Hi Squirre 41

It also begs the question, if HMS Prince of Wales is going to be a pure amphibious warfare vessel as the article suggests (which I don't believe by the way) then clearly it is overkill as a HMS Ocean replacement. Might then this be an opportunity to chop another amphibious asset as well as HMS Ocean?

I'm not saying this would be a good thing. Certainly not for moral anyway and job prospects in the Royal Navy.

Caspian, Quentin Davies has already kicked the story into touch, it is just the fevered dribble of a bored journo who knows nothing about defence matters. The clue should be he didn't understand the difference between the Tornado F3 and GR4. Both Carriers will be fully able to support the F-35B, and both will be able to act as LPHs when required. That was always the plan and nothing has changed. There has been no reduction in the order for F-35Bs, as the total has yet to pass three!:eek:

Caspian,

I doubt it. If you were going to bin the CVF programme - and the command staffs, MWCers and all the design and programme management people - then I suspect you'd do this on the basis of the boosting the RN's useful capabilities that can provide a punch above our weight blah blah when we're operating in a coalition.

In this scenario, the USN provides the fast air from CVN/CVNX and RN provides amphibiosity in support of 3 Cdo Bde - OCEAN, ALBION, BULWARK and the Bays at a push is a substantial capability. In losing CVF, what you would lose is the ability to deploy this into a scenario where the opposition had a credible air force and/or needed UK fast air to gain theatre entry without HNS, and in which we're operating on ourown (minus USN).

There's no doubt that this would crimp the UK's style - but the question is what are the scenarios in which we would ever need to do it all ourselves?

The only scenario where I think you can sensibly make the case is the Falklands - in which case we've got to lose them first. So don't lose them!

IMHO, this is the problem that the RN really faces - CVF is a undoubtedly a very shiny toy, but it's not actually all that operationally CRITICAL in that many scenarios. Useful? Yes. Bigger and better than what the French have - absolutely. But CRITICAL? No, not that often - if at all (Falklands).

Fundamentally, let's not confuse two important concepts:

Useful* - makes a substantial contribution, but not critical to an operation

Critical - operation cannot happen without it.

So I'd prefer for the RN to have a series of critical enabling capabilities (ASW, ASuW, AAW, Amphibs) that allow us to bolt onto a coalition operation than to mortgage everything to have two x CVF and bugger all else other than what's needed to protect it.

S41

*E.g. Sending Ark Royal across the Atlantic for the Belmopan flyby was useful, but not critical. Full credit to the RN blokes for pulling it off, but it wasn't essential.

Unfortunately Squirrel, the only coalition that is going to be in town will not span the Atlantic.

I foresee the new 'power bloc' flexing it's arm alongside the EU Naval Task Force off the coast of Somalia and the like

Every Pusser's Grey War Canoe shall be styled "EU Naval Ship" <Name>. And therefore there is only the Aeronavale that bring Amphibious fast air to the table unless we go with QE and / or POW.

Maybe that might seem a bit reactionary - but I cannot imagine Strasbourg wanting to play second fiddle on the world's stage to the Cousins for much longer.

I know elsewhere there is chunter about Broon calling off the election - but what about an EU 'Falklands' type expedition to boost ratings and show that we are all better off as members of Europia.

An interesting argument Squirrel, but you have just made the case for binning most of the RAF as well, after all, doesn't the RAF's offensive capability simply duplicate the USAF's? I am not advocating this by any means, on the contrary I want stronger armed forces. All three are complmentary, not competitors with each other. The Falkland proved one lesson that is often overlooked, there will be times when the USA will not do our fighting for us and we will have to stand on our own two feet. The future of warfare in this century is not Afganistan, it will be wars over resources. OUr interests and the USA's won't always line up neatly. The CVF program is about the next fifty years, not the next five (how long I think the Afgan debacle will drag on for...).

OWR,

I'm light blue, so I'm grateful that this iteration of this argument hasn't yet descended into light-blue dark-blue mudslinging.... something that the previous CAS and 1SL seemed incapable of.

