On New Years Day the Ministry of Defence stated: “2017 is the year of the navy”. The Defence Secretary said, “2017 is the start of a new era of maritime power, projecting Britain’s influence globally and delivering security at home.” There is no doubt that there will be some very significant milestones in the program to deliver new equipment to the RN and there are many reasons to be positive. But this is just one side of the story. While it is very heartening to see new vessels arrive, this must be seen in the context of the size and strength of the fleet as a whole.
Delivery of new kit is exciting but it should not distract attention from what is happening on the frontline at present. While the headlines are all about new equipment, the relentless demands on the RN continue and the MoD noted that 2017 will “follow one of their busiest years since the end of the Cold War”. At the peak of activity in 2016, the Naval Service was involved in 22 operations at home and abroad with 8,325 of 29,500 personnel (28%) actively deployed.
On this evidence, perhaps it should be argued that every year is ‘the year of the navy’ as the service is clearly flat out, continuously contributing the security of the UK.
In broad terms, a shortage of manpower and vessels leaves the RN stretched, but just about managing its routine tasks. More worrying is the lack of depth to cope with the deteriorating geopolitical situation. Government talks of a “bigger Royal Navy” but the fleet is actually smaller now than in 2015. Real growth, in hull numbers at least, is a vague projection for the 2030s and only if the Type 31 programme delivers more than 5 ships. Budgetary pressures may even require further cuts in the next 2 years.
We do not want to dim the excitement about the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth which will make a bold statement to the world (and be of some relevance to Brexit negotiations). The carriers have huge potential and, although controversial and subject of great misinformation, are the right choice for the RN. Unfortunately, it will be 2023 before HMS Queen Elizabeth achieves full operating capability with her F-35B fixed-wing aircraft. Ever since the order for the aircraft carriers was secured in 2007, successive ministers have used them as evidence of their ‘support for the navy’ while their size and profile provided a convenient smokescreen to hide damaging cuts and procurement mistakes elsewhere. There is a major re-equipment program underway but in almost every case the project is delivering late, either leaving a complete capability gap or the RN making do with ageing assets. Most significantly, new equipment tends to replace old equipment with a fewer number of units.
2017 will not actually see the RN gain a great deal in the way of operational capability.
Of the 9 major items listed by the MoD, almost all are some years away from fully operational status. Assuming we make it without facing a serious global conflict, then the RN can look forward to a real step-change in capability sometime in the mid-2020s. In a previous post we assertively laid out some of the problems and capability gaps facing the RN that need to be urgently addressed. We will not repeat them here but instead provide some brief context to the major milestones of 2017 listed by the MoD .
9 milestones
HMS Queen Elizabeth will sail from Rosyth, ready to conduct sea trials in summer and debut in Portsmouth later in the year
We certainly look forward to the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth which will represent a major industrial and engineering achievement, as well as a boost for a Navy that has endured so much bad news. It will be at least a further 5 years before she achieves full combat capability.
HMS Prince of Wales will enter the water for the first time in the summer as work on her continues and is due to be formally named in the autumn
David Cameron’s decision to keep both aircraft carriers will prove to be one of his few good decisions on defence issues…
Design and manufacture will begin on the multi-million pound Crowsnest, the early-warning ‘eyes in the sky’ system for the helicopters that will protect the new carriers
The programme has been advanced slightly to ensure this capability is ready just in time for HMS Queen Elizabeth becoming operational. Some commentators dismiss helicopter-based AEW but, although not as capable as fixed-wing Hawkeye, this system has served the RN pretty well since 1982.
In the summer, steel will be cut on the first of eight Type 26 frigates in Glasgow
Construction should really have begun about 5 years ago and we must fervently hope that it can deliver the ships without technical problems or delays. Whether the gamble on cutting the order from 13 to 8 ships can pay off, will be determined by the success of the parallel, cheaper Type 31 frigate program.
The first of four Tide-class tankers, RFA Tidespring – crucial for supporting the new aircraft carriers – will arrive from South Korea in the spring to undergo UK customisation work
No mention by the MoD that RFA Tidespring delivery has been delayed by a year due to faulty electrical cable installation. Despite this unfortunate issue, these four large ships should prove to be great value for money. They are desperately needed to replace ancient or already decommissioned ships.
In the spring, the first of the Navy’s five next-generation patrol ships, HMS Forth will begin her sea trials
These ships are really an expensive job creation scheme to keep workers on the Clyde employed until the delayed Type 26 frigate project begins. They are only a very marginal improvement on the ships they will replace. There would be some reason to be excited if the four relatively new existing OPVs were being retained so the RN could actually grow its fleet slightly, but this is not the current plan.
