Liger30I think that is a thinking of the past. In Western Europe there is no island state and no continental power any more, simply do to the fact that war within western Europe is extremely unlikely. All Western European states are extremely likely to use their military might in expeditionary operations. Nobody is going to try a blockade against the British isles.
The Navies in Europe have become very important to protect our interest in the world, as conflicts will be out of area in the future and we strongly depend on open sea lanes and free trade.
And because of the expeditionary nature of future conflicts the boots on the ground are important, even for an island state. It is not about defending the island, it is about defending the international interests of your country and that can only be achieved if you are capable of putting boots on the ground, when the need arises.
How many boots can be discussed.
Have you ever realized that to do Expeditionary Warfare you have to transport troops, vehicles and thousands of tons and thousands of containers of spare parts, supply, food, ammunition and everything?
Do you realize that most of the heavy equipment for Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns both go to the theater on ships? Move them with planes is impossible: C130s are limited in cargo capacity, and even the US with 200 hundred C17 cargo planes can’t deploy more than a fraction of the stuff a division needs.
If we reason about moving an Armour Division with tanks, besides, the matter gets even worse.
So it is by ship that you bring the stuff in the area.
If you are unable to, or worse if you are unable to escort the convoys of resupply to protect them from the enemy’s action, you lose the war in no time.
The D-Day in Normandy had to wait so long because firstly a minimum degree of superiority over u-boots in the Atlantic had to be obtained. Otherwise, the million of US Soldiers and the 40.000 Sherman tanks would have all visited the sea bed of the North Atlantic, and not the coast of Normandy.
The same scenario could happen all over again: the enemy could assault ships loaded with tanks with anything from submarines to fast crafts loaded with guys with RPG7, and it would be a disaster.
The brits had to surrender in Yorktown because the french navy had cut off their supply line in Chesapeke bay.
Had Argentina been able to harass the convoys of ships in the Atlantic in 1982, the task force would have been unable to fight and take back the Falklands.
Had Iraq been able to attack the ships bringing US and british forces into Kuwait, the war wouldn’t even have started.
Those are all expeditionary wars that have been ultimately dominated on the news by the boots on the ground.
BUT they are all operations which started from the sea in a way or another, and continued to heavily depend from the sea.
When the URSS started creating its own enormous navy, it was because Russia, differently from most today, had noticed that the West as a whole lives by its marittime trade, and on oil imported by sea.
But this is the part i like the most in the old URSS Strategy about the navy:
“…A navy is the most effective political instrument for conveying the impression of political and military power without actually firing a shot.” This is probably the smartest and shortest way to explain the role of the navy, in peacetime even before it starts fighting a shooting war.
Russia had understood than even with 78.000 T72 tanks and 3 millions soldiers in active service (so boots on the ground galore) its influence past the East European states it could directly threaten was NONE.
Developing a navy, instead, Russia was capable to get political victories like the gaining of Cuba, an invaluable base in America’s very own garden, Lybia, Aden, Vietnam, Korea, Venezuela, and so along.
It became able to project its power GLOBALLY, not because its ships fired on these nations i listed, but because they were physical demonstration of Russia’s policy and reach.
Russian strategy also lists very effectively:
“…Ultimately, history teaches that the great men who ultimately failed to understand the implications of naval power, failed on the long term in their targets: notably Alexander the Great and moreover Napoleon, Hitler…”
All three had the major advantage in boots on the ground, land forces and weaponry, but all three ultimately failed in confronting enemies with the control of the sea.
You can search all over the world, but you’ll never find a great Strategy essay that is not heavily revolving around the sea control need and the advantages it allows to who obtains it.
Advantages that ultimately include DECIDING WHERE TO ENGAGE.
Hitler had to defend thousands of miles of coast, from Norway to Spain, from souther France to Greece.
Ultimately, though, he was unable to avoid the allied forces to land pretty much everywhere they wanted, since no one can be strong enough to shield all the weak points.
Over 20% of the world’s coast lenght is suitable for major landing operations with LCU landing crafts.
With US style hovercrafts, the percentage rises to 70%.
No one, not even China or Russia with their massive armies, can actively defend all that area.
For sure the UK won’t be able to influence events with 100.000 soldiers, in particular if 100.000 men actually mean deplying 10.000 of them or less.
