The state of our defence !
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14 years of austerity destroyed our armed forces.
Everyone in the military knew it. Our allies knew we weren’t up to it anymore. NATO downgraded our status to a Tier 2 member unable to defend itself without help.
The Army’s latest Ajax fighting vehicle is stood down because it makes the occupants violently ill with headaches and motion sickness.
Asked how many F-35Bs the Royal Navy needed to operate our two carriers, the answer was at least 48. The order for the Royal Navy and the RAF combined was exactly 48 in total. Then one crashed.
Prior to the F-35B, Cameron exchanged our entire Harrier fleet of 77 aircraft for one F-35B based in the USA and the sole aircraft of 17 Sqn at the time.
When the crisis in Libya reared up, our Invincible Class carriers only had helicopters on board and the Royal Navy had no jets. So the RAF cost a reported £87,000 per mission per aircraft to get over Libya from the UK using air-to-air refuelling instead of us having carrier-based Harriers.
Asked why he hadn’t told Parliament about giving this Harrier ability away, Cameron said that the Harriers were old high-hours airframes and were sold as spares. Only problem was that the US Marines who got them had already highly praised Fleet Air Arm and RAF aircraft maintainers for the outstanding condition of those Harriers and said it was ‘the deal of the century’.
Eventually 17 Sqn and then 617 Sqn got some F-35Bs with the RAF not the RN now operating from our carriers. Then the Royal Navy got some for 809 Naval Air Squadron to operate off their own ships. In the meantime, Tory sabre-rattling at China saw our ‘U.K. Carrier Strike Group’ sail with half the F-35Bs needed coming from and piloted by the US Marines and the carrier protection requiring one US Navy and one Royal Netherlands Navy destroyer to come along.
For about 10 years our island nation had no maritime patrol aircraft after Cameron scrapped our Nimrods without any replacement. So the RAF were unable to patrol and monitor our seas from the air.
The Royal Navy’s aged Type 42 destroyers were clapped out and breaking down. Our new Type 45 Dauntless Class destroyers are reportedly an amazing piece of kit, except we were supposed to have 8, and only got 6. Then the 6 we got started breaking down in hot weather, with Rolls Royce claiming that operating in hot weather wasn’t in the contract. How was anyone to claim they didn’t know that our warships have to operate in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Gulf and Indian Ocean where it’s hot? So the 6 Type 45s ended up alongside at the same time in Portsmouth having their sides cut open to replace their drivetrain.
As a result, our 13 Type 23 Duke Class frigates had to take the strain. Only they had already been in service since the late 1980s. They have been driven into the ground already. Our one remaining Type 23 based in the Gulf has been used to destruction and is now decommissioned awaiting scrapping in Qatar. Our remaining minehunter there, HMS Middleton, is to be ferried back to the UK on the back of a large merchant ship designed for that purpose.
The Type 26 frigates which will replace our aging Type 23s aren’t ready. The first four, HMS Glasgow, HMS Belfast, HMS Cardiff and HMS Birmingham are all ordered but not started or not near complete. HMS Glasgow is afloat but still being fitted out inside. The following Batch 2 ships in the class, HMS Edinburgh, HMS Sheffield, HMS London and HMS Newcastle were only ordered in 2022.
In short, our frigates are worn to the bone and the replacements are a long way from being ready. The order of 12 was also downgraded to 8.
So even when all these ships are at sea, a long time from now, (we also have a small order for Type 31 frigates), the ships we have will be six Type 45 destroyers and eventually eight Type 26 frigates. A total of 14 surface combat ships when before Cameron the Government had a standing commitment to the Royal Navy of 32.
The thing about warships is that if you have a standing patrol, then with one warship on station, you will have one in maintenance having recently returned and one working up in preparation of taking over. With 32 surface combat ships we could maintain 10 patrols. The Caribbean (West Indies Guard Ship), the Falklands, the NATO ‘Standing Naval Force Atlantic’, three destroyers and/or frigates on the Armilla Patrol in the Gulf since 1980 etc. With 14 surface combat ships you can only maintain 4 patrols globally.
Where once we had destroyers and frigates patrolling our overseas territories and interests, we now have ships designed really for what would have been North Sea fisheries patrols closer to home. The smaller patrol vessels now tasked with covering the Caribbean, Falklands and then ‘East of Suez’ have no main gun, only one 30mm one, no helicopter or hangar, no missiles and no Ship’s Torpedo Weapons System (STWS).
Not so long ago we could provide a destroyer to our overseas territories in the West Indies for post-hurricane disaster relief. The last time saw French territories there with electricity and the lights back on whilst we had no guardship available and the traumatised residents literally in the dark looking at French islands lit up nearby and wondering why the French Navy was helping their people and where the Royal Navy’s crews and engineers were.
