The shrinking Royal Navy

[Ozexpatriate]

And as ever with criticism of the F-35, he's missed the key point ...

At risk of being 'political' the same candidate promised to increase defense spending. He tweeted criticisms of procurement programs for both Boeing and Lockheed-Martin and the stocks for both companies tanked immediately. (There are some who speculate about what precipitated those tweets, but I won't drag this down the political route.)

[Ohmisterporter]

The Save the Royal Navy blog has added this item. On one hand predicting more capability and on the other, the prospect of more cuts. Make up your own minds.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/will-2017-be-the-year-of-the-royal-navy/

[The Stationmaster]

The Save the Royal Navy blog has added this item. On one hand predicting more capability and on the other, the prospect of more cuts. Make up your own minds.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/will-2017-be-the-year-of-the-royal-navy/

 

According to a piece in the The Daily Telegraph the other day it looks as if we can forget the Type 31 - condemned as 'unable to defend itself' and taking away investment from the Type 26.

[jjb1970]

In all honesty, the Batch 2 River class have decent endurance and seem well suited to constabulary duties and low threat deployments. If they cancel Type 31 and revert to more Type 26's for which the expensive design and development will have been done then it would be no bad thing IMO. The Type 26 may be expensive but it is also capable and the higher cost relative to Type 31 would be offset to at an extent by not designing another ship, reducing risk and utilising production economies.

[pete_mcfarlane]

According to a piece in the The Daily Telegraph the other day it looks as if we can forget the Type 31 - condemned as 'unable to defend itself' and taking away investment from the Type 26.

If it's the article I read, they seem to be merging two separate issues together (the type 31 and a proposal to bring their construction programme forward) and decided that the latter being rejected means that the type 31 isn't happening at all. 

[Ohmisterporter]

There is an interesting article in The Record concerning the electro-magnetic carrier catapults the Queen Elizabeth class were at one time proposed to be fitted with. Also interesting that the Aircraft Carrier Alliance ran rings round Civil Servants when drawing up the contracts. Shock, horror! You don't expect public humiliation for being incompetent, but nobody ever seems to get punished for theses things, and there is a long list. Hope this is of interest.

 

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/11/us_navy_emals_woes_uss_gerald_r_ford/

[Mike Storey]

I am no military expert, but I have some good knowledge of military and geo-political history, if not the technicalities. I was in the army for a while, and both  my parents were in the RN. No point discussing whether the RN is under-resourced or nay, until a decision with some stability is reached over its purpose. All recent political decisions, going back to the Falklands, have only taken scant account of ability, expecting the military to sort it. We could not fight the Falklands now, but given the state of the Argentine navy, we probably won't have to for some time. But it did not lead, in the immediate aftermath, to any immediate improvement in the Navy's or the Army's capability. The run-down of our capabilities in fact continued.

 

What Iraq and Afghanistan did was to eventually expose and to a large degree rectify over time, the shortcomings, not just in funding but in equipment specification for the Army (anti-IED carriers, mobile comms and the expanded role for small, elite units being the most obvious), and to some extent the RAF (more Apaches and improved inter-service comms ditto). Battle experience is key, something the Chinese do not have, and the Russians (with a GDP smaller than that of Italy) are now re-learning in Syria.

 

But what you must consider, when evaluating RN capability, is that the bulk of funds currently is directed to intelligence, to anti-terrorist elite regiments and to being at the nuclear table, without which, we would retreat to the table at the back. I don't defend the obvious incompetence of many decisions and subsequent management or direction, by MOD or top brass, but I do advocate the multipliers that the UK has entered into with the French, the Germans and to some extent the Danes and Norwegians, which basically form our domestic waters defence now. Apparently, not being a good Europeans may affect this. I agree, but those with a more nationalistic, and thus tragically fighting-the-last-war mentality, will not.

 

Dives into cover, with hat and coat (borrowed from a well funded French airman).

[pete_mcfarlane]

There is an interesting article in The Record concerning the electro-magnetic carrier catapults the Queen Elizabeth class were at one time proposed to be fitted with. Also interesting that the Aircraft Carrier Alliance ran rings round Civil Servants when drawing up the contracts. Shock, horror! You don't expect public humiliation for being incompetent, but nobody ever seems to get punished for theses things, and there is a long list. Hope this is of interest.

 

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/11/us_navy_emals_woes_uss_gerald_r_ford/

I was under the impression that the original plan was to have the option to retrofit the catapults in to the carriers during a mid-life upgrade in 25/30/35 years time, so that a non-jumpjet replacement for the F-35 could be potentially bought. That's probably why there nothing in the contract about the costs for doing it, rather than civil service incompetence.

