The oldest “mini-aircraft carrier” used by Britain’s Royal Navy, HMS Invincible, is being retired from service. The vessel, from which Sea Harrier jets can operate – as well as helicopters – is more than 20 years old and was used in the Falklands War, among other theatres of operation.
As I said a while back, I have no ideological issue one way or the other about the exact composition of our armed forces, which must change with the times and respond to different threats to this country. Coming from a bit of a navy family myself and being an enthusiast over our island’s naval history, I am nevertheless the first to realise that sentiment must not trump hard calculation when it comes to manning our defences. But it bothers me that our navy has been reduced to a level that makes independent military action by this country a logistical impossibility. It is probably quite unlikely that we could mount a Falklands-style operation on our own again. The present government wants, so it is reported, to build two new massive carriers but as is usually the case in these matters, the likely date of construction seems to stretch into the horizon, rather like the prospect of England beating Australia at cricket.
In an age when we fret about islamofascist psychos letting off bombs on the Tube, it may be tempting to think that the Senior Service’s role is little more than to patrol the coasts and put on commemorations about the Battle of Trafalgar. How complacent that would be. Given that we are an island nation, still reliant on shipping for a huge amount of our economic and physical wellbeing, such an attitude is fraught with danger. We could run the risk of cutting the fleet so hard that we lose the inner core of skilled men and women needed for the service.
With the exception of anarcho-capitalists, even the most hardcore classical liberal realises that defence is a baseline requirement for a proper state. And for an island nation like Britain with a long coastline, that means having a workable navy.
Well, duh! We always cut our armed forces back to nothing during peacetime, thus giving ourselves an extra handicap as we struggle to build everything simultaneously with struggling to build the factories to build everything with while having no trained personnel to do any of it with.
It is tradition.
What do you expect us to do? Keep a shipyard open and continuously refine the design of the new ships being bult every few years, whilst mothballing the oldest ships for use in an emergency? That would be madness!
And to that, very valid, concern might be added the strange case of our vanishing merchant fleet.
That, too, would be needed if the crunch came. And, effectively, we no longer have one.
And to add one more worry — why in the world is the government even entertaining the notion of subbing the construction of the hypothetical supercarriers to France? Is there something in the water?
There’s no “might” about it, there’s no way the Royal Navy could mount another Falkands type operation today. Only one carrier would be available, and from next year it would have no Sea Harriers, and there are only about two dozen escort ships left, so you would be lucky to get a dozen together for a task force.
Admittedly the prospect of two large carriers is mentioned, but they have not been ordered yet, and if Gordon Brown becomes PM I doubt they ever will be.
I wouldn’t get worried yet, we still got 11 nuclear submarines, and as one navy man once said, “There are two types of ships – nuclear submarines, and targets”.
The Invincibles arent really proper carriers, they are all ASW light carriers intended for the Cold War. The new CVFs, assuming they ever build them, will leave the Invincibles in the dust.
A big problem, it seems to me, is whether the US will still give us F-35s to put on the carriers in 2012 – as Our Dear Leader is kissing the ass of the EU and making the US defence establishment wary. Richard North has a fair bit on EU defence integration on the sly and its pernicious effects on his blog for the curious.
There’s always a great danger that we keep thinking of how we fought the last war. I can’t see any circumstances in which Britain, acting alone, would need to launch another Falklands style operation. I’m all for a strong navy but I don’t think that Britian needs big aircraft carriers; a more pressing use for the navy might be to defend Britain’s coastline; especially the oil facilities in the North Sea. It might be better value to spend the money on building a real coast guard. Alternatively, looking very far into the future it might be wise to invest in submarine capability to strangle the international trade of a major enemy.
If Britian does need or want to have large aircraft carriers it would make most sense to just buy one off the shelf from the US. This is probably cheaper than trying to build one ourselves and would integrate very well with the US Navy alongside which we would almost certainly be fighting in any future major naval engagements.
Read an interesting article the other day about the increase in piracy in the busy waters off Sumatra.
An island with no navy doesn’t seem to fit the profile required for a world power. Perhaps the sun has set.
Rue, Britannia, Britannia rues the waves…
Did anyone perceive the need to fight the falklands war before it actually happened?
I wouldn’t get worried yet, we still got 11 nuclear submarines, and as one navy man once said, “There are two types of ships – nuclear submarines, and targets”.
I think you’ll find that 11 will become 8 before too long. Also, useful though they are, submarines cannot take the place of surface ships in any sort of amphibious operation, and for that sort of operation you need an aircraft carrier.
