Should the worst come to the worst and this cannot be changed, I would make the following suggestion.

Option A) Keep trident going as long as possible with a refit/upgrade. Possibly replace with either next gen US SSBN or co-developed and constructed French one to cut development costs in half.

Option B) Once trident is retired, replace with new, long range supersonic cruise missiles that can be carried aboard Astute class subs, and buy another half dozen of these (at least)

Option C) US made ICBMs

Option D) Ok, so this one is far out, but… Strategic bomber UCAV with ASMP-A

If the MoD have to fund any replacement then my preference is to downgrade our nuclear capability but keep a different system whilst recognising that it is not as good as ballistic missiles. But I’d say the threat has changed since the cold war too.

Infact it might be the perfect time to seperate ourselves from the US. Will a nuke warhead fit on the likes of Scalp? If so build 2-3 more astutes for a total of 9-10.

I know the downside is that your enemy does not know if they’re conventional cruise missiles or nuke tipped being fired at them but i don’t see us at war with China or Russia for the time being so i’d be willing to degrade our capability to save the conventional forces from further pain.

We may actually find that with the Treasury insisting on MoD funding Trident renewal Fox is actually able to argue for a better settlement closer to 10% than the higher 20%

From fridays Times

“The RAF’s Tornado jet fleet is expected to be grounded after an assessment by the Ministry of Defence leaked to The Times revealed that retiring the aircraft would yield cuts of £7.5 billion.

Scrapping the Tornado, which has been the mainstay of the RAF for more than 30 years, would save billions more than withdrawing the Harrier jet, which is used by the RAF and Royal Navy, internal analysis has found.
Savings from scrapping the Harrier Joint Strike Wing, which includes both RAF and Fleet Air Arm squadrons, would be slightly more than £1 billion. Both scenarios are understood to include savings from closing some bases.
The loss of half of Britain’s total fast-jet fleet would raise questions in some quarters about the long-term viability of the RAF. However, sources close to Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said last night that any suggestion of an amalgamation of the RAF with another Service would be “a bridge too far for any government”.

The document has been drawn up under the continuing Strategic Defence Spending Review. The Treasury is demanding overall cost savings of between 10 and 20 per cent.

At a meeting of the National Security Council last Saturday, Service chiefs and ministers agreed that one of Britain’s three fleets of fast jets would have to be sacrificed to achieve brutal savings demanded by the Treasury.
The “work stream analysis” undertaken by the MoD makes a direct comparison of “through-life savings” that can be achieved from scrapping either the Harrier GR9 or Tornado GR4 fleets. The third fleet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, is only just entering service and is not under consideration.
While MoD insiders insist that no final decision has been made, one senior source told The Times that scrapping the Tornado “could be said to be finding favour” with ministers and Service chiefs. Britain currently retains just over 200 fast jets, including 120 Tornados, 45 Harriers and 42 of the incoming fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons.

In a separate development, the Chancellor rebuffed an attempt by the Defence Secretary to have the estimated £20 billion cost of replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent removed from the core defence budget. The news removes any hopes that the defence cuts could avoid the sacrifice of trophy assets.

The MoD said in a statement: “We do not comment on the content of leaked documents. The SDSR is considering a wide range of far-reaching options but no final decisions have been made.”Previously the Harrier and Tornado fleets had been expected to carry on through to their retirements in 2018 and 2025 respectively. A source in the MoD told The Times: “If the Government decides to buy even one [aircraft] carrier, there is no logic in taking Harrier out and then waiting ten years before we effectively get back the capability with the arrival of JCA.”

JCA is the British designation for the American-built F35 Joint Strike Fighter programme, which is due to fly with the RAF and from the new Queen Elizabeth Class carriers now under construction.
The F35 is a “fifth-generation” aircraft — a carrier-borne strike aircraft that can penetrate the defences of advanced nations using stealth characteristics that make it hard for radar to pinpoint. It would serve the RAF and Fleet Air Arm through to the 2050s.