FWIW, I think you're largely right. The ideal would be a budget of £60 - 65bn p.a. for the next 10 years. But it just isn't going to happen - RUSI's Professor Malcolm Chalmers (RUSI Professor Malcolm Chalmers) is suggesting that the scale of the cuts will be 10-15% over the next Parliament - or £4 - 6bn p.a.. Anything on this scale means the mass slaughter of sacred cows and then some.

I agree too that we need to be looking 20 - 30 years out (and even then I still have a problem with the comparative utility of CVF), but the reality is that as the PR09 "process" showed, we're able to look a maximum of 24 months out - 36 if the weather's fine. This is no way to run any sort of public policy, let alone defence and security policy!

So if SDR 2010 is a serious policy review, tied to long-term foreign policy objectives, and it is forced to live within its means - and the 10 year indicative budgeting in the Gray Report would certainly help with this - then we may be getting somewhere. And if the answer is "All Afghanistan All the time", then the FJ RAF and the RN are in for a tough time - rightly so, if that's the political direction.

And to complete my light-blue heretical status, I'd also transfer RAF SH to the AAC. (Note to all Wannabes: don't suggest this in your OASC interview unless you really mean it!)

S41

I may be wrong, but now that the story has been suitably disowned, people seem to be arguing more over the proposed defence review.

There are two problems.

One, is that the present review (SDR) which the forces are nominally working under stressed various roles which included for the navy a mainly Amphibious support role with various other oddities, based on two "small" or one "medium" commitment.

Two, whilst this is still officially the line, the Iraq invasion and Afghanistan have come along and both ravaged the defence budgets (despite political statements to the contrary) and also squewed the defence acquisitions and short-term plans.

Some people here seem to be "preparing for the last war" in their ideas, in as much as they purely look at Afghanistan as the be-all-and-end-all of defence planning. Obviously in the short-term it is, but a proper defence review should look past "the last war" and decide what is needed next time around.

I thought that SDR got it about right, but events mean that taking into considerations the need to replace worn-out kit, that it is unlikely that the UK will be able to cover as much capability as SDR.

What will have to go will be mainly a political decision, but IF I had to GUESS I would say that the electorate are going to come away from Afghanistan with a very loud consensus of "never again". Iraq never was popular, and Afghanistan was foisted upon the populace under false pretensions. I think any ideas of major commitments as opposed to "raids" (by air, sea or land) is going to have to be watered right down. So, my GUESS would be that Air and Sea strike will be strengthened, together with special forces, but that the Army will be sold short after essential replacement of worn-out kit. The real cuts will be in "support" services for all three services.

Remember "Afghanistan" is the "last war" - a defence review has to prepare for future wars.

.

If we lose,or are seen to lose in Afghanistan, there will be no future wars. Just small scale interventions with no requirement for a carrier.

Look at the USA post-Vietnam. Grenada, Panama, and finally Somalia. It took 9/11 to break them out of the defensive stance.

I'm not against 2 new carriers, but lets put resources where we know they are needed NOW, not navel (pardon the pun) gaze and second guess the next 25 years.

Phil

Defence Strategic Guidance and the Defence Programme Directory (reissued every two years) are meant to bring the SDR-baseline up to date using scenarios that could occur in the future. Unfortunately SDR did not forsee 9/11 and the subsequent forays into IRAQ and AFG and so we were always on the back foot in terms of 'the balanced force'.

The RN love SDR because it justifies the carriers:E. The Army love the "AFG only" as it benefits them. Many of the scenarios are (alledgedly!) written to justify various equipment programme lines. Any future SDR, if it is to be successful, must have no 'sacred cows' (and in that I mean such things as carriers, future Trident, GR4 replacement, FRES (if that still exists), A400, FSTA etc). But I wouldn't bet on it.

I don't often comment but I reckon Finnpog has it about right.

Slowly we are creating a federal Europe that is a little more coherent than a loose association of nation states and a little less than a full blown union. Think Southern Confederacy rather than USA. Whilst I'm an Atlantacist I'm also a European and I am perfectly aware that the USA has always had a very clear view of national self-interest (e.g. it wasn't fated that we had to give up Empire - but it was a strategic objective of the Cousins that they successfully pursued over five decades).