” I can’t see any circumstances in which Britain, acting alone, would need to launch another Falklands style operation. …”
Meanwhile in Argentina: “You hear that Mi General ?
Maybe the time to take our beloved Malvinas has come at last ! Para la gloria de la Patria!”
But maybe Britain can feel safe after all – won’t she be protected by that ferocious “European rapid intervention force” ??
The Labour government back in the 70s had to deal with a threat to the Falklands by sending a nuclear subamrine down as a deterrent, the possibility was known.
I am not saying that there are no circumstances in which there would be further conflict over the Falklands but the situation has changed in that Britain has a major air base and enough of a garrison to hold off an attack whilst reinforcements come in. Air transport is more critical to our ability to hold the Falklands than the ability to get two aircraft carriers down there a month after an attack.
Heh, I’m amused at your dig at AnCaps – when a mere 2 posts back in the blog is a very practical demonstration that the market can provide sea defense.
The problem with the navy isn’t that the government is skimping, but that they are monopolizing it and (as is usual) the result is a mismatch of production with demand.
I’m certainly not an expert on the modern UK navy, but the lack of a significant carrier group does not bode well for the future. A previous commenter had mentioned the availability of nuclear submarines, which of course are vital to protect shipping, et al….but what about air cover for land operations? If the Royal Marines were sent to some distant shore, from where would air power be projected? (A Grenada-like scenario may be more likely, rather than less likely in the future.)
As an American, I’m more than happy if the US Navy lends a hand when needed, but there may be times where that is neither possible nor convenient. e.g. If all US carriers are currently engaged or if the UK doesn’t want the disdain of the world for enlisting US cooperation.
What do you expect us to do? Keep a shipyard open and continuously refine the design of the new ships being bult every few years, whilst mothballing the oldest ships for use in an emergency? That would be madness!, writes Zmollusc.
Why madness? maintaining and adapting ship technology to keep up with the changing nature of warfare is commonense, I would have thought.
I am not arguing that there is no case for cutting back the navy from say, the sort of levels we saw during the Cold War. But the point is that an island nation like Britain needs a core naval capacity (ditto Army and RAF) and we are getting close to that now.
We don’t know what sort of threats we will face in future, but simple prudence would suggest that a country like Britain needs a navy, not a few rubber boats and the odd machine gun.
Julian, I am rather sympathetic to anarcho capitalism, so I was not having a dig. My point was that outside that tradition, armed forces are considered the province of the state, although even some minarchists might be sympathetic to use of mercenaries, like the Ghurkas. I am all in favour of encouraging competition so long as the objectives don’t get lost sight of.
Staying on the nautical theme, I am a big fan of the Royal National Lifeoboat Institution, a totally voluntary organisation that has saved thousands of lives and I trust it never gets into bed with the state.
The issue of modern piracy is a fascinating one and often neglected by the MSM. If you talk to any merchant navy people, they will tell you how bad it is.
Bear in mind that when the Invincible and Ark Royal were commissioned they were not going to be assigned to a long term role in the Royal Navy anyway – they were destined for a very short term STOL/VTOL capability for the Fleet Air Arm and would then be sold on as command/control vessels for the Australian Navy. The Falklands War that changed that, the Australian order was cancelled and an additonal carrier was ordered.
Prior to the South Atlantic conflict, and certainly under the Callaghan/Healey regime, Britain was not intending to project force, as a carrier would be used for, rather the Royal Navy’s envisaged NATO role was as an ASW and attack submarine support to the US carrier fleets.
For those who think we’re constricting our navy by reducing Invincible to a RMC support vessel then think again. Planning is already under way on the Thales CVO/CVF carriers – 42 Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, the new EH-101 Merlin helicopter and CV-22 Ospreys. And the names? Apparently HMS Queen Elizabeth II for the 2012 one and HMS Glorious for the 2015 one, which is rather odd – surely they can only name ships after dead monarchs or do Hoon and Blair know something we don’t? Possibly HMS Cherie doesn’t roll off the tongue in the Admiralty too well …
Excuse me, but if you think AnCaps carry a reflex against defense, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
And I put it to you that government is no more necessary to the project than it is to, say, producing automobiles. Whether you like it, know it, or not, the fact is that government produces nothing.
We do that.
And; at the bottom line, you have no more of a moral claim to forcing people to help produce your defense because it’s an urgent need, than does any regular dope who claims universal health care on the same premise.