Gibraltar is defended by something akin to a fibreglass pleasure craft painted grey and called ‘HMS’ but without any fixed weapons and only mounts to which General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) can be fixed to.
In a turning point several years ago, a Russian warship sailing off the north of Scotland had no destroyer or frigate available to shadow it. The frigate tasked to do so had to be brought quickly out of maintenance and took 48 hours to get there.
As for our submarines, we have four Trident Class ballistic nuclear (SSBN) submarines with one on patrol as our nuclear deterrent at any one time. There is much discussion about how independent our deterrent is given that we lease the missiles from the USA. France’s system is completely independent. We are unsure as to whether the story that we must get US permission to launch is true or not.
Otherwise, we have only 6 Ambush Class (SSN) nuclear powered but conventionally armed ‘fleet submarines’. It appears that only one of them is seaworthy right now, but it’s just arrived in Australia to help cross-train with the Royal Australian Navy, so that’s handy.
You get the picture. But although the armed forces were crying out for help from the supposed ‘party of defence’, cuts meant less maintenance and care for what we had and less of it on order too. So our fleet is clapped out and this was all before Labour came to power this time. And now it’s also harder to keep crews in the Royal Navy with some reports that a third are working their notice already.
Suddenly we can’t send a destroyer quickly to Cyprus for a conflict which was sprung on us and we don’t have ships on patrol in the Gulf for the first time in 45 years.
The public are angry, shocked and dismayed. The media are attempting to shame the Royal Navy and military planners in general.
It’s almost as if they haven’t been informed by our media over the last 15 years. It must therefore all be this government’s fault. What are they playing at after just over a year in charge?
The Tories are ignoring the fact that they held power and are trying to distract by apportioning the blame.
So, of course Starmer stands up and clearly outlines what we have here, erm no. Like everything else, the public didn’t have any real idea how bad a shape this country was in and some focus group at Labour probably advised that they shouldn’t ’carp on blaming the Tories’ even when it’s so clearly their fault.
So this debacle is pretty much like every other one we face. Starmer could do himself a favour by taking the bull by the horns and telling it how it is and who was responsible for our fall from grace. Chances are he won’t though.
14 years of austerity destroyed our armed forces.
Everyone in the military knew it. Our allies knew we weren’t up to it anymore. NATO downgraded our status to a Tier 2 member unable to defend itself without help.
The Army’s latest Ajax fighting vehicle is stood down because it makes the occupants violently ill with headaches and motion sickness.
Asked how many F-35Bs the Royal Navy needed to operate our two carriers, the answer was at least 48. The order for the Royal Navy and the RAF combined was exactly 48 in total. Then one crashed.
Prior to the F-35B, Cameron exchanged our entire Harrier fleet of 77 aircraft for one F-35B based in the USA and the sole aircraft of 17 Sqn at the time.
When the crisis in Libya reared up, our Invincible Class carriers only had helicopters on board and the Royal Navy had no jets. So the RAF cost a reported £87,000 per mission per aircraft to get over Libya from the UK using air-to-air refuelling instead of us having carrier-based Harriers.
Asked why he hadn’t told Parliament about giving this Harrier ability away, Cameron said that the Harriers were old high-hours airframes and were sold as spares. Only problem was that the US Marines who got them had already highly praised Fleet Air Arm and RAF aircraft maintainers for the outstanding condition of those Harriers and said it was ‘the deal of the century’.
Eventually 17 Sqn and then 617 Sqn got some F-35Bs with the RAF not the RN now operating from our carriers. Then the Royal Navy got some for 809 Naval Air Squadron to operate off their own ships. In the meantime, Tory sabre-rattling at China saw our ‘U.K. Carrier Strike Group’ sail with half the F-35Bs needed coming from and piloted by the US Marines and the carrier protection requiring one US Navy and one Royal Netherlands Navy destroyer to come along.
For about 10 years our island nation had no maritime patrol aircraft after Cameron scrapped our Nimrods without any replacement. So the RAF were unable to patrol and monitor our seas from the air.
The Royal Navy’s aged Type 42 destroyers were clapped out and breaking down. Our new Type 45 Dauntless Class destroyers are reportedly an amazing piece of kit, except we were supposed to have 8, and only got 6. Then the 6 we got started breaking down in hot weather, with Rolls Royce claiming that operating in hot weather wasn’t in the contract. How was anyone to claim they didn’t know that our warships have to operate in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Gulf and Indian Ocean where it’s hot? So the 6 Type 45s ended up alongside at the same time in Portsmouth having their sides cut open to replace their drivetrain.
