It seems like every week the British media releases a major news article observing or expressing another aspect of concern for the Royal Navy. In observation, it is unclear if it is more noteworthy that the British media is constantly ringing the alarm of concern, or the number of British citizens who parade across the internet downplaying the reports.
This time around, Defense Secretary Des Brown in the MoD called for a report on the status of the Royal Navy to be used to counter criticism from the media and opposition parties regarding the state of the Navy. Unfortunately for him, the report confirmed what many, including this blog, have been saying. Via the Telegraph, this report is damning from top to bottom.
With an "under-resourced" fleet composed of "ageing and operationally defective ships", the Navy would struggle even to repeat its role in the Iraq war and is now "far more vulnerable to unexpected shocks", the top-level Ministry of Defence document says...
"The current material state of the fleet is not good; the Royal Navy would be challenged to mount a medium-scale operation in accordance with current policy against a technologically capable adversary." A medium-scale operation is similar to the naval involvement in the Iraq War.
The document adds that the Navy is too "thinly stretched", its fighting capability is being "eroded" and the fleet's ability to influence events at the strategic level is "under threat"...
"A combination of age and reduced spending on maintenance has resulted in today's ships carrying a far higher number of operational defects, which directly erode operational capacity."
The fleet, it states, is "thinly stretched", "increasingly taut" and facing "significant risks".
We see this report as both a warning and an exaggeration. Being in the middle of the Type 45 program it is easy to take cheap shots at the maintenance condition of the Royal Navy, because the Type 42s are literally within a few years of retirement. As I understand it, the maintenance funding for the Type 42s has been cut, mostly because the replacements are hitting the water. Technically, that makes the report true, but we also see the lack of maintenance funding for ships near retirement as a fair risk made by the Mod to conserve money in the budget.
The real problem in the Royal Navy is the total number of warships, and the clear trend that leaves the Royal Navy even smaller in the future with a high number of 20 surface combatants (frigates and destroyers) in the future. The report doesn't miss this fact, although I think the details in the link above explain it better.
The number of destroyers and frigates, the Navy's workhorses, has been reduced from 54 to 25 and the average age of those vessels is now 17 years old, compared with 10 and 12 years old in 1997 and 1987 respectively. The report also reveals that there has been a 66 per cent reduction in the number of submarines, from 38 to 13, and that the Navy's manpower has fallen from 66,500 sailors in 1987 to 38,860.
One of the aspects of the report that caught my attention though was the part of the report regarding ASW. We often hear about how the US relies on other NATO nations for ASW in the surface fleet. Well, yet another example why relying on others is a bad idea.
It goes on: "In order to maintain delivery of effect [conduct operations] against a backdrop of decreasing resources, significant risk is being taken against certain areas. Our anti-submarine warfare capability is below a prudent minimum level of both quality and quantity."
That is concerning. In previous discussions of the Royal Navy, we have highlighted the problems facing the Royal Navy in the future, but this report leaves a damning impression on the state of the Royal Navy today. If the MoD sees the condition of the fleet today as "not good" then that is new as far as we are aware. We see a very dark future for the Royal Navy. As we have highlighted in the past, under current plans we do not see a scenario where the number of surface combatants stays at 25 surface combatants, rather we believe (and outline why) it will be a struggle to maintain the fleet above 20 surface combatants by 2020.
It will be interesting to see what happens. The Royal Navy may end up with 2 aircraft carriers and an excellent expeditionary capability, but without enough surface combatants to escort them to the combat zone, or enough logistics ships to support them in a forward theater. Given this status report regarding the condition of the Royal Navy ships, it is hard to believe morale is high in the fleet. This final quote is worth a mention.
Last night, Liam Fox, the shadow Tory defence secretary, said: "We have come all the way from Lord Nelson to a part-time defence secretary, with the consequence that the Royal Navy now finds itself in the most degenerated state in which it has ever been. Labour has done what none of this countries' enemies have been able to do: bring the Navy to its knees."
The irony of the Nelson reference becomes crystal clear with the comparison one can make to the state and trends in the Royal Navy today vs the state and trends of the French and Spanish Navies. It is too bad there isn't a naval fleet strategy simulation game for the X-Box or PS3, because if there was I think we would find the Brit's embarrassed constantly choosing to be the Italian, French, or Spanish Navy instead of the Royal Navy. Without such visual effects, in these modern times where the message doesn't always make it to the masses, most people just don't understand the depth of the decline, nor the darker hole waiting in the future.
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