I find it somehow amusing that in the 2003 assault on Iraq the Invincible was used as a floating deployment base for moving people via helicopter to the action, whereas the US Wasp-class ship Bonhomme Richard (an “amphibious assault ship”) was used as an aircraft carrier for 20 harriers/two attack squadrons. The US doesn’t even consider these to be aircraft carriers, and yet at 40,000 tons & 20 harriers they seem to be pretty similar to what the UK calls an aircraft carrier. The US has 7 of these non-carriers, with one more on order.
Hah, Billy, funny.
Thanks for whipping out the cartoon version of libertarianism for us to have a good chuckle.
On the serious side, defense is a long term prospect. You can’t whip up a bunch of ships to get some work done. You need to be operating off a 20 or 30 year plan, in order to field an effective navy with any efficiency. Yes, you can do it faster, as we did in WWII, but we totally mobilized the economies of the free world to make it happen, and put (as I recall) roughly 20 – 25% of the economies into defense – not sustainable. You need to keep that defense cost below 7 – 10% of GDP, preferably below 5%, if you want it to be sustainable.
As for what you need – it’s pretty simple. Force projection, and flexible packaging.
Nuke subs do give you great force projections, much like carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and battleships. Unfortunately, nuke subs are an on/off proposition – you can’t lightly nuke a city. Well, actually you can, but not in the sense that any non-military-mind would consider it “lightly” nuked. It would still look like the prolapsed rectum of the world, and would be indistinguishable to all but Curtis LeMay from a big nuking.
On the other hand, carrier battle groups provide similar force projection, slightly inferior perhaps against a sophisticated foe like the Russians or maybe Chinese, because you can’t slip a flotilla into a harbor unnoticed. But they make up for that deficiency by being infinitely tailorable. If you want to launch nukes from your Harriers, you can probably figure out a way to do so. If you want to mount a sustained bombing campaign, or coastal shelling, you can do that. If you add troop and helicopter carriers into the mix, you can stage an amphibious landing. You can also use the CBG to perform massive humanitarian relief ops, like the one mounted by the US Navy and the Ozzies following the Tsunami.
So there you have the framework for what is needed – a long term plan moving ships into the fleet and out on occasion (20 – 40 year lifecycles) along with a mix of ships to give you flexibility. As for the purely defensive mission, just doing the coast lines, you can probably do that with small ships, cutters and the like. That doesn’t give you much protection against a normal navy, however, and it doesn’t give you enough protection to protect your merchant fleet from pirates.
Or as Kim du Toit might advise you, make sure you bring enough gun.
The American ideal of ‘force projection’ works for the USA because everyone knows that they are actually projecting significant force – one aircraft carrier and support vessels is only the spearhead of a potentially much larger force.
Force projection on that level is not practical for the UK which has a much smaller economy which is basically less militarised – UK defence spending as a percentage of GDP is much less than that of the USA.
There is also the ‘if we can’t convince anyone else to help, maybe it’s not the right thing to do’ argument.
National pride in self-defence is one thing, being able to save all the money because someone else (the USA) is taking care of it is quite another.
Kinda leads onto the typical you-should-be-grateful ‘we defended you from the soviets, we defend you…’ you hear from the odd American, followed up by a ‘yes and we still do what we want and you pay for it all too’ from Europeans 🙂
Do defence analysts still really think we need to ‘defend trade routes’ in this day and age? It seems to me that we’ve moved past the period of major war and blockades of/between first world countries – they are all too interdependent to risk a stunt like that, surely?
Some points:
Sea Harriers 2 (those with air to air radar) and AIM 120 medium range missiles are long gone from service. Italians and Spanish, Thailand(?) have them (the US AV8-II version). RN have only the ground attack Harrier operational without an air-air radar.
Nuke subs: There the nuclear powered SSBNs with Trident nuclear intercontinental missiles (i think RN have 4) . And the SSN´s ( RN :6-8?) that have tomahawk missiles to attack land when they arent contesting the sea and making torpedo attacks.
You wrote:
“Do defence analysts still really think we need to ‘defend trade routes’ in this day and age? It seems to me that we’ve moved past the period of major war and blockades of/between first world countries – they are all too interdependent to risk a stunt like that, surely?”
Oh my God!
Do you realize what is going on in the world?
Straights of Hormuz, Taiwan Straights, Malacca Straights.
What the f**K are you talking about?
You’re damn “Straight” we need to protect shipping routes.
National defense is so important that The Man Who Wrote the Book on Capitalism, Adam Smith himself, was willing to countenance protectionism for the defense industry (his specific example was shipbuilding). Defense is one of the few areas where government has a legitimate function.
It is quite unfortunate to see the Labour government increasing spending on the NHS and cutting defense. Adam Smith is currently rolling in his grave.