But a strong navy a brigade of Commandos capable to raid objective ashore, once here, tomorrow there, is a major nightmare for the enemy.
Possibly not for the effective damage the Commando Brigade would cause, but because its raids would force the enemy to waste divisions upon divisions defending its coastline, and ultimately finding out that they are never defended enough.
The UK won the IIWW that way, you know.
Try to make a math of how many german divisions, how many squadrons of airplanes, were unable to head east to attack Moscow because they had to stay back and defend interminable stretches of coastline from Greece to Norway.
Arguably, your last point actually comes in my direction:
The UK needs to be able to deploy MORE soldiers, from the sea whenever possible, and sustain and support them.
What ultimately matters is:
1) How many soldiers you are actually capable to deploy and use
2) What kind and amounts of supplies you are able to grant them
3) How much support and mobility you can give them
Arguably, a third “High-Deployable” brigade on the model of the 3 Commando or 16 Airborne would be worth all the brigades the army has but is unable to use outside the UK.
It is not 100.000 men that matter, is the amount of them that you can actually use.
And seen its invaluable contribution to the nation’s policy in peacetime as well, the navy should be granted precedence.
India is a major continental power, as Russia and China. Observing their rearming programmes and making a bit of math, can we agree they are actually focusing on, in the order, Navy, Air Force and then Army?
Well, there’s a good reason why.
Liger30Its worth remembering what smaller nations do with a lot less than the UK. The dutch have become masters of acheiving a very large effect with a very dynamic and flexible armed forces. We can all wish to keep everything, get more of this and that, but the reality is that the forces are going to be smaller and maybe that is no bad thing…for instance why is an army that is nominally 100,000 strong only capable of sustaining one understrength division in the field on long term deployment? Perhaps an enforced major reduction in strength will actually make the MOD look at how inefficently its spends money and deploys its numbers. The current Afghan deployment could be sustained by a smaller army (or by the same token the UK should be able to sustain a bigger deployment at present or the current sized one with ease).
Totally agree, but this is valid for the army, not for the navy: if the Albion class is lost, it is gone.
However, i find it indeed quite astonishing that the UK is unable to deploy more than 10.000 men and, tomorrow, more than 6000. A brigade is around 5000 men worth.
Does the UK need 7 brigades to be able to deploy just one???
Apart for the 16 Airborne and even more the 3 Commando Brigade, the latter being pretty much always available, the other brigades are pretty much undeployable most of the time, or at least that is the feeling you get.
It gives an idea of very low efficiency overall for the army.
If the navy needed 7 ships for each one that gets actually deployed abroad, well… can you image the picture? XD
Liger30I get the chills for the reports about losing the amphibs, though. Hell, Bulwark and Albion aren’t 7 years old, Bulwark got refitted just now…
But what the hell… I hope no one is seriously mad enough to think about losing terrain in that area of capability, after so much effort and money has been spent to ensure the needed capability was built up.
It would be a suicidal self-destruction process.
Liger30But what the hell do you need conventional submarines for…?????
You’ve got the Astutes, and there’s arguably nothing better around the world, not even the Virginia class.
The RN does not have conventional subs anymore from when still-new Upholder class was sold to Canada with the decision that the navy was going to be “nuclear-only” in terms of submarines.
You don’t need submarines, you don’t need LHDs, you need a couple of frigging carriers and retain the amphibs you already have, that are NEW. HMS Bulwark just got out of the dock after a 30 million refit that made of it almost a new ship, making it capable to operate two Chinooks at once on the deck, between other things.
This is what the navy knows all to well, and what hopefully Fox realizes as well.
The navy has “sold its soul for CVF” because it KNOWS that it is what the navy and the nation need.
Just look at France: it is OBVIOUS that one carrier is better than zero, but two is the bare number of hulls you need to ensure that one ship is always available.
With two carriers, you can also overall replace Ocean to some degree even if a dedicate replacement is set to be lost.
With one carrier, you get almost nothing. Charles de Gaulle is NUCLEAR, yet it is so often unavailable that the french have been desperately looking at way to get a second hull in the water.
You are about to build CONVENTIONAL propelled carriers. Put in the water only one MAKES NO ECONOMIC AND NO MILITARY SENSE.
And F35A is the very last thing the UK needs. It would be irrelevant for the needs of the country, and it would never get funding anyway.
