Editorial

The RN faces its new Trafalgar
18 October 2004

The next few months will see a mass of old and not so old Royal Navy ships bow-out as the deep defence cuts announced by the Defence Secretary on 21 July 2004 are hastily implemented.  HMS Sandown led the way when she arrived in Portsmouth on 12 October flying her paying-off pennant.  Sandown and some other victims of the cuts such as the Type 23 frigates HMS Norfolk, Marlborough and Grafton can expect to see further service under foreign flags, but old warhorses such as the Type 42 destroyers HMS Newcastle and Glasgow (both due to pay-off in January 2005) will probably end their lives as targets, artificial reefs or simply scrapped.

The Royal Navy has very reluctantly accepted these cuts as apparently essential to free-up funds for the mass of naval orders supposedly in the pipeline, orders which may lead to a very different looking navy in ten years time.  But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that these promised orders are being delayed (e.g. FSC), reduced in size (e.g. the Type 45 project) or seem ever less likely to ever actually happen (e.g. JCTS).  Tomorrow’s jam gets ever farther away, and the pot ever smaller.

The Surface Combatant Maritime Rotorcraft (SCMR) is a worrying early case of promises and expectations still not being matched by money and orders.  This vital project to replace the RN’s aging Lynx helicopters should have passed Main Gate in Spring 2004, but it's rumoured that the project is now unlikely to proceed, a euphemism for cancelled.  Instead the Royal Navy is seriously considering moving to a “single type” helicopter force based on an upgraded and multi-role version (HMA.2?) of the current ASW orientated EH-101 Merlin HMA.1 helicopter.  The single type concept would be more acceptable if it was not for the fact that the RN has only 42 Merlin HM.1’s in its inventory, and that the “single type” option is not associated with any funding for the extra 20-30 airframes needed.  Instead the RN will have to re-prioritise how the existing Merlin’s are used.  It is now very likely that HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal (HMS Invincible will enter reserve in early 2006, probably to never sail under the white ensign again) will be officially re-tasked as strike carriers, which means that they will no longer regularly embark a squadron of 4 Merlin HMA.1 helicopters for ASW purposes, instead their airgroup will typically consist of only Harrier GR.9 strike aircraft plus Sea King ASaC.7 helicopters for airborne early warning and control.  With the deletion of the carrier based role, most of the existing RN’s Merlin helicopters can then be used to provide Ship Flight’s for destroyer and frigate escorts, allowing the Lynx HMA.8 to be withdrawn from service by 2014 as the last Type 42’s go.  Clearly the Royal Navy is having to make some hard choices and spread its resources very thinly, arguably too thinly.

Since the end of World War 2, three generations of sailors have joined the Royal Navy, seen it shrink in size every year, and eventually retired from a service about half the size that which they joined.  For example, the Royal Navy still contains a few veterans from the Falklands War in 1982, back then the RN had 74,000 personnel and 60 frigates and destroyers, a few months from now it will have 36,000 personnel and 25 frigates and destroyers.  If the long-term downward trend continues, and worryingly there was a notable absence in July of any assurances implying otherwise, the Royal Navy will be approaching extinction around 2021.

For many people inside and outside of the Navy, the upcoming “Main Investment Decision” on the Future Aircraft Carrier project is a now a critical test.  If a firm decision to order the ships is not made in early 2005 - and to a design similar in size and capability to that announced as selected in January 2003 with much publicity - both the government and some senior RN officers will lose considerable credibility.  The feeling that the Royal Navy of Nelson, a navy which in bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar will clearly be superseded by the French Marine Nationale as Europe's largest and leading navy, is on the brink of a plunge to a third rank status is all too tangible.
 

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