 

The problems only started when they looked at the costs of retrofitting the catapults in to one of the ships whilst it was still being built. Supposedly a lot of the cost was to pay dockyard staff to sit around twiddling their thumbs whilst redesign work was done. 

[jjb1970]

In this case the MoD procurement people weren't to blame, nor were BAE/Carrier Alliance. The contract was to build STOVL carriers with ski jumps. When the government decided to change their minds, contracts were in place, the design was pretty much complete and approved and work was underway. If the customer wanted STOVL carriers then you can't really blame the MoD for signing contracts to build STOVL carriers and you can't blame the builder for designing and starting to build STOVL carriers. The design was to be capable of conversion to cat and trap, and the platform would be convertible to cat and trap however I don't think anybody ever considered that the government would change their minds during the build. I'm more critical of MoD procurement than most (especially for naval projects) but in this case it would be unfair to blame the people who were managing the contracts.

[pete_mcfarlane]

The real problem there was the brief flirtation with the F-35C, which never seemed to have been properly thought through. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

Speaking of the F-35, there are still rumblings about it from Trump Towers: http://www.defensenews.com/articles/mattis-defends-trumps-f-35-criticism

[The Stationmaster]

Speaking of the F-35, there are still rumblings about it from Trump Towers: http://www.defensenews.com/articles/mattis-defends-trumps-f-35-criticism

 

Better get refurbishing those Sea Harriers hidden away at Yeovilton

[jjb1970]

The QEC program is quite an interesting one and I suspect the story will will a few books in the course of time. I think there is general agreement that the platform design developed by BMT is a very clever design, being innovative and with huge potential. There has been a lot of misunderstanding about the STOVL configuration, many claim that this was chosen just because it was cheaper than cats, when there was actually an awful lot of analysis behind the decision and through life it was estimated that the higher costs of operating the F35B would outweigh the higher platform costs of cats and traps. A lot of the decision making was focused on sortie rates, whether the decision is right or wrong I really cannot say, but I do know it was not a decision taken lightly or for glib reasons.

[Ozexpatriate]

There has been a lot of misunderstanding about the STOVL configuration, many claim that this was chosen just because it was cheaper than cats, when there was actually an awful lot of analysis behind the decision and through life it was estimated that the higher costs of operating the F35B would outweigh the higher platform costs of cats and traps.

Hopefully it wasn't based on nostalgia over HMS Invincible and the Falklands.

 

The whole JSF programme was conceived around variants for different missions for different services: like STOVL F35-B for the USMC and CATOBAR F35-C for the USN.

[jjb1970]

The QEC wasn't intended to be a homage to the Invincible class or the Falklands, but neither was it intended to be a cut price Nimitz class. The ConOps was developed in some detail and was based on what the UK might need a carrier to do. Clearly that had to balance military wishes and financial reality, but on the whole I got the impression that under the circumstances those responsible did a pretty thorough job. I think one of the reasons that the QEC gets a lot of criticism is that some compare it with a USN CVN, others see it as no more than a giant Invincible when the ship was not intended to be a direct equivalent of either concept. The Invincible class originated as ASW command cruisers. That is often miscontrued into claims it was some clever subterfuge to fool the treasury into unwittingly paying for new carriers by calling them through deck cruisers when actually the treasury were both aware of, and happy to pay for light carriers and the through deck cruiser designation stemmed from the original program. In their later years they were designated strike cruisers and given a new role but the hulls were far too limited to meet the desired strike carrier role. The QEC grew out of the strike carrier concept but it didn't grow out of the Invincible class.

[The Stationmaster]

The QEC wasn't intended to be a homage to the Invincible class or the Falklands, but neither was it intended to be a cut price Nimitz class. The ConOps was developed in some detail and was based on what the UK might need a carrier to do. Clearly that had to balance military wishes and financial reality, but on the whole I got the impression that under the circumstances those responsible did a pretty thorough job. I think one of the reasons that the QEC gets a lot of criticism is that some compare it with a USN CVN, others see it as no more than a giant Invincible when the ship was not intended to be a direct equivalent of either concept. The Invincible class originated as ASW command cruisers. That is often miscontrued into claims it was some clever subterfuge to fool the treasury into unwittingly paying for new carriers by calling them through deck cruisers when actually the treasury were both aware of, and happy to pay for light carriers and the through deck cruiser designation stemmed from the original program. In their later years they were designated strike cruisers and given a new role but the hulls were far too limited to meet the desired strike carrier role. The QEC grew out of the strike carrier concept but it didn't grow out of the Invincible class.