Liger30Well, the MK110 is realistically more effective of the Millenium: it is the explosive charge of a 57 mm ammo against a 30 mm one.
But i’m fascinated by the Strales, admittedly. A 76mm gun is handy to have, and is good for other roles on top of the mere defence/CIWS role.
Also, in the trial firings it was pretty impressive to see the dart (which like armor-piercing rounds is an undercalibrated 40 mm dart fin-stabilized) maneuver and get close to the missile to explode as close as possible and destroy it.
The 76 mm guided dart offers the advantage of greater lethality, greater accuracy and greater distance of engagement compared to anything save for RAM missiles.
Phalanx, Goalkeeper, Millenium etc are all a bit short-legged in comparison.
16 CAMMs would be a good fit to allow the C3 to operate alone in a risky area and still have chances to survive and defend itself against attacks, and it would also make the C3 more useful inside a task group.
You’d send people on a C3 armed merely with a 30 mm gun cleaning a mine field at sea (strait of Hormuz springs to mind) with the risk of getting it targeted by missiles coming from ashore, fast-attack crafts and everything…?
It would be sending the crew to suicide.
The best ever would be that CAMM’s engineers make the missile capable to attack surface targets as well, as they have promised they’ll try to do staying into the same budget.
If it can be done, a C3 armed with CAMM would still be cheap and simple, but it would also be a quite awesome all-around ship capable to fullfil many tasks for the fleet.
A force multiplier, i’d dare saying.
Liger30Britain’s got merely two Heavy Armour brigades by now. One has to stay, to conserve capability and especially to make sure there are crews and expertise to act as a core around which other brigades can be quickly-enough regenerated drawing from mothballed vehicles. But the other could realistically be cut without serious damage ensuing.
The cut of the 20th armored brigade, with the 7th staying in place while the other Challenger II are put in long term storage, is far more acceptable and less-damaging a cut than any reduction in F35B numbers or ships paid off.
Also, i think that, made the math, cutting a brigade of CR2s would save quite a lot of money.
Liger30@nocutstoraf
The Strales (Davide in italian service) is quite unique since it is a 76 mm gun capable to fire 120 rounds a minute and fire radar-guided rounds at incoming missiles.
The bofors MK110 is a 57 mm: a bit less capable than the 76 (76 mm allows you to do some limited gunfire on targets ashore, the bofors is more limited in that regard) but it is also CIWS capable, so much so that it is the CIWS chosen for the Zumwalt class cruisers in the US Navy.
The Millenium is a single barrel gun good as CIWS, but since it is 30 or 35 mm, i don’t quite remember at the moment, can’t do much more than shooting at approaching missiles, with obvious limits compared to the former guns, and to small fast going boats.
Arguably, i’d go 76 mm as the main gun for C3 myself, with a couple of 30 mm like on frigates.
We are looking at a 100-meter 3000 tons ships, after all. I don’t want it to be utterly underarmed.
Unfortunately, money is going to impose its dictatorship, i fear, on any other consideration.
Liger30When you say expanding?
If you mean in capability, then yes; although the UK is certainly expanding in capability what with CVF, Astute and the Type 45.
If you mean by numbers, then I’d question that. Look at just about every non-Asian Navy since the Cold War, numbers have dropped sharply. The US had over 600 ships during the height of the cold war, now its target is for a 313 ship fleet and is heading for about 240 within the next twenty years. The only navies that are actually getting bigger that I can think of are the Asian ones, mostly Japan, South Korea, China and India.
Edit: I think Spain would rather work on Gibralter first 😉
Thankfully Spain seems to respect the rights of the population there, they do claim it but have been extremely quiet about it ever since a vote was held and the result was about 98.8% in favour of remaining under British sovereignty.
Well, of course the navies of N-hundreds ships are a matter for rising superpowers…
But capability is growing all over the world, and the RN and even US Navy have less and less edge on rival navies.
The new Graney class SSN of the Russians seems to be incredibly advanced, and a crew of merely 50 men means they have improved the already amazing higly automated systems of the incredible Alfa class of Cold War time.