Billy Beck, as a commenter said earlier, you seem to think we can do defence like something out of eccentric science fiction. As I said earlier, I have no problem with use of mercenaries or self defence generally – I support the right to bear arms – but defence of a country requires a bit more than that. After more than 20 years of thinking things through, I have become a minarchist unpersuaded of the ar-cap case.
Provision of defence, which is required to defend rights, is hardly the same as socialised medicine. That is what I call the facile fake consistency error.
National pride in self-defence is one thing, being able to save all the money because someone else (the USA) is taking care of it is quite another.
Only so long as the other party is willing to pay the bill.
Kinda leads onto the typical you-should-be-grateful ‘we defended you from the soviets, we defend you…’ you hear from the odd American, followed up by a ‘yes and we still do what we want and you pay for it all too’ from Europeans 🙂
…which Americans do not consider at all witty. Or amusing. Or clever. Instead, we tend to think “why are we giving these unappreciative, sanctimonious jerks a free ride?”
Do defence analysts still really think we need to ‘defend trade routes’ in this day and age? It seems to me that we’ve moved past the period of major war and blockades of/between first world countries – they are all too interdependent to risk a stunt like that, surely?
We haven’t moved ‘past’ anything. We’re currently in a period when no industrialized nation wants to be on the wrong side of a shooting war involving the US, and the US isn’t run by people inclined to abuse that advantage overmuch. As with so many other things, it’s not going to last forever. Enjoy it while you can.
Sea Harriers 2 (those with air to air radar) and AIM 120 medium range missiles are long gone from service. Italians and Spanish, Thailand(?) have them (the US AV8-II version). RN have only the ground attack Harrier operational without an air-air radar.
The last Sea Harrier squadron will actually stand down next year. There will then be a gap until 2012 when the RN will have very little air defence. In 2012 the RN will have a new 60,000 ton carrier with F-35 fighter-bombers. Except it won’t. The new carriers haven’t even been ordered yet, and anyone who thinks the first one will be ready by 2012 spends far too much on lottery tickets. It’s also moot whether the F-35 will be ready by 2012.
The names of the new carriers are going to be “Queen Elizabeth” and “Prince of Wales”. The last Queen Elizabeth was a very successful battelship which served during both world wars, the last Prince of Wales was an unlucky battleship which got battered by the Bismarck in 1941, and was sunk by the Japanese on 10th December of the same year. Neither is a traditional carrier name. Personally I feel if the ships are to be named after royalty the name “Duke of Edinburgh” should have been considered, given that Phil the Greek had a distinguished war record with the RN, and would probably have ended up as an Admiral had King George VI not died so early.
Anyway, as I said above, if Gordon Brown gets into Number 10 there has to be a good chance that he will cancel these ships. He is already grubbing around for money, and the prospect of saving several billion at the stroke of a pen will be very tempting, especially given that defence is the one and only aspect of public spending he thinks is a waste of money.
I might also note that the original Invincibles were not designated carriers, but “through deck cruisers”, as the Wilson? government of the day had already decided to scrap carriers.
The Admiralty therefore renamed them and managed to squeeze a couple of light carriers past the peaceniks.
There has been no discussion of the possibility that large conventional carriers are obsolete. A number of years ago Rumsfeld wrote a paper concluding that the proliferation of satellite guided sea skimming missiles makes the carrier obsolete. Perhaps a better option would be to mount a Phalanx (or Goalkeeper) point defence system, a Mk 141 harpoon launcher (or a Sunburn 4-pack), a Mk 48 VLS, and a bolt on variant of the AN/SPQ-9B radar on merchant vessels. This would be more than enough to take care of any pirates, and provide a defence in the event of hostile actions by a major navy. Considering the cost of a conventional carrier (>400 million a year per copy) this would probably be cheaper and more effective than a carrier force. For things that only carriers are capable of (AWACS, providing bomb trucks for ground support), a stealthed “pocket” carrier operating UAVs, and UCAVs, backed up by Aegis cruisers, could provide the same capabilities at a considerable cost reduction, and be much less vulnerable than the current generation of carriers.
Alright, its the Grauniad (spit) but it shows what a motivated, intelligent individual (not a cretin like whoever commanded Sad-mans army) can do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,786992,00.html
And for a more irreverent, but still insightful, take on this guys accomplishments,
http://www.exile.ru/2002-December-11/war_nerd.html
No,wait – you’ve got it all wrong.
Once Britain has no navy, no airforce and no army we will have more money to spend on Gordon Brown’s vote-buying schemes (Earning less than £100,00 per year? Have some welfare! Unemployed? Here, we’ve just bought you a public sector ‘job’!)
