Question as in the title. Assuming that the British government suddenly decided that they had the political will to shell out the presumably huge cost of doing so, what would it cost to build and maintain a Royal Navy with numbers similar to that in the 1960s or 1970s with modern vessels?
How much would it cost the modern UK to rebuild the Royal Navy to 1960s/70s levels of fleet strength?
- Thread starter Zee Cactus
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Cryhavoc101
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My first thought is that it would take considerable time to expand the Navy personnel from its current max of
To the what 90 odd thousand in 1965ish?
In 1960 total military GDP is 6.76% and 441 ships (excluding Minesweepers)
In 1970 total military GDP is 5.42% and 184 ships (excluding Minesweepers)
Today total military its about 2.3% and 50 odd ships (excluding Minesweepers)
(Why you would want to exclude minesweepers given they are the best crewed ships is beyond me?)
So.....
Wages and Pension for another lets call it another 55,000 personnel, plus the housing, supporting civil servants family stuff etc - is going to be staggeringly expensive IMO far beyond 6.72% of 1960
And then you have to build the ships....about another 100 plus including RFA ships at least
I'm calling it - 10% of GDP (about 8% more of todays budget)
There would have to be a major threat to Britain for the British people to stomach that - and if there was such a threat then the Army and RAF would also be expanded and well....now we are 15 - 20% of GDP and probably, no, almost certainly reintroducing conscription.
- 33,380 Regular
- 4,000 Maritime Reserve
- 7,960 Royal Fleet Reserve
To the what 90 odd thousand in 1965ish?
In 1960 total military GDP is 6.76% and 441 ships (excluding Minesweepers)
In 1970 total military GDP is 5.42% and 184 ships (excluding Minesweepers)
Today total military its about 2.3% and 50 odd ships (excluding Minesweepers)
(Why you would want to exclude minesweepers given they are the best crewed ships is beyond me?)
So.....
Wages and Pension for another lets call it another 55,000 personnel, plus the housing, supporting civil servants family stuff etc - is going to be staggeringly expensive IMO far beyond 6.72% of 1960
And then you have to build the ships....about another 100 plus including RFA ships at least
I'm calling it - 10% of GDP (about 8% more of todays budget)
There would have to be a major threat to Britain for the British people to stomach that - and if there was such a threat then the Army and RAF would also be expanded and well....now we are 15 - 20% of GDP and probably, no, almost certainly reintroducing conscription.
For perspective...
I can't begin to estimate the cost of rebuilding the RN to the same size as the 1960 RN, but it would be fiscally impossible.
NAVY ESTIMATES, 1960–61 (Hansard, 7 March 1960)
NAVY ESTIMATES, 1960–61 (Hansard, 7 March 1960)
api.parliament.uk
I can't begin to estimate the cost of rebuilding the RN to the same size as the 1960 RN, but it would be fiscally impossible.
| 1960 | 1965 | 1970 | 1975 | 1980 | 2020 | |
| Carriers | 7 (2 Aud, 1 Vict, 4 Cen) | 5 (2 Aud, 1 Vict, 2 Cen) | 3 CV (2 Aud, Hermes) | Ark Royal | Hermes | 2 Queen Elizabeth |
| Cruisers | 3 (Berm, Belf, Tiger) | 3 Tiger | 3 Tiger | Tiger, Blake | Tiger, Blake | None |
| Destroyers | 54 of various types | 40 (4 County DDG) | 21 (6 County DDG) | 9 (8 County, Bristol) | 14 (7 County, 1 Bristol, 6 Type 42) | 6 Daring |
| Frigates | 50 of various types | 79 of various types | 79 of various types | 66 of various types | 65 of various types | 13 Duke |
| Nuclear Attack Submarines | None | Dreadnought | 3 (1 Dreadnought, 2 Valiant) | 8 (1 Dreadnought, 5 Valiant, 2 Swiftsure) | 11 (1 Dreadnought, 5 Valiant, 5 Swiftsure) | 4 Astute, 3 Trafalgar |
| Conventional Attack Submarines | 55 of various types | 52 of various types | 41 (13 Oberon, 8 Porpoise, 14 A, 6 T) | 24 (3 A, 8 Porpoise, 13 Oberon) | 18 (1 A, 4 Porpoise, 13 Oberon) | None |
| Amphibious Vessels | 15 LST | 10 (2 LPH, 1 LSL, 7 LST) | 17 (2 LPH, 2 LPD, 6 LSL, 7 LST) | 12 (2 LPH, 2 LPD, 6 LSL, 2 LST) | 10 (2 LPD, 2 LST, 6 LSL) | 2 Albion LPD |
All of this must be caveated with the fact that at any one time most of these vessels would be obsolete. The destroyer and frigate figures in particular tend to be heavily inflated by large numbers of obsolete gun vessels, in the case of the destroyers mostly dating back to WWII and largely not upgraded to the levels of American FRAM cans. Further, the Queen Elizabeths are far larger and more capacious than the old Centaur light carriers, as well as Victorious.