Even African nations are getting more capable ships (Morocco planning FREEM spring to mind, but it is merely an example), Brazil is growing in both number and capability (the latter is a very noticeable leap especially). Japan and Korea have been growing incredibly stronger on the sea, Iran built a new destroyer, new special-mission mini subs and new submarines to control the strait of Hormuz (a sub there is a NIGHTMARE for any navy to chase…), new fast attack crafts…
Russia is putting new ships in the water and upgrading old but formidable ships like the Kirovs to put them at sea again.
And of course, if we take in the picture India and China, we get the image of an arms race never before seen by the heights of the Cold War.
Liger30RE: Liger
I do not think it’s escaped the RN’s notice, they have just been to absorbed in getting the CVF’s they have not fought for their escorts, however I wonder if part of the problem is the RN decision not to consider light frigates (like the French, among others use) in the 3,500 tonne weight class for secondary duties, as they think that light frigates are simply to small and under armed to survive against a front line surface combatant or if engaged by a submarine.
Personally I like to see in service ASAP a stealthy light frigate/heavy OPV which has medium calibre gun, 2 or 4 remote operated 30mm or 20mm turrets, has a large flex section, has one or two decoy launchers, bow mounted low power sonar and reasonable all round radar system, a full size hangar able to accommodate a Merlin (though a Lynx would be standard equipment) and possibly a dog kennel hangar for fire scout UAV.
@nocutstoraf
Personally I like to see in service ASAP a stealthy light frigate/heavy OPV which has medium calibre gun, 2 or 4 remote operated 30mm or 20mm turrets, has a large flex section, has one or two decoy launchers, bow mounted low power sonar and reasonable all round radar system, a full size hangar able to accommodate a Merlin (though a Lynx would be standard equipment) and possibly a dog kennel hangar for fire scout UAV.
Your proposed ship is pretty what the RN hoped to get with the C3 requirement. It will be probably far less ambitious (probably it’ll have a 30 mm gun as main weapon and a couple of miniguns or something like that…), but in the best case, if we are lucky, it could be very Venator-like. On many forums i saw the Venator concept being snubbed, but i found it actually pretty awesome.
With the possibility to carry a helo, eventually fit a removable towed sonar array and up to 16 CAMM missiles when needed (plus what in the graphics appear to be a 76 mm gun, probably a Oto Melara Strales that works as CIWS as well) it would be an awesome ship to have in the fleet.
I also don’t doubt the RN knows those facts.
In fact, i meant that the country, large part of the population and the government did forget that. The navy surely knows it, but you can see by yourself that British policy from the day the focus became the Army of the Rhine has been neclecting the navy more and more year after year.
We just have to hope the lesson won’t be re-learned in a too painful way! The Falklands War was a stinging reminder, but its benefic effect on naval planning seems to be already dead into the Government/population.
Liger30@RVFHarrier
Thanks god a spark of britishness and good sense! I heartily agree with your points, and i also hope that 138 F35B are ordered, eventually, as time passes and (hopefully) the budget crisis is overcome.
I don’t believe too much in it, but i certainly hope for it.
As to Falklands, i’ll add that even Spain may well claim the islands at that point. Falklands were apparently part of Spanish domain that included Argentina itself. Argentina became “indipendent” from Spain around 1810 or so, but it still does not have any real right to claim the islands.
Liger30The main reason why the Uk needs a navy is that it depends on the sea. Totally.
In 1942 the whole island was on the brink of dying, starved to death by lack of food and goods that were sunk by u-boots in the Atlantic.
You wouldn’t be any safer now than you were back then.
And if you’ll all take a moment to check on the latest military news, you’ll see that the number and efficiency and dangerousness of submarines is growing fast. Every nation is getting more subs.
Most nations are actually expanding their navies as a whole, but the UK apparently misses this detail for some reason. Or semply deems it as insignificant every time.
Lately, every sign of arms race around the world has been totally deemed as insignificant.
The ones that are arming don’t think about it the same way, however.
Liger30The “murky” history of the island is hardly a motivation for anything: if we reason about past presences in every part of the world to determine which nation has the right to claim sovereignity over which island or rock, we’ll have the worst mess EVER.
The Uk could claim sovereignty of Normandy (or vice versa?) and of most of the world’s landmass because of earlier domination, ownership and colonization. Included Australia, that should be Aborigen-owned (just like US then should be property of the last Lakota and Apaches and Chinooks still alive if we reason this way) but that Britain could claim because it colonized it.