Isn’t the future rosy?
Oh.
And we’ll have not a single argument against being a part of the European Army, the European Airforce, the European Navy…
Because our lives – literally – will depend on it.
GM
Only 20 years old? A mere child of an aircraft carrier. CVN-65, the USS Enterprise was launched September 24th 1960 and is currently slated for retirement in 2013 at the ripe old age of 52 years active duty.
Gary Monro’s got it. When we’re left with Dad’s Army on land, a couple of rowing boats on sea and a Sopwith Camel in the air, we’ll be told “Our defence depends on a European military, we must be a part of it!”
They can get away with it even though their tactics have long been obvious. This is natural Conservative Party territory, yet not a squeak from them. Just when you think they can’t be any more anonymous, they slink back even further from the fight.
Yeah, the same party that brought us ‘Options For Change’ … “excuse me Prime Minister but with our having just liberated Kuwait will you now reconsider the Options For Change cuts”, Major:” Of course we will have to consider cancelling Options For Change” – result 30% RIF of the British Army. The intention for the reduction of the Sea Harrier squadrons is that those same pilots can then begin a phased long term training of the F35-B replacements starting from 2010.
Oh, and to the individual who carped against Gordon Brown check out Hansard. It was Brown who APPROVED the budget funding for the 2 CVF carriers, incidentally against the traditional “lets ask the Soviet Union/Cuba/France/China/Al Queda etc to protect us” element of his own party.
Isn’t amazing how Google just seems to throw up these facts ….
Indeed John K seems that the last squadron will retire in 2006. Thanks for correction.
Now who wants to see a five page photo reportage of ex- HMS HERMES now INS Viraat with Sea Harriers/ Sea Kings, Hangar photos etc? Indians even updated the old lady with Israeli vertical launched anti-missile missiles !
Starts here
http://www.acig.org/exclusives/viraat/viraat_1.htm
I assume everyone’s noticed that as gov’t usurps more and more private prerogatives–education, business regulation, healthcare, etc, etc–they become less and less able to deal with the things that are actually their proper duties.
I’ll bet you could get the boys at Newport News Shipbuilding to whip you up a couple of carriers. They’ve built a few recently — they probably still have the plans 🙂
The intention for the reduction of the Sea Harrier squadrons is that those same pilots can then begin a phased long term training of the F35-B replacements starting from 2010.
Do they take a 4 year break in between then? I think the reason the Sea Harriers are being phased out 6 years before their replacements may, if we are lucky, enter service has rather more to do with saving pounds, shillings and pence.
The government has assumed that if the RN has to intervene anywhere in the world, it will be against a state with no air force. RAF Harriers operating from one of our two remaining carriers will happily go bombing, but there will be no need for any significant air defence, and thus no need for Sea Harriers. All that is needed for this scenario to work is for any potential enemy to sportingly follow the script. No problem there, surely?
Oh, and to the individual who carped against Gordon Brown check out Hansard. It was Brown who APPROVED the budget funding for the 2 CVF carriers
I claim responsibility, I am that individual. Remind me, when did GB become PM? He may have gone along with the plan when it was first announced some years back, but he is already cooking the books with regard to the economic cycle, and if/when he does become PM he might find it helpful to save the odd £4 billion by cancelling these ships, which still have not actually been ordered. And he really is no proponent of defence spending. Of course, if he does become PM he may develop Bliar’s taste for foreign interventions, we’ll just have to see.
The government has assumed that if the RN has to intervene anywhere in the world, it will be against a state with no air force.
Close, but not quite.
The British government is assuming that if the RN has to intervene anywhere in the world, it will be against a state who’s air force has recently been destroyed by the USN- an assumption that is likely to be true… almost all of the time.
While I appreciate the vote of confidence, an independent capacity to do that kind of thing is good to have. Not being taken seriously unless similar noises are made in DC is rather emasculating.
While I appreciate the vote of confidence, an independent capacity to do that kind of thing is good to have. Not being taken seriously unless similar noises are made in DC is rather emasculating.
Good point. I believe that this has been pretty much the view of the British political establishment since Suez in 1956. Before Suez they still though Britain was an imperial power, after they thought Britain could never operate independently again. This informed Labour’s decision in 1966 not to build new aircraft carriers, because in future Britain would always be operating with the Americans, or else we would not be operating at all. Oh, and they wanted to save the money too, not that Gordon Brown would ever think that way. They never forgave Maggie Thatcher for actually winning the Falklands War, but soon decided that was a blip which will never be repeated. And given the state of our armed forces now, it never will be.