 

Which of course raises the question of what exactly we need strike carriers for (obvious answer - support of amphibious warfare operations, but where)?  And why, if such vessels are considered necessary, the necessary A/S and A/A escort/fleet vessels are not being built in order to support them and the amphibious warfare vessels which they will be supporting while at the same time the RN would have in most conceivable wartime situations a critical role in escorting and protecting merchant shipping and clearing seaways of mines? 

 

I still believe the QEC were seen and 'bought'  by the then politicians in power as a form of pork barrel politicking and iit remains of interest to me to know why various component orders placed with companies on Tyneside were subsequently cancelled and re-contracted with companies in Scotland (although at least one company on Tyneside which had bought new machine tools to carry out its contract was reimbursed in full for the cost of the machine tools and given financial compensation in lieu of the lost contract).

[jjb1970]

Indeed, if we assume that a strike carrier will work with an amphibious task group then that means the RN has to provide AAW, ASuW and ASW protection to two task groups, a carrier group and the amphibious group. If you assume quite modest task group escorts as being two destroyers (that allows for one to break down or be out of action) and two frigates then that is four destroyers and four frigates at sea. Even if you assume an optimistic 2:1 ratio to support the deployment at sea that means eight destroyers and eight frigates, and that makes no allowance for any other tasking or operations and a figure of 3:1 is probably still much nearer the mark which would give you a requirement for twelve destroyers and twelve frigates. The RN therefore cannot assure even a minimal escort group for a carrier and the amphibs at the same time, even assuming an absolute minimal group and with no other tasks.

The submarine fleet is in a similar predicament, seven Astute's leaves no margin for escorting and sweeping for the Trident boats, protecting the Trident departure/approach route and any potential overseas deployments never mind training and allowing for boats in refit and repair.

[Ohmisterporter]

Something about the F-35B from the Save the Royal Navy blog. I am looking forward to seeing the carriers and these aircraft.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/f-35b-the-right-choice-and-the-only-choice-for-the-royal-navy/

[Mike Storey]

Something about the F-35B from the Save the Royal Navy blog. I am looking forward to seeing the carriers and these aircraft.

 

http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/f-35b-the-right-choice-and-the-only-choice-for-the-royal-navy/

 

But surely you should not be able to see the aircraft??! 

[Ohmisterporter]

This may be of interest if you missed it. http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/when-will-hms-queen-elizabeth-arrive-in-portsmouth/

[The Stationmaster]

This may be of interest if you missed it. http://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/when-will-hms-queen-elizabeth-arrive-in-portsmouth/

 

A thing that interests me about the 'electronic integration' of various systems on a ship this large is what happen when there are system failures and action damage (it being a warship it seems logical to me to plan for action damage of many sorts).  It rather reminds me of the way the RN went between the 1950s - when memories of a fairly recent war were still fresh in naval minds - and the Falklands war, by which time some very basic ideas about action damage mitigation and damage control had been almost totally forgotten.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Getting the computer systems to handle action damage should be pretty easy even using off the shelf components.. You just build an onboard network with plenty of duplicate connections via different routes, and any provide any critical computers with one of more backup systems that can take over quickly (and are preferably not in the same rack....). And then you test lots of possible failure scenarios, and fix the problems that you encounter. 

 

All of this is petty standard in high end IT systems. It just costs a fair bit to do.

[Ohmisterporter]

Not sure how useful computers are when dealing with action damage. No use for tackling fires or using a extinguisher; can't plug a hole in the hull; useless for carrying an injured shipmate up a flight of stairs, cannot replace damaged parts on machinery to get the ship moving again. They may be able to tell someone what needs doing, but if the crew need to read such instructions on a computer they are frighteningly under trained.

[The Stationmaster]

Not sure how useful computers are when dealing with action damage. No use for tackling fires or using a extinguisher; can't plug a hole in the hull; useless for carrying an injured shipmate up a flight of stairs, cannot replace damaged parts on machinery to get the ship moving again. They may be able to tell someone what needs doing, but if the crew need to read such instructions on a computer they are frighteningly under trained.

 

Dealing with action damage first of all needs people and it needs skills - re-routing cabling and power feeds, ability to still operate with certain systems out of action and so on.  Assuming all teh redundancy of systems and alternative routes can be built in then there would be some sustainability but what could one RPG in the right place do?

[Ohmisterporter]

This youtube video may be of interest. Some Royal Navy damage control training.

 

Edited January 20, 2017 by Ohmisterporter