The fourth Astute Class submarine HMS Audacious will enter the water for its commissioning phase in spring
The Astute class are probably the best hunter-killer submarines in the world. Unfortunately, we will only have 7 of them. HMS Torbay will decommission in 2017 and we will be down to just 6 boats until HMS Audacious is operational in late 2018.
The keel for the seventh and final Astute-class submarine – as yet unnamed – will be laid in 2017 as work continues apace on the fifth and sixth, HMS Anson and HMS Agamemnon in Barrow
The latter part of the Astute submarine programme is now in its stride and delivering boats on schedule and on budget. Hopefully, some lessons have been learned during the lost decade and more than £1Bn wasted in the early part of the programme.
The opening of the first permanent Royal Navy base East of Suez in nearly half a century
Construction of HMS Jufair has been funded by the government of Bahrain and will be a welcome improvement in accommodation and support for RN personnel and vessels deployed to the Middle East. It is a sign of a sensible UK strategic commitment to the region but Bahrain’s poor human rights record will make the new base a focus for controversy.
2017 will see significant progress with big naval procurement projects and should generate some positive coverage for the beleaguered RN. However, scratch beneath the surface and there are still many reasons for concern. “2017 – year of the carrier” was perhaps a more sensible title for the coming year.
Related articles
- 2017 is the Year of the Navy (Ministry of Defence)
- Forces braced for more cuts in defence cash squeeze (Telegraph)
- Britain Must Play Offence with Defence in 2017 (Lindley-French)
Well hopefully they’ll have some sailors left to crew these ships. The catastrophic retention policy especially on the new QE is tragic and the project is haemorrhaging skilled staff at a huge rate. There is no attempt at all to keep them, it’s just “Good luck” and “Goodbye”. The amount spent training these lads is massive and is just being thrown away so that BAE and the like can pick up qualified staff anytime they want. Woeful…
The Daily Telegraph has published an article saying The National Shipbuilding Strategy is toast and there won’t be any Type 31s because there isn’t any money.
Told you!
One word , two letters,
NO.
Good back grounder to the current status, but much of the Royal Navy’s future relies on this government keeping it’s promised financial commitments.
However, even with all this new kit and as mentioned in other comments, finding enough personnel is going to be the major issue going forward. Granted, more and more automation is being used throughout all new ships – requiring lower crew numbers than before, but this move requires people with much higher skill-sets which appear to be in short supply in the RN.
If there is a shortage of skills it is due to people finding well paid jobs in Civvy street. There is a role therefore for better retaining or recruiting some highly skilled people into a revitalized RNVR. Because folks if the balloon goes up that is where the numbers are coming from.
There is therefore a need to provide a core of warships to train on. The 4 older Rivers are the ideal basis for this. They exist. They are relatively economic to run and with adequate life left to give deep sea training to an efficient and adequate reserve.
No.
Although if they trot out the QE for enough photo ops and keep repeating the same message it will seen like we have 12 carriers. Maybe Fallon is less useless tool and more awesome at the counter intelligence thing or something.
It may be posturing but isn’t President Elect Trump threatening to cancel the F35 Fighters? Also how many will we be getting – taking into account the fall of the £ against the $
I very much doubt the F-35 program will be sacked. The US Marine Corps has thier entire tactical aviation future invested in the program, not to mention the USN and USAF. Were the F-35 cancelled the biggest refund in history would be due to all the nations that have invested billions in R+D to the program. I believe Trump is mortified and and angered by the obscene cost over runs and is determined to do something about it.
Most likely outcome is that the F-35a (USAF) and F-35b (USMC) will have their projected total order volumes reduced, whilst the F-35c (USN) will be cancelled in favour of more F/A-18 and investment in the USN’s UCAV programme.
The UK will slowly get a fleet of F-35b but the RAF will have to scrap other perfectly good aircraft (tranche 1 Typhoon, Sentinel ?) in return because it will not have the money to meet the operating costs.
The carriers will, unfortunately, likely be bad for the Royal Navy in the short to medium-term because operating them will further overstretch personnel causing even more to leave the Service.
I truly doubt that the F-35 will be axed by the USN. The Super Hornet is an excellent platform, but there are many F-35 proponents in the naval community. Time will tell.
I fully agree with you about the personnel crisis in the RN.
