on the FC/ASW. It will be good to have sea and land attack ability to complement the Astutes.
The ship launched torpedoes could just be as a backup to the helo if ever lost, broken down, doing something else, or even as an anti-torpedo defence for the ship itself! I can’t believe the duffers who leave all this basic stuff out of RN kit yet include it for exports. Why are the RAN, RCN including it on the T26s? Is there any news on the 3×8 VLS on the T26s, have they decided what they’re going too put in them yet? 24 x FC/ASW, Asroc, LRASM, TLAM? Any AUVs being ordered for the T26s, even T45s, as recently done for the T23s?
At the risk of repeating myself and also speaking for not a few people on the site, equipping the fleet with a “decent amount” of Spear3 missiles surely is the either quick or easy option here to provide some sort of offensive capability, pending something “proper”.
Surely it would be possible to fit at least 16 in place of harpoon? (Assuming they can put a booster on)
AA
Hi Armchair Admiral,
I believe that MBDA have been looking at a surface launched version of the Brimstone / SPEAR 3 and I have seen pictures of them launching something that was labelled Brimstone 3… However, there wouold clearly be a need for further work to integrate properly into RN systems so not a quick or cheap fix.
I just hope FC/ASW is not delayed beyond 2028 / 30…
Cheers CR
“I just hope FC/ASW is not delayed beyond 2028 / 30…”
Its so critical for both RN and MN(France), I just can pray to not see that happens.
There was the Sea Spear Brimstone variant that came with a 16kg warhead and 20-25 km,range compared to the 6kg and 40km + range of Brimstone II.
More punch but with a max range of just on / just over the horizon.. a swarm of 4-6 would do a lot of damage to a small – medium size vessel.
Integration costs for vessels already operating MBDA missile such as CAMM would be relatively light as would integration into open Architecture systems.
Suspect the issue for RN is Sea Spear doesn’t deliver that much of a bigger punch compared to CAMM at 10kg warhead although the armour piercing and land attack capabilities would be very useful compared to CAMM.
Spear 3 with 30kg warhead and 100km range and with both anti ship and land attack utility would be a reasonable interim solution for likes of type 31 and 23 etc…and support UK ip and industry.
I agree, spear 3 would be idea, clever large numbers of swarm capable missiles with the ability to target key systems and also act as a cheap land attack system would be ideal.
quad packed say 16-32 per ship.
Even Lions learn very early to sod off when a porcupine decides it want to be where the lion is.
It would allow the RN to engage almost any target at realistic ranges from a small boat to a destroyer or a target on land.
it would also only take a couple or handful of cells allowing ships to then also carry the new heavyweight Antiship missile when it’s ready.
I’ll take an extra 5 Astutes, 6 improved T45s, and another 8 T26, all fitted for with enough advanced weapons to enable defense and offence with enlarged, supported, Div of Royal.
Asking too much?
Cloud cuckoo land, I am afraid.
I’ll buy some tinfoil, promise.
Yes.
The problem is even if the government gave the Navy the money for this ( which they could if they wanted) it would take years to develop up the training pipeline to even begin to train the crews, and specialists take years to get to a point they can then teach others.
Its the same problem with the NHS the government has now panicked and thrown us tons of cash….. but we can’t spend it because what we need is staff and it would take years to just create the training places, you can only place a set number of students with a team before impacting on the service. so we can only slowly increasing the numbers of student healthcare professionals places and it then takes years of training and experience ( an ED charge nurse is about a decades worth of training and development).
But I agree they should now be developing for a plan to significantly increase the numbers of RN vessels and crews as all the geopolitical forces are Pointing to major peer on peer conflict within a decade or two, with next fifty years likely to turn into a survival of the fittest blood bath between nation states, global warming will make conflict over food and water security 100% likely and new technology bases will drive conflict over specific raw materials and again this is almost 100% likely.
With you 100%
Oh dear, how long before the RN gets labelled ‘the porcupine navy’…
CR
Any foe with good intelligence will be able to defeat a porcupine navy without much trouble..all it needs is 1 warhead to get through. I hope 1SL and Def Sec are ready to answer to the public if a conflict arises and they send sailors to their deaths in ships ill equipped for the fight.
I thought the Astute’s were going to do the ship sinking? Are they now saying the “Warmongers” and “Internet experts” were right?