Even excluding the obsolete vessels the Royal Navy of the Cold War was much, much bigger than the current Royal Navy. Harmonizing the numbers, they'd be looking at something like 3 carriers, 16 destroyers, 70 frigates, 12 nuclear attack submarines, 24 conventional submarines, and 10 amphibious vessels. Or, in others words, five times the number of vessels in these categories the Royal Navy currently has, albeit with growth mostly in the cheaper types. Given the cost inflation since even the 60s and 70s, this will cost at least three times what the current Royal Navy does and probably a lot more.
To put another way: just to purchase all the extra units needed to fill this out would cost just over 73 billion pounds - and that's solely with ship designs already existing (they'd need entirely new designs for conventional attack subs and amphibious vessels) and assuming the extremely rosy 250-million-pound price tag of the Type 31 stays there. For reference, the entire current defense budget of the UK is 41.3 billion pounds. Obviously, such a construction program would be spread out over many years but it illustrates just how mighty the costs would be.
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Cost would be enormous.
Looking at three full sized decks - CATOBAR 70+ aircraft ($25-40B total depending on conventional/nuclear power)
Three additional QE Light carriers @$3B each = $9B
Eight additional Type 45 @$1.35B = $10.5B
Twenty-three Type 23/Type 26 FFG @$1.5B each = $34.5B (the Type 31 is not a true "combat" Frigate/Carrier Escort but an offshore patrol boat/fisheries/Coast Guard high endurance Cutter/convoy escort with some SAM capacity i.e. an OHP with better electronics. Still a better design than the LCS and half the price.)
So, just the major fleet units would be $79-95 BILLION USD.
The carriers will also need aircraft (CATOBAR 60 fighter/fighter-bombers @$80-220M 4-6 AWACS @$150M, 4 EW @$70M) the aircraft are two possible sources, U.S. and France: Dassault Rafale (high cost option, Foreign sales have averaged more than $200M per aircraft including support), Lockheed F-35 and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers and E-2D Hawkeyes. These are the only modern CATOBAR in production in the West. Each full size carrier Airwing total cost $5.5-$14B. The Light csarriers will need an addition 96 F-35 to match the capability of the first two QE class so $9.6B
Total aircraft cost (without missiles)$25B-$52B
Fleet additions come out to $104B-$147B. Figure $10-15B per year for ship maintenance
This doesn't include SSN/SSBN Since the early 1960 RN had no SSBN and only one SSN under construction,
Add that to the manpower cost estimate (which is an annual cost) and you have a decent estimate.
Looking at three full sized decks - CATOBAR 70+ aircraft ($25-40B total depending on conventional/nuclear power)
Three additional QE Light carriers @$3B each = $9B
Eight additional Type 45 @$1.35B = $10.5B
Twenty-three Type 23/Type 26 FFG @$1.5B each = $34.5B (the Type 31 is not a true "combat" Frigate/Carrier Escort but an offshore patrol boat/fisheries/Coast Guard high endurance Cutter/convoy escort with some SAM capacity i.e. an OHP with better electronics. Still a better design than the LCS and half the price.)
So, just the major fleet units would be $79-95 BILLION USD.
The carriers will also need aircraft (CATOBAR 60 fighter/fighter-bombers @$80-220M 4-6 AWACS @$150M, 4 EW @$70M) the aircraft are two possible sources, U.S. and France: Dassault Rafale (high cost option, Foreign sales have averaged more than $200M per aircraft including support), Lockheed F-35 and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers and E-2D Hawkeyes. These are the only modern CATOBAR in production in the West. Each full size carrier Airwing total cost $5.5-$14B. The Light csarriers will need an addition 96 F-35 to match the capability of the first two QE class so $9.6B
Total aircraft cost (without missiles)$25B-$52B
Fleet additions come out to $104B-$147B. Figure $10-15B per year for ship maintenance
This doesn't include SSN/SSBN Since the early 1960 RN had no SSBN and only one SSN under construction,
Add that to the manpower cost estimate (which is an annual cost) and you have a decent estimate.
