Special Report February 2007
ROYAL NAVY IN CRISIS

Threat To 'Kill' Rn Future Carrier

by Iain Ballantyne

Above: A Eurofighter Typhoon in flight: An unlikely candidate for a naval strike fighter, flying from the CVF? Photo: Nick Newns.

Below: An artist's impression of the Royal Navy's future carrier, with Joint Strike Fighters embarked and flying past. Image: Thales.

Factions inside the UK Ministry of Defence are trying to kill off the Royal Navy's future carrier programme, according to a recently retired head of the Service.

Former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West, warned in a speech given to the Royal Overseas League in December that, despite the fact that the Government has committed itself to building the two ships, there are those who are keen to "derail" procurement of the 65,000 tonnes vessels. Sir Alan also warned that not building the future carriers (CVFs) will deliver a devastating blow to Britain's global standing and undermine efforts to safeguard national security in the long-term.

"A number of officials and others in the MoD are still intent on trying to derail the highly complex procurement of the next generation aircraft carriers, the two ships Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales."

Sir Alan, who retired from the post of First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff at the beginning of 2006, spent more than three years fighting to ensure the CVF programme goes ahead. In his speech he indicated that pressure to save money in the Defence budget, at a time of heavy operational commitments, is forcing some people to suggest money ring-fenced for the new carriers should be used elsewhere. The Royal Navy has taken very painful cuts over the past few years, saving money today to buy the ships of tomorrow, so not constructing the CVFs would prove that it had all been for nothing. "There are still those in the MoD challenging the requirement for their own parochial reasons," Sir Alan said in his speech.

"The pressures of the Comprehensive Spending Review make the large piece of Equipment Programme money, that has not yet been committed, highly attractive to those running much less important projects who can see a painful squeeze coming."

Should the CVF fail, Sir Alan believes the consequences would be far-reaching and for decades to come, the UK's security would be at risk. In his speech he cautioned against defining the long-term national defence strategy by a counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I see the CVF project as a make-or-break challenge for the MOD and indeed a litmus test for the Government's commitment to defence," said the former head of the Royal Navy.  He went on: "These ships will be in operation for approximately 50 years, i.e. until about 2065. With those time scales the one prediction you can make is that what the world will be like is impossible to predict. We must beware of constructing a military capability that is optimised for an anti-terrorist campaign in the centre of Asia when the risks to our nation in the next half century will demand far greater inherent flexibility."

• See the Feb 2007 edition of WARSHIPS IFR for more on this story.

CVF Jet Argument Finally Settled?

by Francis Beaufort

The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed victory in a transatlantic tussle about who has ultimate technological control over the jets that will fly from the UK's next generation carriers. Returning from a make-or-break visit to Washington D.C., Lord Drayson, the UK's Defence Procurement Minister, announced that Britain will be going ahead with the next phase of the £140 billion Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme. He had made barely veiled threats to withdraw unless the USA handed over computer codes to allow Britain to operate the fighter with what he described as 'sovereign control of its Armed Forces'.  Lord Drayson and US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England, brokered a Memorandum of Understanding, which allows development work to continue, setting out the framework for the purchase, upgrading and maintenance of the JSF. It does not, however, formally commit Britain to buying any aircraft. The JSF was chosen by the Government in 2001, to replace the Navy's Sea Harriers and RAF Harrier ground-attack jet.  The MoD currently expects to buy 150 Short Take-Off, Vertical Landing (STOVL) variants of the JSF. The Prime Minister had reached agreement with President Bush on the terms of that purchase during a trip to Washington last May, but Lockheed Martin had reportedly grown nervous of disclosing sensitive stealth technology. A 'Plan B' was touted, whereby Britain would have purchased either French-origin Rafale jets or more Eurofighter Typhoons as an alternative to JSF.

However, the Rafale is not likely to be as capable as the JSF and the Eurofighter would require substantial modification to make it tough enough to operate from carriers.