As a result, our 13 Type 23 Duke Class frigates had to take the strain. Only they had already been in service since the late 1980s. They have been driven into the ground already. Our one remaining Type 23 based in the Gulf has been used to destruction and is now decommissioned awaiting scrapping in Qatar. Our remaining minehunter there, HMS Middleton, is to be ferried back to the UK on the back of a large merchant ship designed for that purpose.
The Type 26 frigates which will replace our aging Type 23s aren’t ready. The first four, HMS Glasgow, HMS Belfast, HMS Cardiff and HMS Birmingham are all ordered but not started or not near complete. HMS Glasgow is afloat but still being fitted out inside. The following Batch 2 ships in the class, HMS Edinburgh, HMS Sheffield, HMS London and HMS Newcastle were only ordered in 2022.
In short, our frigates are worn to the bone and the replacements are a long way from being ready. The order of 12 was also downgraded to 8.
So even when all these ships are at sea, a long time from now, (we also have a small order for Type 31 frigates), the ships we have will be six Type 45 destroyers and eventually eight Type 26 frigates. A total of 14 surface combat ships when before Cameron the Government had a standing commitment to the Royal Navy of 32.
The thing about warships is that if you have a standing patrol, then with one warship on station, you will have one in maintenance having recently returned and one working up in preparation of taking over. With 32 surface combat ships we could maintain 10 patrols. The Caribbean (West Indies Guard Ship), the Falklands, the NATO ‘Standing Naval Force Atlantic’, three destroyers and/or frigates on the Armilla Patrol in the Gulf since 1980 etc. With 14 surface combat ships you can only maintain 4 patrols globally.
Where once we had destroyers and frigates patrolling our overseas territories and interests, we now have ships designed really for what would have been North Sea fisheries patrols closer to home. The smaller patrol vessels now tasked with covering the Caribbean, Falklands and then ‘East of Suez’ have no main gun, only one 30mm one, no helicopter or hangar, no missiles and no Ship’s Torpedo Weapons System (STWS).
Not so long ago we could provide a destroyer to our overseas territories in the West Indies for post-hurricane disaster relief. The last time saw French territories there with electricity and the lights back on whilst we had no guardship available and the traumatised residents literally in the dark looking at French islands lit up nearby and wondering why the French Navy was helping their people and where the Royal Navy’s crews and engineers were.
Gibraltar is defended by something akin to a fibreglass pleasure craft painted grey and called ‘HMS’ but without any fixed weapons and only mounts to which General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) can be fixed to.
In a turning point several years ago, a Russian warship sailing off the north of Scotland had no destroyer or frigate available to shadow it. The frigate tasked to do so had to be brought quickly out of maintenance and took 48 hours to get there.
As for our submarines, we have four Trident Class ballistic nuclear (SSBN) submarines with one on patrol as our nuclear deterrent at any one time. There is much discussion about how independent our deterrent is given that we lease the missiles from the USA. France’s system is completely independent. We are unsure as to whether the story that we must get US permission to launch is true or not.
Otherwise, we have only 6 Ambush Class (SSN) nuclear powered but conventionally armed ‘fleet submarines’. It appears that only one of them is seaworthy right now, but it’s just arrived in Australia to help cross-train with the Royal Australian Navy, so that’s handy.
You get the picture. But although the armed forces were crying out for help from the supposed ‘party of defence’, cuts meant less maintenance and care for what we had and less of it on order too. So our fleet is clapped out and this was all before Labour came to power this time. And now it’s also harder to keep crews in the Royal Navy with some reports that a third are working their notice already.
Suddenly we can’t send a destroyer quickly to Cyprus for a conflict which was sprung on us and we don’t have ships on patrol in the Gulf for the first time in 45 years.
The public are angry, shocked and dismayed. The media are attempting to shame the Royal Navy and military planners in general.
It’s almost as if they haven’t been informed by our media over the last 15 years. It must therefore all be this government’s fault. What are they playing at after just over a year in charge?
The Tories are ignoring the fact that they held power and are trying to distract by apportioning the blame.
So, of course Starmer stands up and clearly outlines what we have here, erm no. Like everything else, the public didn’t have any real idea how bad a shape this country was in and some focus group at Labour probably advised that they shouldn’t ’carp on blaming the Tories’ even when it’s so clearly their fault.
So this debacle is pretty much like every other one we face. Starmer could do himself a favour by taking the bull by the horns and telling it how it is and who was responsible for our fall from grace. Chances are he won’t though.