This year and next the UK goverment is estimated to spend £589bn ($822bn) on covid support alone according to the BBC .
If we take the high estimate of Calbear's estimates earlier we get $147bn. Assume we double this for the increase in personnel, pensions etc to $300bn and it's ~36% of two years of Covid spending. So the ability is certainly there if the government suddenly decides this is absolutely crucial and must be done, hang the expense.
What we run into is the same problem we do when people talk about Britain keeping a handful more territories in the retreat from empire. Why?
The ability to spend the money is certainly there, if someone decides that it's of critical national importance for some reason. The ability to build that many ships, less so. It would require an increase in industrial capacity to between three and four times its' current level; achieving that without severely impacting quality would probably take a decade, then another couple of decades to build up to the full strength. Realistically, it couldn't be achieved before about 2050.
Policy is currently to build all RN vessels in the UK. Nothing stopping the UK giving contracts to yards across the world to get it done ASAP.
How much “spare capacity” do you think there is available for such a surge order? And even then you get into issues like the actual hardware fitted, unless the U.K. wants to introduce a range of hardware that currently isn’t in the RN (different CMS, radar systems, weapons etc) there is still the bottleneck of those companies ability to surge build rates for such an ambitious build rate.
Also building foreign is a)going to piss off the domestic unions and b) means you are spending billions in other countries.
Oh sure, I just mean if we're in some sort of lala land where the UK decides to spend $300bn on the navy and decides we need it as soon as humanly possible then that would be a way to bring the completion date forward from 2050 or whenever.
Perhaps there would be an initial effort to hastily arm merchant ships and what not ? (Perhaps with containerized weapon systems ?)
Maybe the UK looks for used warships on the world maket that still have some life left in them ?
Not really, no. It's pretty much all scrapped or sold off to other countries. As for ships they could buy... I doubt it. It's a short, if not nonexistent, list of ships that foreign navies would be both willing to part with and are worth refitting.
Unless you want to outsource production then the first things the British will have to do is re-open closed shipyards and build new ones while at the same time training tens of thousands of shipyard workers.
And increase production capacity in all the high end systems manufacturers in order to supply the parts for the hulls that are being built, also increase the helicopter production lines as well.
I think that there is a significant conceptual problem with this analysis beyond including RAF and the Army in the total defense spend instead of just the RN/RM chunk of the GDP share -- if we hold the RAF (exclusive of any naval aviation elements) and Army spend constant, then we have a different cost estimate (still a shit-ton).
The more important conceptual error is hull count versus capability count. The RN in 1965 with 5 carriers could hit at max effort how many aim points with a 1,000 pound bomb 100 miles inland on the first day of a conflict? The RN in 2021 with either TLAM equipped SSNs or QE with a soon to be ready to deploy air wing can hit how many aim points with either a 1,000 pound bomb equivilent? Are we going for capability or merely hull counts? And if we are going for capability, a much smaller number of 2021 hulls are needed to achieve the same effect.
If the objective is a given number of routinely deployable plus 15 day or 30 day surge capable hulls, then again, there are massive technological changes. Gas turbine engines increase ship availability and reduce the number of ships at any given time that are " no way in hell are you getting out of the yard in the next 30 day period! " compared to ships with boilers and steam turbines. This also plays into manpower, the County Class destroyers have 2x as many crew as a Type 45, and the Type 81 frigate has almost 50% more crew than a Type 23. Yes, the per sailor cost is way higher today as a function of GDP but there are far fewer sailors.
I think the appropriate way to frame this analysis is: For a given set of missions that the RN was expected to accomplish in 1960/65/70, what would it cost the RN to have the same or greater capacity in 2021? There are areas where the RN mission capacity is far greater today than it was in 1960/65/70 such as the capacity to make inland cities glow in the dark given that the R-class was not at armed and at sea until 1967 and the full operating capability was not achieved until 1970 with far inferior missiles and warheads compared to today.
That I think is a far more interesting question.