Hi Bob, the Astutes are still going to do the ship sinking stuff, that’s not changed. The issue is and always has been that by 2026/27 we will only have 7 of them. Far too few for what the navy needs, so realistically they would need a little help in a major shooting war in the form of AShMs either fitted to ships and/or aircraft – ie JSM or similar.
By not having any to replace Harpoon when it goes OOS. 1SL/Navy are effectively taking a risk that we won’t be in a shooting war over the next few years.
Certainly madness to think Astutes can be everywhere to protect our ships… esp while trying to chase down enemy subs which is after all their day job.
Whilst deep down, Astutes will have no idea what’s happening on the surface. By the time they do it’ll be game over.
Not really true mate, SSNs can receive intel all the time, or come upto of at regular intervals for a update. It’s not as quick as a ship can update it’s picture, but not far off.
That should say upto PD at regular intervals…….
As you said, they need to come up for updates. By then it could be all over.
To be fair, if a SSN is tasked with killing something/s they have access to enough sources for a up-to-date RMP to do what they need to. They will be well positioned if a shooting war starts irrespective of the targets.
Hi Deep.
For me this is an error regards SSN vs ship.
Fine against a non peer where the mere threat of a RN SSN can leave many a nations ships in port.
Vs Russia am I not right in saying that the biggest threat to a Russian SSN is one of ours?
So let the SSN do the ASW offensive role. Which is why I advocate priority of putting an ASM on our fast jets more than on the escorts.
Our ships are primarily defensive. Our aviation and SSN can be offensive.
Hi Daniele, yes mate agree, our SSNs will remain our main offensive ASW weapon, most certainly against opposition SMs, although it can and often is a team game as we’ve previously discussed.
I would prefer to see any AShM on aircraft first, particularly on the P8’s as the F35’s won’t be in a position to have anything until early 2027ish.
I would rather the ships were fitted with a land attack missile first, preferably something with a long range and big bang.
The use of AShMs have several problems that they need to overcome to be effective due to our ROE. This becomes more difficult in littoral waters, and was a big driver for precision strike weapons with a ‘man in the loop/smart missile’ feature to prevent hitting wrong/innocent targets. It’s one of the reasons sub harpoon was never replaced – it was essentially a dumb missile with a high probability of hitting the wrong that in conjested waters.
Targeting issues in the littoral still remain, despite the development in smart systems, it will be interesting to see if our new Space Command can help with this once up and running!
Needed to be said…
The department cannot deliver the funding as the committee demands. For at least two decades the government’s level of ambition for defence has far outstripped its willingness to fund it. As a result the defence budget has been chronically over committed leaving little flexibility.The department cannot change that, only wider government can. To be fair there have been some recent increases, but far short of matching the level of ambition. Australia by contrast is prepared to fund its programmes properly.
It is good to see the top brass facing up to these sorts of reports and not putting their heads in the sand but for most of us that live in the real world it is no surprise, for too long the UK’s armed forces have suffered from and inept politicians calling the shots with the politically groomed military elite doing next to nothing to halt the decline of the UKs armed forces yet each year giving then selves a good pay rise for a job well done. Unfortunately our adversary’s have been keeping up with our decline and now are some years ahead of the UK.
To say our political elite over the past 30 odd years have been inept is letting them off lightly, I believe a better word would be “treason” and we should be looking into why we have been left with a shell of our former armed forces and if the old adage of “not enough money in the pot old boy” is used again, well it is going to cost the UK a lot more to put right the short-falls in our armed forces now.
I don’t think its treason. Just a collective delusion. I think it is really hard for a lot of people to imagine Johnny Foreigner isn’t just like the lovely couple they met on their fabulous holidays last year.
They just don’t grasp that before we had diverse sexualities we had diverse cultures, values, national identities, goals and political theories. It is as though they think everyone is just like them and that differences don’t matter.
For white, metropolitan liberals, little really seems to matter beyond the immediate family home and they assume this is the case for everyone. Religion is relegated to a silly pastime because that’s how they see it. Politics is merely about better health care, because that’s all they care about. National identities are meaningless, because for them they’re citizens of the world. But for extremist fanatics or political activists or nationalists these are the defining characteristics of their lives – and these concepts are just so alien to our leaders they don’t plan for them.
