Meanwhile of course, with the success of the EMALS catapults in tests, there’s people advocating for switch to F18: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/27/emals_looking_good_as_sdsr_looms/

It wouldn’t be impossible wasn’t for the political side of the F35 equation, which probably secures that, even if in reduced numbers, is the F35 that comes along for the british forces (luckily, it is not time to invest in a design that’s still good but also inexorably aging in comparison to the latest generations of fighters and air defence SAM batteries).

For me, the very best option (militarily speaking, possibly not so in terms of dirty money) would be to still go EMALS and buy F35C and lease a bunch of Hawkeyes. That would give an unmatched, cutting edge capability.

But if this was the way forwards, pretty surely only one carrier would get the catapults and arresting gear, and the other no, which would cause havoc with availability.
If they are both built to the same STOVL config, no matter the reports of “reduced capability” for PoW, when one is out planes can still fly from the other.
(seriously, this “reduced capability” is something i struggle to understand. What could they strip out of the ship? Radars? CIWSs (admitted that at least QE gets them, which is far from sure…)? What?

I continue to think that the “reduced capability” of the press is just the fact that PoW will be presented mainly as a Commando ship and used in place of the bowing-out Ocean with just helicopters on board.
But i think it is higly unlikely that any serious difference in outfit/building of the two ships can happen. (luckily, so the navy could just move the planes from one to the other when necessary).

As to the Type 45, only chance to lose them is that Fox gets a contract from Saudis for a couple of hulls, so that Duncan and Defender are handed to Saudi Arabia.
I hope this won’t happen, but i also don’t see what other credible options do exist in terms of cuts to the Type 45 fleet otherwise, because it is too late to save anything on them.

Almost surely, the navy will be unable to have the destroyers fitted with CEC in 2014 as it had hoped, and this will already be quite a setback for their air defence capability, while giving a negligible saving, once more.

Strategic Defence Review… better not to say what i think it is, i don’t want to be too vulgar.

Sound advice! http://www.euractiv.com/en/foreign-affairs/france-wants-europe-boost-defence-cooperation-news-498152

Mod Edit: Please do not post substantial cut-and-pastes from external sources.

We have had complaints from other publishers about this practice.

A summary and a link is quite sufficient.

It was about time someone more influent than me started saying things without puns, clearly and directly.
Problem is, if he gets listened to as Liam Fox in the UK, his words will stay the prophet’s advice in the desert, lost on people who’s deaf and blind. 🙁

As for the Amphibs, I hope the worst that happens is a ‘Fearless/Intrepid scenario’ where half the ships are put into maintained reserve and rotated back to the fleet every four to five years. Cuts costs significantly but retains capability.

I hope so too, if the need for cuts is really so bad that it can’t be helped! Cutting on amphibs in a DEFINITIVE way would be insane and injustifiable.
Mothball a Bay and put one of the Albions in reserve will be painful like hell, but at least the ships will still be available.

Of course, though, they should be “put in reserve” in a realistic way, not like Invincible who was “put in reserve” but effectively pretty much made incapable to take to the sea again without major refit and work to put her back in shape.

Also, HMS Invincible’s destiny was expected to be announced in september 2010. Any news about that…? I couldn’t bear to see Invy scrapped without regard for her career and for what she’s been for the navy and for the whole country.
She’d make such an awesome museum/monument… And with HMS Hermes sold abroad, at least one of the two great veterans of the Falklands should really be saved!

Let’s not make the error of scrapping HMS Vanguard again to later regret the fact there’s no british battleship to show to the world!
HMS Warspite would have been an even better example to protect, with all what she did in IIWW…

Hope they find a way to save HMS Invincible at least!

As to frigates/escorts, there’s been insisting noise about 3 type 23 possibly going on top of Type 22 and Type 42 (which incidentally gives you that terrible 12 hulls figure that’s been coming out on the press lately as the number of escorts the RN is going to loose)
We can only hope it is not true.

As to two submarines going, it is not actually the first time this rumor comes out either. It appeared in some very early press reports. I remember speculating personally on this forum that the navy may have been thinking about speeding up the retirement of two of the oldest Trafalgar to “ensure” the future of 7 Astutes.
Again, we can hope this is one proposal out of many, and does not get anywhere.

My suggestion is still the same: the RN has too few escorts and arguably “too many” minesweepers. With a requirement for 4/5 hulls, a class of 8 boats should suffice. NATO nations burst with minesweepers, all of excellent quality, so i think that a reduction in this sector would be the “least evil”. Either the Hunt or the Sandown should be sacrificed, in order to avoid aving to cut Type 23 hulls on top of the Type 22 and 42, or to save the Amphibs.
Arguably, the loss of minesweepers would be far less painful than losing anything else.