Both aircraft would also commit Britain to constructing Conventional Take-Off and Landing (CTOL) aircraft carriers. The MoD defines operational sovereignty as "having control over essential aspects of the aircraft such as the ability to integrate JSF into the UK operating environment; operate, maintain, repair and upgrade the UK fleet to meet evolving through-life requirements; and certify the aircraft as safe to fly". However, even after the announcement of progress it was unclear if the original demand for full access to codes had been met, or some form of compromise had been reached.

First Sea Lord Proposes New Kind Of Royal Navy

Admiral West's successor as First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, has expressed similar concerns that the UK may be losing the plot when it comes to the value of a strong Navy, but as a serving naval officer has been somewhat more circumspect with his views. At a time when defence cuts have reduced frigate and destroyer numbers in the Royal Navy to an all-time low of just 25, and new construction ships, like the Type 45 destroyers, are fewer in number and very expensive, Admiral Band has indicated a new course. During a recent speech to naval officers of several navies, at a RUSI conference in London, Admiral Band said:

"In terms of force structure, traditionalists would argue that we need to have one structure that consists of high end war-fighting capability units, which also cover contingent tasks. However, the financial and security reality is increasingly demonstrating that there is quality in quantity - the future suggests that we must have cheaper, less capable units in greater numbers to work alongside our more capable units if we are to effectively deal with our maritime security concerns."

During an interview with this magazine last summer, Admiral Band made it clear that he intends to make sure that the Royal Navy's long-delayed Future Surface Combatant (FSC) programme gets underway, and it would appear from this speech that the RN may look at a corvette concept to meet this requirement. However, a real pressing concern for Admiral Band, at a time when there are strong suggestions that yet more defence cuts will see up to half a dozen destroyers and/or frigates effectively moth-balled to save money, must surely be the declining presence on the high seas of the RN.

During the RUSI speech, Admiral Band said: 

"If navies want to be real players on the world stage they must be flexible professional forces with balanced capabilities, that work and are effective. And they must also be out and about. Too many navies do not spend enough time at sea and rarely venture away from their comfort zone. Only by genuinely deploying ships on operational tasks will they play to their inherent strengths of poise, presence and in-built sustainability. Navies are for using - they are not just insurance policies."

The First Sea Lord plainly believes that part of the problem in the current era is the sea blindness of the UK population at large, which leads to a lack of appreciation by politicians of how capable and far-reaching maritime forces are in the 21st Century.

"Ask the first person you meet on the street outside what they know about our armed forces and they will almost certainly say something about Iraq and Afghanistan," Admiral Band acknowledged in his RUSI speech.

"But how many people out there on the street today will have even the remotest idea that naval personnel, and personnel in units dedicated to maritime operations, make up over half of the British contingent in Regional Command South in Afghanistan? Few I suspect, and I can almost guarantee that no aspect of maritime power in support of Defence Policy will immediately spring to mind - and I suspect it is the same in many other nations."

Admiral Band suggested that the RN, and other navies, have to be much cleverer at getting across the message that maritime forces are intrinsic to modern warfare. Admiral Band does, however, believe that, finally, politicians and others are realising how vulnerable their national economies are in a world of globalised trade.

"Suddenly people have woken up to the fact that 90 per cent of all trade is moved by sea, 95 per cent of which passes through just nine choke points on the world map," said Admiral Band.

"That trade is actually pretty vulnerable to attack - it is not difficult to attack a ship, particularly when it is moving slowly or is constrained in its movements. Fortunately we have had only sporadic attacks but the implications of determined attacks on key points in our supply chain are potentially disastrous. How many people realise that within a few years we in the UK will import a significant percentage of our gas from the Middle East - that means a gas carrying ship roughly every 300-400 miles between the UK and the Gulf. With hardly any strategic reserve of gas in the UK, it is clear that any interruption of that free supply of gas would have very serious consequences for the UK's economy."

• For more reports on US and British naval forces in the Gulf, see WARSHIPS IFR magazine.