Therefore if we (UK/EU) are in an operation with the USA then we can turn up with whatever we have and be welcome (provided we are interoperable). But if we (UK/EU) are in an operation without the USA then a UK-solo operation is going to be pretty challenged in many situations absent CVF but equally we probably wouldn't go into something that required CVF. But thinking about things that we went into as a pan-EU operation then pretty soon you realise that only two countries are going to provide SSN, SSBN, CVF, and MARS and the satellite & comms cover but plenty can provide the lighter naval forces (DD/FF) or a wide range of land air and army capabilities. So from a UK perspective the must do things tends to reduce to those hard core naval things.

Twas ever thus. Wellington wouldn't have fought Waterloo or the Peninsulr campaign if he didn't have the naval forces and the continental allies. It's no suprise that it plays in our interests to have a strong naval bias in our force composition and still will even in a tighter EU.

Provided we can train the politicians to avoid getting militaristic I'm also a proponent of 'the more you have the less you use' so a good CVF does it for me and that requires two of them. Fingers crossed through the next five years of stupid defence reviews.

pp

Given the way that "Tony" and "Gordon" have gotten their fingers burnt (unfortunately their fingers were burnt at the expense of some good men and women's lives/broken families, etc) over Iraq and Afghanistan, I can't see any UK politician, of any party, being keen to commit UK forces to anything for the next 20 years!!

Reference Afghanistan, I'm not sure it's a case of "if" we lose any more....

Whether fingers burnt or not - if committing forces "in support" of an EU "Greater Good" there might be a touch less guilt for the poli's.

I suppose my bottom line is that the CVFs will be good for Britain whether in the EU or out of it (in a Norwegian kind of way).

The only reason to say that they are not needed is if you can always guarantee a substantial US presence.

Well, with the New Europia there might be no political desire to share the stage with Uncle Sam. Also - we haven't (as UK / NATO / EU) supported every American adventure with boots, boats and flying machines...

so why assume that they will back ours?

That is very true and seldom is it appreciated.



That should give us some reassurance and tempt the Government (current or future) to scale down UK force levels in the “hope” that the other Members will fill the gaps. On that basis, the QE Class should be safe but the DD/FFs, OSPs and MCMV/MHs an endangered species. That argument might hold good for any conflict/threat common to the EU States but what if it’s UK only? I really can’t imagine the other States committing money and lives to a UK only interest.

So what are UK only interests? Well, there are the UK Overseas Territories & Crown Dependencies. We have a continuing duty toward those and they aren’t just the convenient, “safe” ones like the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Gib and the Cyprus Sovereign Base. There are also lucrative UK mineral rights, particularly in the South Atlantic. It should be pretty obvious that NATO, say, would be no more use to us in that respect than they were in ’82. Such a commitment would be near impossible without Naval (OK, Maritime in new MoD speak) aviation and totally impossible without a credible balance of other UK Naval capabilities. That is the danger and it shouldn’t be underestimated.

Caspian, Quentin Davies has already kicked the story into touch, it is just the fevered dribble of a bored journo who knows nothing about defence matters.

So it's true then

Finnpog,

I never said that the carriers weren't needed, or a bad idea, just that I couldn't see a UK government committing to another military "adventure" in the near future, given what has happened over Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of political fallout.

As to what to do if there is a requirement to support an EU "greater good", well the British public might be in favour of us sending a mobile bath unit, and letting some (I won't name names) of the other EU/Nato countries take a greater share of the burden than they seem to at the moment.

So what are UK only interests?

Since the EU is to absorb the so-called UK for the greater good of all, in future there will be no UK only intersts.

Irish Sea, Atlantic as far as Rockall, 12 miles out of Grimsby.

Aw, come on chaps; I know you're joking.

South Atlantic, Antarctic Shelf, Mid Atlantic, Caribbean, Indian Ocean.

We know that the grand EU plan is a federal Europe. Until that sad (and perhaps bloody) day arrives, though, we do have "us only" commitments.

Some real news at last....

nebusiness.co.uk - News - Business News - Five year deal for shipbuilder

What the F**k has double decker buses got to do with anything.