A QE battle group would require half the people in the service.
The government has allowed the Rugby factory to be run down to a handful of men. Who is going to build the next generation of turbines for the for the Trident replacements. Most of the men skilled on these projects have gone!!!
Same problem everywhere…people chose well paid near home jobs. Now, armed forces will always be hampered by this, armed forces are not mercenary forces…what the forces might be doing is recruit in area’s where people are less fortunate to find a decent job and take time to instruct them.They will be more loyal, certainly when they archieve and can serve in ships that look the part. Also, the british have a tradition to something out of a nobody…but no, ” we want high trained young lads who can do before they start”..;seems the preferred choice, not only in the UK. And finally, the Navy should really start making a business of “hyping” itself, that can be done with its the new ships coming on the line…send the carriers up the Thames and get schools to visit them!
Smartest thing I have heard said here in a while. We need to open up the pool of manpower available. We used to take a much more diverse slice of society to sea through conscription,not that we need to go that far. We are also much more likely to retain personnel who like you said will have a deeper sense of loyalty and look towards the navy as a career not a term of service. Your second point is bang on as well. The navy needs to promote itself much better. There was a time when the public knew what the navy did for them but now most people are simply ignorant of the facts. Teaching kids is as good start as any. Some of them will crew CVF and Type 26 in a decade or two.
You can’t focus recruitment in poorer areas that is unPC or something like that.
Recruitment across the board is also clearly run by people who have a very 1960s view of the world. Join the Navy see the world (even though you can jump on the t’internet and book a flight anywhere for dirt cheap) Join the Army make new bessers (even though we have umpteen million social apps and you can make friends with someone in Australia in 30 seconds).
The ones you reel in on the promise of travel figure out very quickly there is almost no capacity for a flag flying tour of somewhere hot and exotic so do there time and leave with a short on marketable skills.
Only thing that would help recruitment would be focusing on skills, training and benefits in poorer areas. Unfortunately there is no money to offer well-rounded training and education so you will leave the services with a very narrow skill set that the civilian sector simply doesn’t want (we pay capita to provide the simple skills that could be taught using even lower paid staff with large company overhead). Any high-end skills we are short of we hope the reality of $30000 of university debt will bring folks into the reserves to fill in as needed and just hope in many cases they have sea legs.
Thankfully once the estate is ‘sorted’ the only service members the public will see will be on TV, that I’m sure will also help recruitment and willingness to pay for defence.
Still keep everyone on he dole that’s somehow works out cheaper than paying for sailors, soldiers and airmen who pump money into the economy. Not to mention the equipment for them that could be built on these shores and the money that could also pump in.
The whole thing is run from the top by career politicians (if they ever served they’ve long since forgotten any lessons from it) who believe they can coast until the retirement or after-dinner speaking gigs kick in and the next lot can deal with it. Fast forward 30 years and here we are, an island that may not be able to guarantee its food supplies if things get heated. It seems also seriously looking at reducing marine strength or asking the other services to lose a regiment or squadron we don’t have enough of either.
Someone has to take the hit and publicly ask “Do we want to protect the Falklands or escort Russian ships through the channel? I need to know now as soon we won’t be able to do both and meet all the other commitments we need to meet to keep NATO on-side”.
The carriers are like dodos, flightless! Italy, with less than half the length of coastline that the UK has, can call upon more than 600 coastal naval vessels yet the UK can only call on four. The USMC operates an integrated command structure that delivers more than the UK’s three separate military departments yet the UK has many more senior officers. Our forces’ manpower is top-heavy, full of career desk-pushers interested only in expanding their own empires. It is supported by the MoD, whose record in delivering projects on time, in full and to budget is trounced by every other developed nation.
The UK imports around 2/3rds of its requirement – including food and fuel – yet we do not have enough ships to deliver or to support those delivering. Time to be radical – if we cannot afford to have a sustainable navy then buy ships from elsewhere; after all we are buying APCs from Spain using Swedish steel rather than support our own industries and skills.
It’ll certainly be ‘a year’ of the RN
I dont know why we bother. Our politicians, Civil servants and the Navy have done a great job of turning the Navy into an expensive irrelevance. Not enough crew, not enough ships, not enough firepower. What a farce the RN has become.
When oh when is the RN going to deploy a Guard ship to Gibraltar?
Frigates and destroyers won’t last five minutes in an exchange with a major power, okay for showing the flag and cocktail partys but that’s the extent of their effectiveness. Carriers and subs need financing.