As to an analysis purely economic of the possible savings envisaged in such scenario, i’m basing myself on some useful data recovered on Wikipedia to make a few calculations. (i know, it is not the most reliable of sources at times, but i had got nothing better!) I’m sharing my conclusions with you all (please, not call this scaremongering, it’s a math exercise based on the most reliable figures i could find, and you can all control my calculations and see for yourselves):

£13.5 million Average running cost of a Type 42 every year in 2002/3 reported by Wiki, with this as reported source http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/2003/sep/09/destroyers: we can expect this to have grown further because of inflation, age and such, but i’ll make a conservative calculation and use this data.
Annual saving from scrapping 5 Type 42: 67.5 millions

£10.3 million Type 23 average annual operating costs, based on historic costs over each full financial year. The figures include manpower, maintenance, fuel, stores and other costs (such as harbour dues), but exclude depreciation and cost of capital.
30.9 millions a year

£13.1 million Type 22 Batch 3 frigate, average annual operating costs, based on historic costs over each full financial year. The figures include manpower, maintenance, fuel, stores and other costs (such as harbour dues), but exclude depreciation and cost of capital.
52.4 millions

Since scrapping ships is not for free and all sort of other considerations, the missing money from inflation and such we can assume would go anyway from scrapping costs and other end-life operations, including hopefully moving the Phalanx CIWSs to the Type 45, together with Harpoon coming from the scrapped frigates and possibly Stingray torpedo systems as well. (I know, it may not be “urgent”, but my heart bleeds at how little the Type 45s are equipped, it would be A WHOLE DIFFERENT ship with a “full” capability equipment)

What worries me is that we are looking at a saving of merely: 150.8 millions.
I doubt the amphibs would add much saving, even in the end-game folly of scrapping them entirely, which i think we all hope does not happen.

We are SOOOOO far away from a 1.5 BILLION in savings that the navy is apparently required to make.
I think that scrapping the whole fleet of escorts and the whole fleet of amphibs still would be well far away of that desired saving figure, since if we are to believe to Wikipedia the whole Type 23 fleet averages an annual cost of 133.9 millions. (roughly as much as a single Type 23 costed when she was built)

I don’t know if and how much Devonport costs to run as navy base, but 1.5 billion is a figure the navy apparently can’t obtain neither shutting itself down ENTIRELY.
There’s obviously no figure on the annual cost of running SSNs, but i have serious doubt that two Trafalgar can cost a billion a year to run, sincerely.
Albion and Bulwark also are most likely not very expensive to run: with a crew of 256 (excluding the Marines, we reason on the ship alone) they boost a mere 3 more than a Type 42, and they don’t have a Sea Dart missile to keep operational, no main gun and other expensive features.
On Albion class there’s no figure on annual running cost, but i don’t expect it to be that much higher that a Type 42 and probably lower, since they are newer and should have lower need for mainteinance.
HMS Bulwark’s running cost for this year would be deceptive since she’s just coming out of a 30 millions refit.

My point is, gentlemen, that i’m scared by the obvious size differences. The cuts of hulls are going to hamper the navy’s capability MASSIVELY, and give back almost unrelevant savings in exchange.

Which brings us to the next painful question: HOW THE HELL IS THE NAVY EXPECTED TO SAVE 1.5 BILLIONS…???
Probably the only real chance to obtain such saving would be to stop CASD and maybe retire an SSBN or two, because no other cut in hulls, from the data i can collect, can offer a cut anywhere high enough.

Are the carriers safe…? I’d like to say they are, but there’s this huge question mark floating above me. From where such massive saving can come out…?

A curiosity: HMS Queen Elisabeth, once in service, is expect to run on an annual budget of 44 millions. If this is achieved, both carriers will cost 88/90 millions a year to run. I exclude the planes, since F35B or more planes for the RAF would still cost, since apparently the option is “arm the carriers” or “scrap the carriers but buy F35A” (demented idea) so the argument “but the planes are the true expense!!!” is totally unvalid.

Hardly unaffordable, i’d say.

I dare to speculate that 2 Albions + 4 Bays probably cost roughly 40/50 millions a year, and possibly less since the Bay has little crew and should really not be mainteinance heavy since they lack mostly any kind of combat system, weapons and other expensive gear.