The MoD has already committed £1 billion to the programme and has an order for 138 fighters at a total cost estimated at £10 billion. The order is expected to be cut significantly.
Service chiefs have clashed openly over the F35 programme. In speeches this year, General Sir David Richards, the head of the Army and soon to be the Chief of the Defence Staff, argued that wars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq were “signposts for the future” and offered little use for JSF. The RAF argues that the JSF offers a clear deterrent to would-be aggressors.
Savings on fast jets are expected to be matched by swingeing cuts in manpower across the Armed Forces. An assessment by the Royal United Services Institute last month expects a reduction of around 25,000 servicemen and 15,000 MoD support staff by 2014.

The Army is expected to offer to put much of its current heavy tank and artillery capability into long-term storage, while the Navy will expect to see reductions in its current fleet and in future orders for Type-45 destroyers and the Type-26 frigate, which has not yet been built and is not expected in service before 2021. The future of the Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers remains doubtful, according to MoD sources.

Advances in the onboard computer power of modern fighter jets has made the role of navigators/weapons operators increasingly redundant.
Paul Beaver, a former editor of Jane’s Aircraft, told The Times: “There is more computer power in a modern mobile phone than on the Tornado GR4, which is why you need a navigator.”
The only remaining British aircraft to require a navigator/weapons operator are a small number of large transport carriers and the Awacs electronic warfare aircraft.”

Surely that figures not right? £7.5bn from axing the Tornado fleet? Even if that does incude a base or two.

The money that might have gone into the FRES programme substantially went into the carrier programme.”

😡

Is this even FACT? That there was specific money set aside for FRES that went directly into the carrier programme.

Dannat seems ridiculously army centric. Still, General Richards doesn’t sound a lot better great army man though he undoubtedly is.

Regarding F35 numbers, it is difficult to see what short term savings can be made here.

Of the proposed 138, in the procurement schedule over half of that number are not due to be procured until after 2023. Who is to say what the financial position of the UK will be in 13 years time?

By 2019, I think I saw that only approximately 36x F35 were due to be in service anyway. If you intend to cut that number then you really don’t have enough for your airwing (which will no doubt be shared between the 2 CVF depending on which is operating at any given time)

Again, more SDSR speculation but a report in the Sunday Times suggests the Navy have offered giving up control of the Marines, losing 8 minesweepers and to axe HMNB Devonport. Also that it cannot give up anymore of the surface fleet without the government giving up some of its international commitments.

“The navy has offered to put the Royal Marines under the control of the army in an attempt to stave off any further cuts to its destroyers and frigates.

Senior officers have also agreed to axe the base at Plymouth, one of the Royal Navy’s most historic ports, and scrap eight of their 16 minesweepers in a submission last week to the government’s strategic defence and security review.

Ministers are expected to seize on anything offered by the armed services and cut it after the warning last week from Liam Fox, the defence secretary, that Britain could no longer afford to defend itself against every threat.

Fox called an awayday meeting of the heads of the three services yesterday to discuss their proposals, making clear that no area of defence apart from the Trident nuclear deterrent was sacrosanct.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said senior officials were called into Whitehall on their day off to be on hand for conference calls on any details of individual programmes.

According to defence sources, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the first sea lord, hopes his proposals will head off an army attempt to absorb the marines completely. He believes it will allow the navy to retain symbolic command of the marines while saving on training and administration.

Army sources dismissed suggestions that the 8,000-strong marines and the Parachute Regiment might be merged as “a recipe for disaster”. “They each have a completely different ethos,” one said. “They couldn’t possibly be merged.”

Instead, the army would like to incorporate the marines into an elite military force alongside the Parachute Regiment.

The navy has offered concessions on the marines and the Devonport base at Plymouth in return for its insistence that it cannot lose any more ships without the government abandoning some of its international commitments.

The navy has only 22 frigates and destroyers, covering seven standing commitments around the world. One third are under repair at any time, with the remainder either on patrol or preparing for their next tour of duty, leaving no spare vessels.

