Can't say they weren't warned. Looks like the LORA must have been a tad optimistic. Also the first ships of what is now the Type 26 should have been available to ensure the RN could meet its tasking in the pre-'Boris's Global Navy' 2 active CV days. However, 997 ain't SAMPSON. Presumably Sea Ceptor will potentially affect T45 availability to some extent in the second half of the decade. Decisions taken in the shadow of the 2007-08 crash on the basis of a crystal ball showing the wrong future are too long in the past to be corrected to meet current demands. Don't you love the way networked capability means we don't need as many aircraft or ships because it makes ours invulnerable and theirs easy meat. We can just 'juggle and hope' - with the security of our country and potentially the lives of our service men and women.
HoC PAC report on Type 45 Destroyers - 1 June 2009
Conclusions
The reduction in the number of destroyers to be procured from eight to six means it will be more challenging for the Department to meet its policy requirement of five destroyers available for tasking at any one time. The Department believes that the longer-term support arrangements for the Type 45 will help give it the best chance of meeting this requirement. The Department is already later than planned in putting support arrangements in place. The Department must avoid repeating the early mistakes of the procurement of the destroyers in finalising its support arrangements. It should:
• spend time ensuring that the costs and timescales are realistic and that the commercial arrangements are appropriate to the project;
• put in place effective ways to incentivise industry, linked to the need to have five ships operational at all times,
1 The Type 45 Destroyer Capability
5. The Department is now only procuring half of the 12 ships that it originally planned to when the project was first approved in 2000. The requirement for 12 ships was reduced to eight in 2004 because of changes in the perceived threat, revised planning assumptions, and improvements in network enabled capability, and finally down to six ships in 2008.
The Committee remains deeply concerned that the reduction to six ships will make it very challenging for the Department to meet its operational requirement to have five ships at sea at any one time. This requirement remains unchanged despite the cut in numbers to six. The Department cannot commit to always maintaining this level of availability. It told the Committee that it will be able to maintain four ships at sea, and while there is very high probability of maintaining five, there is a small risk it will not.
6. The Department judges this to be a manageable risk and is looking to mitigate it through the support arrangements it agrees for the ship, through other elements of air defence, and through capabilities on other ships such as the Future Surface Combatant, although the Committee notes this will not enter service until at least 2018. Should only four ships be available, the Department will have to “juggle and hope”. The Navy would adapt its tactics and techniques accordingly to reduce the risk of a successful attack to an absolute minimum.