Editorial

RN Update
24 July 2000

A lot has been happening over the last few months...    The Year 2000 started badly for the Royal Navy.  The cut backs announced in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review were biting savagely and the newspapers were full of reports of exercises cancelled due to lack of money, ships stuck in port to save fuel, and a Defence Medical Service collapsing due to lack of funds and false economies.  However, in recent months the tide has turned slightly and thankfully there are now a number of good news items to report in this editorial.

Perhaps the single most important recent event was the announcement on 11 July 2000 by the Defence Secretary, Mr Hoon, that approval has been given to order the first batch of three Daring Class Type 45 air defence destroyers from BAE Systems, at an expected cost of well over £1 billion.  The Type 45's are urgently needed as replacements for the obsolete Type 42 destroyers, which will average 29 years old when replaced by the Type 45.  The first Type 45 destroyer, HMS Daring, should enter service in 2007, and up to 12 ships should be in service by 2014.  Its worth noting that these ships are the first warships to be ordered by the government, after over three years in power.   Warship construction is at an historic low and the only surface combatant currently under construction at a shipyard (excluding the Albion class LPD's) is the last Type 23, HMS St. Albans. 

Details of the specification of the Type 45 destroyer are slowly emerging and its now clear that it will be a substantial ship of about 7000 tonnes full load.  The primary armament will consist of a Sampson/PAAMS air defence system with a battery of Aster 15/30 missiles, this combination seems likely to prove equivalent or even superior to the latest version of the American AEGIS system with Standard 2 MR/ER missiles  However, overall the initial design specification of the Type 45 seems to have no great advantage over equivalent Spanish, Dutch or German warships which will enter service much sooner (around 2002), and its battery of just 48 Sylver VLS launchers doesn't compare favourably with the American or Japanese "AEGIS" destroyers already in service which have 96 of the more versatile Mk.41 launchers. However, the RN does seem to have plans to greatly improve the designs capability and armament in follow on batches, the 4.5" Mk8 Mod 1 gun will be replaced by a new 155mm mount, the Sylver VLS cells replaced by Mk.41 VLS cells able to accept a wider range of missiles (including Tactical Tomahawk), and the old Phalanx CIWS replaced by a new generation ILMS.  All very good, but these improvements could   have been included in the original design - excuses about pressure of time and lack of money are very weak given the five years and between £75 - 200 million (depending how much "value" is counted as being reused by the Type 45) which the MoD wasted on the unworkable Horizon CNGF Project before its cancellation.

In June a long awaited order for two 3,500 tonnes Survey Ships was finally placed with Appledore Shipbuilders at a value of about £130 million.  The two ships will be called HMS Echo and HMS Enterprise.  Disappointingly, a third ship which had also been expected to be ordered has presumably been cancelled. 

We must now anxiously wait for announcements about other long delayed orders, these include:  6 Ro-Ro Strategic Sea Lift ships (order now expected late 2000 - probably to a foreign yard); 2 Alternative Landing Ship Logistics (orders expected late 2000); and 1 or 2 200 bed Primary Casualty Receiving Ships (i.e. Hospital Ships) (order not now expected until 2002).

Another major recent event was the launch in May of the Research Vessel Triton being constructed by Vosper Thornycroft.  With its revolutionary trimaran hull, Triton is said by its supporters to be possibly the most significant advance in warship design since the advent of ironclad warships 140 years ago! 

Sea trials will start in September, and if the advantages of the hull form are proven then it may be used for the planned Future Surface Combatant (FSC), due to replace the Type 23 frigates and remaining Type 22 frigates from about 2013

Whether the FSC actually uses the trimaran hull form will partly depend on the UK's response to French suggestions  [e.g. Le Monde newspaper, 16 March 2000] that the two countries co-operate on their future carrier and frigate programmes.  In particular the French are very keen that the UK merges its requirement for 20 FSC's with their le projet «composante frégate» (Modular Frigate Project) for 15 Naval Action Frigates, which will probably be built in two versions: F-AVT "Frégates d'action vers la terre" (land attack frigates) and F-ASM "Frégates d'action-sous-marine" (anti-submarine frigates).  While collaborative projects are superficially attractive to politicians and budget approvers, recent experience (not least the disastrous Horizon Project!) has shown that they are always late, over budget, don't deliver what the RN requires, and that the French will ultimately insist on having managerial and industrial control of the Project - even when it's not justified by their own financial contribution.  A leak of a draft report by UK's National Audit Office says that multinational equipment programmes take almost 40% longer to deliver and cost up to twice the alternatives from Britain or other individual states.  Even where a collaborative project appeared to offer the best value at the outset, the report says, costs and delivery times quickly spiralled because of the inefficiencies of multinational production. on recent large equipment purchases.  It also found that for many recent defence orders ministers had ignored the recommendations of officials because of "political factors".  Lets hope that two critical RN projects are not stifled and delayed by British politician's anxious to be seen as "pro-European" and French demands and requirements.

