During the Cold War, the main role of the RN (and maritime elements of the RAF) was defending the Atlantic resupply roots against the Soviet threat, mainly from submarines but also from aircraft and surface vessels. A secondary role was to have an amphibious capability, largely dedicated to NATO's Northern Flank. It was this set up that led John Nott to make his disastrous 1981 White Paper. As the Cold War ended in the early nineties, the Services were reduced in size. Frigate numbers were cut, and this was partly justified by two things - the increasing capabilities of the new Type 23, and the move away from sub hunting as our main focus to amphibious type operations, with defence against submarine, surface, air and mine threats being in support of an amphibious operation.
As part of this, the UK has invested quite a lot in amphibious ships and other assets. We now have
Ocean, the new LPDs
Albion and
Bulwark, and will soon have the
Bay class LSD(A)s operated by the RFA, and
Point class Ro Ros for strategic sealift. We have new landing craft, hovercraft, vehicles, longer range ammunition for the 4.5 inch gun, new communications systems, and quite a few other things. I would guess (from open sources) that the investment we have made must be at least £1500 million, possibly nearly £2000 million.
To quote directly from Richard Beedall's website, particularly
this page:
From 2005, a Royal Navy Amphibious Task Group (ATG) - sometimes referred to by its American designation of Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) - will include at least one Albion Class Landing Platform Dock (LPD) as the command ship, one Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH - either HMS Ocean or if unavailable an Invincible Class in its secondary LPH role), and normally two Bay Class Auxiliary Landing Ship Dock (LSD(A)). The Embarked Military Force (EMF) will usually be major elements of 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, although British Army units may also be embarked to a greater or lesser degree.
In an assault landing operation, the first wave of troops are landed on the beach by landing craft from the LPDs - HMS Albion and/or Bulwark - and by a "vertical assault" on vital points somewhat inland by helicopters from the LPH (e.g. HMS Ocean), to establish a beachhead and landing zone. The LSD(A)'s are initially positioned about 20nm offshore and remain over-the-horizon during the first wave assault, they may use landing craft and helicopters to help offload the second wave and subsequent waves of troops and equipment from themselves. When the beach area and landing zone have been finally confirmed as secure, the LSD(A)'s will approach the landing zone and from just one or two thousand yards off-shore will deploy Mexeflotes (motorised pontoons) to assist in the quick and efficient offloading of the heavy vehicles and equipment that they carry. Once a harbour has been secured, Point Class "Ro-Ro" Strategic Transport's and ships taken up from trade (STUFT) will bring in further reinforcements and re-supply the force.
Needless to say, the forces are all vulnerable to attack, particularly when actually carrying out a landing. A lot of the planning for our current amphibious forces started in the early nineties, when studies were started that would lead to building LPH and LPD(R). At the same time the planners were looking into potential threats and future vulnerabilities. It was about this time that the green light was given for the Sea Harrier to be upgraded from FRS1 to FA2 (including a number of new build aircraft, the last in 1998). We can only assume that the MOD/RN planners thought that this type of ATG would need air defence. George Robertson shared this view when he conducted the SDR. What has changed since then? Has the potential threat from aircraft and air launched weapons reduced? Is UK foreign policy now concerned with different parts of the world to those in the nineties?
Before you say "But we won't do this sort of thing without the Americans" I ask you to consider a few things:
1. We can't predict the future.
2. We could find ourselves in a multinational operation without the US, perhaps with other European nations or under the auspices of the UN.
3. Even alongside the US, UK forces will often operate in a different area to US forces, perhaps several hundred miles away. This idea is demonstrated both by NATO exercises and events in the Gulf. Thus not having organic air defence will cause major problems for both ourselves and others.
Last night I attended a presentation by a staff officer from COMATG. Although the Sea Harrier was only mentioned once - "It's a shame we're losing it" - I couldn't help thinking about the vulnerability of an ATG, and of course the cuts currently taking place will not help. Asymmetric threats were discussed at some length, and the possible means to protect against them. I fear an enemy could use aircraft in this way - if they lack aircraft with the right weapons to attack (big) ships then he might attack landing craft or helicopters full of troops, simply to inflict heavy loss of life.
We could respond (of course we won't until it happens, we are reactive after the event instead of anticipating threats and vulnerabilities) by fitting SAM systems to landing craft (and certain other vessels), and giving helicopters a self defence air to air system, but surely it would be cheaper (in both money and lives) and better to retain a certain number (one squadron?) of Sea Harriers than to suffer losses and then run around trying to do things urgently?