“The brief was very clear that we cannot cut any more ships,” one source said. “It is impossible to see one of those commitments that could be axed.”

The navy’s commitments include anti-piracy in the Indian Ocean, oil rig protection in the Gulf, defence of Britain and the Falkland Islands and patrols of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Mediterranean.

The danger for the navy is that placing the marines under the army will slash training costs and lead inevitably for calls for them to be taken away completely.

All three services are being forced to offer up sacrifices as they seek to protect what they see as key capabilities.

The RAF’s proposals, made two weeks ago, included an offer to axe its entire fleet of Tornado ground attack aircraft, its new Nimrod spy plane and 5,000 personnel.

It is keen to ensure that it will get the new American Joint Strike Fighter and the Airbus A400 transport aircraft, both of which are cited as potential cuts.

The RAF’s submission also offers to give up three more air bases in a package that is set to save about £8 billion by 2025.

The cuts in personnel from the current 41,000 to about 36,000 will take the RAF to its smallest size since the middle of the 1930s.

The Tornado, first introduced in 1979, has been the RAF’s main strike aircraft for more than 20 years and the 130-strong fleet was not due to be axed until 2025.

Scrapping the Nimrod will see the closure of the aircraft’s base at RAF Kinloss in Morayshire, saving about £150m a year. The two other bases to be shut are RAF Leuchars in Fife, which was to be one of the bases for the Eurofighter Typhoon, and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire.

Scampton is the home of the RAF’s Red Arrows display team but, despite reports that they are to be scrapped, the team will be moved to another base.

The army is set to see a dramatic reduction in the number of tanks operated by the Royal Armoured Corps with cuts in personnel likely to affect most branches apart from frontline infantry.

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment on the RAF and navy proposals but said Fox “has made clear that tough decisions will need to be made”

I don’t want to sound rude, but unfortunately it was more than obvious from the very start that the Review was going budget(cut)-based, and not really informed by any particular strategy.

No, I don’t mean strategy based and then the money found whatever the cost. I meant within the economic limits of the current time but strategically set out rather than a mish mash of give and take of capabilities as suggested by the press. It may well not be the case anyway.

The Type 45 is no Cold War relic to me. But apparently, it is for Fox.

I don’t think it is, and I don’t think you can suggest that’s his thinking from the few statements in the media. I think he thinks that £1bn a ship is far too much for the UK to spend on an air destroyer, not that he thinks they’re cold war. Fox clearly does not like gold plated.

They are the solid capability the UK has to influence events around the world. They are the only true mean of power projection for the nation.

Well, I agree with that but it comes back to what I was saying. What does the British government want. If it wants to retain that capability then horsetrading between the 3 services isn’t going to help anyone. They will all just have reduced capability.

Nothing much there which are ‘facts’ in the FT article, just options like all the other articles.

When Fox talks of cold war relics, he means Tanks & heavy armour. And the troops stationed in Germany awaiting the Soviets. Fox has actually made the point that the RN doesn’t have enough of a surface fleet, i’m not sure he’s including CVF when he says that but the chances of T45 getting the chop are miniscule (they’re hardly cold war either)

What he’s getting at is probably that T26 will not be gold plated and cheap as chips.

I’m not particularly liking the trade-off statements however, I thought this was going to be a needs based SDSR based on foreign policy rather than bargaining for survival by playing each service off against each other.

Yes, a new Ocean has many advantages. My preference for a modified Juan Carlos is largely based on my feeling that it would be advantageous to have a third ship able to launch STOVL aircraft, as an emergency back-up.

Note that I’m not proposing the purchase of a third carrier disguised as an LPH or LHD, but an LPH or LHD* which can, in emergency, be used as a STOVL lily-pad. That’s all.

If PoW is cancelled (which though unlikely is still a possibility) any Ocean replacement would have to be a JC style ship wouldn’t it?