On 18 July the the outcome of the Governments Comprehensive Spending Review was announced.  The Defence Budget has suffered almost continuous real annual cuts since the late 1980's, in total amounting to about 30%, including cuts of 5% (or £1 billion) by the current government.  There were press reports early in the year that yet more cuts were being demanded by the Treasury, it was therefore a relief to find that the defence budget will in fact be increased very slightly, the Defence Budget will go up from just under £23 billion this year (2000/01) to almost £25bn in the financial year 2003-2004.  Next year (2001/2) the budget will rise by £400 million or, discounting inflation, by 0.1% in real terms, followed by real growth of 0.2% and 0.7% for the following two years.  The increase's have been driven by several factors:   the Prime Minister Tony Blair's determination for Britain to be seen as strong on Defence and offer a European lead (hardly possible with annual UK defence cuts); the increasingly obvious impossibility of financing all the key SDR proposals from the current Defence Budget, and the Treasury's demand that the MoD pays for recent extra-ordinary operations such as Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone from its current departmental budget rather than receive extra funds from the central government Contingency Fund as has previously been the practice.  However, while the small amount of extra funds may delay some difficult decisions and avoid the embarrassment of immediate cancellation of some major SDR projects, it still remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient funds to pay for the all the big-ticket (CVF, A400M, Eurofighter, Typhoon, FCBA, Bowman ...) procurements planned.

Another recent bright spot was the welcome boost offered by the RN's and RM's performance off Sierra Leone in mid-May to mid-June.  The RN rapidly assembled and deployed a very significant Task Group, including the carrier HMS Illustrious (with a mixed RAF/RN Harrier/Sea Harrier airgroup embarked), the LPH HMS Ocean, two Landing Ships, two frigates and various RFA.  All in all it was a classic demonstration of the flexibility of "Sea Power".  One oddity and disappointment though was the RN's unwillingness to publicise its deployment and activities more - unlike the RAF and Army which enjoyed huge positive publicity.  The RN refused reporters access to its ships, so while there was daily film from reporters flying in RAF Chinooks and accompanying Army patrols, a fuzzy shot of frigate on the horizon was often the best the RN usually got.  A lost PR opportunity.

A key decision currently being made is the selection of the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft (FCBA).  This now seems almost certain to be the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), rather than other suggested options such as a marinised Sea Typhoon or the French Rafale M.  The JSF has recently been very strongly backed as the only viable option for FCBA in several magazine interviews by Rear Admiral Ian Henderson, former FONA and now Commander of No.3 (Maritime) Group RAF.  Its therefore unsurprising to learn that the UK is expected to shortly sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding its Level 1 participation in the JSF Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) Phase. The contract formally committing the UK to a 10% share of the programme, at a cost of $1.8 billion, will probably be signed in September or October.  It seems that the UK is very keen to progress the JSF programme on schedule (and also help counter reports of USAF and GAO reservations about the project) and retain a significant voice in the management and down-selection selection process, although it will in effect be bravely selecting JSF as the FCBA well before the first flights of the STOVL demonstrators (not now expected before early 2001). 

Now moving on to the bad news ...  recruitment and manning has really become a major issue for the Royal Navy, in the last 6 months of 1999 alone, 500 more personnel left the RN than joined.  In an already understrength force of just 43,000 (including over 6,000 Royal Marines) this represents a big problem.  Overall the RN is now 4.6% understrength (theoretically, the crews of about 10 Type 23 frigates!), but the position is far worse in some key categories -  the RN is short of 30% of its Sea Harrier pilots, 21% short of Submarine Warfare Officers, and 9% short of Warfare Branch ratings.  Efforts are being made to improve retention and recruitment, but the problem will clearly take years to resolve.  The situation has not been helped by the ever increasing civilian'isation of shore jobs which has reduced the ratio of shore to sea drafts/appointments for uniformed personnel - this has most badly affected the experienced but often married personnel that the Navy is trying to retain.  Also, signs continue of the effects of the 1998/9 run down of the RN's destroyer and frigate escort force from 35 to 31 ships (+1 ship at extended readiness).  The West Indies Guard Ship will now be on station only 75% of the time, while the Armilla Patrol has been officially reduced to just one warship [in recent years the second ship has been in the general region "East of Suez", rather than actually in the Arabian Gulf itself].

Richard

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