If anyone has got ideas and/or more accurate figures, it would be good to discuss about it and pull out some pocket calculators, because it sounds like the navy is being screwed!

He did not specify, but all evidence is that the UK will continue down the F35B path, but with order halved to around 70 airframes.

@Swerve

Japan plans a couple more Hyungas plus the new enlarged version.
And US sources value that with the addition of a 12° Sky Jump the Hyunga could operate a small group of F35B.

As to troop carrying, you’re right: there’s no evidence they’d be able to carry infantry and deploy it from the air.
But i won’t rule it out entirely. It may be possible to embark some in hasty conditions.
Sincerely, i’d be surprised if it couldn’t be done.
The Invincibles were not built with troop carrying facilities either, but at least one of them has been used as Commando carrier on a regular base. There’s no reason why we should be so sure that Japanese wouldn’t be able to do the same.

Anyway, that wasn’t exactly the point. The point was make evident the difference in approach: UK has more commitments to fullfil with its navy, on a global scale, yet it continues to size down its fleet.
Japan works mostly only in its house garden, but has got a formidable fleet that also includes 18 submarines.

Well, in terms of escort, Portugal has 7 frigates, 10 corvettes and 10 patrol vessels.

If the Royal Navy is cut down to 6 Type 45, 10 Type 23 and no amphibs, it’ll still be better off than Portugal but will be ridiculously close in terms of number of hulls, which is astonishing considering the difference in wealth, global relevance, commerce bulk, oversea territories and other factors that pretty much DICTATE that the UK should have its navy on a far higher position in the list of priorities.

A better comparison is with countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Japan.
And it is not like the Royal Navy comes out of the comparison so shiny and happy, all things considered.
I keep wondering if there’s any real risk to see the amphibious fleet axed. Apart from being militarily nonsense, it would also be a political move pretty obscene that would give a very bad image to the world of a UK effectively losing most of its power projection capability.
Can the government afford to scrap the best of the navy’s modernization program of the post 1998 and lose a capability that even Italy, Spain and Holland retain…?
My answer to the question is a loud “NO”, but my fear stays high.

Amazing how Japan, which has no global commitments and no oversea territories to protect and support and who declares its navy is for “self defence” only, needs 47 major escorts, anti-ballistic and anti-satellite capability and 9 amphibious assault ships plus two helicopter carriers (LPHs, honestly) with one more coming, even larger and capable to take in future F35B planes on board, while the Uk can neclet its Navy so stupidly.

And don’t say “Japan is close to China”, because China is not a threat to Japan more than Russia is to the UK.
China and North Korea missiles in test launches brushes Japan? Well, we had “UFO sightings” that turned out to be a Bulava missile exploding above Norwey.
Japan has china planes bothering its air space? Well, the UK’s got the Tu160 coming to Scotland.

Main difference being that Russia went to war against Georgia, allied of the UK, while China “only” invaded Tibet.

Amazing how the same things can be presented under different lights! China is a threat, but Russia no.
Pakistan with 300.000 soldiers is a threat to justify India’s weapon programme even if India has the power to pulverize Pakistan ten times over, Russia is no problem for the UK.

Reality is that a war between China and India is not any more likely than a war of Russia against NATO forces.
India and China and Russia consider defence the first need and duty of the state, the UK couldn’t care less for it.
That’s where the real difference is.

I would not be surprised if it does up the cost in the long run, or that any such change to the PoW is the excuse to get rid of Ocean, Albion or Bulwark and some of the Bays on the grounds that the new PoW duplicates their capabilities!

That would be total, blatant and irresponsible lie, and trying to sell it would be a shame for whoever will dare saying an idiocy of these proportions.
If they want to be stupid, i hope they do it with that little decency that can still be managed even while doing an idiocy, at least.

But then again, they had the courage to call this obscenity Strategic Defence Review, so i guess they don’t know the meaning of the word “shame”

That is on a long term sustained basis, it could surge 35,000 for a short term action. I’d be highly surprised if many other countries besides the US didn’t have logistics difficulties sustaining 10k of troops on the other side of the world for near on a decade.

I have my doubts about this kind of assumptions.
If the government asks the armed forces to go to war and then provides the funding (what has NOT happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been funded on peacetime budget at the expense of defence needs for ammodernation), what exactly would stop the army from being able to deploy more soldiers on a long term basis?
It may be necessary to lenghten the duration of operational tours of duty, but other than that, a real constraint that can’t be overcome does not really exist.

Sure, if you have to do everything without funding, the matter changes…