The US could still be claimed back: just like the Falklands were (maybe) argentine-ruled before the brits came, the US colonies were british ones.
Sicily could be claimed by mostly everyone from Greeks to Vickings to Turks to Italians to who the hell knows who.
As much ridiculous is “Falklands can’t be british! They are far closer to Argentina!”.
The island of Lampedusa then shouldn’t be Italian either, and Tunisi should claim it as its own… Spratly should be Manila’s and Taiwan inexorably chinese…
Please, let’s be serious.
Liger30And Liger, calm down, this is not the second coming of Hitler and the Nazis, and that sort of talk helps no-one.
No. But your suggestion keeps looking like total madness to me.
China and Taiwan aren’t setting their “problem” with Taiwan surrendering to Beijing.
Nor is Japan surrendering to Russia/China over disputed islands.
Not even Vietnam is giving in on the Spratly islands!
The UK, instead, should, regardless of the wish of the falklands islanders, of its economic interests, of its pride, of its dead ones, of its everything, surrender to Argentina’s whine and throw the islanders to the old enemy to save a few penny on defence.
I’m not saying this is the second come of Hitler.
But i’d like you to show me the difference between handing Falkland people to Argentina. It is exactly like handing Czechoslovakia to the Nazi.
Czech weren’t evicted either. They were allowed to stay in their houses. But they were under foreign invasion and foreign command.
What would happen to Falklands inhabitants.
Next time what you give off? Gibraltar? Because Spain wants it badly as well. Let’s not make them wait any longer! Gibraltar voted at the 93% to stay british, but who cares! It costs to defend it!
Channel ISlands can go to France, and later the Uk as a whole can go to the USA, so at least you won’t have problems anymore.
I can’t believe what i’m hearing.
Call us evil, but you’ll never see an italian ready to give away Sicily to Lybia or Trieste to Slovenia. Last time they tried to steal us Trieste, here we had people voluntaring to go and fight and get it back. We didn’t because a couple of divisions from the british army in Italy arrived there faster than the volunteers and chased Tito and its troops back out of the town. One was a division of New Zealand soldiers from the Commonwealth.
“Trieste o Morte!” you can find written on the shirts that recall that moment. “Trieste or Death”, it does mean.
And you’d give your own country away…
But you know what? If the UK was to start showing hints of going down the road you propose about Falklands and Gibraltar, i’m sure both would soon enough vow to get the hell out of the Uk by themselves.
No wonders so many in Scotland want indipendence!
Liger30Actually, Max Hastings (yes notoriously pro-Army) has said to keep the CVF the RN would likely give up the 9 destroyers/frigates and ALL its amphibious capability.
If that’s just it, today a newspaper wrote that the cost of CVF if no 5 billions, no 15 adding 10 billions for the F35, but an astonishing 52 billions.
With bull like that being printed out, everything could be.
I obviously hope no one in the NSC is mad enough to force the navy to a such a strategically-absurd decision.
Liger30The point is that some reports suggest, that the UK could end up with 2 CVFs, some SSBNs, SSNs but few frigates, fewer amphibs and no Marines.
I know those reports and they horrified me. I’ve opposed the absurdity of such a scenario very bitterly, and i continue to oppose it with all my conviction.
Luckily, there are also different indications.
But scrapping the CVFs wouldn’t improve that sad image. It would make it worse by far. So, CVFs must be saved, no matter how hard the fight is to save them.
As to fewer frigates, the latest report suggesting early loss of Type 42 and 22 was actually almost a paradise. That would be a more than acceptable cost to face, considering that the Type 42 are to be lost all too soon anyway, that the RN’s got 3 Type 45 and the other 3 are coming, and the Type 22 haven’t got a long life left either, so losing them earlier is overall acceptable.
If the cuts to the navy really were Devonport, 8 minesweepers, Type 42 + 22 and no-replacement for Ocean, but with the amphibs surviving, Marines remaining and both CVFs built and 70 F35 bought, it would be a scenario worth drinking with champagne for, believe me.
Apparently, it is pretty what RAF, RN, Scotland and mr. Fox are advocating for, listening to the latest reports.
My whole support is with them in this that is the most important battle for the UK at the moment, in its way worth being listed alongside Trafalgar and the Battle of Britain, i’d dare saying.
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