So frankly, I personally think its white, liberal arrogance at the heart of the establishment which is the cause of all this. You can see the way they sneer at working class lads flying their St. George’s flag or loving the “Union Jack”. Our leaders don’t even understand the majority in this nation, how on earth can we expect them to understand people from half a world away with very different histories, cultures and values and then plan appropriately?
Hello Nathan, I agree with 99% of what you said but if you are a military leader or political leader you can not hide behind statements like ” I did not Know” so deluded or not they have to put the country first which they have not been doing for quit some time, what they have been doing is systematically gutting the armed forces to a point were they can no longer do what they are supposed to do, is that not treason!!
Spot on the naivety is staggering. Reminds me of the original War of the Worlds when the priest approaches the saucer waiving the white flat to parlay only to be zapped. Always found that scene amusing if only the fact he expected anything different or that they would even understand the Concept of a white flag. Great insight into western civilisation mind.
Bang on with you’re comments Sir, I’m in total agreement
I’ve often wondered if there is deliberate dislike for the UK to being overly armed so as not wanting to be seen as a post colonial aggressor in todays world? Never mind other countries carrying on up-arming and at a pace! I’m all for modesty and restraint but we must also have the ability to strike hard and fast and anywhere when needed and for all the right reasons as well as for our (and allies) self defence. Hoping that there’s still a lot of hidden capability in the UK forces as recently demonstrated with the CSG21.
What a post Nathan.
Bang on.
None of this really matters. Admiral Radakin and Mr Wallace are currently heavily involved with the re-organising of the Diversity and Inclusion Directorate and whether, for example, women should be women or females or gender neutral as apparently not all women are female or is it the other way round? A 30 page report on correct words and phrases is to be published.. Meanwhile, of course budgets are over run, numbers reduced, ships under armed and on and on we go. Nice to live in a sane world isn’t it?
Its the politics, philosophy and economics mindset that dominates government. Oxbridge types get into the civil service having completed three or four years at a top rate uni and have no idea about training and development needs in the real world. Like all graduates, but these one’s have no technical reference point at all, they think their degrees prepare them to run the world. Wrong – their degrees have prepared them to start on the second or third rung, rather than the first – but there is a whole ladder ahead of them to climb.
Add in to this mix, rotating tours of only a few years and that isn’t enough time to master a job, add real value and pass those skills on.
Sovereignty isn’t the possession of a mere right to exercise one’s will, it is also the capacity to do so wisely and in a sustained fashion, in the face of determined opposition.
Excellent article and it’s pleasing that the Defence Committee have their heads screwed on and make pertinent comments. As a young boy whenever I drew a warship it was festooned with weapons – sometimes looking like a porcupine! For decades ship design and armaments have been decided on a “cost and promise” basis. Always late, overbudget and often non existent! Take a look at the average Russian ship of any size….a weapon bolted on every inch of deck space. Might not be state of the art but if you throw enough “stuff” at your opponent something might get through! Even one of their tugs can outgun our Baatch 1/2 OPVs!
Bojo could easily raid the conservative party party budget and find the £250 million + to acquire the NSM and get it fitted when harpoon goes out of service. They only have to do an exchange with the Norwegian navy a few at a time to train how to use it and maintain it. I think the Norwegians would be greatful if we offer them a posting on 1 of the opvs out in the gulf or far east instead of pounding the Bearings sea so they can get some sun.
I guess he could just ask one of his benefactors for more wallpaper money and slide it across to the navy should be good for a couple missiles systems surly. I’m sure like everything else it will be perfectly deniable even when committees investigate.
In the mean time we need the English cricket team to show some back bone and win the second test down here in 🇦🇺 and convincingly! I’m getting sick and tired of England being humiliated or crumbling after a good start! And then we can talk about AShMs again…lol 😄
Here here….is so depressing starting the day waking up to find we’ve crumbled after a promising start….
Or we could just reinforce the helo deck on the back of frigates upgrade the hangers and mothball the carries and assign a F35 to each frigate and destroyer that way we would not have to buy anymore F35s as we would only need 6 at a time at sea.
Daring and Duncan were laid up, not in refit
Dauntless was in refit
Dragon was in planned maintenance (why, when she was the only operational 45 in UK waters?)
Diamond was deployed and broken down
Defender was deployed and active
“well-defended herbivores“ is really good. Almost as good as Judean Peoples Front Crack Suicide Squad. That showed em. Solidarity brothers/sisters/others.